millennials

What is it with Thomas Friedman and his insults? First, he wrote that Millennials were too quiet, too wrapped up in the internet to care about the country's direction. He then came back last December and tried to argue again that because we're not chaining ourselves to bulldozers, we're not doing anything and thus don't care about the trajectory of the country.

Yesterday, Friedman again assailed millennials, equating Facebook and other social network sites with laziness and apathy. The offending passage is in the last paragraph:

And then there is We the People. Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway. You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon. That will get the Senate’s attention. Play hardball or don’t play at all.

Emphasis added.

The Energy Action Coalition pieced together a response it blasted to its e-mail list. I've provided it below:

As a young person, you care about global warming. You know that a clean energy economy will create millions of jobs and pathways out of poverty, reduce pollution, and save the planet. And you are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Right?

Well, Thomas L. Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist, isn't convinced. In fact, Friedman concludes his latest column* by calling us out! He writes:

"Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway…. Play hardball or don't play at all."

Does Friedman have a point? Do we need to be bigger and louder?

I think the answer is yes.

Don't get me wrong -- I know that thousands of young people across this country are working tirelessly to usher in a clean and just energy future for us all. But if we want to truly achieve our goals, we need our elected officials to know that we are watching closely as they debate the climate policy that will shape the rest of our lives.

Take the first step. Let President Obama and your Senators know that you demand bold, just, and science-based climate solutions, and ask your friends and family to do the same.

Let's send a strong message to our President and Senators that we're here, we're watching, and we're ready for action. And let's ask our friends and families to do the same. It's going to take big numbers to fight back against the thousands of letters and calls generated by the dirty energy industry (not to mention their well-paid lobbyists).

Send a message to the President and your Senators, and forward this email to everyone you know.

But we know that sending email isn't enough. In order to drown out the voice of the dirty energy industry, we're going to need to mobilize in unprecedented numbers. Tom Friedman isn't kidding when he suggests we should have a million people marching in the streets.

Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up to be a leader in your community, and to help get millions of feet in the streets for climate solutions.

We've gone big before, but now we need to go bigger. And the only way we will get there is if people like you do more. Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up today to get active in your community, to get in the faces of our elected officials, and to recruit the huge movement it will take to win.

In it to win it,

Whit Jones
Acting Field Director
Energy Action Coalition

While the e-mail was inspirational enough, the problem with Friedman's column is that he once again lacks the understanding that change can be accomplished through a variety of means. Friedman (and there are many more who think just like him) discounts activism through institutions as nothing. In doing so, he insults those youth already busting their ass for this legislation and movement. For instance did Friedman say anything when Powershift '09 brought 11,000 youth activists to DC urging the government to act? Who was quiet then?

Granted, Whit's right -- we all can be a little louder on the issue, but it doesn't have to be limited to getting in the streets. We can continue our own brand of activism by using our technological proficiency and collaborative skills to push for the bill's passage. Yes, the bill's important (even if it has been watered down); but the 1960s are over. Youth have a plethora of tools at their disposal to create the change they wish to see. Unfortunately, Friedman either doesn't understand that, or doesn't want to.

The following is a guest post by Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais. Winograd and Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008), named one of the 10 favorite books by the New York Times in 2008. --Mike

Seventy percent of Iranians are under thirty. These young people have twice the presence in the population of that country as America’s largest generation, Millennials (born 1982-2003), has in ours.

In the immediate aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election, text messages became the tool for organizing post-election protests. Hundreds of thousands of tweets provided more, if not clearer, information about what was happening each day than traditional media. Opposition and government Facebook pages poured out dueling messages on the Internet. It suddenly seemed as if not only had American democratic values erupted on the barren landscape of a theocratic society, but also that young people’s technological capabilities might produce a regime change that no one anticipated. Clay Shirky announced, “This is it. This is the big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media.” And the notion that this was a “Twitter Revolution” quickly became the meme for the entire series of post-election events.

But then the entrenched establishment fought back using the very same Internet- enabled technologies to isolate, spy on, and ultimately shut down the resistance. Thanks to new capabilities recently acquired from two European telecom companies—Nokia and Siemens—as part of their country’s upgrade of its mobile networks, the Iranian government was able to monitor the flow of online data in and out of sites like Twitter and Facebook, from one central location. The Iranians deployed a technology called deep packet inspection, first created to put a firewall around President Clinton’s emails in 1993, to deconstruct digitized packets of information flowing through the government’s telecom monopoly that might contain what they considered to be seditious information before reconstructing and sending it on to destinations they were also able to track and monitor. The result was a 90% degradation in the speed of Internet communications in Iran at the height of the unrest, and a previously unseen capability to determine who the government’s enemies were down to the individual IP address level.

Once again the world learned that technology does not arrive with a built-in set of values that makes it work either for good or evil. Even though Internet technology has many virtues, it is not inherently liberating or enslaving. Instead how it is used is determined by the values of those who access it. Libertarians celebrate the individual empowerment that the Internet makes possible. But even though Ron Paul supporters used the technology to take on the Republican establishment in 2008, the end result that year was the election of a group-oriented, civic-minded candidate, Barack Obama, whose campaign used the very same technology to guide millions of people to undertake a collective agenda of change that Libertarians certainly did not “believe in.”

The difference between what libertarians wanted and what Obama achieved came from the generational attitudes and beliefs of Millennials, Obama’s key supporters, not from the technology that generation was so adept at using.

One of the founders of generational theory, Neil Howe, points out that the under-30 population of Iran grew up during a religious awakening in the Islamic world that came later than America’s “cultural revolution” of the 1960s. As a result, Iranian youth resembles Generation X, Americans now in their 30s and 40s. Like our own Gen X, these young Iranians are “pragmatic, individualistic, commercial, and anti-ideological (which is why they hate Ahmadinejad so much).”

Those values make them anti-establishment in the current crisis. We are fortunate that they feel deeply enough about the potential of democracy to risk their lives to “tear down that power structure,” to paraphrase what President Ronald Reagan, Generation X’s political hero, said in a different context. But now the central task of our government must be to translate that democratic impulse into a deeper belief in Millennial generation values, such as the power of consensus, the peaceful resolution of differences and the need to find win-win solutions to our problems.

That is why the President Obama's recent Cairo speech should be the bedrock on which America continues to engage large young Muslim populations throughout the world, including Iran:

“No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy."

This statement has the potential to become a governing creed for a new generation of young Muslims. If they come to have, as President Obama does, “an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose,” then the power of 21st century technologies will be used to advance the cause of freedom in Iran, rather than suppressing it. But tweeting those words won’t make it happen. Believing in them will.

One of my favorite aspects of blogging is learning about various programs and initiatives that infuse civic engagement and service-learning into the college experience. Dickinson College in Pennsylvania is prepared to announce the implementation of a public service fellowship program which will serve as one of the best examples yet of an institution linking its values with President Obama's call for public service.

From the soon-to-be-released release:

After four years of high school, not all students are ready to continue with higher education. For some, a one-year break from academia, commonly referred to as a "gap year," provides time for students to learn more about themselves and the world. Already common in other countries, the U.S. is now seeing an increase in students seeking time off before matriculation to save money for college; others seek civic engagement or travel. President Obama has called on Americans to participate in our nation’s recovery and renewal by serving in our communities. To support this idea, the federal government’s Web site Serve.gov is an online resource for registering a community program, finding service opportunities and the tools for creating one.

[...]

Students can apply for admission into the Fellowship in their senior year of high school. If accepted, students may defer enrollment until the beginning of the academic year for one, two, three or four years. Students who have engaged in public service for up to four years following high-school graduation receive a $10,000 tuition credit for each year of public service, up to a total of $40,000. Use of credits will be limited to a maximum of $10,000 annually and will be applied to the student's account when matriculated. The Fellowship amount will be in addition to other institutional grants and scholarships for which the student may be eligible. Dickinson grants and scholarships won’t be affected by receipt of the Fellowship unless the student's total gift aid exceeds the student's total cost of attendance. The college will work with students to determine the best timing for using the credits, within the context of other aid.

Students must engage in meaningful public service devoted to improving the human condition and/or the natural environment. A student may opt to join well-established public service programs that offer a wide array of experiences, such as AmeriCorps (which also awards up to $4,725 for college tuition), or the student may pursue an independently designed project with a local, national or international nonprofit organization. In all cases, students must work 30-40 hours a week for 10-12 months (at least 1,200 total hours). The hours may be a traditional 30-40 hour workweek, or a more intensive experience such as disaster relief work that may require 12 to 14 hour days. The public service work may be compensated or uncompensated.

In order to reap the financial benefits of this program, Public Service Fellows must submit an application including an essay stating how they hope to contribute to themselves and society through the work they will be completing. Once the project is complete, the student is then required to submit a reflection essay discussing how the student's experience will impact his or her Dickinson experience.

In addition to the financial advantages afforded to them, Public Service Fellows will add to an already impressive Dickinson education. Those students participating in the program will contribute to a reflection ceremony open to the Dickinson community by sharing lessons learned from the public service projects. Furthermore, the campus will give Public Service Fellows priority consideration for campus-based leadership positions, such as resident advisor and campus advisor, further emphasizing the importance of giving back to one's community throughout the Dickinson experience.

Granted, a Dickinson education isn't cheap to start with. The tuition itself is almost $40,000 a year, and the bill only increases after other fees are added. But as noted above, students can work in public service for up to four years, netting $40,000. While students can only spend up to $10,000 yearly, all of this money is on top of any additional financial aid the school offers (receiving the fellowship does not impact other scholarship and grant opportunities).

One way to add to the program might be to incorporate an academic piece. For instance, instead of limiting students to writing two essays, perhaps those deciding to matriculate at Dickinson any given year would be required to register for a seminar to further explore their experiences, more intensely investigating themes they observed or felt while serving. This would then improve the quality of the on-campus discussion led by fellows.

In 2008, many of the Democratic presidential candidates offered similar proposals on their platforms, but nothing was this beneficial to students. This initiative provides Dickinson with a way to accentuate the importance of civic engagement among its students, while making its valued education more accessible to students predisposed with the ability to work hard and develop strong reflective skills. Those fellows admitted will be offered opportunity after opportunity to learn how to contribute to the greater good, while following in the footsteps of Dickinson College's founder, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. In a public address in 1787, Rush urged every citizen to become an engaged public servant. Now, some 222 years later, with another American leader issuing the same call, Dickinson College is leading the way among institutions of higher education.

My friend Ezra Klein, Millennial heath wonk wunderkind, takes a shot at the question, "What will happen with health reform?"

He sets up the answer as an analogy to the jobs recovery bill and concludes:

The result will probably be a historic win when compared to the status quo, but I doubt it's going to feel like that for supporters of the initiative.

There is no small irony here. A major progressive thought-leader on healthcare reform is saying that he thinks we'll secure a major victory but that many progressives will not embrace it.

Reading Ezra this morning (whose sentiments I think are spot-on), I remembered another recent conversation I had with another Millennial leader whose work is mostly outside the youth-engagement community. He understood the frustrations of his many Boomer and Xer compatriots upset at the Obama Administration over some footdragging, but thought that his older friends didn't really "get it." The Obama Administration got handed one of the biggest piles of shit in history and are cleaning it up as quickly as they can and lots of different things: global warming, getting out of Iraq, equal rights, voting reform, etc., have taken a temporary backburner while we try to fix the economy and get our healthcare system sorted out. We're still in Year One of an Administration and major things are happening.

This same divide is one I've witnessed with Forward Montana's grassroots healthcare work in Montana. Our efforts come under fire by many of our traditional advocacy allies because we aren't demanding single-payer, but we repeatedly go back to the 18-30 year-olds who comprise our base and ask what they care about and single-payer has yet to come up in one of those conversations. Support for Max Baucus's white paper actually runs pretty high among our crowd.

Now, I should say that I'm not sure who is right: the older activists or my Millennial peers. But these different viewpoints highlight something else we've all long suspected about our younger activists rising through the ranks -- we are far more comfortable with working within institutions and accepting the defenses of elites than our predecessors in the activist world.

There are, of course, exceptions. Young activists don't just mimic Jane Fleming Kleeb, we also have David Sirota in our ranks. And it is also possible that this divide simply mirrors long-running divides between the young who would go into elected office and the young who are better situated to raining criticism down on the powers that be. To some extent, of course, we need both.

Last week I wrote about the House passing the Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act. Because I failed to detail the bill then, I want to now examine the ramifications of the legislation's passage this week, reiterating why it is so important to today's young people.

According to the Institute of International Education, there are three times as many foreign students studying in the United States as there are Americans studying abroad. And those Americans who do study overseas can't help but go to the beautiful cities/cultures they're exposed to in today's media - cities with economies that are functional and developed. (I certainly am not implying that this is a wrong choice, but merely noting that it's natural for students to want to see romanticized cultures described to them for most of their lives.) The Paul Simon legislation not only seeks to balance those Americans studying abroad with the number of foreign students studying in the United States (it will do so over ten years), but it also wants to diversify locations across the world. Europe and Australia might still be popular, but hopefully options in underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia will grow in popularity as well.

Of course, the legislation's main benefit to students and institutions, as cited last week, is the funding commitment. More opportunities will be offered to students should the bill be signed into law by President Obama, thanks to the injection of millions of dollars into the process. In return for the funding, though, institutions will be expected to examine common barriers to students studying abroad on their individual campuses and finding solutions for those problems.

If passed, the legislation would create other initiatives that fortify the U.S.'s presence in the world, especially among young people. In addition to study abroad provisions, the legislation adds 1500 Foreign Service Officers and modernizes the diplomatic corps. From a House Foreign Affairs Committee press release:

Among other significant measures in the bill are provisions that:

• strengthen the arms control and nonproliferation capabilities of the State Department

• reform the system of export controls for military technology and improve oversight of U.S. security assistance

• ensure that the United States will meet its financial commitments to the United Nations (U.N.) and other international organizations

• allow financing the refurbishment of helicopters for U.N. peacekeeping missions in Darfur, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other peacekeeping missions authorized by the U.N. Security Council

• establish the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation as a new executive branch corporation to expand dramatically the number and economic diversity of U.S. students studying overseas

• substantially increase the budget of the Peace Corps to support President Obama’s goal of doubling the number of Peace Corps volunteers, and authorize a plan to use short-term volunteers to respond to humanitarian and development needs

• broaden the Merida anti-drug trafficking initiative to include the Caribbean, and improve monitoring and evaluation of Merida programs

• and increase resources and training for enforcement of intellectual property rights, especially in countries identified by the U.S. government as lax in enforcing those rights.

NAFSA has been doing a fantastic job of outreach and education on this bill. Their release on the House's passage of the bill can be found here. NAFSA has made an online guide to the bill, while also creating a Facebook group to track its progress with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where it heads next.

There's no doubt young people would benefit from this bill, especially given how much it does target multicultural, compromising, and pragmatic millennials. There's no reason for the legislation to run out of time this session. We'll keep an eye on this as it moves on to the Senate. In the meantime, be sure to take advantage of NAFSA's coverage above.

Young people are liking what they see out of Obama to this point, even while those over 30 don't believe the President has matched his policy output to his campaign rhetoric.

Over 70 percent of young voters between 18 and 24 believe that President Barack Obama’s message of change has matched his actions in office, according to those polled in a recent Zogby/Scoop44 survey (6/12-15).

In the expanded under-30 demographic, nearly two-thirds of young voters say that Obama’s policies as President have jibed with with his campaign rhetoric—that fervent trumpet of “change we can believe in.”

When I read this, I remembered another piece of data I saw, reflecting similar results. The Gallup weekly tracking poll, week ending June 14, showed mostly net declines in approval ratings in all age groups except for those in the 18-29 year old cohort. Three out of four 18-29 year olds approve of the job President Obama is doing, six percentage points higher than last week.

The age disparity between those who believe Obama is doing a good job and is on the right course to accomplish what he set out to do and those who don't approve of his job and do not believe he's doing what he promised to do is telling. Perhaps his young supporters -- many of whom followed the campaign from the beginning -- have heard Obama say over and over that change would take time. The latecomers and Washington elites and journalists can't help but rush to judgment (after all, that's the latter group's job!).

The main thing to remember is that we're only five months into a hopefully eight year-long term. And while the president has indeed taken on quite a bit initially, perhaps raising expectations even more, there's quite a bit of time with which to work. Health care and gay rights should get the priority treatment in my opinion -- health care's time is now, before the mid-term craziness emerges, and gay rights should have been taken care of yesterday.

Anyway, it looks like millennials are cutting Obama some slack. Rightfully so.

We haven't said anything much (see Craig's post here) here about the Iranian election, and the use of Twitter to organize protests and evade government censorship of what is happening in Iran. That's our bad, because there is definitely a generational component to this. Millennials in Iran (if there is such a thing, maybe better to say our Iranian contemporaries or peers), are a big part of the opposition, and university dormitories are being stormed by state militia. The political actions and the tactics of Iranian youth are well within the scope of this blog.

That said, I don't know that I could say anything that hasn't already been written - and written well - by others. So here's a reading list of some of the best reporting and information resources I've located on the topic:

• Jon Taplin has a great, short post outlining how this differs from other student uprisings in Iran during the past decade.
• Via Boing Boing, I found this fantastic compilation of traditional and social media resources covering the protests.
• Today's New York Times has the latest, and best, traditional media update on the situation.
• Mashable! has a great primer on how to follow developments in Iran on social media.
• Deanna Zandt talks about the significance of Twitter influencing mainstream media coverage of the Iranian election.
• Alison Fine recognizes the power of Twitter, but also cautions about its limits.
• Nancy Scola at Tech President has done invaluable work looking at the role of Twitter in the Iranian elections, writing about everything from State Department intervention in a Twitter maintenance update, to the role of geolocation for tracking sources and cracking down on opposition bloggers.

• A new iPhone app could help charity fundraising.
• A Twitter maintenance update that would have shut down efforts by Iranian protesters was rescheduled after an uprising among the Twitterati.
• Kos explores the GOP's "empathy" problem with Millennials.
• The 80 Million Strong National Summit gets some press.
• The GW School of Political Management wonders if politics is "recession proof." To find out, they video-interview a number of experts.
• Can a young republican candidate jump start his parties efforts courting Millennials?
• The Economist finally catches on (and becomes the gazillionth news outlet to make The Who reference), noting that The Kids Are All Left.
• Republican strategist Mike Murphy looks at the demographic trends and foretells an ice age for the GOP.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz waxes poetic on the youth vote problems the GOP faces.

Obama's strength among young voters was a staple of coverage throughout his bid for the White House, although as Keeter pointed out, he could have won in November without the votes of anyone younger than 30. But his margin was the biggest in several decades and that alone should worry Republicans.

Obama may appeal to younger voters, but their shift toward the Democrats predates his candidacy. "This really is not Obama," Keeter said. "Young voters were John Kerry's best age group. They were the Democratic candidates' best age group in the 2006 elections, and they were the best age group for other Democratic candidates in 2008."

Younger voters are more diverse demographically than older voters. In 2008, 62 percent were white, compared with 74 percent eight years earlier. Projections show young voters will become increasingly diverse. They are also less religious and more culturally liberal, two indicators of Democratic support.

GOP strategist Mike Murphy described this in Time magazine as a coming Republican ice age. Republicans will need a major shift to begin to reverse these trends. That could start if there is a backlash against Obama's governance -- and the president's agenda certainly will test the country's tolerance for a big dose of government. But Republicans will need to retool in other ways to make themselves more appealing to a changing population. That debate has barely begun.

This is the message we've been waiting to see from traditional media sources, as many political observers fail to dig deeper and observe the longer political trends of today's youth. Here at FM, we've hammered home the message that this Democratic wave among young people is not due to Obama's popularity. Yes, Obama's approach has pushed things along, but since the oldest Millennials have come of age, we've always seen a clear preference toward the Democratic vision of government.

But more importantly, the Post follows this observation up with another, more vexing one for the Republican Party: it'll need to do more than hope for Obama to fail in order to steal a significant portion of the youth vote. If Millennials preferred the Democratic Party before Obama became the standard-bearer, then the Republicans have a problem larger than Obama that they need to seriously examine.

“Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money.” -13 year old, warped. com

Deep down what makes you happy? Does happiness mean the same thing to different people? Harvard Researchers have been investigating these questions for the last seventy-two years under the leadership and inspiration of Dr. George Vaillant. For seventy-two years, researchers at Harvard University engaged in a longitudinal research study to determine what makes people happy. The depth and breadth of the research does not provide one conclusive lesson for what makes an individual happy, but an article about the grand study in the Atlantic Monthly definitely inspires thought on the topic. While the war in Iraq persists, the economy struggles, and college students are at a loss as to what to do with their lives, it is an opportune time to step back and reflect on what truly makes the Millennial Generation happy.

Although Vaillant’s study may have been inconclusive, he inspires several questions. What fulfills a young population, characterized by such generalizations as high achieving, pressured, overwhelmed, and obedient, enough for them to determine that they are truly happy. Do Millennial Students find fulfillment through obtaining their college degree, or is it simply a box they need to check off their list? Cynthia Demetriou’s article, “Beyond the Degree Checklist” questions the true point of college. This is a crucial question to investigate as more and more people lose their jobs and return to school, or go straight from undergrad to a graduate program in fear of the weak job market. According to Demetriou’s findings, “high school students’ primary motivation for attending college is career preparation, and they feel substantial pressure from their parents when choosing where and what to study.” This is contrary to the past when it was common for high school students to enter the work force after receiving their high school diploma. With the dwindling “blue collar” jobs, today’s youth often feel the pressure to go to college, or risk working for a job that does not provide a “living wage.”

For many students money is what determines their happiness, and this makes sense with an understanding of the Millennial sense of urgency and need to have what they want as soon as they want it. Howe and Strauss’s Millennials Rising captures the Millennial interpretation of happiness. Josh, a seventeen year old, explains that, “happiness stems a lot from comfort, and you can’t really be comfortable without lots of money…I think we (Millennials) have been forced to group money and happiness together.” Although Millennials may be motivated by money, pressured to get their degree in less than four years to save on tuition costs, and unsure of why they are in a college that is draining their bank account when all they want to do is make money, we mustn’t ignore the positive contributions Millennial students make while in college such as volunteerism and increased political participation. Additionally, those working at Colleges and Universities must not ignore the need to help students discern what truly makes them happy and fulfilled. To learn how to investigate what fulfills Millennial students, I encourage reading Daloz Park’s Big Questions Worthy Dreams. Daloz Park’s provides sample questions that target the core of a student’s sense of fulfillment, and moves beyond equating money with happiness.