Generation X verus Generation Y

Its a battle of two of the three newest Generations.  I was born in 1981, but at the start of 1982 you would be part of a new generation.  However, there is no concrete date of which generation is which, I consider myself Generation X, but I can be considered a Millennial.  Who knows?  I am like those Millenials born in 2004 to 2006, you might be part of this so called Homeland Generation.  I am not going to be the bringer of wars on this, because the fact is, the Gen X'ers and the Millenials are going to need to pull their collective heads out of their asses and start working together, because we have some serious issues with the older Baby Boomers.

Which generation of Americans is better?  The future only knows.  Here is what I know as a tweener, a guy who is between two different generations.  The generation I most identify with has been through hell.  We got to see the first shock in awe campaign in Iraq, we had our own banking crisis, we watched great times roll into a bubbles that did a lot of harm.  As we sat and watched our country degenerated, not because of gay rights, or any of the advances that were made recently.  Some of us younger Gen X'ers have lived our whole lives in the shadow of Voodoo Economics, deregulation, bubbles, corporate profits going through the roof, while pay and secondary educations dwindle.  Funny isn't it.  Generation X suffered the same things as Generation Y is now. 

As our two generations watched we had September 11, we had 8 years of Bush, we had more deregulation, more free trade, more jobs leaving, college costs growing, healthcare becoming more expensive, wars, death, destruction, economic bubbles collapsing, scandals, and god knows what else is going to happen in the next few years.  We have watched as our gay brothers and sisters were allowed the right to marry, we came within hairs of getting a single payer system, we started rebuilding our tattered lives after 9-11 and the 2008 recession. 

But here is the problem, and I am pointing the fingers at both generations.  Gen X'ers need to stop telling the Millenials to stop whining and suck it up.  Millenials, you need to stop blaming Gen X'ers for everything going wrong right now.  We have only been here at best fifty years, its not exactly the most amount of time to kick out the old boomers, and acquire the power to start changing their failed polices, given the amount of idiots we have, when you consider how screwed up things have been in our own generation.  We went from oil crisis, to recession, to voodoo economics, a cold war ending, and a hot war starting, we had union breakers and de-regulators lying and conning their way into power.  And we are responsible for not being assertive enough at the start of our political power.  We have our excuses, we were trying to make it in an increasingly dog eat dog world. 

But you, the Millenials need to not follow our path.  Yes, it is an all out war for you right now, and honestly, history is not on your side until it all goes "tits up."  Unlike some of my peers, I am not going to tell you to suck it up, and stop whining.  I am going to tell you that our generations need to band together.  We Gen X'ers need to stop with the aforementioned crap, you guys need to start becoming politically active, and paying attention.  If we don't we are going to witness not only the further erosion of our rights and privileges given to us by a piece of paper, but we are going to watch the rights of young women to get abortions erased from history, we will watch as it is made impossible for gay men and women to get married, we will watch as this nation becomes a police state... 

We have a real chance to start forcing the changes we want.  You want a single payer option, both of our generations can force those who hold the most political power and money in the US to do it.  If we want a monthly government stipend to create better wage equality, we have the ability to do it.  Anything we really want from our government, from the businesses who now own it, we can force it, but only if we can settle this created dispute between our groups.  Between our generations, there are enough people to put the boomers out to pasture in politics.  While we are at it, we can also shut down those who are owned wholly by corporations and lobbyists.  But it requires that the Gen X'ers stand up, and you guys to stand with us.

Its not about what we have done in the past, its not about who is right or wrong, but what we can do in the future that is right for all.  But the powers that be don't really want that.  They want us fighting and bickering over border fences, who is persecuted more, the PPACA, Benghazi, and emails.  They don't want us to unite under the banner of freedom for all people regardless of gender, sexuality, and race.  The longer we are divided, the longer we refuse to work together, the harder it is going to be to rebuild. 

It is said that the Millenials (born between 1981 and 2001) will be the first generation to not have it better than their parents.  But, the truth is, when all our lives are played out, at the bitter end, our two generations are going to be equally yoked, crushed under low wage jobs, higher debt loads to try and escape poverty, and the economic whims of the previous generation and those holdovers in every generation.  If we can't get our shit together, your younger siblings, your nephews and nieces, your own children are going to have it worse than you do right now.