Spring Break
Excerpts from Bill Schneider's speech
News | 5/20/08
Posted online at 7:30 AM EST on 5/20/08
I am here to bring you greetings from the class of 66 … We knew everything. We did everything. We invented sex. Though I'm guessing there was some sex before the 1960s, but I can assure you, nobody had any fun. We invented drugs-what did our parents have? Alcohol, cigarettes, bad for you-and we darn sure invented rock n' roll.
So here is our advice to you class of '08, sit down, shut up, and listen to us.
Now here's something else we invented: politics. Before we came along, politics was all boring middle-aged white men. Look what our generation has given to the country: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush (woops, our bad. Sorry about that). And now look at what we've done: a woman, an African American- and an older gentlemen.
I have good news for you class of '08. Politics has become exciting again … You are very lucky, as we were. It is a wonderful time to get involved, and it's easier for you. You don't have to go to meetings. "The trouble with socialism," Oscar Wild once said, "is that it takes up too many evenings." But you can do it at home, in your fuzzy slippers, any time. Clicking and texting and blogging yourselves into a stupor.
We journalists live for consciousness changing moments in public life, moments when, shall we say, the times, they are a changin', like 1966 and, I think, 2008.
I grew up in the segregated south. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus in 1955, whites, who had fooled themselves into thinking segregation worked, suddenly saw how outraged black people were to live under Jim Crow laws. Consciousness changed, and eventually a social order was transformed.
Our generation has seen impossible things happen, and yours will too starting right now, when a woman and an African American are competing for a presidential nomination.
But our generation left this country divided. We fought the great cultural civil war of the 1960s, liberals vs. conservatives, red America vs. blue America. In 2004, Bill Clinton said, and I quote, "If you look back on the '60s, and in balance you think there was more good than harm in it, you're probably a democrat. And if you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a republican.
It's the split between the two baby boomers who came of age during the '60s: Bill Clinton, who sees more good than harm in the '60s and GWB who sees more harm than good. That division, that deep divide, has gone on for 40 years now. Americans have had enough. They want it to end, and so the parties seem poised to nominate candidates who, in different ways, are promising to end it.
And so my generation leaves your generation with this charge when it comes to the country's politics: We broke it, you fix it. Thank you and goodbye.
-Compiled by Matthew Brock
So here is our advice to you class of '08, sit down, shut up, and listen to us.
Now here's something else we invented: politics. Before we came along, politics was all boring middle-aged white men. Look what our generation has given to the country: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush (woops, our bad. Sorry about that). And now look at what we've done: a woman, an African American- and an older gentlemen.
I have good news for you class of '08. Politics has become exciting again … You are very lucky, as we were. It is a wonderful time to get involved, and it's easier for you. You don't have to go to meetings. "The trouble with socialism," Oscar Wild once said, "is that it takes up too many evenings." But you can do it at home, in your fuzzy slippers, any time. Clicking and texting and blogging yourselves into a stupor.
We journalists live for consciousness changing moments in public life, moments when, shall we say, the times, they are a changin', like 1966 and, I think, 2008.
I grew up in the segregated south. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus in 1955, whites, who had fooled themselves into thinking segregation worked, suddenly saw how outraged black people were to live under Jim Crow laws. Consciousness changed, and eventually a social order was transformed.
Our generation has seen impossible things happen, and yours will too starting right now, when a woman and an African American are competing for a presidential nomination.
But our generation left this country divided. We fought the great cultural civil war of the 1960s, liberals vs. conservatives, red America vs. blue America. In 2004, Bill Clinton said, and I quote, "If you look back on the '60s, and in balance you think there was more good than harm in it, you're probably a democrat. And if you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a republican.
It's the split between the two baby boomers who came of age during the '60s: Bill Clinton, who sees more good than harm in the '60s and GWB who sees more harm than good. That division, that deep divide, has gone on for 40 years now. Americans have had enough. They want it to end, and so the parties seem poised to nominate candidates who, in different ways, are promising to end it.
And so my generation leaves your generation with this charge when it comes to the country's politics: We broke it, you fix it. Thank you and goodbye.
-Compiled by Matthew Brock
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