Asleep at the Wheel

The CNN headlines read, “We wouldn’t be America without student activists” (Joseph, 2018) and “Parkland student: My generation won’t stand for this”. (Kasky, 2018)

Meanwhile, conservative adults across the nation are calling for a crackdown on the exploitation of juvenile activists in the wake of the Parkland, FL shooting. They (we? – I self-identify as an independent conservative Christian) claim the prostitution of emotionally vulnerable adolescents reaches new lows in the ever widening gulf between conservative and liberal viewpoints. However, most of the terms assume adolescents aren’t aware they are being used or aren’t complicit in the acts. Have we considered these youths are getting exactly what they want?

My Marine Corps cohorts will laugh at the reference, but the Marine Corps has what we call the “Lance Corporal Network” and it’s ridiculously fast and accurate in spreading information, misinformation and rumors. It’s also remarkably adept at bringing Marines from disparate groups together against a common enemy – the NCO!

As I sit back and watch the news coverage and various social media feeds, I’m struck by the uncanny similarities between what CNN is currently reporting as a grass-roots movement by activist teens to hold adults accountable – what is conversely reported by others as a Soros-funded extension of the liberal gun grab movement – and the inhuman speed and accuracy of the LCpl Network. Just yesterday popular sites picked up inklings of some students’ intention to march on Washington and various state capitals over their demands for safer schools. Today, we see the groundswell has spread to the greater Washington D.C. area as students from Montgomery Blair High School focused their civil disobedience on Union Station. They were quickly joined by students from Bethesda Chevy-Chase and Einstein high schools. Note: No permit was requested – nobody was arrested.

It seems to me whoever has failed to recognize the passion driving these students, whoever underestimated their intelligence and ability to incite others, whoever ignored their threats as the “next voting class” has been asleep at the wheel. While pandering to an ideological base while simultaneously patronizing this groundswell, someone forgot the lessons of history. Teens communicate volumes in nanoseconds via text and tweets, and they are as adept at recruiting via Xbox people they’ve never even met as they are at avoiding homework. But they are also fearless and ideological and can stand on principle long after logic has left the building.

Maybe they can’t vote – yet. And maybe as one Texas school said they are present in school to learn, not practice politics. But it would behoove us all to remember those inequities that drove us to action during our teen years and the vehemence by which we acted. Don’t discount the effectiveness of mass-media/social-media supported popular movement of adolescents just because you’ve grown grey. Every intergenerational challenge tends to end the same way.

So-called "experts" asking 'what happened' from their forced retirement seats.

(Photo courtesy of Bethesda Magazine)