We need to talk...

This is a break-up letter I found the other day. I've been thinking about it a lot, and had I been around for the writing, I would have signed my name at the bottom in approval. I lifted it from this page in its entirety.


"

The Generation M Manifesto

8:01 AM Wednesday July 8, 2009

Tags:Economy, Generational issues, Global business

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff thatmatters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M?Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community"

A letter to my mom

This is the email I wrote to my mother when she asked about the National Equality March this weekend.



Hi Mom!

I had a really great time. I am a little sick now which is no good. I have a yucky lung cough, but not a fever, so I don't know what to call it. I felt pretty bad during the march (not much food, it was hot, lots of marching), but I feel much better now (but not well yet). The trip was so exciting! One Saturday, I went through one of the smithsonian museums, and then joined a "flash" protest against Don't Ask Don't Tell. I don't know why they called it a flash protest, because "flash" usually refers to something that only takes a few minutes. This protest took a few hours, and was very long and tiring. Afterward, I went back to the hotel and relaxed. The actual National March for Equality was on Sunday. There were 150,000 to 250,000 people there marching! It was incredible. I marched past the whitehouse on the way to the capitol.

I have to think that being out and going to the white house and fighting for my rights as an American and as a human being makes a difference. If I don't believe that, then I might as well pack up and leave. Even though we haven't seen the change President Obama has promised, we are getting closer. On the night before the march, the President announced that he was with us, and that he is working on repealing don't ask don't tell. While I don't believe in war, I do believe in justice and equality for all, and that means fighting for the kind of country where anyone can do what they aspire to do, even if I disagree with them and even if it doesn't affect me. While I can always wish that more people would contact their legislators, I am the only person I hold myself accountable for, and I gave up my weekend to go to Washington D.C.

Love,

Boy

National March for Equality

Think about me. Think about the kinds of things I like and the things I am interested in. Now imagine a restaurant perfectly tailored to me and those things. That is where I am right now. The restaurant is called Busboys and Poets, and it is basically the most hippie restaurant I have been to. Check out their website here.

We have been in DC for about three hours and we have done plenty of walking, visited two Starbucks, and found the fairtrade/wage/everything restaurant.

The plan for the day is to eat, hit up the Smithsonian, and then try to go to one of the many National Equality March events that are happening before the actual march tomorrow. NEM events can be found here.


Enough reading. Look at some pictures!