Tear me a new one

This was also written for a class. 

I turned this in knowing that it still needed a lot of work.

Please point out everything that's wrong with it.

Facebook and the Death of Activism

Sitting idle on the computer one day, I clicked on a Youtube video.

I couldn’t breathe for the next three minutes as I watched Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger ride a balloon to 103,000 feet and, without fanfare of any kind, step out into nothing.

In the blackness of the upper atmosphere, he free-fell for nearly five minutes before his parachute deployed.

Watching Kittinger’s jump took me back to a place I’ve been many times—total awe of the ‘60’s. I don’t know what it is about that decade, but I can never get over the culture, the speeches, the accomplishments and the turmoil that nearly tore the country in two.

I read up on the spacejump. Kittinger jumped from higher, went faster, and fell longer than any other parachutist, and none has been able to top his feat in 50 years. His first high-altitude jump nearly killed him when the parachute cords wrapped around his neck and strangled him out of consciousness.  On the third and final jump, his right glove failed during the ascent and his hand swelled to twice its normal size. He kept mum, knowing that the ground crew would abort if they knew.

Joe understood what he was doing. In fact, he may have known a little too well. He said goodbye to his crew before making that appalling step, convinced that it would be his last.

Why would he jump, when death was so likely?

I believe he understood why the jump was necessary. In order to advance the space program, the Air Force needed to know for sure if a man could safely bail out at high altitude. Someone had to go first. Someone had to be willing to sacrifice their life.  

Kittinger’s jump heralded beginning of a decade of fevered activism.  Reading the history books, it seems like every single American had a cause. JFK, the Air Force, and NASA were hellbent on a moon landing by 1969. Lyndon B. Johnson and the US Army made their stand against communism in swampy Vietnam, at an unnerving cost. On the other side of the Pacific, college students and pacifists protested against unfounded acts of war.  Martin Luther King eschewed violence, yet he fought to his death for the consummation of the Bill of Rights.

Something in me says that that’s the way to live—full of passion and purpose. Why should that ever change?

Yet by all indications, the fervor of the tumultuous 60’s has left our culture, perhaps forever.  We’ve entered a time of Facebook-induced couch activism, which feels an awful lot like doing nothing at all.

Click “like” to support earthquake victims in Japan, Haiti, Chile and New Zealand. Change your profile picture to a cartoon character to raise awareness of child abuse. Update your status to show your friends that you care about politics.

The internet allows us to connect and share ideas like never before. I’m grateful for it. But because there is such an abundance of opinion, talk is cheaper than it’s ever been. True value lies in action, and that value appreciates if action involves sacrifice. As Berkeley veteran Frank McGovern said in the film The Trotsky, “it’s never real until it stops being fun.”

I decided to test this idea with people that I know and respect. What better venue than Facebook? I chose the National Debt as an example, since the only way to fix it is to sacrifice something.  

I asked if people would be willing to take a massive tax hike (placing the highest bracket at 75%) if the government would cut social security and other key programs in half, and promise to eliminate the national debt by 2019. I got 11 responses, all negative. Two claimed mistrust of government. Four gave specific reasons why the economic pain was more than could be borne. I put these responses in an imaginary pile labeled “valid”.

 The rest disturbed me. One kid said, “I don't see a point in even relieving the national debt. Money really has no value anymore, it's a concept.” The most succinct answer, however, read simply, “What does paying off the debt do for me?”

When George W. and Obama are sipping cocktails in their old age, who will bear the brunt of their legacy? Although the debt was incurred when you had little power to choose otherwise, make no mistake. It is your debt. It is your responsibility. The current administration lacks the time, the influence and the resolve to fix it in their lifetime, so although they are still in power, it has already fallen to us.

Want to know what else is your problem? Gender inequality. Unsustainable energy consumption. Bloated government. Healthcare and insurance.  Listen carefully to the list of issues that a president promises to solve, because those are precisely the problems that will fall to you.

In coming years, will we be different from the generation before us? Will we be more or less willing to sacrifice for our country and our society?

Perhaps we should all spend a little less time watching videos of record-breaking parachute jumps, and a little more time putting the “active” back in activism.