A nice mess we’ve gotten you into

Greetings graduates! You made it, sort of, kind of, technically. I mean, you’ve gotten the diploma ...

You can’t say you won’t remember this spring, when you look back with 2020 hindsight, after you’ve solved global climate change, poverty, misguided wars of imperialism, weaned us off Big Oil and brought a new era of racial understanding.

Did I mention the asteroid? Maybe later.

In fact, you 18-to-24 types had better get cracking before there is nothing else left to save, amid the tornadoes, flooding, rising sea levels — Farewell Florida! — Russian trolls, attacks on DACA, the Affordable Care Act, your freedom of speech and the right to assembly to redress your grievances.

Let’s not forget the active assaults on clean water, bee-killing pesticides, the pimping-out of the national parks and generations of racial inequity and segregation.

Yep, the so-called adults in the country are on the verge of leaving you a dirty, hateful mess.

It seems that the battle might be engaged. I feel like the iconic comedian Oliver Hardy, who after another tragic, hilarious mishap, often his fault, would look at his partner Stan Laurel and, in full denial of the circumstances remark “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

In fact, my generation, which came of age protesting the Vietnam War and studying Laurel and Hardy, has left you 2020 grads holding the bag. We preached peace, love and freedom, then spent the next 40 years making money, paying very little attention to public policy and finally allowed a moneygrubbing huckster and his corporate-backed enablers to invade and loot the White House, the Treasury and much of what America represented on the global stage.

The Boomers became the sleepers, and like Rip Van Winkle, we’re waking up to find that nothing has changed since 1970, except pop music has fewer guitars, and maybe it’s a lot easier to divide and conquer us. Oh, and the police have deadlier tactics, complete with surplus military equipment.

The dog whistles of a type of law-and-order politician who thrived over the last few decades as people stopped reading newspapers, gave police the license to abuse people of color. The cops got away with it for way too long even as the “war on drugs” failed massively and completely. Fortunately, the advent of personal video cameras has helped the cause of truth and justice.

Video of a knee to the neck of George Floyd in Minneapolis helped expose the homicide heard around the world. And despite the low esteem in which the White House is held, hundreds of thousands of people joined in the Black

Lives Matter demonstrations in places such as London and Paris, where only people in their 90s still remember the United States as the friendly doanything liberators of 75 years ago in the war against murderous fascism.

This is an optimistic turn of events, and may be the last chance for the United States to live up to its name. It just took a worldwide pandemic, 120,000 deaths in the United States and one more Black man killed by a cop to set it off.

Marching and yelling, even shouting at cops and

City Hall is just a start. It’s probably the easy part because demonstrators make their own paths of least resistance. You want to stand in Interstate-95 and stop traffic? Fine and dandy. I mean, it’s a nice day and all ...

But if you want something that lasts, you’ve got to build within the existing public-policy infrastructure. That means running for office, so progressive people can have their voices and logic heard on local school boards, library boards, city and town councils and, the true laundries of local racial exclusion, which are planning and zoning commissions.

It means knocking on doors for support, talking with neighbors who often can’t articulate what needs to be done, and convincing them that change starts with hope and educated advocates. And you with the fresh diplomas, are educated. The power elite are standing in your way.

Back in the 1960s and 70s, when my generation was your age, the graduation mantra was to go on to learn more, or get a job and start on the work of change from within.

So, you college graduates, welcome to real life. High schoolers, keep studying or if you cannot afford higher education, keep informed. Reading is the key to arguing truth to power.

It’s everybody for themselves, or everybody for everybody. Good luck, try not to get hurt, and know we’ve been waiting for you to come help. Surprise! Nobody’s in charge.