Taking Shots at The Baby Boomers

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

The generation of Americans in their 20s sometimes seems to have an image but no impact. They have plenty of cultural signifiers: rave parties, Lollapalooza, the underground Riot Grrrl feminist movement, that annoying guy in the Burger King ads that you just want to slap. But the connections seem to be missing; what does it all add up to? The search is on for those who would give real meaning to this Virtual Generation.

Candidates are stepping forward. This week in Washington, a newly formed group called Third Millennium will release a political call to arms titled the Third Millennium Declaration. The group's goal is to represent the concerns of people born between 1961 and 1981. One of the founding members, Douglas Kennedy, 26, son of Robert Kennedy, claims the nonpartisan group now has about 50 participants in New York City and Washington, along with supporters in almost every state. "We've put our finger on the tone of who we are as a generation," he says.

A lofty claim, since the 20-to-29 age bracket has so far been conceptualized more as a marketing tool than an active social force; its members can't even agree on a name. The term "twentysomething" dates quickly, while "Generation X" is meaningless to most of the people it's meant to describe, according to a recent poll by MTV. Nonetheless, the ambitious "declaration" of this hard-to-label generation will soon be curling out of fax machines all over the U.S. "Like Wile E. Coyote waiting for a 20-ton Acme anvil to fall on his head," reads the preamble, "our generation labors in the expanding shadow of a monstrous national debt." Baby boomers are given a political threat: "We grew up amidst the betrayals of Vietnam, Watergate, and Iran-contra. We are witness to the highest divorce rate ever . . . Let the new generation in power know we are not only watching, but participating."

The statement offers more rhetorical parsley before finally serving up some solutions. "We must begin paying off the debt by the year 2000," reads the | document promisingly, before descending into a laundry list of the obvious. "Combat waste, fraud and abuse . . . Streamline government." Churlishly, the declaration focuses on the programs of the elderly as a source of income for the young. "Social security is a generational scam . . . Raise the retirement age." Does this mean Grandpa should go back to work at 70?

The dozens of young people who helped write the declaration passionately defend its contents. "We see this as an opening salvo," says Jonathan Karl, 25, a writer and editor at Freedom House, a human-rights group. "We want to put people on notice that we have a direction, and we want these to be the central topics of discussion and action by our generation." Bill Strauss, 46, co-author of the book 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? and one of the few participants in the group over 40, compares the declaration with the anti- Establishment Port Huron Statement issued by Tom Hayden and Students for a Democratic Society in 1962. Says Strauss: "I am optimistic that when we look back at the history of the '90s and the youth movement, this will be an important document."

Third Millennium is a case study of how to use the new-generation craze to grab the spotlight. The group notified more than 800 journalists about the announcement of their manifesto, which Third Millennium members plan to take to college campuses across the U.S. They also intend to spread the word using computer bulletin boards. Several Third Millennium members are veterans of the sound-bite-savvy Lead or Leave, a year-old political group that has received funding from Ross Perot. Lead or Leave's specialties are deficit fighting and generational politics; founders Jon Cowan and Rob Nelson helped craft the Third Millennium statement.

Whether the Third Millennium flies or fizzles, its target audience has huge potential as a political force. A 1993 survey by the National Opinion Research Center found that 4.8% of people ages 18 to 29 were members of a political organization, in contrast to 2.3% of those 30 to 39 and 2.5% of those 40 to 64. Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, says the 18-to-24 age group went from 29% of the electorate in 1988 to nearly 37% in 1992, the largest increase for any demographic group. But William Schneider, political analyst at American Enterprise Institute, is dubious about youthful suffrage: "The basic truth of American politics has been that young people and poor people don't vote." /

Robin Templeton, 23, a Washington activist and editor of the progressive youth newspaper Education for the People, doubts whether such groups as Third Millennium and Lead or Leave represent a genuine spectrum of their generation. "There's a dichotomy in coverage of youth groups by the media," she says. "They cover groups made up of mostly white, affluent men in their 20s and talk about a new generation, and then they cover urban, black youth gangs the same age and say, 'Look, they're not going anywhere.' " Templeton sees more cultural diversity in many grass-roots youth organizations, including the Student Environmental Action Coalition and the United States Student Association.

Tabitha Soren, 26, who has trekked across the U.S. for the past 21 months reporting on youth politics for MTV, thinks the Third Millennium credo smacks too much of reductionist thinking. "They've simplified very complex problems," she says. "People who talk about streamlining government have to think about repercussions." She also questions whether the group has truly captured the "tone" of its generation. "I always try to be conscious of the fact that I'm a white female from a middle-class background. I'd be interested in how much they got out there and talked to people."

MTV reached out to real people in a survey of 800 young adults 18 to 29, the details of which the network hasn't yet disclosed. In general, the poll found a generation that felt distinguished by its facility with high-tech devices, its open-mindedness and its diversity of cultures and life-styles. Young adults also tend to define themselves in the negative, believing their age group is characterized by violence and fiscal angst. "They are overwhelmingly negative in terms of seeing political institutions as part of the problem," says Gwen Lipsky, head of research for MTV. Yet there's a sense of can-do optimism: "When you ask them about their own options for the future, they feel that through hard work and getting along, they'll be able to get where they want to go."

Third Millennium represents a kind of trickle-down political activism: build it, publicize it, and they will come. However, many people in their 20s feel distanced from such artificial, removed-from-life solutions. "I know everything in the White House connects to what I'm doing, but it seems so far away," says John Jackson, a summa cum laude graduate of Howard University, who has been unable to find a summer job, even as a cashier. Others express a sense of generational siege. "The AARP ((American Association of Retired Persons)) has the power to mortgage our future," says Joe Ross Edelheit, 21, a former field coordinator for presidential candidate Paul Tsongas. "Our generation is under attack."

Every generation likes to believe it is uniquely dysfunctional: the Lost, the Beat, the Me generations. It's the nature of youth to reject and rebel. "We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free of their authority," D.H. Lawrence once said. Many people in their 20s believe baby boomers have treated the economy, the environment and even the institution of marriage the way a reckless driver treats a rental car. The Third Millennium may fail, but it's a signal that another generation -- angered by the deficit and bitter over retirees who got theirs while the getting was good -- is ready to take the wheel. Boomers may be in for a bumpy ride.

With reporting by John Dickerson and Alexandra Lange/New York, Scott Norvell/Atlanta and Elaine Shannon/Washington