The Millennian Manifesto

A brief history of whats driving the politics of a millennial

This generation has been deemed the lazy, unproductive, and selfish generation by
its forebears. This is exceptionally ironic given that the previous generation is known
for drug use, anti war (and thus anti American?) rhetoric, and rock and roll. During
this time, these lazy, stoned, hippies made a minimum wage that, if adjusted for
inflation, is 42.6%* higher than the minimum of today. Also, these folks had well
paying manufacturing, mining, oil, and other labor jobs that didnt require a degree.
To gain adequate employment today, this group must also bare the cost of college,
which over just the last 40 years has gone up 1000%. Think about that. The
millennials, with a lower rate of pay, must also bury themselves in debt on the hope
that one day they will be able to dig themselves out. The previous generations, with
their handouts to corporations and billionaires, Reganomics, and policies that led to
the mass exodus of blue-collar jobs has done this to the next generation. They have
taken the American Dream and completely and utterly obliterated it.
After their policies have put millennials in this mess, they, the previous generations,
have the audacity to claim that millennials are lazy and just looking for a handout.
When millennials were told, oh, just go to college and youll get a good job what
was left out was that the good jobs dont exist. Sure, there are a fair number of jobs
out there if youve got a PhD. If youve got your masters, things might look okay. But
for those who didnt know what they wanted to to yet in life at the mere age of 18, or
just went to college on the promise that any degree is better than no degree, these
folk have been cheated. College is supposed to offer a pathway to success, but no
one mentioned that there are only a handful of degrees that are available that will
help you get there. Art, politics, social science, you may as well have burned a pile of
money for all the good a bachelors in any of those fields will do you, and thatll save
you four years of your life. Even mathematics. A bachelors in math is great, if you
want to go onto more schooling or get a teaching certificate, but getting a job with
just a bachelors in industry is damn near impossible without some other skills.
Where is the outrage? If you look, youll find it.

Politics.

Oh, the humanity! How is it that the Christian right wing of politics is so
against clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and housing the homeless? Have
they not read the bible? Its no wonder the millennials are leaving organized religion
in droves. "We've known that the religiously unaffiliated has been growing for
decades," said Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of religion research and the
lead researcher on the new study. "But the pace at which they've continued to grow
is really astounding."**. This generation largely grew up under the umbrella of their
parents religions, which in the US is almost certainly Christianity; yet theyve also
had more experience with other religions and cultures than that of any previous
generation in these United States. The great mixing pot, as they call it, has
broadened the world view of millennials and given them greater perspective and
understanding on what it means to be religious. Also, being the most educated
generation, theyre more likely to have actually read the bible and studied other
religions than people of their parents generation. The driver of this exodus is actually
the bible***, go figure. Excluding the readings given in church services, non-religious
millennials are twice as likely to have actually read the purportedly sacred book than
those that identify as Christian.
Following from the apparent hypocrisy of the right wing, and the flight of millennials
away from religion, its not difficult to see why that segment is largely devoid of
millennials. But, why are they voting for Bernie?! is likely the thought trigged by the
subtitle. Well, the answer to that stems a lot from the above. Is it because they want
a hand out? No. Its because they feel more strongly about what the previous
generation claims to believe than even they do. Are there those that will game the
system and take advantage of it? Of course there are. There always will be. But is
the one bad apple an excuse to let millions, including children, suffer? Certainly not.
We see the veterans, the homeless and the poor inner city people that have been
abandoned and forgotten by their government, and we aspire to do much better than
the previous generation ever has even attempted to. Just as theyve left the current
generation on the wayside with the skyrocketing costs of education, housing, and
disappearing jobs, theyve left their peers, even those that sacrificed for the liberties
they praise, in the dust in pursuit of their own greed.
In the entire world, 62 people, yes, 62, sixty-two people have as much wealth as half
of the other seven billion, billion, as in 7,000,000,000, combined. Sixty. Two. That is
nauseating. If trickle down economics worked, wed have all the high paying jobs we
could ever ask for. Oh, and debt, millennials dont care about debt. And thats your
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fault, baby boomers. Theyve been virtually forced into debt since 18. Debt is a fact
of life. Without debt, we wouldnt survive as a county. We wouldnt have an educated
work force, the kind our economy currently relies on very, very heavily. So why would
they care that the government is taking out loans? Thats not to say that generation y
wants debt, they just dont pepper it with the negative connotations of the generation
that had the ability to save to buy something.

Healthcare.

The other way the previous generation has utterly screwed the
millennials. And guess what, theyre trying to fix it. The ACA is a step, be it small, in
the right direction. The US is the only developed country that doesnt have a single
payer system for healthcare. Why is that? Because there are to many pockets to be
lined. Big Pharma and Big Insurance are too involved in capital hill. Why are costs
for something in Europe one tenth the cost of what they are here? Regulation.
Healthcare is not a free market. When you go to the ER you dont ask for a price
comparison, and your doctor likely has no clue how much it costs for the drug he is
prescribing. If its not a free and open market, it requires heavy regulation to keep
prices reasonable, and every other developed country has realized this and so have
millennials.

Taxes. We have some of the lowest tax rates in the developed world, and we have
some of the highest pay. Next time generation X says theyre going to move to
another country when democrat Y gets elected, feel free to inform them that they will
be paying more in taxes, likely making less, and they will have socialized medicine.
Either that or theyll be in the so called third world. Higher taxes arent a problem if
costs can come under control. If medicine and higher education cost less, then the
burden of higher taxes will mostly be offset.

Foreign Policy. Why do we have to police the world? Its not our job to meddle
in middle east politics. Why should we give two shits about the IS when Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Iraq, UAE, Egypt and the other 20 or so countries in the region could
hardly care less? Do you know how much money wed save?! Roughly 300 billion a
year. Thats enough to pay for college for every student four times over! We wouldnt
have the IS if we hadnt given them the vacuum they needed in Iraq and Syria. We
created the IS and now its a global problem. How about we forbear the next IS by
letting the middle east settle its own affairs. As for Israel, who cares? They stole land

that wasnt theirs and they keep trying to take more. If I was in Gaza Id be pretty
pissed too.