But something is changin', I believe. There is serious rumbling going on in the uncomfortable belly of America. Huge numbers of young people are voting, and for Barack Obama -- a Black man! (Pinch me, is this America?) In Europe young people just returned from a battle in the streets, screaming and shaking their fists at the mighty Chinese empire. Now weird things are stirring in San Francisco. Yes, I think there is change in the air.  

The outrageousness of an unnecessary and illegal Iraq War has seriously undermined the credibility of American leadership, not merely President Bush and his vicious cohorts, but also the wimping, ineffective Democratic controlled congress. The youth of America know something important: the old folks don't know crap! Is this déjà vu 1968? And now the economic meltdown with Boomer mommy and daddy strung out on Jack Daniel's and popping pills like rabbits in overdrive. "Think we can hold on to the house, honey?" "Make me another drink." If lucky, only one will get laid off and become a full-time lush and prescription drug addict. Keeping the house is probably dicier. 

"Really?" I replied, attempting to hide my disbelief.  

"It may not show on the surface," she leaned across the table, her eyes now narrow, "but the anger is strong inside of us."

"This is the calm before the storm, everything looks OK on the surface but down below the pressure is building?"

"Yes, yes! And something has to give. Young people today are economic slaves. Our school loans, health insurance, rent and food ...."

And I suddenly had a flashback back to 1971. I was twenty-four and driving across the country in my Ford van, as a lot of hippies were. We did not have any school loans to pay off, and medical insurance was not necessary. Gas was super cheap. Crash pads existed in most cities and they were often near free food kitchens. There were communes dotting the countryside to give us a break, but I don't remember what we needed a break from. Part-time jobs were plentiful, but to us working sounded rather drastic.

With slim economic responsibilities and a fat support network and a supplier of goodies on nearly every corner, like today there is a Starbucks on nearly every corner, we spent years on the American road. It was great. I hear a few are still out there, lost in pure road happiness.   When sitting in Taos with that unsettled Gen Xer, I realized Boomers in their youth had options and choice of lifestyle that today's youth do not have, have never had, and will never have. Life has turned nasty and narrow for America's youth. This is not pure accident or only market forces, but a confluence of conservative values and monetary decisions that have created "The Trap." Immediately after college, graduates are assaulted by a barrage of incoming bills -- school loans, health insurance, rising housing costs, stratospheric gas prices, climbing food prices -- stunned and scared most scurry for the trenches of a corporate job. Once the cement of security dries, they remain in the materialistic, corporate world.  

The Trap is designed to saddle the dangerous, open-minded youth with an endless train of heavy financial requirements channeling them into the straight corporate world that ensures they never have the opportunity to act upon their youthful rebel tendencies, which exploded in the late 1960s and nearly destroyed the country. The Trap is economic entrapment for youth's own good. The Trap is real freedom!

Some Xers are not completely convinced, as in Taos when she asked, "What ever happened to the American Dream?"

A few have a flicker of a rush about Jack Kerouac, the Beat ridding the rails and hitchhiking from New York to California. Some latch their brain waves on to Hunter S. Thompson roaring along in the fast-lane of his own making and writing in whacky abandonment. Some remember the stories of their parents as hippies on the road, experiencing an America they cannot experience. But few Xers never have time for a follow up question. Not even a second thought. The clock says it's time to go to work. The mailbox says it's time to pay the bills. But all things come to pass. 

Generational change is an iron law of history, yet generational evolution demands each generation carve out its own way. So 2008 will not be 1968. The 126 million Millennials and Xers -- the vast majority still under the death age of 30 -- will not build a hippie counterculture ... the rocked world of HST ... cultivate Beat sensibility. Yet, they now know the grownups have really screwed things up. The war in Iraq! The economy here at home! The environment! Their future! Knowing this is fodder for building something new. A generational shift is in the air. something is a-changin'.  

We don't know what this post-Boomer change in the making will end up looking like, but we do know that when political credibility is undermined, the forces are hard to contain. In our interconnected world, when one wall blows, then more collapse. Social and political turbulence creates a strong wake. In 1968, it wasn't only America that exploded, also France, Germany, Mexico, many countries exploded. Youth all over the planet were screaming, "We're not taking this crap anymore." Although 2008 will not be 1968, the same domino theory of rebellion does appear to be spreading. The same anger seems to be brewing. The same "we're not taking this crap anymore" seems to be growing.    

The Olympic Torch is on a haughty march around the globe before ending this summer in Beijing. But this is not the usual media tour for the Olympia sports extravaganza. When the torch left its home in Greece, it marched straight into hostile action. Then in London there were even larger demonstrations. This was followed in Paris by larger demonstrations and more violence. Never, has the torch tour been such a disaster for the hosting country.     Now the torch has arrived in San Francisco and is being guarded by a posse of Chinese Special Police. They like blue jump suits and dark sunglasses and angry smiles. But daylight will bring another anger, so the media is reporting. When the torch and its Chinese guards march along the San Francisco Bay tomorrow afternoon, there will be screaming and demonstrating against what has now become a symbol of Tibetan genocide: the Olympic torch. In the front row of the demonstration will be Gen Xers and Millenniums. The young always are.    

I hear in San Francisco young people are asking some very profound questions. Is there a place in this world for a peaceful, spiritual people? Can nations exist in harmony and freedom without being stomped by ar brutal, vicious neighbor? Can Americans allow the Chinese bully to continue raping and murdering Tibet? Yes, the music of change is getting louder.    With Boomers in semi-retirement from political activism, another generation needs to walk in the spot light. Will Xers and Millenniums take their brewing-below-the-surface anger and let it rip on the Chinese government and American corporate globalists? Or do Xers have to work tomorrow? Will the music suddenly stop? 

When I lived in China in the early 1990s, I never found a single Chinese, not one, who believed their country's brutal policy toward peace-loving Tibet was wrong. Today, evidently, Chinese remain the same. Blogger Jane Stillwater is in China right now, and she wrote: "Every Chinese I meet see China as the victim in Tibet."

When the West began turning its back on Tibet about a decade ago, the Chinese became convinced that the expansion of their empire into that poor, isolated peaceful country had become their right. The West's deepening silence was interpreted as yet another sign that China was quickly rising while America and Europe were falling fast. Beijing arrogantly insisted Tibet would be a cakewalk. Yet, sometimes cakewalks are not made of cake. Sometimes a torch is more than a torch. Sometimes young people accept the torch of generational political responsibility.