[DefinitelyNbdy]

Our society is "fundamentally agreeable"?

Seriously?

Let me counter with: Two land wars in Asia, thirty (!) years of cancerous deregulation of the private sector leading to an economic implosion, 9/11, OWS protests, raging unemployment...

Having said all of this, I would agree that PORTLAND, OR is a fundamentally agreeable society...it is difficult to communicate this in writing, you really have to visit the place to understand.

[bluedanieru]

Of these, I would say that the only one the Millennials have any hand in is the OWS protests, largely because many of them are unemployed now with nothing else to do. Western society has apparently forgotten the grave danger that comes from leaving vast swaths of your young population without work and riddled with debt. The reteaching of that lesson is going to define the coming decade, I think.

But the wars? Neo-liberal baby boomers cooked that up. Deregulation? GenX loves that shit.

[william42]

Actually, seventy-something percent of the OWS protesters are employed.

[bluedanieru]

I've seen that statistic as well, and wondered if someone would point it out when I wrote that. Apparently it's more than the Tea Party, for all the media bullshit about the two.

At any rate that's still a large portion of it unemployed, being around a quarter, compared to the population-wide unemployment rate of 9%. And surely you would find overrepresented among the movement folks who are underemployed or otherwise frustrated by the lack of mobility in the current market. So (I think) my point stands.