Millennial Casualties of 2013

As time marches on, Millennials are finally emerging from the prolonged adolescence which has been foisted upon them. Taking the first major steps of adulthood, the bravest and brightest of this generation are rejecting the empty values and wasteful policies of those currently in power (guess who).

But the hands of greed won't release control easily, and they are striking out at their very children, those wishing to reshape the present for a better tomorrow. We all heard growing up that the “kids are our future”; and what an irony that in 2013, several young adults trying to fulfill that promise were violently brushed aside instead.

Michael Hastings

Born in the year 1980, Michael Hastings had staked a claim at the forefront of the next generation of journalism. He embodied the perfect mix of insider access and outsider perspective, having grown disillusioned with the mainstream after establishing himself at Newsweek. His famous 2010 feature for Rolling Stone ended the career of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the war in Afghanistan at that time.

Watch him annihilate some MSNBC bozos in May of this year-

Seeing that video, you can understand why Hastings made the trolls in Washington so nervous. What a relief it must have been when he mysteriously lost control of his vehicle and perished in a fiery wreck soon thereafter.

The official story is that this mature and reasoned person, who never drank and “drove like a grandma,” who had told friends only a day prior that he was close to breaking a huge story, and who was under active Federal investigation for “controversial reporting,” inexplicably decided to accelerate to top speed down an empty residential street at 4:30 AM, his brand-new Mercedes then erupting spontaneously with enough force to blast the engine block over 50 yards.

If there's any justice, maybe someday the final secret that Hastings was pursuing will be revealed.

Aaron Swartz

The first tragic Millennial death of 2013, however, occurred just eleven days into January. Although Aaron Swartz only lived to age 26, he was already boasting a lifetime's worth of accomplishments. A child prodigy in computers, Swartz went on to play a significant role in the general evolution of Web 2.0 while still in his teens and early-20s.

Not satisfied with mere technological genius, Swartz donned a political activist mantle as well, parlaying his clout earned as a web developer into a platform for humanitarian vision. He spoke elegantly about an open-source world that decentralized authority and facilitated the free movement of information, and fought in opposition to the draconian SOPA bill.

A high-profile threat, the power establishment found their opening to attack Swartz after he downloaded a large volume of academic journals from MIT's library network while working as a guest student there. That “honorable” institution, along with its allies in government, threw the book at Swartz and indicted him on slew of trumped-up piracy charges. After two years of pressure, facing devastating fines and a possible 50-year prison sentence, the young man took his own life.

A true barbarian, America callously tramples its best, brightest, and most compassionate.

Jeremy Hammond

I was unaware of Jeremy Hammond's story until just this week when, in what must be considered a pinch of serendipity for the subject of this column, author Chris Hedges profiled him for Truthdig:

[Hammond] faces the possibility of a 10-year sentence for hacking into the Texas-based private security firm Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor...

The 3 million email exchanges, once made public, exposed the private security firm’s infiltration, monitoring and surveillance of protesters and dissidents, especially in the Occupy movement, on behalf of corporations and the national security state. And, perhaps most important, the information provided chilling evidence that anti-terrorism laws are being routinely used by the federal government to criminalize nonviolent, democratic dissent and falsely link dissidents to international terrorist organizations. Hammond sought no financial gain. He got none...

He insisted he did not see himself as different from prisoners, especially poor prisoners of color, who are in for common crimes, especially drug-related crimes. He said most inmates are political prisoners, caged unjustly by a system of totalitarian capitalism that has snuffed out basic opportunities for democratic dissent and economic survival.

Another victim of a cannibalistic system, Hammond was actually kicked out of college in 2004 for independently testing the university mainframe for weakness and subsequently offering assistance to administration in strengthening their network security.

Chelsea Manning

Forget the gender-identity distraction of this well-known narrative. These clips are all that need to be said. Here are people being slaughtered, ostensibly on your behalf as an American citizen. Although these are not drone strikes per se, the video reaveals the stark truth of our death-from-above terror that is being inflicted abroad daily.

Chelsea Manning unveiled the nation's foulest crimes. She gave us the evidence and language with which to articulate our case. And now in Fakenation, it is the messenger who has been sentenced, rather than the murders.

Edward Snowden

Again, one of the biggest stories of the year shows the prosecution of truth. Snowden's whistle-blowing resulted in multiple international embarassments for America in 2013, a topic which might also make for a fine year-end retrospective. His forcible flight to Russia was merely the loudest of the assualts currently being conducted against Millennial activists.

Because every major industry and institution is un-sustainably criminal, change must take place. We can't look to the Boomers for leadership because they are financially committed to the current social arrangements. It's up to us. We must challenge the status quo, while also understanding that we will be threatened, attacked, and maimed for doing so.

Take courage in knowing that with each wretched act of aggression, the power establishment only alienates itself further from the heart of the public.