1
One speaks freely at all times. Not. One expresses himself with full honesty at all times. Not. So, what are we all talking about? We are liars, sheer liars by nature. Is it human? Yes. Is it ethical? Who gives a f***, honestly? In a world of mass-production, in a world dominated by speed and consume, in a world deconstructed to its nakedness and yet not uncovered at all from its human contingency, we cannot see through the others, we can’t even see through ourselves anymore. We are deep inside walls, inside mind-cells that are being built around us and we don’t even realize it, we just lay the bricks not knowing we are caging ourselves, blindly following the instructions on the box, and by it, caging the whole of humanity. We are building ourselves a trap from which we cannot escape, we cannot avoid it. This century is the wasteland of the past century. We are the children of Vietnam vets, of NASA engineers, of reformed hippies and drunken Irish outlaws. We are the dreams of a whole nation that’s been dead for decades. So where do we stand? Should we acknowledge our condition? Should we put a bullet through our brains? The past century had a chance at realizing its mistakes, its condition. Sartre, Heidegger, Camus, Kerouac, Malraux, they all said f*** it, the rest is bull, the only important thing right here, right now, is Man and the Human Condition, that’s all that matters to us. The students at Prague and Paris and Mexico in 68’, they had the last spark from the flame. They knew what they wanted and fought for it. We are the remaining ashes. We are the ashtray that’s been pilling up for a hundred years. It is up to us to decide whether we want to be reborn from them, or just drown on our own inevitable demise.

2
They say we are the young. They say we are restless. They say we are the future. They see in us the redemption of their past. I say we are the now. I say f*** the past. I think, therefore I just don’t care, that’s the train of thought that underlies in the mind of a whole generation being born just to die sometime with no transition whatsoever. They’ll put on their ties and suits and polished black shoes and go with their suitcases to work in the mornings. They’ll drink Starbucks before work, during work and they’ll drink Starbucks in the afternoon and go back to their lonely apartments feeling empty. No Springsteen rip off intended, but that’s it, yeah, that is it, that is life or what life’s going to be for the American youth. Hell of a future right? They don’t look up to anybody anymore. Once it was Martin Luther King addressing to thousands in Washington, once it was Che Guevara inspiring the revolutionary youth of the third world, once it was Lumumba silenced by tyranny, once it was Ghandi and Mandela fighting from jail for the freedom of their people. Nowadays you might say Obama. You walk down the street and there’re the posters and the banners and the flags and the little souvenirs and memorabilia. Yesterday it was Obama for millions, tomorrow we’ll forget about him. Tomorrow we’ll be measuring him by his mistakes instead of his achievements. Tomorrow the posters will be removed and replaced. I saw a picture the other day of the May riots in France. I saw thousands of students packed in the avenues, I saw their faces held upwards and their fists to the sky, I saw their mouths wide open screaming for freedom, I saw their arms entangled and entwined in one imperishable chain, I didn’t see them ask, I saw them demand, I saw them take what was theirs with their own hands.

3
So, the question that now arises from the depths of the world, from the depths of the youth is: What are we going to do with this? Are we gonna shake the ashes off of our shoulders and set ourselves the world on fire, or are we gonna let ourselves be set on fire by the world? I say there is no tomorrow. I say there’s only today and today is when we have to act, when we have to take our lives and do something with it. Freedom is unreliable, freedom is a trembling nothingness, freedom is not a condition, freedom is a concept, freedom is an empty word. Freedom is a condemned humanity. Condemned to what? Condemned to be free for humanity. Condemned to be free for Man. Condemned to be free for the existence and the affirmation of freedom. Freedom is empty as a word; only through action we can fill it with our EXISTENCE and our BEING, we can make it EXIST.
Are we content with our lives, are we content with society, are we content with the government, are we content with the law? Are we content with our Justice, are we content with our Equality? Are we content with the Present, are we going to be content with the Future? The Answer: NO. The Response: NONE. Most think that only by voting we are in full participation within our own state of citizenship. Most think that by making a decision once every four years and wearing a badge in support of such and such party we are making full use of our rights and our duties as citizens. Most think that by paying taxes we are making a big-enough contribution to our nation. We are not. It’s not about whether we are contributing to our nation, it’s whether we are content with what we do in and for our nation, and if not, whether we are going to act or just sit back and complain. The power is in the hands of the youth, in the hands of the people, it was never in the hands of senators, congressmen or presidents. It was always in our hands. And what have we done with that power? We have washed it right off our hands and have diminished it to almost nothing.

4
Commitment, that’s the word we have been dodging for so long in our lives. Commitment, a term that has been wiped out of our vocabulary. Commitment to what? To your friends? To your family? To your girlfriend? To what the world expects you to be? No. Commitment to the Others. As in communism? If communism means caring for the rest and the unknown, for the emarginated and the poor, for the people, for justice and freedom and equality, then yes, communism, socialism, whatever works. I speak of commitment. Committing ourselves to fight, to raise our voices, to be heard when wanting to be heard and not silenced. To see the world as it should be seen and be displeased with what’s wrong, but by being displeased doing something to revert that situation, not just flickering from CNN to Beverly Hills 90210. We have to live and commit ourselves to the Outside Reality. A reality that transcends our own in our indifference, but by committing to it becomes our own reality. The youth has to realize that the world is also of Others, and by that realization the youth has to fight for the rights of those Others, for they, we, are the only ones that can make a change in history, we are the new generation and whatever we do will reflect on those future generations that follow us. We must step hard and deep into the sands of History, and thus leave an indestructible mark for those who will someday tread upon it.

5
Make Freedom by acting. Make Justice by demanding. Make Equality by fighting. We must follow the steps of the Youth of 1968. We must crowd the streets with our voices and make them one undeniable, irrefutable flame of truth and desire. Of desire and realization. To those who are too deaf to listen. To those who are too blind to see. We shall speak to them. For we shall not allow ourselves to be a generation of consumers, a generation of sheep and lambs, a generation of conformists. We must become a generation of revolutionary conscience, a generation of change, a generation of selflessness, a generation of individuals gathered to be One, a generation of the People and for the People. We are the Youth. And this is our ultimate task.