Wouldn’t be prudent.In contrast to his war-mongering son, it’s easy now to think of the first George Bush as a kindly and moderate grandfather, the soul of temperance and prudence. But during his presidency it was a different matter. He was regarded as an evil warmonger, a CIA spook and clandestine member of The Illuminati, Majestic12, the Bilderberg Group, and the Union of Unwise Sorcerers. All the bitter, passive, petulant music of the early nineties was a partly a product of the feelings of powerlessness and defeat that came from being a young person during the Reagan/Bush years. Just as the youth movement found its voice, just as Grunge seemed poised to use apathy and frustration as a galvanizing critique of American culture, bad old George Bush was replaced by a fat-faced young president who felt our pain.The Liberals was to replace our guns with FINGERS!I’ve never seen the blood drain out of a revolution faster than the months following Bill Clinton’s election. The summer of ’92, when it seemed like George H.W. Bush was sure to be reelected, the mood on the street in Seattle was that the youth of America had started an uprising. The portrayal of Generation X as “Losers” who didn’t give a fuck was, initially, an intentionally bitter irony. The slack-jawed pose, the cartoon apathy, it was a political gesture. These guys were no dummies. Tensions that summer were high, but there was a feeling of elation too. As garbled as the “message” of Grunge might have been, it was not incomprehensible to us kids! Do these kids look apathetic to you?Totally apathetic. Well, yes, anyway. Two days after Clinton was elected it was like a collective amnesia swept the land. The “Loser” thing was never far from being a simple statement of fact, and it quickly became it. Generation X had had its chance.