For the record, I was born in 1962, and I've always been told that is part of the "baby Boom".
Demographically, it is. The fertility hump ran from 1946 to 1964. But there's a common generational character to the "Boomers" that includes a few years before the "baby boom" started and doesn't include the last few of it. The classic definition of a Boomer is someone old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination but too young to remember FDR's funeral. The thing that defines Boomers is that we spent our childhood in the High era, from the end of World War II until the mid-'60s, and came of age in the Awakening era, from the mid-'60s until the early '80s. Participation in that weird, heavy, everything's-in-flux couple of decades as a young adult, whichever side of the divide you were on, is part of the package. You spent the 1960s and 1970s as a kid, and didn't graduate from college until the Awakening was over (barely).
Whether you fit the generational type or not (not everyone does), by birth year you're an Xer, not a Boomer.
I'm sure that's how millenials see themselves, but that's not how they appear to the rest of us. My impression is that they aren't changing anything or trying to change anything, they are demanding the government do so. (Did they forget they put the current guy in?)
They absolutely didn't forget that, and they don't want him to, either.
Since the government is what's wrong (partly by commission, partly by omission), how can it be fixed unless the government fixes it? So of course they're demanding that the government fix it. Individuals can do their part, but the institutions of our society are broken and they badly need repair and reform.
Sorry, just don't buy that. Here's the thing. When all the whining is over, they'll support Barack Obama a second time, even though he's been just as bad as any Republican on these issues.
I'm sure they are all for the "noble' nature of being anti-corporate, but at the end of the day, they will still use those corporate products and still take jobs for "the man". They are a teenager throwing a tantrum. They consider a great accomplishment they can stay on Mommy's health insurance until they are 26. Sorry, I find that personally horrifying. It's an infantile generation that refuses to grow up.
Well, I participate on a generation-cycle discussion board that you might find interesting; you can check it out here:
Fourth Turning Forums. What you just expressed is a very common take by Xers on Millennials, but no worse (or more unfair) than the way Boomers regarded Xers back when you guys were coming of age -- hell, not nearly as bad. And I'll tell you something else. Way back in the late 1920s/early 1930s, the last reactive generation (which we call the "Lost generation") had very much the same attitude towards the last civic generation -- who are the same ones that, years later, stormed ashore in Normandy. And in between, unionized our manufacturing and drove big majorities for Roosevelt.
I wouldn't be too quick to sell these guys short. They are true to the type in that they are organized, collective-minded, and able to exert influence as a group. They've already put one president in office. Whether they'll vote for his reelection remains to be seen; no way will a GOP candidate gain a Millie majority, but if Obama doesn't mend his fences, he may see a sizable proportion of them voting third party or sitting it out.
As for Occupy, my sense is the movement is trying to figure out where to go from here. The goal is clear enough, but the tactic of occupying public space has about outlived its usefulness. I'm trying to build support for a constitutional convention myself. Other ideas are being circulated online, too. Eventually something will achieve enough of a consensus to result in large-scale action.