Step aside Baby Boomers, "Generation We" is hot on our heels and they are better educated, more socially conscious, and more progressive than any other generation before them.

If you are a progressive, reading the results of this survey will put a smile on your face the entire day. (Survey is in pdf form.)

A new generation is about to seize the reins of history—the Millennial generation.

Born between 1978 and 2000, the Millennials currently include 95 million young people up to 30 years of age—the biggest, most diverse, and best-educated age cohort in the history of the nation.

Self-aware and committed to generational solidarity. .Millennials do not see themselves at odds with older generations of Americans, but they do believe their generation has a unique set of experiences that set them apart.

Strongly progressive, socially tolerant, environmentally-conscious, peace-loving, and poised to lead the biggest left ward shift in recent American history.

Sober but optimistic in their assessment of the future. The Millennials worry about being the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents—but they believe this fate can be avoided through shared effort.

Enthusiastic about the power of collective social action. Millennials don’t see government as a panacea, but they believe in its potential and want to take it back from the special interests and the power elites.

Unselfish and socially committed. The Millennials are not a “Generation Me” but rather a “Generation We.” They volunteer in record numbers and declare themselves ready to sacrifi ce their
self-interest for the greater good.

Millennials do not see themselves at odds with older generations of Americans, but they do believe their generation has a unique set of experiences that set them apart.

Strongly progressive, socially tolerant, environmentally-conscious, peace-loving, and poised to lead the biggest left ward shift in recent American history.

The Millennials worry about being the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents—but they believe this fate can be avoided through shared eff ort.

Millennials don’t see government as a panacea, but they believe in its potential and want to take it back from the special interests and the power elites.

The Millennials are not a “Generation Me” but rather a “Generation We.” They volunteer in record numbers and declare themselves ready to sacrifice their self-interest for the greater good.

This is the generation that helped elect President Obama, and gets their news from Jon Stewart, and watched James Cameron's "Avatar" and identified completely with the alien race while viewing the forces attempting to strip the planet's resources as the selfishness of the generations that preceded their own.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of the Millennials is their across-the-board rejection of the country’s current leadership and dominant institutions. Whether it be Congress and the federal government, major corporations, or organized religion, these young Americans believe the large institutions that dominate modern society have comprehensively failed, placing narrow self-interests ahead of the welfare of the country as a whole. Frustrated and seeking an outlet for their innate idealism, they are eager for wholesale change. The Millennials have already begun shifting the nation’s politics. Having come of age with Washington dominated by Republicans, they leaning strongly the opposite way. Although they reject both “liberal” and “conservative” labels, they are especially scathing in their denunciation of conservatism, which they associate with hypocritical moralism, administrative incompetence, ideological rigidity, and corporate scandal.

Regardless of how many Fox News lies spill into living rooms all over America, or how much money is spent on television advertising by special interest groups in the years ahead, or how ignorant the Republicans try to keep the voters of America, THIS is the generation that is emerging.

I talked to my daughter about this study last night, and to her the findings in the study were something that she felt should be completely obvious to anybody paying attention to her and her friends.  She said the days of partisanship are finished once they take over. 

She sees a future where racism, sexism, and homophobia are things of the past.  Where each person is judged individually and not based on a pre-determined label or prejudice.

She also believes that organized religions are seeing the last of their influence on the morals of Americans and that instead the day is coming when a more simplistic, yet accessible type of morality will be the norm throughout the country.

In other words the generation about to take over is the worst nightmare for the Fundamentalists and Teabaggers.  Yet for me it is a dream that I almost did not dare to imagine might one day come true.

I only hope I live long enough to enjoy the beauty of the America that their compassion and sense of unity will create.

Namaste my friends.  The future looks very bright indeed.