SOUNDING OFF:Where are the youth activists?

I attended the peace rally to mark the four-year anniversary of the Iraq war on Monday — and many others in the past four years. It used to be that half of the passing cars honked and waved, while the other half honked and flipped us off. Not Monday. I’m relieved to report that every car was honking to our tune: “Give peace a chance.”

But what is jarring — at every peacenik demonstration in Laguna — is the glaring lack of young people. I don’t think there was anyone under 40, and the average age looked closer to 60.

Where is the activism and indignation in our young people, whose lives are so much more at stake than those who are trying to affect change and give voice to their frustrations? Are they too engrossed revealing their private lives and intimacies to strangers on MySpace? Or taping video diaries for YouTube? Or killing people in virtual battles?

When is this generation going to wake up and discover that, even if they each get their 15 minutes of fame, there is a lifetime of crises simmering just beneath the surface — like terrorism, the environment, overpopulation, the depletion of resources, health care, energy and our impending fiscal collapse.

These are things that could radically thin the human race and cause misery the likes of which none of us have ever experienced. But instead, mindless, violent entertainment like “300” — and Britney’s shaved head — carries the day. How come parents and teachers don’t encourage more activism?

My friend likes to say, “America is on one big party boat, floating down the river, and nobody sees the waterfall.” I’m sure this isn’t the case with young people in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston or New York.

But here, my god, we have a generation of hedonists who are so self-deluded they only care if they can cop a cameo in “Laguna Beach, the Real OC,” or where to eat, vacation and party.

Laguna scored a coup when former ambassador Joe Wilson, husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, gave a lecture at City Hall. It was a riveting, insider’s view of the malfeasance of this administration. But the crowd looked more like an AARP convention.

And check out the faithful who protest every Saturday at Main Beach. A spirited, selfless crew of seniors who are trying to make the world safer for generations they’ll never know.

It’s sad to see that the ‘60s were perhaps our golden era of thinking, acting, concerned individuals who sought freedom and meaning and questioned authority. And that we’ve been in decline ever since.

The freedoms they brought us have bred a generation of over-indulged, over-stimulated, un-thinking, incurious narcissists in perpetual search of their next titillation.

Hope they at least learn to say “you’re welcome” in Chinese when they hold the doors open for them and fetch their cars.