Posted on 12/11/2005 10:11:05 AM PST by LouAvul
They partied and protested, then grew up to dominate America with their chutzpah and sheer numbers. Yet now, as the oldest of the baby boomers prepare to turn 60, there are glimmers of doubt within this "have it all" generation about how they will be judged by those who come next.
The ferment of the '60s and '70s -- when boomers changed the world, or thought they did -- faded long ago. Nostalgic pride in the achievements of that era now mixes with skepticism: Have the boomers collectively betrayed their youthful idealism? Have they been self-centered to the point of shortchanging their children? Anthony DeCurtis, one of the boomers' pre-eminent rock 'n' roll journalists, hears the occasional barb from his creative writing students at the University of Pennsylvania and it gives him pause.
"There's a fear that there's going to be nothing left -- that they're going to be picking up the pieces for this six-decade party we had, cleaning up the mess," said DeCurtis, 54. "There's some truth to that, I guess."
The boomers -- 78 million of them born from 1946 to 1964 -- are wealthier and more numerous than any generation before or since.
They have controlled political power long enough to stack the financial deck in their favor.
"It's economic and policy imperialism," said University of Oklahoma historian Steve Gillon, 48, author of "Boomer Nation."
"The boomers have set up institutions that will continue to benefit them, at the expense of other groups, as they grow old and live longer than any other generation," Gillon said.
"It's spend what you want, cut your own taxes -- the ultimate baby boom philosophy of 'We want to have it all.' We're not a generation that's had to deal with the reality of sacrifice."
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
Nothing in the Apollo program was done by boomers. Boomers like to take credit for the moon landings, but the work was done by the WWII generation. Boomers can take credit for the space program since about 1985.
Every generation has good and bad. Stop trying to pin all the woes on one generation.
This is nothing more than the blame game (it's always someone else’s fault) wrapped in a more palatable wrapper.
This is an example of restriction of range. Everyone remembers the boomers who "turned on, tuned in, and dropped out." Anyone remember the three million or so that went to Vietnam?
The ones on the dope and dropout track run today's papers and the only VN vets they like are the ones who are phonies like Joe Ellis (who fabricates atrocity stories from his desk at Mt Holyoke College) and Ward Churchill (a phony combat vet AND a phony Indian), turncoats like John Kerry (who met with the NVA in Paris and came back to the USA to do their bidding), and surrender monkeys like John Murtha (whose policy was to cut and run in Vietnam in 1975, Beirut in 1982, Somalia in 1993 and Iraq in 2005 -- he's nothing if not consistent).
Remember, there are more boomers than the far-left, navel-gazing boomers of the media. But it's going to be delightful to watch what goes around come around to them. Whose gonna visit Dan Rather in the nursing home in a few years? Who's gonna miss Maureen Dowd? Her cat, maybe? Cause that's the relationship choice she's got left, thanks to 50+ years of left-boomer self-centredness: regular or Siamese....
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
What a crock.
The liberal radicals from the boomer generation infested six key areas: education, politics, religion, news, law, and entertainment. This allowed them to influence discourse and perception far more than their numbers indicate they should.
What a brilliant refutation.
Can you picture someone from the Greatest Generation "resenting" how they are portrayed by others? That's a part of the shift of attitude from responsibilty and duty to entitlement. And before you accuse me of idealizing the past, I've seen the effects of the same difference in attitude, with my own eyes, in Japan. As my older relatives keep telling me, things used to be "nice", a word you rarely hear anymore. Why? Because used to actually care what other people thought of them. They had a duty and responsiblity to make things "nice" for others, not an entitlement not to be criticized by others. And plenty of things are "nice" in Japan for hte same reason. And, yes, I'm quite aware that all of that "niceness", both in early-to-mid-20th Century America and in modern Japan, covers up some real nastiness but I can't help but think that we've tossed the baby out with the dirty bathwater.
The 'Greatest Generation' was the one that brought America into existence. ;-P
OK? And? That prepartes them for adulthood how, exactly?
It covered what you said pretty well.
Not sure what you are asking. All I am saying is each generation has good and bad folks. That is just the way it is.
Uh, thank God for mom and dad
For sticking through together
'Cause we don't know hooowww...
- Outkast in their song "Hey Ya!"
Parents stopped teaching their children how to be parents and adults. They "don't know hooowww...". It started with the Greatest Generation protecting their children from the hardship of adulthood and continues to this day.
Please forgive me, I normally don't respond to people who respond as stupidly as you did in your last post. I will be sure to give your opinion the attention it deserves.
That goes without saying, but it misses the point that generalizations have a certain amount of validity. I'm hardly a typical Boomer or Xer (depending on where the line is drawn) but that doesn't change the fact that (A) plenty of others my age are and (B) I still do have some of the same problems. See this article and this article on stereotypes, their use, and their accuracy as generalizations.
I think you paint with too broad a brush.
Just my two cents.
Yes. </pessimism> (Rats! Tag won't work)
Poster for the boomer view of the "inconvenient": here.
Neues Volk or "New People" was the National Socialist eugenics rag, technically the monthly of the "Racial Policy Office." The poster text reads: "60,000 marks is what this birth-defective will cost the public over the course of his lifetime. Fellow citizens, that's your money too!"
That could have been taken verbatim from the writings of Princeton "bioethicist" and (of course) boomer, Peter Singer. Retarded? Weak heart? MS? CP? Hey, Peter's got a one-oven-fits-all final solution for you. "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person," he writes. "Sometimes it is not wrong at all."
To me, Peter Singer sums up the downside of the self-absorbed boomers. It will be amusing to see them suddenly become voices of compassion as the infirmities of age set upon them.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
And I think that complaining about stereotypes because they aren't entirely true for a variety of specific cases is like saying that forests don't exist, only individual trees because describing a group of trees as a forest is painting with too broad of a brush.
BFL
I agree with you in principle. I was 23 yr old and in graduate school in 1969. Hadn't paid any taxes to speak of. My dad worked on life systems for Apollo. So, I can't take any credit for the space program to the moon.
As for the space program after 1985, not sure I want any credit, thanks.
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