Baby boomers or bums?

CNN ^ | March 9th, 2006

[laney]

In the 1960s and '70s they burned their bras and draft cards, marched on Washington, founded Earth Day and vowed never to trust anyone over the age of 30.

Today, the baby boomers are doing the limbo, dancing wildly and waving their arms in the air to the unintelligible lyrics of "Louie, Louie."

At least that's what they're doing in Portland, Oregon, at the Baby Boomers' Social Club Friday night dance at the Red Lion Hotel.

"We have a live band once a month, and we do all sorts of different dance styles," says Melanie Pedersen, co-founder with Julie Dahlman of the Baby Boomers' Social Club.

"Julie does a wall sweep," Pederson says. "She says, 'come on gals ... go get the guys that are holding up the walls.'"

"You know, we're in our 50s now, so it's okay to ask the guys to dance," Dahlman adds with a laugh.

Indeed, this mammoth generation -- at once lauded for its commitment to social change and derided for its perceived self-indulgence -- has grown up and is now going gray.

So, how did the "Me" generation do for itself? Have the boomers prospered as much as they could have, or did they miss key opportunities to better their nation and their lives?

It depends on whom you ask.

Some experts say the boomers did not plan well for their future, especially their financial futures, relying instead on the whimsy of a historically rosy economic era to carry them along.

[nutmeg]

bttt

[GOP_1900AD]

The actual decade of manic spending and decadence was the 90s not the 80s. Most of these Boomers confuse Gen X with people who are still young now. And they confuse the slightly upbeat 80s with the Clinton-finishing-in-the-sink 90s.

[MoochPooch]

The 80's were the beginning of the end as far as the innocence in society, the decade of Addictive Spending that never stopped...

The early 80s palpably marked a cultural decline. After '82 I noticed the films & music just weren't that good. People complain about Hollywood now, but I had been watching it for a long time.

It's no coincidence that AIDS began around then.

P.S. I was a later Boomer. More boho than hippie. Thankfully outgrew it. Now I hate liberals for all the ways in which they screwed up so many lives.

[MoochPooch]

I meant to say:

The cultural decline tied in with the erosion of innocence that began in the 80s. There was a spiritual energy behind the earlier culture, a belief in something bigger tied in with a moral voice. With cynicism comes decadence.

[Tribune7]

Put Daisies in Guns

How about Guns N' Roses?

[Hardastarboard]

10% or less did this crap

The other 90% is arguably guilty of letting them get away with it. I tend to blame "The Greatest Generation", including Nixon, for not kicking our asses and shooting enough hippies to stop the slide toward socialism. Of course, I may be a little extreme.

[Alkhin]

What planet did you live on???

Well obviously the Generation Reagan planet...but if jonesin' on the 70s is your thing...go right ahead. The 80s was the most eclectic our country had seen in DECADES.

[Alkhin]

The actual decade of manic spending and decadence was the 90s not the 80s. Most of these Boomers confuse Gen X with people who are still young now.

Lor, ain't THAT the truth - I tend to think that those born between 1964-1979 are now "ignored" and lumped in with those born AFTER 1980 as all just part of those ingrate youngin's...

[wtc911]

If you are a late boomer then you would not be aware of the change in the very air in this country after the Kennedy assassination. Anyone who lived through the time as an aware individual will tell you that the decline you note in the 80s actually began 20 years earlier. The country underwent a sea change between 1963 and 1968 from which it has never recovered. The eighties were just a second (or third) phase.

[KC_Conspirator]

Bullshit. A loud and overbearing 10% or less did this crap, and was lovingly overcovered by the media that made its own lefty transition at that time.

That is exactly right! I am sick and tired of hearing this nonsense. At least the other half served in Vietnam, raised families, voted Nixon, worked, etc.. They continued to build America while the other loud but low percentage dominated the media.

[TKDietz]

"What generation has watched this country slide into socialism in the past 50 years?"

Fifty years ago the oldest Baby Boomer was ten years old. Most hadn't been born yet. Forty years ago the oldest was twenty, and the youngest was one year old. The overwhelming majority were not of voting age in 1966. Thirty years ago the oldest was thirty, and the youngest was twelve. More than half were still under the age of eighteen, not even voting age, until the end of 1973. They weren't the politicians or the bureaucrats or the judges of the 60's and 70's. They weren't running our businesses. They weren't the important political thinkers. They weren't even that important as voters because young Boomers were no better than your generation or mine about voting. They've become increasingly more powerful through the eighties and nineties up until today. Now they are really starting to take the reins in this country. Most are actually still fifty and younger. The youngest is forty-one and the oldest is sixty. They're hitting their prime voting years. Soon they'll be the majority in both the Congress and the Senate. Sooner or later they'll become the majority in the Supreme Court. They'll be the elders running this country.

Probably most of what Baby Boomers are blamed for or given credit for, depending on the particular issue and how you look at it, really was done by people older than them. Now though is the time that the Boomers will really have their impact as leaders in this country. Now, and really probably for the next couple of decades, is the time when Baby Boomers are going to be running this country, setting policy, writing the laws, running big business, and so on. Maybe we should withhold judgment until we see how they handle it. All this Boomer bashing and blaming them for things they didn't do is neither fair, nor is it based in reality. The Boomer bashers on these forums need to check their facts. The more you dig, the more you will find that things blamed on Boomers from the sixties and seventies and even more recent times were in many if not most cases things done mostly by people born prior to 1946. The Boomers are getting a bum rap.

[Wilum]

AF TI in basics made us burn them in a trash can shortly after we arrived. Had a tough time explaining when I got out where my draft card was!

[TKDietz]

"Disagree big spenders of the 80's are gone, and many Boomers if anything might be spoiled. Most I know depend on there real property and inheritances more than pensions or savings accounts."

Considering that Boomers are now between the ages of 41 and 60, most you know are probably still working. I certainly don't know many people between those ages who are retired.

[TKDietz]

"John McPain.... just another symptom. That silly man just may be the next president."

You do realize that he is not a Baby Boomer, don't you? Jane Fonda isn't a Baby Boomer either, neither was Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, most of the musicians on the stage at Woodstock, and on and on and on. If you'll just take the time to look at who the real stand outs from the sixties were, the leaders, the biggest trouble makers, you'd find that almost all of them were born prior to 1946.

[TKDietz]

Robert Redford isn't a Baby Boomer. He was born in 1936.

[TKDietz]

"Yeah...I guess the 80s *would* be seen as greedy when people decided that they were fed up with being lectured and talked down to about how they had to give up everything for the comfort of elitists conscience....."

The funny thing is that the yuppie types in the 1980's were mostly Baby Boomers. The oldest of Generation X was 15 in 1980, and 24 by the end of 1989. The oldest Boomer was 34 in 1980 and 43 by the end of 1989. The youngest Boomer was 16 in 1980 and 25 by the end of 1989. Who do you think was doing all the work in the 1980's. Was it Gen X who started out in the 80's being between the ages of 0 and 15, or was it the Boomers who started out in the 80's being between the ages of 16 and 34? No Gen X'rs were old enough to vote for Reagan when he was first elected president, by the way. And only teenie percentage were old enough to vote for him in 1984, and like all other generations, those from Gen X weren't exactly out voting in droves when they were 18 or 19. I'm not really sure why some of Gen X insist on calling themselves Generation Reagan.

[TKDietz]

"Tune out Tune in whatever that was about was started by someone that was not a *Baby Boomer*"

That was Tomothy Leary, born in 1920.

[Alkhin]

Because I think it counts that despite what age a person is to vote, the prominent figures influencing perceptions at a time of becoming aware of the world around you defines how a generation sees themselves. I realize thats quite an ephemeral way of stating things for a generation and not something one can document through statistics. However, as I keep pointing out to people, the 'group' of people I grew up with remember the vast differences between the 70s and 80s. Just because I wasnt old enough to vote for Reagan doesnt mean I wasnt influenced by him, or that his administration didnt have relevance for me as I was entering the world as an adult. I was 14 in 1980 - but my age isnt included in the statistics you list - what does that make me? Sometimes, I think the 20 yr group I was born into should be the ones called the "Lost Generation" because now everything is defined as Pre-, Boomer, and Post- and people in the class I grew up in are just ones who didnt measure up.

I dont think it works any longer to do that. All I know is what I remember, and what I remember is a bunch of lefties getting the upper hand in society and creating a temperament that the newest generation is now trying to correct...and the point we GenXers/Generation Reaganites keep trying to make is that we may not have had political/social influence in the way the Boomers did, but we *ARE* out there - we remember - and we are doing it quietly and without the noise of the previous generation - WHOEVER the hell THEY are....

Thats all I wanted to say : I remember the 70s well enough, and remember how glad I was when Reagan and the 80s came along. I dont want to return to the 70s. It was bad enough the first time around.

[TKDietz]

Please post proof of your claims.

[TKDietz]

I'm only a couple of years older than you. I was a teenager in the 80's too. I wasn't that politically minded as a teen or as a younger man, nor were any of my peers back then that I can remember. Most of us don't start worrying about all that until we get older, as is evidenced by voting statistics which clearly show that young people tend to not even get out and vote, whereas the older people get on up through their fifties or so when it starts to even off, the more likely they are to actually exercise their right to vote.

We are part of Generation X, not that it matters. I think all this generation nonsense is nothing but that, nonsense. There were Baby Boomers in my graduating class in high school, and all of my older friends and siblings were Boomers. Were they any different from my friends and family born a little later? No. I think you hit on a pretty important point in one of your previous posts where you said something to the effect that it wasn't so much the Boomers you were upset about, it was the times, the sixties and seventies. Boomers, who were mostly just children in the sixties, were certainly not the cause of all the things that happened in those times. Most of the things that happened in the sixties and seventies happened because of people born prior to 1946. The kids born in the 60's sure weren't to blame for all the social upheaval of the sixties and early seventies. Mostly, the leaders, the people that really stuck out, those that were the driving force behind it all, were born prior to 1946. We can't blame them all either. No one generation is to blame.

People aren't so different from each other just because by accident of birth they happened to be born in different times. Things just happen. Times change. Our environment changes. People react. Movements begin and end. Whether you are born today or ninety years ago, you are a product of your times and will no doubt be influenced by what is going on around you.

We should all be held responsible for our actions, but assigning blame or credit to teenagers or youngsters in their early twenties for shaping policy is kind of silly. The "Reagan Generation" or "Generation X," of which we are both a part, cannot really accept blame or credit for what happened during Reagan's eight years in office. We were kids. We didn't elect Reagan. We did not create the political or social atmosphere of the times. Most of us weren't old enough to vote during those years and hardly any of us who were finally old enough to vote on his second term actually did. We studied. We worked. We partied. We chased members of the opposite sex. We did what young people have done for eons. The Baby Boomers were no different than us. The older Boomers just grew up in a different time than we did. But they put their pants on one leg at a time just like we did and for the most part went about life just like we did as young people.