[Miss Marple]

Part of the reason that there aren't that many Viet Nam Vets in Congress is that anyone in Congress under age 45 is too young to have been a Viet Nam vet. Also, there are many veterans in Congress who did not serve in Viet Nam (Steve Buyer is one).

The reason I am speaking up is that I have seen too much inter-generational friction on this forum, and it is caused by people attributing all manner of evil to the Boomers. It is no more valid to tar my generation with one brush than it was for some of the Boomers to say "don't trust anyone over 30."

[CasearianDaoist]

I am a Boomer too. How could my comments cause "inter-generational friction." I cannot make sense out of your remark about 45. Anyone that is in there early forties is just on the very last edge of being a boomer. When we take about Boomers' we are generally talking about people in their 50's. Are you saying that the average age of congress or the people with real power are 45? Of course they are not, they are in their fifties or sixties, particulalry in the Senate. The reason why there are few vets in congress is that they are not indicative of the the boomer generation. It is not because they are under 45. In the corridors of power, few reach the upper offices in their mid-forties

The influence of the left on the boomers is indicated by the fact that the Democrats made the generation shift to power in the early nineties while the conservative side of the Boomer generation made the shift later.

The sad fact is that the establishment is chuck full of liberal boomers and they have come to charterize the our generation at this point, not the conservative side.

And generations, like nations, have a character, it does not apply to every member of it, of course, but it is quite possible - and even necessary - to characterize groups, and that includes generations. We can with some accuracy describe the Victorians as opposed to their "surrounding generations. History will do the same to our generation, like it or not.

And given the problems that our generation has cause, I should not be surprised to find generatio friction, here or elsewhere, and things will tend more toward this as we retire. THat is why this election is so important (or one of the reasons) if Bush can win and we can "finish the Regan Revolution," so to speak, or reverberation through American history and who we are judged by those that come after us will be radically different than if there were a reemergence of the left and they should shape our future.