The Last Boomer?

Townhall.com ^ | May 9, 2012 | Michael Medved

[DustyMoment]

But, Obama is a throwback to the heavy duty boomers. For us “tail enders” he would have found himself with his underwear pulled up over his shoulders.

Gee, I LOVE hasty generalizations. They're usually wrong!!

I'm an early boomer and have been conservative all my life. How does that fit into your "tarring with a broad brush"??

The fact is that every large group is comprised of individuals. Some fit your perceptions, others don't. I guess you haven't figured that part out with all your intellectual elitist snobbishness. We're all different and hasty generalizations just make you look ill-informed.

[DustyMoment]

And of course their kids (the precious baby boomers) criticized them for that.

Please give specific examples. A LOT of the accusations surrounding boomers actually belong elsewhere, so, I'd like to see what you are talking about.

[Vermont Lt]

Hey, old guy....take your Geritol. Calm down.

Of course I know that there were conservative members of the baby boomers. But your whining proves my point.

You know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Look at your peers and tell me they are an easy group to deal with.

You obviously are the exception. Except for the whiney part.

[DustyMoment]

Ok, what whining?

You keep going after hasty generalizations and don’t give specifics.

As for your arrogance, just remember that your day is coming.

And YOU will be the “whiney old guy”!

Asd for Geritol, I don’t take it. I have type II diabetes from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam and can’t take a lot of crap like that. A Lt. might know something about warfare.

[Vermont Lt]

The whining about my post. You are still doing it.

Thanks for your service.

Really, I am kidding you. You are not an old guy. But you have to admit that some of your hippie cohorts were a little off the reservation.

Now go get some rest.

(just kidding, again.)

[DustyMoment]

I had no hippie cohorts. The hippie movement was overblown and comprised of a minority of boomers.

However, the press loved them more than the rest of the boomer class.

Thus, the enduring press, urban myth and adulation for a movement that was the forerunner of today’s OWS “heroes”.

[Vermont Lt]

Ok you win. The Boomers are the most wonderful generation ever.

Evidently you have not done much research on demographics. The science of demographics is, by definition, generalization of groups of similar folks.

Go do some reading, and we can have a mature discussion about “generations.”

[geege]

Well I was born in 62 and I have to say we had the best music, concerts, Camaro’s and Reagan was the first President I voted for.....Life was really good back then......

[Nowhere Man]

And that’s barely even close at all. They were/are both Veeps and not even born in the 30s.

It’s weird, isn’t it? 10 years of births and yet not one of those millions (tens of millions?) of people ever lead this country.

I wonder if there are other instances of that earlier in our history.

My parents were older than yours, born in 1926, but they didn’t have children until the late 50s, rather old for that time.

I know, that is something, they barely have a toehold on the leadership at all. It seems like in the Presidency, we went directly from the World War II generation to the Baby Boomers.

[Nowhere Man]

If you want to see “silent generation” (born 1925 to 1945)leadership, then start running the birth dates of the famous Hippies, bands, musicians, activists, etc, of the 1960s and early 1970s, when boomers Sarah Palin and Obama, were little kids.

You have a point, IIRC, Abbie Hoffman was born in 1936, Jane Fonda in 1937,Gloria Steinem in 1934, Charlie Manson in 1934, William Ayers in 1944 (very tail end I know), BErnadine Dohrn in 1942.

[Nowhere Man]

Well I was born in 62 and I have to say we had the best music, concerts, Camaro’s and Reagan was the first President I voted for.....Life was really good back then......

Born in 1966, I hear ya!

[ansel12]

Wait till you look at the musicians, John Denver, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Paul & Mary, Grace Slick, Neil Young , Beatles, Van Morrison, Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia, Pete Townsend, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Jimmy Page, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, and on and on and on....

[DustyMoment]

The Boomers are the most wonderful generation ever.

I didn't say that, either. If you're going to jump from extreme to extreme, DON'T put words in my mouth!

When you read the perceptions that people have about boomers, the following things come out - we're the most selfish generation ever because, in the 60s, we voted to bankrupt SS so we could have LOTS and LOTS of taxpayer provided goodies. And, yet, if you research the demographics (and do a little math), when LBJ declared his War on Poverty that blew the lock off of SS, the oldest boomers were just reaching voting age. We didn't have any impact on SS other than paying the bill, like everyone else.

People often overlook the fact that MANY of the ideas that evolved into the radical philosophies of the hippies were outgrowths of the 50s' Beatniks. Hippies weren't even original in that, they just co-opted and extended the ideas of the Beatniks.

Then, we are told that all we ever did was take and contribute nothing to society. But, desktop computers, cell phones, VCRs, DVDs, CDs, and the Internet are but a few of our contributions. I know first hand because I worked on many of them.

All we are ever told is that we are the generation of the hippies. Perhaps so, but most of us weren't self-involved hippies - just the likes of Nancy Pelosi and the Rapist-in Chief, Bubba Clinton. Fast forward 30 years; how will Gen X & Yers feel about being blamed for the OWS crowd?? Is that to be their big contribution to society?? Given the DBM coverage OWS has received, they can count on it!!

[Vermont Lt]

No, I did not say any of those things. Go read some demographic history about the characteristics of eac 22 year generational cycle. It’s actually pretty interesting.

Stop taking the comments so personally. Do some research about the subject. Believe it or not, you are but a tiny, tiny, spec in a large pool.

[DustyMoment]

No, I did not say any of those things.

So, you did not send that line to me? Nor did you say the following?

Ok you win. The Boomers are the most wonderful generation ever.

My bad, I must have misread them elsewhere. I know that you did not say any of the rest of the things I covered in my rant but, those are common misperceptions about boomers that I frequently encounter here at FR. That's why I responded as I did.

You tell me not to take things so personally but, in my experience on this website, everytime someone posts a generational story, baby boomers are characterized as being the worst, most useless, selfish nonentities that ever walked the face of the earth. So, not believing that to be true, I am going to take it personally. Whether by choice, or by a circumstance of birth, when people take a broad brush to tar all boomers, it includes me.

Finally, demographics are just numbers and numbers can be turned, twisted and manupulated to show whatever anyone wants to show. When it comes to "statistics" such as demographics, those are the very first things I discount. I look more at history and behavior.

In the mid- to late-50s, the Beatniks were a relatively significant movement in many of the major cities of the eastern seaboard (NYC and Boston to name two major centers) as well as LA and San Francisco on on the west coast. They may have spread as far north as Seattle, but I am not certain of that. From the coffeehouses of the 50s, many of the Beatniks graduated from college, then took their radical ideas of "Question Everything" as well as their embrace of socialism into college campuses where they became professors and assistant professors; disseminating their ideas to the future hippies of the day. This is where the hippies acquired a lot of their radical ideas. In the 50s, socialism was considered a "trendy" philosophy that sucked in many elites of the day. The McCarthy hearings caught up many Hollyweird celebrities who had no clue what socialism was about, but joined up because it was a trendy thing to do.

The Beatniks did not becaome a movement the size of the hippie movement because the social mores of the 50s kept them relatively suppressed in public. However, those same mores did not control what they did in college classrooms and that's where the hippies were exposed to them. The rest we know.