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| As Boomers Age, Doubts About Their Legacy |
| 2005-12-11 |
| With my apologies to all the fine Boomers here. They partied and protested, then grew up to dominate America with their chutzpah and sheer numbers and their fantasy that sedition is a Constitutional right and a civic duty. 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. But I'm sure they're self-actualized enough to shake it off. The ferment of the '60s and '70s â when boomers changed the world, or thought they did â 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? Gee, ya think? Possibly? 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. You mean GenX doesn't worship us like the gods we are!? "There's a fear that there's going to be nothing left â 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." Oops! Oh well! The boomers â 78 million of them born from 1946 to 1964 â 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 â 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." More precisely, a large segment of the generation had the luxury of opting out, and still fail to be grateful for that luxury, or regret indulging where others sacrificed. Among the boomers turning 60 next year â along with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton â is Ron Kovic, who became an anti-war activist after being paralyzed by a combat wound in Vietnam in 1968. His autobiographical book "Born on the Fourth of July" became a hit film. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Kovic sees no reason for guilt or embarrassment as boomers take stock. "We have every reason to be proud," he said. "We were brash and bold and beautiful." Oh, barf. Now, Kovic says, his generation will revolutionize a different kind of '60s. "Often when people get older, they say to the younger generation, 'Well, it's your turn now,'" he said. "I feel very differently. Rather than just passing the torch, and saying we did our best, this generation â which dreamed such big, impossible dreams â refuses to step aside. It sees itself as part of change that it still passionately believes will occur." Yeah, wait till your kids stick your self-righteous rear end in a home. Reluctance to step aside could be a formidable phenomenon in coming years as many boomers seek self-fulfillment and civic engagement deep into old age. Listen to Dr. Terry Grossman, author of "The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever" and operator of a Denver anti-aging clinic. "As an official member of the boomer generation, I do not believe it was intended for us to die," said Grossman, 58. "We were special right from the get-go â dying wasn't part of our script." Let them eat cake! Grossman believes medical advances that will extend lifespans by several decades are perhaps 20 years away. Boomers, he said, are turning to fitness gurus, special diets and vitamin megadoses in hopes of staving off aging long enough to benefit. A particularly assertive breed of boomers dominates in Washington, D.C., according to Michael Franc, who works there for the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Boomers always struck me as very self-centered and self-important, because there are so many of us," said Franc, 48. "We're always in the middle of the next fun moment at some everlasting party, and we're not able to defer the gratification to tackle the long-term problems." Our kids could program our VCRs and TRS-80s, and by golly, they'll fix everything else too! Other boomers feel similar doubts about their generation's track record â and they want their new cause to be a shot at redemption. Boomer-led initiatives such as Civic Ventures are encouraging people over 50 to consider socially productive jobs and volunteer work rather than easing into traditional "golden years" retirement. Let me guess. Code Pink? International Solidarity Movement? The Catholic Worker? Please, buy a yacht and go away. "We've been killing ourselves working for hours on end for decades, caught up in the work-and-spend dynamic," said Marc Freedman, 47, Civic Ventures' founder. "But there's a chance for the boomers to reclaim their earlier legacy, and not be a drain on society," he said. "They could have a second coming in terms of social idealism, and find ways to contribute that mean something beyond themselves." Doesn't sound like he means babysitting the grandkids. In some realms, boomers already take pride in what they have bequeathed. Boomer women, for example, broke into many male-dominated fields on a broad scale and expanded options for those who follow. Susan Lapinski, editor of Working Mother magazine, cited her own two daughters, both in their 20s. "My heart lifts when I think about them," she said. "They see meaningful work as one of the ingredients of a happy life. They just assume their partner will be there to assist them." Oy. They can resign themselves to some manicured, dickless pseudo-men, then. Lapinski, 47, credits the boomers with starting the process of equalizing marriage, convincing fathers to help more with household affairs and child-raising. "Even if it's imperfect, it's a leap forward from the previous generation where dad went behind his newspaper after dinner and mom did all the bedtime rituals," she said. Yup, they equalized marriage all right. My father cheated on my mother, bankrupted her, divorced her, moved in next door with the same chick who sent death threats to Mom -- and still wonders why we can't all be one big happy family. It's his right to self-fulfillment, you see! Some boomer parents may have taken matters too far â obsessing over their children's education, activities and college prospects. "Did some of us try to create trophy kids? In some families, you'd have to say yes," Lapinski said. "In other families, though, there was a nice new emphasis on getting to know your kids, finding fun ways to spend time with them." Oh yes, it was really fun when I started spiking my purple hair and staying out all night with my drug addict friends. Of course, not all boomers welcomed the women's movement, just as the generation remains divided over abortion and gay rights. "What the boomers did is expand the range of individual choices of how people live," said Gillon, the historian from Oklahoma. "The division today between conservatives and liberals is really a debate over the boomers' legacy." Lisa Crooms, a Howard University Law School professor, is 43 and technically a boomer, though she doesn't feel like one. She was barely a toddler when the 1963 March on Washington inspired older black boomers. "The group before me and the group after me clash in certain ways," she said. "A lot of the people older than me take themselves much too seriously, a lot of the people younger than me have a sense of irreverence." Of boomers, she said, "Their control-freak aspect is too high. They're going to orchestrate how the legend is written, make the history books and say no one will need to revise them afterward." Nothing illustrates that boomer headlock on modern life quite like rock 'n' roll. Boomers didn't invent the genre, but they were the fans who made it so durable. Even as music remains youth-oriented, today's young people couldn't escape the 60-something Rolling Stones if they wanted to; Mick Jagger and the boys are even playing the Super Bowl. Long-gone idols such as Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison remain popular both with boomers and their kids. Hendrix and Morrisson? I'd be rather more awed if they'd had the will to crush the commie butchers in Vietnam and welcome home men better than themselves with ticker-tape parades. And wasn't that 40-something Madonna on top of the Billboard charts with her new album? Franc, the Heritage Foundation official, has tried to broaden his tastes, sampling new music recommended by a colleague in his 20s. "My kids don't like that I listen to their stuff," he said. "Their comfort level is higher when I frown at their music." DeCurtis, author of many memorable Rolling Stone profiles of rock stars, enjoys good camaraderie with his students at Penn and tries to stay to open to young people's music â but he's quick to defend the old favorites. "The Stones are tremendous," he said. "Someone tells me the Rolling Stones suck, they can't play, I tell them, 'Go see the show.'" Perhaps he should consider, when some young punk tells him the Stones suck, they're trying to convey something deeper about the suckiness of the era in general. But no matter how many classic rockers they see, DeCurtis and other boomers to have to admit that both the performers and the times have changed. The explosion of energy that began in the '60s is just a memory. "Even as a kid, there really was a sense that things were getting better and we were part of it," DeCurtis said. "There was something about being out there protesting the war and thinking you were going to stop the government that made you grow up." And thanks to this attitude, GenXers (a) have the sense that feel-good leftie twaddle made things much worse, (b) understand that there are things worse than "The Government," and (c) realize that, while these hippies are spending their fifth decade smoking dope at anti-war rallies, it falls to us to get off our duffs before it all caves in. Howard Mechanic, a former Vietnam War activist who lived as a fugitive for 28 years, fondly remembers the adrenaline rush of full-bore protest. Must be like the adrenaline rush of a third full-bore deployment. "Now the urgency isn't there," said Mechanic, 57, of Prescott, Ariz. "A lot of people in college, they haven't had to change to be where they are. ... We had to change our lives to do what we wanted to do." So, so brave. Some boomers, like Calvin Street â a 55-year-old Naval veteran who runs an inner-city youth program in Baltimore â wonder what happened to that can-do attitude and optimism. "When did the war on poverty end?" he asked. "Maybe things just fizzled out, and we got to the point where we said, 'Well, we didn't change as much as we could, but it's OK,' and we walked away." Yeah, it's okay. Only half the world is itching to nuke us into oblivion. Let me just say, thank you to all you decent boomers who somehow survived the age with your judgment intact. |
| Posted by:ST |
| #33 RWV: Wow! Best post out of a great bunch on this thread. 1953 & couldn't agree more. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2005-12-11 22:22 |
| #32 Ah hm... (b)1956 - enjoyed the early years.... It was pretty good living until Carter screwed it up with a rose garden and 27% interest and 100% inflation over his term... As to fun and youth culture and parties - I plead guilty and would not have exchanged that time for the world..... But, everybody needs to move on... These folks you are upset with didn't... Most did. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-12-11 22:18 |
| #31 My dad (b.1930, fought in tail end of WWII), never fails to give me grief about how my generation (late boomer, 1955) screwed the country up. I never argue with him about this because he's right. That said, I give him grief about having wanted to impeach Nixon because it was his generation doing that which threw away the hard-earned victory my generation won in Vietnam. Dad's lib tendencies finally flickered out in the 70's with Carter. We both remember me as a high school kid cheering like crazy at Christmas 1972 about the fact that America had finally gotten the courage to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong the way we should have in 1965. He didn't see the bombing as a good idea then; now he does. Poor judgment, then, isn't a sin limited solely to boomers. Yes, all those of you who are ticked off at the boomers have some pretty serious evidence on your side. Just remember that not all of us in that age category were in favor of that PLHM garbage and some of us have been fighting against it all our adult lives. I guarantee you this: no one was happier than this conservative boomer when Reagan was elected in 1980. At the time I truly believed that another term of Carter would have doomed us as a nation and I made it a point to be back in the US from overseas to vote against that boneheaded peanut farmer. Every passing year since then has made me more grateful to Reagan and more contemptuous of Carter. I think 1980 was the year that a lot of the boomers realized that it was time that the adults got back in charge of the country. It didn't make up for the idiocy of the 60's and 70's but at least it started us back on the path to sanity. |
| Posted by: mac 2005-12-11 21:50 |
| #30 Born in 48, I believe that those who are normally classed as "boomers" are the cowards who hid behind 2S deferments while better men went to war, who founded the "Peace Movement" to demonize the military so they could feel self-righteous and superior in their cowardice, and who caused America to lose, for the first and only time, a war. I don't count myself, my wife, or my friends as "boomers" Some good things came out of the 60s, civil rights, women's rights, electronics, and men on the moon. But along with that came the "Great Society", the abdication of personal responsibility that has seriously damaged the American family, abortion, and a plague of ACLU lawyers out to destroy American culture and the American way of life. Only time will tell what history will say about the "boomers", but the only legacy we leave is our children, and to borrow a phrase: the kids are all right. |
| Posted by: RWV 2005-12-11 21:08 |
| #29 Being at the tail end of the Boomers I grew up watching the older kids just screw things up. The drugs, protests, hippies, etc⦠I could remember in High School my class mates commenting on having to constantly cleaning up after our older brothers and sister. Our parents were a wreck, drugs, divorce, anti establishment, and on and on. We knew this would be ours to fix. Regan gave us a breath of hope, but Clinton and the rest of the âI can justify anything if it makes me feel goodâ crowd will continue to create the messes we the next generation will have to fix. As the Boomers settle into running our colleges, media, and politics, we will eventually have to fix it all over again. My only breath of hope is the generation of the young men and women I see every day in the junior ranks of our military and in my children. They may love Nintendo more that hiking and have no idea what a Schwinn is, but they know the score and understand better the future than we do. They are paying for it in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and all over the world. After the war is pushed into containment that will never end, they will be the ones to pay for it. They will do it just like they are doing today. They quietly fight the war with no fanfare and will have to put the Boomer generation follies right. They will, of course, do it right because they have no choice. |
| Posted by: 49 pan 2005-12-11 19:30 |
| #28 I was born 9/46 - one of the "early" "boomers". Things didn't really start going downhill until the mid-1950's. It started in the cities and moved very slowly into the countryside. The "peace, love, and happiness" bullshit was a rebellion against religion and God, part in response to changes wrought by the Great Depression and WWII. I see it in my kids - the need for THINGS, instead of anything intangible. It's as if they can't believe in it if it's not hard plastic or shaped metal. As for the music, some of it's good, and some of it's filth, just as it's been in generation after generation. The same is true of literature, although it appears good literature is harder and harder to find. The Gen-Xers, on the other hand, seem to be retreating into a "virtual world", where you can undo mistakes with the touch of a finger. The biggest condemnation I can level on my fellow "boomers" is that those that "everybody" talks about were the ones that never grew up, never accepted responsibility for their actions, and never had to accept the burdens the rest of us shouldered. They're still acting like spoiled children. No wonder so many of THEIR children dispise them. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-12-11 18:29 |
| #27 A huge subset of generation X,Y...is not much better. Have a look at the TV or take a course in any university. There's a huge population growing up believing that problems can be solved with resources created out of thin air. Got a problem? Just throw more money at it. It grows on trees after all. Social unrest in some 3rd world dump? It's Nike's fault because they're not paying their workers a fair wage. Allow me to introduce you to The Yes Men. The gen-X version of the boomer types the article talks about, but FAR more sophisticated. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-12-11 17:59 |
| #26 c-low..wow, good post. I think you pretty much summarized the legacy of the "peace love and happiness movement, PLHM. Bravo! My only complaint would be for you not to be so hard on the "Greatest Generation". Though your complaints are valid - I'm a bit tired of the blame mommy and daddy syndrome. They're just like any generation, yours, mine, theirs, who-evers. Despite good efforts, they f**& things up. You will too. Best to acknowledge the good and move on. I think the problem was that the media megaphone was so loud that made it impossible for them to pass any wisdom on to their kids. The PLHM grew up and became what they hated: Hypocrites who find self-righteousness in blaming others as unpure. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-12-11 17:53 |
| #25 Im a young buck and petty much most people I know in my age group literally have some hate for the I dont call them baby boomers I disagree with that becuase thier was alot of good people in that group I call them the "peace love and happiness movement". They were propogandized by the Soviet propoganda so deep they dont even know when they are trupiting the propoganda. some examples: all evil greed, corruption, jealously is explained as the evil dollars fault when in actuality it is "human Nature" been going on since long before money was ever even thought of, but to them its all the dollars fault. Soviet propoganda becuase if you could just get rid of money and make everyone equal these human natures would disapear is pure fallacy and proven so in Soviet Russia her self and anywere else it was tried. All coorporations are evil everything is just a big conspiracy of the man to keep everyone down. Rich people are evil and poor people are somehow angelic victims, middle class well they are just wanna bee evil rich. The US gov is inherently evil and imperalist. The US is not really the good guys WW1 was really about evil coorporations, WW2 was really about Roosevelt forcing Japan to attack, our forefathers genocided the Indians, the Forefathers owned Slaves, blah blah blah from the belief in these truths came a guilt that once they began to get real power made punishment of my generation the norm example: (I agree slavery was wrong and seperate but equal was a oxymoron your either equal or not period) but guilt of the peace love and happiness people forced my generation onto busses every morning and afternoon across town past multiple schools all in the name of meeting some BS diversity quota, saw reverse racism make white males second class citizens to everyone else (and that else has come to be everyone short white males the root of the white devil I guess I dont know the reasoning but to see companies and gov especially see more benifit in one person not because they are more qualified but a double minority status is freekin retarted) Quotas have seen minorities get promotions and colledge support when other more qualified didnt simple becuase they were the wrong color. The self hate and guilt that the gov which only existed originally at least to protect the US citizens from foriegners, negotiate with foreigners in the name of the people for the good of those people not the foreigners, to protect US interest over sea's like the Barbary wars it was about protection of US shipping in the Med. The idea that the US cant go to war to secure our economic future here at home makes no sence at all like saying we dont deserve our way of life even though we have it becuase generations before us faught and worked hard for it, only pure self hating guilt can justify such retarded thinking. The whole idea that the weakest omong us must be taken care of by the strongest. Of course history and human nature says that if you dont force people to make the sacrifises needed to survive by allowing them to suffer they never will. And another human nature is that if you see one person do something and seems good idea to you you copy that. Welfare didnt help anyone out of the ghetto it just garanteed their survival multiplication and growth of those sucking on those who are working hard to survive and making it harder for those who are trying to come up becuase they are forced to carry these slugs that choose not to suffer and work. Of course the failure of this plan is not admitted but just claimed as evidence of the racism even though huge numbers of non-minorities has also jumped on this tity but then its just rolls to class warfare evil rich. I think someone with common sence of human nature once said "give a man a fish feed him for a day show a man how to fish feed him for a lifetime". Common sence is a bad word in the LLL's mentality. Everyithing bad or weak has an excuse. Kill someone well they were abused as a child, ehh who cares kill emm so the next guys knows better. Everybody has a excuse no one takes responsibility for themselves and thier actions resulting in more irresponsibility and more bad actions. Their goals of self indulgence and living for the moment has through hollywood and other have decimated the traditional family, literally crumbled the education system, raised crime and drug use to all time highs after all life is about enjoying the moment right. They say Iraq is out of control with no security I dare them to get in thier car and drive to thier cities housing project around 3at night and tell me the cops are in control more like barely containment. The govs job is to protect everyone from every little thing has regulated our lives to the point were my friend spent 11k on permits for a 50k trailer WTF. Everything the peice love and happiness movement has done has been proven as a failure all thier ideas. However as long as they control the Education systems, Hollywood and the Media thier ideas will still be pushed a protion of every generation including mine will be polluted and propogandized. I dont think thier is much that could be done about Hollywood and the Media they are coorporations and more gov is never good and could very well if implemented be turned the other way it will work itself out in time I believe however education needs some changes big time I think nationalism should be taught in shcools mandatory. A nationalist class would basicly be US history concentrating on the good points not the bad. The US from the start has totally revolutionized the world for the better with freedom and liberties this should be taught along with all the wars that it took to not only garantee our own survival but spread those beliefs, like how after WW2 we didnt claim the whole world for ourselves or even make them proxies like the Soviets did we setup those nations with free democratic govs. All of this should be taught from a US point of view NO objective both sides crapola, this one aspect is the most dangerous to our nation I fully believe in time the domestic issues will work themselves out but Iraq has demonstrated how our foreign policy and literaly our survival has been threatened by the peace love and happiness movement thier self hate cripples our ability to defend ourselves from real bad guys in the world and unlike domestic issues when you loose on the foreign policy you may not get to work it out you have new masters. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2005-12-11 16:47 |
| #24 sorry, but the music still rocks - Led Zep and Stones and...... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-11 16:26 |
| #23 Don't forget Peyton Place and wife swapping, which hit TV before I was a teen. And Dr's Little Helpers - the ideal of a generation of housewives and their doctors dealing with malaise pre-feminism via barbituates. It only happened among the upper class and especially upper middle class, but it set a social tone for their kids. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-12-11 15:42 |
| #22 Good, It's settled. There's no real baby boomers at the 'burg. But I've got to admit, it's pretty awesome what they did before they were 30. Civil rights, no credit to Marty King or A. Phillip Randolph or any of those guys, envirowackism, no credit to Rachel Carson or Gaylord Nelson, the sexual revolution, no credit to Carl Djerassi or Crick and Watson. Sorry folks, the boomers only did what any other generation of teens would do if they got the chance. The difference? There was no adult supervision around to say NO. Where were all the supposed grown-ups of the Greatest Generation? In addition to the above, they were throwing God out of the schools, and putting unions in them, making divorce no-fault, bankrupting the country with a "war on poverty" and the new welfare state, while starting real wars they decided not to fight or finish honorably either. It seems to me the "Greatest" generation left one hell of a mess for the boomers to clean up. At least some of them finally realized how badly they had screwed things up and joined with the boomers to elect Ronald Reagan president. The boomers can't really be held responsible for much except pop music until 1990. Since then, things haven't gone too badly. At least the Boomers have elected people who can be reelected and finish their terms. Now the boomers will have to clean up the remaining mess from the New Deal/Great Society, Social Security and Medicare, public education, broken families and envirowackoism and sticking with it to see the war on terrorism through to a finish so the next "Greatest Generation" may bask in its post-war reflected glory while it lets the country go to hell. There is nothing new under the Sun. |
| Posted by: Hupurt Whavilet5379 2005-12-11 15:28 |
| #21 Born 1954. It's all about growing up. Some people (boomers in particular, but others as well) did not. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2005-12-11 14:43 |
| #20 WELL SAID, Sgt. Mom. Dave: To paint us all as one amorphous blob of zoned-out, tofu-nibbling, granola-munching, whale-saving, commie pinko peace pimp free-love tie-died stoners is utter bullshit. I don't think these people were ever the majority - they just got all of the attention. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-12-11 14:34 |
| #19 Of boomers, she said, "Their control-freak aspect is too high. They're going to orchestrate how the legend is written, make the history books and say no one will need to revise them afterward." As a GenX'er, it sounds to me like Proff. Crooms sort of hit the nail on the head. The Nany State IS the Boomer legacy. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2005-12-11 14:16 |
| #18 Ahhhh...key-rist! I was born in 1954, hit college in 1972, worked with Vietnamese refugee resettlement in 1975, joined the Air Force in 1976... The rock music was cool, the civil rights for women and minorities were cool--- and about damn damn time--- but why do I feel like I have spent thirty years of my life cleaning up after these drug-addled, self-centered, indulgent assholes? It's been kind of like following along with a mop and broom after an elephant stampede has smashed, flattened, and crapped over everything in sight. But I am sure they had a wild time, god knows they've been telling everyone who will listen how wonderful they are for changing everything. It's just some of those changes weren't at all in a good way. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2005-12-11 13:56 |
| #17 What Dave said LOL. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-12-11 13:47 |
| #16 Where the hell's my bat?????????? I'd like to bash idiots like this AP "journalist" who lump everybody from my generation into one stupid, undifferentiated mob called "Boomers." I was born in '49, grew up dirt-poor. Enlisted in the Army and did my three years, then worked full-time to support a family while going to college full-time. Like what Bobby said: there is absolutely NOTHING in any of the views expressed by the dingalings interviewed for this article that I can identify with, AT ALL, and people like those were NOT like most of the people I knew in my generation. To paint us all as one amorphous blob of zoned-out, tofu-nibbling, granola-munching, whale-saving, commie pinko peace pimp free-love tie-died stoners is utter bullshit. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-12-11 13:41 |
| #15 No, the passion comes through as it is. And that's okay - BUT, but, but ... could you PLEASE distinguish those destructive, self-absorbed attitudes and the people who hold them from others of us who happen to have been born at the same time -- and who have had to put up with them longer than you have????? Thanks. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-12-11 13:18 |
| #14 guess I should have proof read it. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-12-11 12:57 |
| #13 There is an advertisement currentlyy running on TV for Boomers that makes me just want to barf. They have all of these aging, but hip boomers, with 1960esque clips, in a party atmosphere, as if protesting, and rock and roll in the background. Then the announcer comes on and says something like, a generation as special as yours, needs a financial advisor who can meet you special socially conscious-like needs. Bleah. Could there be a shorter and more concise indictment of the boomer generation? You can just invision some young punk 20ish advertiser, pandering to the youthful delusions that of his target audience. Yeah, you fought the man - now well allow the delusion continue to fight it, rather than acknowledging that you grew up to become everything you claimed to be against. Rock on, brother. I think Boomer Generation is an apt title. Their unwillingness to move past the faux-rage of adolescence to deal with world crisis in a meaningful way has created the AQ and the real "Boomer Generation". |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-12-11 12:54 |
| #12 boomer here too (1959) - my Legacy? My three children, who are three of the finest people you could ever meet (despite my influence, heh). Unlike some, I know it's not all about meeeee. I'm gonna leave the world a better place with them here |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-11 12:29 |
| #11 F*ck 'boomer's' legacies. I am a 'boomer.' I'm working like the very devil to undo their goddam legacy. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-12-11 11:54 |
| #10 (Disclaimer: I'm a boomer) I look at how the WWII generation sacrificed and saved civilization. I look at the men and women of Gen X & Y fighting for their country and to defeat tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then I look at some of the self-absorbed assholes in my generation. It doesn't exactly inspire pride. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2005-12-11 11:48 |
| #9 Legacy? Uh, pay for your own retirement benefits and pills instead of making your grandkids do it? Stop voting for socialism? Finally grow up? |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2005-12-11 11:41 |
| #8 Yes, and some of us started out as liberals. In fact, that's the origin of the neo-con movement - the idea that national defense, promotion of democracy and concern for the structural problems in society could go hand in hand. The paleocons hated us, with a passion - especially the WASP set, but also the northeastern Catholic elite, the NRO crowd. The liberals hated us even more, but figured they could write us off. We're still here, we're boomers and we're not going away - for a while yet, anyway. We're not going to retire early and bleed our kids' generation either - a lot of us are working our asses off to sustain the economy, promote national defense and ensure we pay our way into old age. I won't be inheriting a dime from anyone, have buried both my parents and am supporting an uninsured 29 yr old's longterm medical expenses, not to mention paying for past indiscretions that person committed. I repaid my student loans, worked my way through my undergrad and grad degrees one at a time, stayed in my first and only marriage 31 years now and can't stand the attitudes quoted in that article. OTOH I'm not too thrilled at being lumped in with them, either. And being a baby boomer wasn't all peaches and cream for those of us not born with a suburban silver spoon in our mouths: we competed with each other for scholarships, jobs, mates, promotions ... But yeah, many of us were shit-poor parents, overindulged as kids by parents in reaction to the depression years and WWII, self-aborbed, coddled and obnoxious. I don't blame the kids of those boomers for being mad as hell. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-12-11 11:35 |
| #7 but, your beautiful Neo Cons are boomers |
| Posted by: bk 2005-12-11 11:24 |
| #6 Same here, Bobby. I don't relate with anything these people say. I entered college later than most people I graduted High School with as well as a lot of others from that time. The naivete and of our fellow underclassmen and in some cases the outright hatred of us who served in the military was something we just couldn't understand. These were the "If we just sit down and talk to our enemies we can all get along" bunch and they haven't changed today. They are still under the delusion we can talk to the Islamofascists and they will understand and we can all hug and sing Kumbaya. They absolutey do not believe the Islamofascists mean what they say and it is all our fault anyway and if we just apologise to them the world will go back to the '50s. These are the same people who look down their noses at people who at people who don't think being a flaming liberal is a GREAT THING and being a Conservative is the bottom rung of the intellectual ladder. Their attitude of Moral Superiority makes me barf. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-12-11 11:19 |
| #5 If they want to work on their legacy, they could start by feeding the poor. I don't mean "buy the poor some food," I mean "report to the slaughterhouse and let them render your flesh into hamburger." I HATE the boomers. I sometimes wonder if the fact that their parents spawned them doesn't entirely negate that whole "WWII/saving the world from tyranny" thing. I think you're coming out about even here, Grampa. Understand that I am not canvassing every individual born in that time frame. We know who they are. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-12-11 10:58 |
| #4 Oh... my... god... Sickening. Absolutely revolting people they quote in the article, the crème del a crème of the most obnoxious, self-important pricks I'll ever have the displeasure of reading about; I couldn't read the whole thing, it's that bad to me. I only wish I could move my birthday 43 days so I am not technically one of them. 'Scuse me while I throw up now... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-12-11 10:51 |
| #3 I'm with Bobby, if a year younger. I also think it is early to write the story on boomers. Before this is over, they will countenance the substantial dismantling of Social Secuity/Medicare and many of the most long lived will die in reduced circumstances, if not out right poverty. |
| Posted by: Grunter Hupinegum9915 2005-12-11 10:05 |
| #2 Gee, I was born in 1949 and find nothing to identify with in the above-described bunch of boomers. I did like rock and roll. "Doubts about their legacy" How self-absorbed! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-12-11 09:49 |
| #1 I've had my doubts about the boomers for a long time. We have a lot of cultural s&%t to mop up in the next few decades. X'ers uber alles! |
| Posted by: whitecollar redneck 2005-12-11 09:43 |