Another Reason I Hate the Boomers
June 5, 2008
Revere has a post up over at Effect Measure wondering if the Presidential candidacy of Barack Obama can return us to a sense of optimism akin to that of the sixties.
But the midwife was Camelot, the Presidency of the charming, young, dynamic JFK. Politically, Kennedy was an inveterate Cold Warrior and from a progressive point of view he was no prize. What he was, was a master of soaring and idealistic rhetoric. And the rhetoric unhooked the fasteners of Pandora’s Box and out flew Hope and Idealism and a sense of empowerment, particularly for the young.
We’re feeling it revere, we truly are. Much of the appeal of the Obama candidacy is this promise of a return to a time of pride, hope and optimism in our collective future. The DM, however, tosses a wet blanket in a comment:
Are we who came to political awareness in a climate of the “failed” Carter admin and Reagan nightmare irretrivably cynical? Can Obama reach the all critical GenX? And let us have our Camelot?
To which revere responded:
Lots of people between the two eras kept the fires burning. They weren’t the spirit of their times but of an earlier time but they (you) were incredibly important.
Not politically, my grizzled warrior, oh no. I agree with the DM. I’m a Gen X’er. Which Wikipedia defines as those born between 1965-1982. Perhaps a tad generous on the ass-end but good enough. As the DM notes, GenX was coming to political awareness in the Carter administration; for many of us, the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency was an all defining political event. And I mean ALL defining.
I just don’t get all the canonizing of Reagan, the blithe trippers after his death mouthing the “Morning in America” shit. I have no such recollection. I thought this idiot actor was a fucking nightmare and he proceeded over the next 8 years to prove me correct. From dismantling our social compact, to pitting Americans against each other and to committing the fundamental crime of attacking our Constitutional separation of powers..a nightmare. The list goes on an on. And then we got Bush I and the economy tanked to boot. Fuck!!!!
In short, Gen X had a formative political climate of unbelievable cynicism and depression, almost a disbelief over how our country could be moving so fast into such a bass-ackward place. Twelve long years of dashed hopes. Pathetic, dismal grey Democratic offerings leading our side. Mondale? Dukakis? We were supposed to be excited about Paul Fucking Tsongas? Jesus Christ!
Bill. Ahh, Bill. Finally a little hope. Younger, cooler, smarter and (we found out) he could tie those motherfuckers up in knots, politically. But they got him too, didn’t they? That stupid ass Contract on America and the rise of the fucknards taking over Congress and hamstringing his Presidency. I don’t want to be too greedy or whiny. Bill proved the point. He got us charged up and turned that shit around. It still sucked though. All that opportunity lost in the dwindling years of Monica-gate.
Couldn’t last though, could it. They got us in 2000. With another faux affable shit-in-burrito-clothing. And look what that got us.
It is all the Boomers fault. And this is why I hate those motherfuckers with a generational vengeance. They are the big ass generation of voters that let this happen. Hell, they begged for much of this to happen. And they were the right age and size to really damage this country.
Coming of mature age in the 70’s and early 80’s they looked around and said “Fuck it, I want mine”. And so they stopped taxing themselves so that they could spend all their money on blow and BMWs. They delayed child rearing, opted out altogether or shuffled their kids behind “their needs”. Instead of working to build shit they took jobs as lawyers, stock brokers and other “professional” high paid gigs that didn’t actually help the social compact. No personal obligation, no ties to community and a rampant ethos of self-involved, self-congratulatory constant fucking pleasure seeking.
And those motherfuckers ruined our country by dissolving the sense of community that JFK had unleashed. The fought back in the sixties, oh yes they did. Every time you turned around there was another political death match. But they did it because they loved the community, the social compact. Yeah, even those anti-communist nutjobs loved America. And then you Boomers, especially you second half jerkwads, decided to pack it in. Fuck the community, you said, I’m in it for ME! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you shits. Too much having to listen to “the Greatest Generation” and how they sacrificed? I dunno. Something went wrong in your heads. So you went turbo-selfish.
The worst thing is, you Boomer stains took our optimism away. We had no hope to make a chance, and we didn’t. Not in 84, not in 88. Too small of a generation and too small a part of the electorate anyway. Bush I fucked up so bad even the selfish bastards clued in a bit; good thing Perot was there to take your dumbass votes!
But you got us again. You kept right on voting the tax cutters in, refused to admit why Clinton was turning the economy around, refused to credit the power of social-compact optimism. Oh yes, my friends who jump through hypocritical mobius strip pretzals trying to explain how chronic Republican recessions alleviated by one Democratic President, were really the result of electing Ronnie in 1980…optimism is the economic tool of the President. Bill used that tool and that is what made the ship turn around and bail our asses out of the Republican-spend-and-not-tax deficits.
That, and people who make shit. Build things. Work to contribute instead of sucking off the teat like the Boomer Yuppie fuck professionals. And who was that? None other than GenX. We were the ones who, in giving up on what appeared to be useless political fights, buckled down. We built the information tech revolution and the biotech one as well. We were the intellectual workhorses who didn’t want to go to law school but wanted to make shit. And to make shit happen. We got a little bit of extra education, maybe, kicked around a little bit more…but then we got down to bizziness. We went back to service roles too. Served our communities. Went into academics in droves, drawn by research. Hi tech, biotech, research science. We didn’t buy Beemers. We didn’t buy coke.
We built community too. We waited a little while, but then we started having families. Unlike the Boomers, we’re having 3 kids, not 1. We prioritize those little wackaloons too. We don’t push them to the back of our self-fucking-indulgences. And that means we spend our time on community too. We have too, because those selfish tax-lowering Boomers left us with shit school systems, shit infrastructure, family neighborhoods converted to condo projects and all kinds on non-community desolation. And that is just in the motherfucking good neighborhoods! Did I mention the Boomers are my generational enemy?
So we are not a generation of big optimism, revere. We lost all those battles to the selfish Boomers. We buckled down, though, and moving into our midlives now, we can take some pride. We’ve planted our GenerationX flag and said “enough” to the Boomer fucks. The tech revolution, true, but also in little ways. Humble ways. Hometown and local ways. Just not politically.
I don’t know if we are turning in the tide, nevermind winning. And we have no reason for big optimism, we don’t need it. We are gettin ‘er done. But not on the policy front. Not necessarily in the halls of power.
I still want to hope though. I want my Camelot, just like the DM said. Obama elevates us and, yes, gives us hope. Hope that this lingering Boomer Presidential candidate can become our JFK. Can he?
I fucking hope so.
June 6, 2008 at 7:01 am
Now tell us how you really feel…….
Indeed the Boomers were on a pillage and destroy mission and royally screwed us Xers. Some of us have only recently recovered economically. Some of us never will.
June 6, 2008 at 7:21 am
It’s the whole way of looking at community that is the biggest problem those fuckers left us with.
June 6, 2008 at 11:36 am
Wow, this is so trippy. I can see where you’re coming from, and I think (at least if the wikipedia article and some of my friends are any guide) you’re not at all alone.
But I personally don’t identify with any of that. It’s very much- whoa? What?
I’m the generation coming up behind you. “Generation Y”- though I despise that term (are we to be defined as those stragglers after X? is this some kind of old-man “get off my lawn” commentary on “those young kids with their questions”? What does it mean?! Wiki offers “the Millenials” as an alternative… wtf? That’s not better. ‘Internet generation’ is closer, but generation.com is so much catchier)
I’m not mad at the Boomers- they’ve always been irrelevant. And old. I barely remember Clinton coming into office, and I’m still way too young and idealistic to not be pissed as *hell* about Bush.
I’ve watched Obama from his time in the Illinois senate, and he’s good. I think it’s partially because he inspires Hope in your generation and Big Optimism in mine.
June 6, 2008 at 12:59 pm
if you younguns aren’t fucking pissed at the Boomers…you need to read some history.
June 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Right on BM! I’m pissed at them too, for the same reasons. Let’s hope that now is our generation’s time, for their sake.
June 8, 2008 at 4:10 am
BikeMonkey,
Great post.
—”No personal obligation, no ties to community and a rampant ethos of self-involved, self-congratulatory constant fucking pleasure seeking”—
You say that like it’s a bad thing! That’s the American Dream, isn’t it? No? Damn, you sure coulda fooled me!
Dude, you should write more often.
June 16, 2008 at 10:00 am
Its not just that the Boomers think the world revolves around them; they have also become both the guardians and promoters of the “old school” as well.
In this regard they seem to believe that they can somehow control the new Millennial generation by instilling their old school values in them (I trust readers will know what I mean). But the Millennials, though they don’t argue with the Boomers like Gen X’ers do, appear to have different plans, plans which involve not preserving the old system but creating a new and better world.
I’m a Gen X’er, but the problem I’ve always had with my generation is that, while Gen X’ers gripe and complain, they’ve never engaged in any kind of organized campaign to change things (like the Boomers did when they were young). If Gen X has accoplished anything its been on an individual, rather than a generational, basis.
Now that we have the Millennials, who are ready and willing to change the world and who share many Gen X concerns about security and community, I think the best hope for Gen X’ers is for them to get off the fence, cut whatever ties are left with the Boomers and their generational philosophies, and join forces with the Millennials.
As an X’er myself trust me when I say you’ll feel much better about everything if you do so. No more reason to feel that alienated cynicism that haunted us when we were under the Boomers’ thumbs. The “Greatest Generation” has returned, reincarnated as the young people of today. Let’s get on board this Harry Potter ride and leave the Boomers behind.
August 19, 2008 at 2:11 am
Aye!
Another “Millennial”, 22, here. It’d sure be great if we could kick Social Security out from under the feet of the boomers, saving the federal government from bankruptcy, and let them all die prematurely of heart attacks from the years of cocaine abuse.
It’s just astounding how one entire *generation* of children can go so bad. I feel bad for the Greatest Generation and what they went through raising their little ungrateful scumbags after they got through the horror of the war. Just wish they would’ve beat their children a little more often, that’s all. Maybe a couple more whacks on the ass would’ve prevented a lot of misery.
August 24, 2008 at 11:38 am
I am a gen-x’er myself
It is an open question to me, really what to expect from the millenials. I mean, there are strong indications to suggest that the boomers, being the ones now controlling government, the media and corporate life, are planning to bypass us X’ers handing the “control panels” of society’s machinery directly into the hands of the millenials, skipping us x’ers altogether, if they can.
After all, the millenials are THEIR babies now turned into young adults.
If you browse what boomer commantaries wrote in the press about generation X in the early ninetees and what the bommers write about the millenials to day, they are portraying the same features that they critisized us for as _virtues_ when those same features show up in millenials almost 20 years later. Is that the sign that the boomers have learned a lesson in the meantime? It might be, but I fear that it is rather symptomatic of a hidden and more sinister agenda.
How will the millenials react if their boommer parent generation say to them: “look, let’s skip those grew up in the seventies people and hand the control of society directly down to you.” It’ll be an offer most of the millenials can’t refuse, I’d say.
October 1, 2008 at 12:14 pm
[...] the degree to which the young-uns of voting age are ignorant. See this comment, for example from some youngster who has no idea the Boomers are the root of most of our current evils. [...]
June 7, 2009 at 8:29 am
[...] I think some of our younger generation here, politically active and progressive as they are don’t really get it. Luckily, we have revere. Who placed this into the appropriate [...]
July 2, 2009 at 7:34 pm
knob-polishers, all of you
July 9, 2009 at 9:56 am
Chill bike monkey…Thing is there are two (or more) groups of “Boomers”. There is the elite cadre that so outrages you. A group that relied upon the old school establishment networks to achieve wealth and status, and the proceeded to kick all sense of social and political responsiblity off the cliff. The second group (which you should also hold in the deepest contempt) are those whose unrepentant mantra is that their nation is so corrupt that only a violent relvolution overthrowing the politcal and social institutions and replacing them with a new order (controlled of course, by themselves) has drowned out much of the reasoned debate and involvement. Lodged between the privileged sybarites and the zealots is what Nixon once termed the “silent majority”, those who strive to improve themselves, their society, their polity, and their families. Blame “Boomers” all you want, but don’t blame all the Boomers.
July 9, 2009 at 12:59 pm
bzzt, wrong. I blame the ones that consistently voted into power those who threw community and our collective values under the bus. That includes a big whopping chunk of the electorate, not just some elite. as we saw during the past election cycle, some of the Boomer culture warriors who are STILL FUCKING FIGHTING the anti-hippie fight….jesus, they need to get a grip. “new order”? “violent revolution”? do you listen to yourselves? Did these elements ever constitute anything other that a fringe? Did they have much effect? hell no. except to serve as a convenient scary monster (made mostly of straw) for the more reactionary Boomer elements to use to frighten the masses away from the good, solid mainstream pro-community advances we saw a hint of during the sixties and seventies.
August 6, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I previously expressed disappointment that Gen X-ers never accomplished anything on a collective level, but I would now like to qualify that. Besides spearheading techno-revolutions which the Millennial generation takes for granted (and the technophobic Boomers hate), Gen-X’ers, despite the abusive nastiness they displayed during their own youth, turned out, ironically, to be probably the best parents of any generation. They learned from the insecurities and neglect they had to endure as kids, and set out, as parents, to correct all these evils so that their own children would not have to endure the same kind of shit they did. The Greatest Generation, as great as they were, made the mistake of overindulging their children, who, in turn, grew up to be a spoiled, pleasure-seeking (yet santimonious) group who (predictably) neglected their own kids. Younger members of the Millennial generation are, I think, more emotionally secure and positive in attitude because Gen X-ers created the environment condusive to that blissful state of mind.
August 7, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Perhaps so but Millenials are all hopped up on SSRIs, anxiolytics and whatnot which can look suspiciously like BoomerSelfInvolvementLite to me.
August 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The older members of the Millennial generation are primarily the children of the Baby Boom (or “Echo Boomers”, as they’re sometimes called), but the younger members of the Millennial generation are more the children of “Generation Jones”, who have sometimes been identified as Gen X’ers rather than Boomers.
August 10, 2009 at 10:35 pm
If you look at the actual vital statistics numbers, the boomer gen isn’t really any bigger than Gen X, and neither is the “millenial” generation. They fudged the birth years when they were playing games with marketing. There was a boom in 1946, compared to the years *before* that. After that point They were all 3-4 million per year. There were as many people born in my birth year, 1971, as there were born in 1946, for example.
There is a 1% difference in total births between 1941-1960, and 1961 and 1980. But even granting the endpoint in 1964, the difference between those 18 years and the 18 years after that is negligible.
Why does it matter after all this time? I don’t know, I’m just tired of the bullshit and lies. They’ve shoved that “boom” shit down our throats for decades as the excuse why they got all the resources of the country, as if it was their divine right. The truth is they just got to it first.
August 17, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I, too, agree that Boomers have been playing a numbers game, which effectively, if not intentionally, increases the size of their population while downgrading the size of the Gen X population.
A recent redrawing has emerged, however, called “Generation Jones”. Sandwiched between the Boomers and the X’ers, this group effectively cuts down on Boomer numbers. Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2, Obama, etc. are all members of this generation. (See Wikipedia for more information.)
Many Boomers still prefer to claim anyone born from the mid-1950’s to the mid-1960s as their own, yet they resent when a “Joneser” like Obama runs against and defeats a Boomer like Hillary Clinton, thereby revealing their hypocracy.
August 11, 2009 at 2:37 pm
[...] 11, 2009 A brief note of correction on a recent comment on my old post on Boomers which makes a curious assertion: If you look at the actual vital statistics numbers, the boomer gen isn’t really any bigger than [...]