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.
Sun Dappled Forest 
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.
were supposed to turn the whole fuckin world into a retirement village now for those fuckin boomers. If they fuck up the economy enough and pile enough govt debt on us, well be grateful to wipe their asses for a few pennies. the whole world must fight to stop this bullshit.
It’s the whole way of looking at community that is the biggest problem those fuckers left us with.
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.
if you younguns aren’t fucking pissed at the Boomers…you need to read some history.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
knob-polishers, all of you
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.
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.
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.
Perhaps so but Millenials are all hopped up on SSRIs, anxiolytics and whatnot which can look suspiciously like BoomerSelfInvolvementLite to me.
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.
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.
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.
Your anger astounds me. But so do your inaccuracies. The Boomers did not elect Reagan; our parents did. We had long since given up on changing the system, and almost didnt’ vote. The first voting choice the boomers ever had was Nixon/Humphrey. Most of us didn’t vote because we simply couldn’t vote for Nixon and Humphrey was useless, possibly the most useless Democrat ever born. Plus, we were busy, by then, giving birth to you and allowing you the freedom to express violence against us, a freedom we never were granted by our parents. One comment notes that he hopes Social Security will be kicked out from under the Boomers and we all die miserably, which would be our due from all the cocaine we snorted. Where, on earth, did your generation..whatever it is..get the idea that wishing horrid things on others was an acceptable activity among civilized humans? Here are a couple of facts for you, on which you and your commentators are notably light: The greatest generation, boomers’ parents, was not great. While Boomers fought 240 days a year in an unjust war they were drafted into, their parents fought 40 days per year in a war portrayed as just that they mainly volunteered for. Boomers fought for equal rights on all fronts; their parents stood in the way of equal rights on all fronts. Boomers didn’t save because incomes declined during their early working years; none of us started work with the equivalent of $60K grand a year as recent graduates have, and we earned less, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than our parents had. There were too many of us, which was hardly our fault, thereby driving wages down as our parents skimmed the gravy via investments in companies making obscene profits on Vietnam. Your generation? You seem to think everyone else owes you the living you would like to have, except that you don’t want to do any of the work to get it. A case in point is, of course, your writing. Your burdensome use of filthy language displays a profound ignorance as well as inability to work at expressing yourself. Your command of the language is as limited as your command of your nation’s recent history. By the way, you didn’t build the tech revolution. The Internet was developed in the 1950s/1960s by DARPA (look it up), and Jobs and Wozniak were Boomers or even pre-boomers. Bill Gates is a boomer. Perhaps you literally built it–did the cut and paste jobs–but Jobs, Wozniak and Gates were the intelligences behind it…not to mention George Lucas and Spielberg and their inventive movie electronics, also Boomers.
I also don’t know where you get the idea that Boomers resent Obama. Some of us liked Hilary Clinton, but Obama would never have been elected without the Boomer vote. Period. If Hilary had won the primaries, then she would have been elected by a Boomer vote. You must be projecting to think Boomers resent Obama; we wish he was more aggressive, but we by and large support him. And a few of us are teabaggers for sure, but then, a few of you are Liberty University graduates, so it evens out.
Your delusions are practically certifiable. If I were you, I’d get some help.
Excuse me! Are the boomer’s not the predominate force in charge of all political, financial, educational and media oriented outlets in our society? How long have they been in charge? Twenty..twenty-five…thirty years? Are the corporate CEO’s of AIG, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Goldman-Sachs,\and Countrywide, who have defrauded the American taxpayers Boomer’s? Is president Clinton who signed off on the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act of 1999 a Boomer? You know the act that repealed Glass-Steagal? Who outsourced our jobs and destroyed the manufacturing base of our country? Was it your oppresive GI parents? It can’t be they have long since passed on! Do you still believe you’ve changed the world? Hey, Boomers! Do, you still distrust anyone over thirty?
Amen Glorious G!!!!!
Generation y here
Gen x is a faggot
Yo, Gen Y. To quote a classic film before I was but an inkling in my Daddy’s Johnson. “You’re mother sucks cocks in hell.” Dat right prophesized “Golden Child” the one’s that will save us all. I swear your generation is built up like a bad summer blockbuster that doesn’t deliver on the goods! Jus’ another fuckin’ retread!
I couldnt agree more!! Exactly how i feel. Its 2011 now, and things are more dire. And when the boomers retire and get old, they will suck whats left of the marrow from this country.
Nora is right, you Gen X slacker grungoid. If you’d have bothered to take the time to research the historical facts accurately, something you Gen Xers are quite weak at by your own deliberate choice, you’d see the many holes in your argument.
But hey, why let something as trivial as facts get in the way of a good rant. Wahhh!
Mommy! Change my diaper! and get me more bags of Cheetos and another BigGulp!
Despite being handed more opportunity than any previous generation, despite more drug abuse and promiscuity among it’s members, despite the accumulation of staggering wealth through tax breaks and job outsourcing, and last, but DEFINITELY not least, the legacy of debt to be paid by generations of Americans who have yet to be born…..despite all of that, only a baby boomer could show up to bitch about not having enough while blaming all other generations. Enjoy retirement…and please, die.
Amen!!!!!
Whatever you phonies. Reagan was the best president Gen X ever grew up with. Boomers were too busy getting AIDS, pillaging Wall Street, and snorting coke to care then. Millennials are too stupid and young then to know what Reagan did to fix the BS 1970s.
I agree with what’s said.. however–having 3 kids as good thing? Breeding like rats more and more? Come on, those holes need to be sewed shut so that they won’t pop any more brats. There’s no enough resources and land, enough destroying. No one needs that poop that comes out because someone haven’t been using birth control.
I’m a boomer liberal and I agree that Ronald Reagan was a total piece of shit that damaged the middle class and created a small upper and larger lower class in this country. A union man who screwed the unions and gave corporate pigs the lion’s share of this country’s wealth. But your rant is all over the place and I can’t find any key points to address other than the one I just did. I don’t buy into this generation hatred bullshit, all it does is create an unnecessary us versus them mentality and as you can see I agree with you on the Reagan issue. Your rant is more in tune with conservative versus liberal politics. I’ve known people from the WW2 generation, my own generation, generation X and generation Y who are liberal and think like you do so why do we need to look at this along generational differences when our point of view is the same across generational lines? To blame one generation for all the problems you point out is foolish and it will get you nowhere, conversely to place another generation on a golden pedestal is also foolish. To use an analogy think of a generation to be like an iceberg. The visible part is a very small percentage of the huge mass that lies beneath. In the case of the baby boom generation the iceberg was extremely large so the small percentage of this huge mass was larger then other generations. The visible part was the progressive liberal minded idealists that wanted to make changes for a better world and because it was larger than in other generations it appeared that most boomers were all of this mindset. But the other part beneath the water and out of site was the giant old guard hardcore conservative right wing that wanted to keep the traditional values of god and country. This part was also a large percentage of the silent majority that you heard so much about. I too believed that my generation was more of the progressive mindset until the Nixon landslide over McGovern, from that point on I thought it was hopeless to make any positive changes for future generations. I was wrong, it turned out Nixon listened to us and made some progressive changes that seemed almost impossible for a republican, maybe he just wanted to shut us up. To his credit he was far more progressive than JFK and it took me a long time to see this. So the liberal minded baby boomers didn’t sell you out in 1980, the ones that were liberal (small visible portion of the iceberg) voted against Reagan and the ones that were conservative (giant invisible portion of the iceberg) voted for him. So take a look at your own generation and see how many agree with you, hopefully there will be a lot more that think like you, unfortunately the ones I’ve talked too don’t
You are one of the Biggest Dumbasses I have seen lately. LOL
Funny how Marxist theology is based on lies deceits, and outright
lies. As anyone that knows anything about basic economics
when President Reagan came to office the economy did improve.
9% growth per year for the 8 years.
And it had to do as much with the Economics as it did Reagan’s
Policies which I bet were never mentioned in all the leftist sludge
posted by the dopers. You probably do not know the name of the
great Fed Chief that saved the USA economy do ya?
I bet you think the Magic Negro/Arab and his Magic Jews have
saved the USA now? LOL
With Trillions of dollars of additional debt and so many problems
you could write a book on them. No make that 10 books!
Your greedy Jew Rats and Elitists in Manhattan and Silicon Valley
know this. How long do you think it would take them to move to
parts unknown in the world moron to start over after trading
their dollars for other currencies?
PS This moron Jim does not even know More blacks entered
the middle class during Reagan’s years than ever before!
DUHHHHH