Posted on 11/30/2013 9:05:46 PM PST by gorush
We are the generation that changed everything. Of all the eras and epochs of Americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression—on ourselves. That's an important accomplishment, because we're the generation that created the self, made the firmament of the self, divided the light of the self from the darkness of the self, and said, "Let there be self." If you were born between 1946 and 1964, you may have noticed this yourself.
That's not to say we're a selfish generation. Selfish means "too concerned with the self," and we're not. Self isn't something we're just, you know, concerned with. We are self.
Before us, self was without form and void, like our parents in their dumpy clothes and vague ideas. Then we came along. Now the personal is the political. The personal is the socioeconomic. The personal is the religious and the secular, science and the arts. The personal is everything that creepeth upon the earth after his (and, let us hasten to add, her) kind. If the baby boom has done one thing, it's to beget a personal universe. (Our apologies for anyone who personally happens to be a jerk.)
Self is like fish, proverbially speaking. Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and, if he turns into a dry-fly catch-and-release angling fanatic up to his liver in icy water wearing ridiculous waders and an absurd hat, pestering trout with 3-pound test line on a $1,000 graphite rod, and going on endlessly about Royal Coachman lures that he tied himself using muskrat fur and partridge feathers…well, at least his life partner is glad to have him out of the house.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Nails it..
BS
Incoherent babbling by yet again another poor boomer..
Our generation is devoid of leaders, devoid of ideas and most importantly devoid of a moral compass.
We have failed as a generation and most importantly and most regrettably we have failed our Country.
I think that was his point.
later
PJ is always right, except he never saw Generation X, (which I would now call “Generation Reagan”), who now has children in the military, guiding big-assed things, and voting when they get home.
This is still a great nation, despite ourselves and our peers.
I'd happily take that but I'd take nothing if a total re-adoption of the Constitution were on the table. Fat chance. Now, Cloward/Priven is a strict-constructionists last hope.
Yeah, well, we’ll always have Woodstock. So there!
You know, I don’t think Baby Boomers deserve all the blame (although they do deserve some of it). It’s like when people like to blame Millennials and neglect the fact that a lot of said people have crazy ex-hippie parents who may or may not have grown up.
Every generation has its share of screw ups.
I think of the boomers as “Generation Reagan”.
Reagan’s reelection of 1984 was the first election in which all boomers, were old enough to vote for president, for instance Palin was a Reagan girl, and he was her first presidential vote.
The Reagan years was also when the oldest boomers were old enough to be entering into the lower rungs of leadership, as a boomer born in 1946 was a 34 year old in 1980.
Navel-gazing, one thing boomers excel at.
Since even the youngest are showing gray, maybe it’s time to drop the “baby” adjective?
Usually I like O’Rourke.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fourth-Turning-American-Rendezvous/dp/0767900464
A book called “The Fourth Turning”. It was written a couple years before 9-11 iirc. It said the generation coming to age at that time was the same “type” of generation as “The Greatest Generation” - but would need an event like WWII to turn their drive towards doing great things together. And then 9-11 happened. However, I have a feeling that that “great coming together” that was kindled in the few years after 9-11 has come and gone. Islam is the religion of peace and all.
That said, they posit that we run through four generations; some weak, some strong.
I can’t read this guy - never could. After the first paragraph, my eyes glaze over at the heavy, heavy humor.
But I will say that as a boomer, my husband and I have been paying into all the social benefits for about 40-50 years now so that - for example - my wealthy mom can get huge ss checks and use medicare for every damn sniffle that disturbs her sleep. My husband and I are planning to be homeless in about 20 years with untreated, fatal illnesses, lol!
I run out of breath when I read this guys stuff.
No, I am not reading out loud.
But I will say that as a boomer, my husband and I have been paying into all the social benefits for about 40-50 years now so that - for example - my wealthy mom can get huge ss checks and use medicare for every damn sniffle that disturbs her sleep. My husband and I are planning to be homeless in about 20 years with untreated, fatal illnesses, lol!
YEP. Try being a nurse taking care of these entitled elders. They are about the most cantankerous, demanding lot you’ll ever come across. Every sniffle IS taken care of ...and I, like you, realize that we (who just turned 50 this year) also will die penniless with fatal diseases and will get not a darn red cent.
But we’re all supposed to feel terrible about ourselves.
‘Ol PJ left out the Vietnam War: wounded an entire generation by carving out the bravest and forcing the remainder to hide under their blankets. We still can’t face the effects those eight years did to our country but as a hint, one of those effects is the election of that useless radical in the White House.
Oh, LibsRJerks, thank you for replying. Sometimes I think I’m alone in feeling like this. My mother - a wealthy hypochondriac, goes to the Emergency Room once a month - literally. Not one EMS worker has ever questioned her although there is a lot of eye-rolling. She’s now complaining that she got a 70 DOLLAR bill from them. Last year I was bitten by a dog and ended up in the ER. My bill was $500. We paid it without complaint.
Truthfully, the waning years of the Baby Boom generation have far more in common with Generation X, so much so that they are sometimes called “Generation Jones”. By the time they got to school, they got the reaction, the adjustment, to the Boomers that was pretty pathetic.
For the most part, the Boomers got the advantages of the old system, while complaining about it. Then Generation X got the post-modern restoration of some teachers trying to restore some quality to the schools. The “Jonesers” got stuck with the dregs, neither “fish, flesh no fowl.”
Generation Jones, for the most part, just fit in the cracks between the oddly enough, more conformist Baby Boomers, and the more entrepreneurial Generation X’ers.
The disaster hit with Generation Y, who are “getting it in the shorts”. Saddled with huge debts, no jobs, and high prices, there is no room in the inn for them.
But turnabout is fair play. Now in their elder years, the Baby Boomers are finally going to have to pay, because no one else can. They already spent their retirement on the good life in their younger years, and it’s all gone. So many are looking forward to working until they die.
The Jonesers never lived high on the hog, so they will get to enjoy more modest living in their retirement. And Generation X’ers made it for themselves, not to share, so they will plan to keep it, not pay the debts of others.
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