Posted on 06/21/2009 5:28:54 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Baby boomers — which the Census Bureau defines as the group of 78 million or so people born between 1946 and 1964 — are obsessed with grades.
They rank everything: best to worst, least to most, zero to 100, A to F. They grade movies, hotels, beef, municipal bonds and restaurants — for the quality of food, for speed of service, for cleanliness. They mark up school essays and driving tests and citizenship exams. After the release of the 1979 movie 10, starring boomer Bo Derek, men and women began appraising each other on a 1-to-10 scale. The first Zagat survey also appeared in the late 1970s, featuring diners' ratings of cafes and restaurants. Entertainment Weekly, launched in 1990 by Time Inc. (sidebar), grades movies, books, TV shows, video games and other pop culture items on an A-to-F scale.
The latest example of baby boomers' drive to assign grades: the "data-driven movement" in U.S. education. As reported recently in The Wall Street Journal, this push to quantify — relying heavily on gadgets and computations for student improvement and systemwide accountability — is an outgrowth of the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind legislation.
"The high-tech strategy, which uses intensified assessments and the real-time collection of test scores, grades and other data to identify problems and speed up interventions," the Journal reports, "has just received a huge boost from President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan."
In other words, Obama (born in 1961) and Duncan (1964), like George W. Bush (1946) and many Americans of a certain age, just love grading systems. So let's take a moment to turn the tables and issue the baby boom generation its own cohort report card.......
As a BB myself (although barely — b.1964), I say “FAIL.”
May I suggest human nature?
Any very large group of people, born into certain circumstances, will act pretty much the same way.
Lots of kids, lots of money, rapid technological advances, the seeming security of a traditional culture....trouble was coming, but society could not see it coming.
I remember our high school social studies teacher, a PhD and a socialist, saying to a group of high school students in 1969 that most of the girls would be married and have children by the time they were 25. Even highly educated people who wanted change could not imagine the change that was to come. It takes a lot of imagination to see the possible consequences of seemingly benign ideas.
Why? What generation are you?
We’ve (I’m a 51 model) much to answer for I’m sure, but I’ll hasten to point out that the ones who got all the press were not the whole generation. Many of the people who used us as political pawns when we were dumb kids were members of what has been beatified as the ‘Greatest Generation’ (Timothy Leary, Herbert Marcuse etc.) Please don’t think I don’t have reverence for what they accomplished and endured because I do, but spoiled and hedonistic as many of us boomers were (mea culpa), we were not the creators of the leviathan state which has become such a monster in our time. When I measure myself with men like my father, I find myself wanting in so many ways, but I’ve known many my age who could have played in his league.
Ah, the boomer generation.
The generation that received the “better life” our folks worked and fought for — and then, as a group, squandered it. Turned away from God, (worse) turned our CHILDREN away from God, squandered the blessings of liberty and freedom our parents gave us and taught our children to squander them too.
I’d grade us an “S”. It can stand for “we Suck”, “Spoiled”, “Spendthrift”, “Secular”, “Stupid”, “Shortsighted”, your pick.
And, yes, I’m right smack in the middle of that very UN-greatest generation.
Please don’t take my rant personally — of course I’m generalizing. Like a lot of freepers I’m trying hard NOT to fit the mold. But I can’t deny that my generation as a group lacked the character and wisdom of the one that came before.
That's exactly what I was thinking about myself.I consider myself to be basically "respectable" (by today's standards,at least) but I could not now...and have never been able to...hold a candle to *either* of my parents.
>> I consider myself to be basically “respectable” (by today’s standards,at least) but I could not now...and have never been able to...hold a candle to *either* of my parents.
+1
Boomers were in fact the worst generation. Not being one, I feel free to call a spade a spade.
Ugh... where to begin. The boomers were the worst thing that ever happened to the USA. They contributed nothing and laid waste our future because of their failures as human beings.
1940 generation 1965 generation 1990 generation
_______________ _______________ _______________
International Defeat of Hitler, Opposed Vietnam Changed channel
Achievement Communism War to MTV
Judicial Legal system should Legal system should Legal system should
idea support society change society destroy society
Excuse 'I did it for the 'I was upset by 'I was abused'
country' world injustice'
Technological Moon landing Personal computer Beeper, car alarm
highlight
Highbrow Classical Jazz Easy listening
Music
Lowbrow Big bands Rock Rap
Music
Civil rights Martin Luther King Malcolm X Damian Williams
leader
Hero Eisenhower John Kennedy Madonna
Economic Raise 60's generation Satisfy Support 60's
achievement Sophisticated generation retirement
Tastes
Fav' drug Cigarettes Marijuana Crack
Drug most Marijuana Crack Cigarettes
hated
Economic Work hard - get ahead Let your parents/ Prepare for employment
philosophy government support at K-Mart
you
Cartoon Bugs Bunny Bullwinkle Beavis and Butt-head
Boast "We made this country "We are great" "We are better armed"
great"
Sex Monogamy Free love AIDS
Youthful Drag race Demonstration Use AK-47 at school
rebellion
Movie Casablanca Easy Rider Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure
Science Einstein Jacques Cousteau Biosphere II
Enemy USSR USA not sure where
country countries located
Influential Eleanor Roosevelt Jane Fonda Roseanne Arnold
woman
Religion Monotheism Atheism Paganism
Enemy Hitler Nixon Joe Camel
Blames Them--> <--Them--> <--Them
(Loses 2-1)
Hell, looking at your page, you never even drove a couple of hundred miles east to see the deepest of the deep south....you coulda had a downright impressive "been there" map, but you get a big FAIL in this regard!
Tweak alert PS to Graybeard....Wednesday the 24th marks the first nip o' the teat for this shameless Boomer. Wifey gets her first suckle two weeks later.
We're gonna celebrate with Moon Pies and RC Cola, all compliments of the X'ers Y'ers and the grandkids. Drinks all around...
Don’t be so hard on us, okay? A fellow I met recently entered service at about the same time I did (1980), but he had a pretty interesting career - he flew the A-4, A-7, F-16 and F-18s ... smart guy; he said he got more flight time in the reserves than he had on active duty, flying the no-fly zone in the early 90s and flying recon over Bosnia-Herz.
>> Hell, looking at your page, you never even drove a couple of hundred miles east to see the deepest of the deep south....
That’s not the *deepest* of the Deep South, just the “eastest” of the Deep South.
I gotta have SOMETHING to do when I retire. If I retire.
Well, all I can say is that the “Greatest Generation” didn’t raise the “Gradest Generation” properly then.... LOL...
That’s a hoot. More than a little truth in there, too.
I admit to not going to the link to read the entire article, but I must say this is really a stupid piece.
1. Gave legal sanction to the death of 50 million innocent unborn children.
2. Dismantled the greatest manufacturing system in the history of the world with a series of feel-good but useless regulatory and punitive tax laws.
3. Convinced millions of Americans to trade their economic freedoms and opportunities for the yoke of dependency on government handouts.
4. Squandered the wealth created by prior generations of producers. Demonized those producers and elevated society's so called victims.
Epic Fail.
Ditto that. There were quite a few of us that made small contributions to win the cold war with the former Soviet Union..
Bullshit article. Bullshit thread. Hate bait for morons.
Flame away...
I know, not all boomers were so misguided; it just seems the general tenor of the generation was off. Boomers as a group grew up with a life devoid of hardship and proceeded to squander all that their parents had given them. And while electing Reagan stands at least to their credit, I doubt they would have done so had their prior choice been even minimally competent.
Agree.
And I'm not a "boomer"
Oh but there is a great difference between those born 1946-1956 and the generation we are from Generation Jones 1957-1964. The eariler boomers are the ones who give us all a bad name. We are much more conservative and quite comapred to them, so take heart. I too give the early boomers a D, us later ones probably more a B+ afterall we did go and vote for Regan in 1980 and 1984!
Itis truethat we got sold out by the prior generation (Vietnam, thanks Johnson/McNamara and Social Security Johnson again) but we fell into the trap of something for nothing.
If you were a Major then you should know that 9.4 million boomers are veterans and that unlike the soldiers in WWII the boomers volunteered, they were not draftees.
You mean that in January of 1973 the boomers that ranged in age from nine to twenty seven were running the nation and the Supreme Court?
When the sixties started the “silent generation” ranged in age from 15 to age 35, their little brothers and sisters, many of whom were not even born yet, did not create the sixties.
You also seem unaware of the religious revival that started among the young during the late sixties and early seventies, that in time led to the reemergence of Christians in American politics.
In 1972 many boomers were old enough to vote for president. The 18 to 29 year old vote went for Nixon 52% to McGovern's 46%.
The boomers were the last warrior generation, producing well over 9 million warriors, Joe are you a vet?
If I read that correctly you are an E-9, what generation are you?
Retired
So what generation are you a member of?
Boomer
Interesting, and congratulations for reaching E-9.
Good point. And the answer is of course no. I overstretch when I rant. But I would say the influence of the 18-27 year old segment of the group was immense on the rest of the population. The retreat from Vietnam and legalized abortion were big causes for the baby boomer counter culture of the late 60's and early 70's. They somehow wielded great political power. Wish they hadn't.
I say nonsense to that claim. When Cronkite made his Tet Offensive speech the oldest boomers alive had just turned 22 and many of those were in Vietnam fighting.
When you look at the worst destruction, and especially when the fatal destruction of America was put in place (1965 immigration act for instance), it was legislated and decided by the courts mostly between roughly 1935 to 1975.
The worst damage by the American left actually started slowing as the boomers became old enough to start participating in American life from about the 80s on (1984 was the first time that all boomers could vote in a presidential election), that was when the American people started pushing back against the old politicians and establishment figures of the previous generations such as Ted Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Walter Cronkite, Allen Ginsberg, William Ayers, Jane Fonda and NOW and the teachers unions etc.
The truth is that it is almost impossible to even name prominent boomers from the sixties except for a few musicians, and not many of them and you sure don’t find them running media or government or elections or courts or anything else, when the 1960s were ending in December of 1969 the oldest boomer was all of 23 years old, she was the oldest woman of her generation and Sarah Palin was among the youngest boomers, being five years old.
What has happened is the media has convinced people that America wasn’t destroyed by greed and guilt and everything else that took place from 1935 to 1975 but was instead transformed over night by the public school kids of the 1960s, it is a very odd myth and I noticed that one of it’s creators (Tom Brokaw) and his friends in the media even recently created the description of a “Greatest Generation” which doesn’t actually emcompass a generation at all.
It is the post that you thought was relevant to make, I thought it was inaccurate.
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