It seems like there's a lot of dislike and contempt for "boomers" from "millennials"

[cali]

Last edited Tue Dec 3, 2013, 01:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Or at least from a certain subset of them. I kind of think that that it stems, at least in part, from a weird sort of generational envy and frustration.

Boomers were able to have a real impact on the culture in a way that millennials haven't been able to- and that's certainly not the fault of millennials, but it isn't the fault of boomers either. The culture and political system are far more difficult to sway or change now then they were 40 years ago.

This highly critical subset of millennials appears to believe that the boomer generation is responsible for a host of problems- from climate change to to Wall Street. They have swallowed the MSM meme that's been around for decades that this is a greedy, heedless generation.

Admittedly, I'm part of the boomer generation, but I don't think I'd feel differently if I weren't. I don't look at millennials in such a broad, overreaching way..

In any case, there are good things as well as negative attributes to the boomer generation. The negative ones get a lot more press, but boomers started the organic food movement, they helped to end the Vietnam War, they were on the front lines of the women's movement, the fight for GLBT rights and other battles for civil rights.

A bit about Millennials:

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe believe that each generation has common characteristics that give it a specific character, with four basic generational archetypes, repeating in a cycle. According to their theory, they predicted Millennials will become more like the "civic-minded" G.I. generation with a strong sense of community both local and global.[30] Strauss and Howe's research has been influential, but also has critics.[31]

Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers Millennials along with younger Gen Xers to be part of what she calls "Generation Me".[32] Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to the Millennials but also a sense of entitlement and narcissism based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties. She questions the predictions of Strauss and Howe that this generation will come out civic-minded.[33]

William A. Draves and Julie Coates, authors of Nine Shift: Work, Life and Education in the 21st Century, write that Millennials have distinctly different behaviors, values and attitudes from previous generations as a response to the technological and economic implications of the Internet.

Surveys by the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study of high school seniors (conducted continuously since 1975) and the American Freshman survey, conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute of entering college students since 1966 showed the proportion of students who said being wealthy was very important to them increased from 45% for Baby Boomers (surveyed between 1967 and 1985) to 70% for Gen X and 75% for Millennials. The percentage who said it was important to keep up to date with political affairs fell, from 50% for Boomers to 39% for Gen X and 35% for Millennials. "Developing a meaningful philosophy of life" decreased the most, across generations, from 73% for Boomers to 45% for Millennials. "Becoming involved in programs to clean up the environment" dropped from 33% for Boomers to 21% for Millennials.[34]

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

[global1]

1. We Boomers - As Parents - Were Supposed To Make Things Better For Our Children.....

I don't think we did. Our children will have a harder road to tow than we did. I think we let our children down and that's where I think the contempt comes from.

[cali]

3. In some ways things are better and in other ways they aren't

Who started the environmental movement? What about the involvement of boomers in the fight for equality for women and minorities?

Chopped liver?

[joeglow3]

7. Economically, we will be the FIRST generation worse off than our parents

Thanks boomers.

[RobinA]

38. Don't Thank Me

I'm a boomer, and I'm not better off than my parents. Most of my boomer friends are not as well off or are more or less equal to their parents. So...

[joeglow3]

61. I am talking about as a whole

Of course there will be standard deviations above and below the average. However, if Boomers want to take credit for the good stuff, they also neet to take credit for the bad.

[ieoeja]

72. Then you picked the wrong topic big time.

Vast numbers of people are unable to retire today because their generation is worse off than their parents'. And Millenials still have a way to go before reaching retirement. Those people who should be retiring, but can't, are Boomers.

Most of the blame for that goes to The Greatest Generation. After suffering through the Great Depression and World War II then going on to build an economic and military power without equal in the history of mankind, they got the stupid idea in their heads that all that suffering must have been a good thing.

Instead of Boomers reaping the 2nd generation rewards of their parents' efforts, we saw everything they built get stripped away.

First time I encountered a 401(k), it was optional. Each worker could decide for him/herself to take a 401(k) or a pension. Exactly ZERO employees, almost entirely Boomers, opted for the 401(k).

We didn't volunteer to get fucked over. When they couldn't fool us with their get-rich-quick scheme, they forced it upon us anyway.

[joeglow3]

78. Evidence would disagree with you

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347497/Study-30-somethings-worse-parents-generation-time-Great-Depression.html

[upaloopa]

88. That graph just shows a point in time not the cause

You take something like that and push it through your paradigm and blame others.
Like I said we all are to blame in some way.

[Laelth]

94. Excellent post. Thanks. n/t

-Laelth

[ieoeja]

99. Averages?

According to that today's 20 somethings have it better off than we Boomers did. And that is just ludicrous.

Yes, there were no 20 something billionaires and trillionaires when I was that age. Today, there are a large numbers of them which would skew those averages. 20 somethings are suffering massive unemployment compared to when I was that age. That study is ludicrous.

That "study" essentially compares total wealth to 30 years earlier. Nobody disputes there is more wealth in the United States today than ever before. But it is pretty fucking concentrated.

Again, we didn't volunteer for that. We were just entering the workforce when they changed the rules. And the new guys don't get to make the rules.

[rufus dog]

220. Mostly agree

But it was the parents of the "Greatest Generation" who mainly suffered through the Depression, they then fully supported sending their children off to war and cutting back on goods and services. A large number of those children then took theirs and to hell with everyone else. I would wager the majority of those with a, fuck the rest attitude, were not the front line fighters but more like the typical chicken hawks boomer's during Vietnam.

Being at the tail end, or just out of the Boomer generation I understand how those who came later can point fingers at the Boomer's. But from my perspective it was the "Greatest Generation" that started the "I got mine" attitude. Unlike their parents (as a generation) they didn't feel it necessary to make any additional sacrifices and to invest in future generations.

They then swept Reagan into office with the help of their voting age Boomer offspring breaking for St. Ronnie. These people were borderline fanatical in their support and belief that a change was needed. The change they wanted included far right, hypocritical, religious doctrine, the belief that certain minority groups and/or Unions were responsible for their own shortcomings.

Now we have the opposite occurring. Those who were in the minority in fighting the Reaganites held true to their values, with the help of their offspring they swept Obama into office.

Point being, generations as a whole do have ownership of the overall direction, but their are numerous good people in all generations. The split is generally separated by just a few percentage points. So we shouldn't be pointing fingers at generations, but rather the selfish fucking assholes who are part of a generation. Additionally we, the good guys have turned the tide, as liberals became a derogatory term we are now seeing the early stages of Republican becoming a derogatory term.

In addition, it took years for the selfishness of the Reagan Revolution to have its impact, long after he left office.

[upaloopa]

82. Here's what you don't get.

You are born in a period of time and what is happening at that point in time is made up of hundreds of years of input from the past to present day.
You can't blame Boomers any more than you can blame yourself. We all contribute to what is going on today.
We have to take the cards we are dealt and make the best of them.

[joeglow3]

87. Fine. But don't pat yourself on the back for all the good things you did

The topic creator posted about all the good shit they did. Then, when bad things were posted, the response was similar to yours. You CAN'T have it both ways. If you were the driving force behind the good things, you also have to take responsibility for the bad things.

[upaloopa]

91. I take responsibility. Your the one who doesn't

take any responsibility.

[joeglow3]

92. I have not patted my generation on the back at all

Show me where I posted all the great things my generation has done and then got defensive when people posted the bad things.

[truebluegreen]

106. Don't thank us--wages flat-lined starting in the early to mid-seventies,

which is right when I got out of high school, and long before I wielded the great power on the national stage that I have now.

Truth is, the PTB looked at the activists from the 60s--uppity blacks, women, students, environmentalists, you name it--and immediately started working to dis-empower them. They did it by destroying the middle class in a very systematic fashion. If you want to lay blame, start there.

[Art_from_Ark]

212. Correct on all counts

[azurnoir]

176. Got news NO you won't be

the Xer's and later Boomers are too, it all ended in 1980 and has been downhill ever sine

[Hippo_Tron]

186. We don't know that's going to be the case just yet

If I were graduating high school or college in 1932, I certainly would've said there's no way in hell my generation will be better off than my parents. Turns out that wasn't necessarily the case.

We're only in our 20's and early 30's, there's a long time for things to change.

[joeglow3]

188. Right now, we have seen negative growth

30 year olds, of which I am, are over 20% worse off than 30 years ago. This is a FACT. If what you are saying is true, things have to turn around pretty frickin big time to erase that hole and just get to even.

[magical thyme]

227. I'm a 2nd wave boomer and I can assure that my sisters and I all are worse off

than our parents. In my case, worse off by far.

There are many of us out there from my generation who are worse off than our parents were. Our parents experienced a long growth economy from FDR on until they were retiring.

I, on the other hand, hit the job market during the 1st big oil recession when Iran tanked Jimmy Carter's presidency, so I experienced the "lost decade" right from the get-go. My parents started out in poverty and ended up in upper middle class living in a 2,000 square foot townhouse in a swanky retirement town. I've been in and out of poverty from the day I hit the pavement looking for my first real job. I've gone from 1 room and almost in my car, to 2 rooms and almost in my car, to 3 rooms. I'm temporarily in 5 rooms, but as soon as I'm able to sell this place I'll be headed right back down the # of rooms. I'll be lucky if I don't end up carrying my home in a shopping cart. It's no for want of trying or working hard when I had the chance.

Don't fall for the media lies. Our economy has been on a bubble popping death spiral since Reagan, and was in recession during Nixon before that. Carter never had a chance to even begin to turn it around in a sustainable way, and Reagan set the stage and pulled the trigger on the death spiral.

[joeglow3]

229. Like I said earlier, there will be standard deviations on both sides

However, overall, what I said is true, even if you know 5 people it isn't true for.

[magical thyme]

231. now you are abusing statistics.

What you mean to say is that there will be data on both sides of the mean. That data may or may not fall outside of one or more standard deviations.

On the other hand, there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics. For example, within the general claim of millenials supposedly being the first generation to ever be worse off than their parents, there is the arbitrary cut off dates used to define each generation. Had the cutoff dates been different, for example, had the 2nd wave of baby boomers and the first part of the next generation been lumped together, we may have ended up the first generation of baby boomers to be worse off than out parents.

Studies have shown that if you enter the job market in a deep recession and experience a "lost decade" at the start of your working life, as I did, and as the millenials have, then you will never really catch up.

Secondly, that claim does not define what makes up "worse off" versus "better off." For example, who is "worse off?" I have no health insurance (and haven't for most of my working career), but I have largely good health. My sister has had health insurance from day one, but has had a string of (largely self inflicted) health issues throughout her life and now has recurrent triple-negative breast cancer.

[TroglodyteScholar]

23. "road to tow"

"row to hoe"

like in the fields

Edit: Also, you're correct. This late GenXer thinks the boomers did a lot of stuff right, and a lot of stuff wrong... but to whatever degree they had control, they are passing us a harder life than their parents passed them. The real causes for that, though, could be (and will be) debated endlessly.

[llmart]

187. Define better.....

Better doesn't always necessarily mean more material goods. I think the millenials definitely have more material goods than us boomers had at their age, so if that's the way you define "better" then boomers did OK.

Personally, I think our job as parents is not to "make things better" for them materially; it's to give them the skills to handle whatever comes their way with resourcefulness and gratitude.

I'm a boomer and I gave my two children a MUCH better life than I had, and I don't mean materially, though they did have that since I grew up in a poor, large family. I gave them time, taught them important lessons, taught them to give back to those less fortunate, taught them to make their own way in this world once they were adults and that's what they both have done, terrifically I might add.

[flamingdem]

207. Good point but we were dealing with ending the war

and the spectre of nuclear war.

I do remember reading a book about the environment and realizing that doom was on the way, in my twenties. I regret not making my life about that but the way our society is we have to specialize in order to work and survive.

Later I remember resenting Generation X for being avoidant about politics. I knew that we'd need them to step up like we did about the war for any change. My sense is that they didn't care enough. None of us did in the end.

[bluestate10]

241. Boomers became large proponents of republicanism, very few remained true to the vision

of the late Sixties. I view most Boomers that took part in Sixties group events as mostly people that were out for a simple way to get stoned and laid - deep down, most didn't give a shit about higher causes or anyone but themselves.

[PeteSelman]

2. The boomers gave us Reaganism.

I'm pissed at them too.

[cali]

5. no offense, but it's just rather stupid to be pissed at a whole generation

and what about such things as the environmental movement, GLBT rights (ever hear of Stonewall?) and the right against racism?

As long as you're so eager to traffic in generalizations, what positive changes has the millennial generation effected?

[Fumesucker]

6. Boomers pretty much split 50/50 on Reagan/Carter

It was the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation who elected Reagan.

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_80.html

[bluestate10]

242. A 50-50 split between evil versus good is still a fucking failure. Why should Boomers

be respected when the chance that they will do right is no better than flipping a coin?

[Fumesucker]

247. We were a hell of a lot sharper than the Greatest Generation who voted 55-39 for Reagan

And your vaunted pragmatic moderate centrists went for Reagan in a big way, 56% to 31% for Reagan, closing in on 2:1 for evil as you called it.

I suspect the later generations won't do any better in the long run and possibly a lot worse, hindsight is always so much clearer than foresight and if one thing is popular it's demagoguery.

For one thing we didn't know about what the Reagan campaign was cooking up with the Ayatollah Khomeini, Day 312 of America Held Hostage, blame Ted Koppel if you want to blame someone.

[Gormy Cuss]

115. Nope. Boomers voted for Carter and Anderson more than Reagan.

In 1980 the oldest boomers were 35 and most boomers were 18-30
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_80.html

[azurnoir]

177. **cough** **cough** **cough** **cough** **cough** nope not true no matter how much you may want

it to be, the depression era folks gave us Reagan but feel free to be mad at mommy and daddy or Gandma and Grandpa as the case may be

[Art_from_Ark]

214. Well, this boomer certainly didn't vote for Reagan

Nor have I voted for any Republican or right-wing presidential candidate since then.

[MrYikes]

4. I don't agree Cali,

We had the power and the numbers to change the world. We just didn't do it...and we need to be embarrassed by our lack of caring. Further, we need now to work to correct it. If that means taking the necessary funds from those that have it, then that is what must happen. But we must correct what we have done,,and have not done.

[cali]

8. So, effective anti-war protests, the fight for women's rights and racial eqality and GLBT

rights, are inconsequential?

And just how would you suggest that the boomer generation "take the necessary funds from those that have it"? That's hardly a practical suggestion.

Black and white thinking is rarely useful. Pitting generations one against another is counterproductive and stupid.

I'm not embarrassed by my generation anymore than I"m embarrassed by my gender.

I'm always frustrated, disappointed and pissed by the lack of basic, critical thinking.

[MrYikes]

12. Okay, you win, you're right, I'm wrong. nt

[joeglow3]

21. War on Drugs, Prison Rates, Corporate Corruption, Political Corruption, Deadly GMO's

and the lost goes on and on.

LOTS and LOTS of bad shit went on during your watch.

[cali]

24. yes, lots of bad stuff as well as good stuff. Your little lot (subset) seems to

think that the boomer generation is wholly responsible for all the ills of the world. How about you guys fucking doing something other than whining? I've notice some of you are remarkably adept at that.

What a dim, self-entitled, petulant pov

[HappyMe]

35. Now, now.

You know damn well we did all those bad things on purpose. It was discussed at the Super Secret Meeting.


I wonder what the millennials will fuck up beyond belief, enabling the succeeding generation to crap on them.

[Seedersandleechers]

181. The millennials should have

come out to vote in 2010 instead of being locked up at home playing video games for days on end. (sarcasm).

[joeglow3]

37. And you seem to think the boomer generation is wholly responsible for all the good shit

The knife cuts both ways. You can't pat yourself on the back for all the good shit and then absolve yourself of responsibility for the bad shit.

THAT is a dim, self-entitiled, petulant pov

[cali]

43. uh, no, my darling young friend. YOU seem to have a considerable reading comprehension

problem. would you say that's a characteristic of your poor wittle generation? And the best you can do rhetorically is mimic me.

I clearly stated- unlike the millennial moron who penned this pathetic piece, that my generation has been a mixed bag.

duh.

[joeglow3]

63. You resorting to personal attacks sums up the strength of your position

Thanks for showing your true colors.


Upon edit:

And it is nice that you attack me for not reading the part that was not present in your original post that I was responding to. Nice job to try and move the goal-post. That also shows a lot.

[cali]

77. lol. you attack- and nastily, an entire generation. the strength of your position is non-existent

I've actually made an argument for my position.

and stop with the tired false accusation bull.

[joeglow3]

84. You patted an entire generation on the back. Your position is equally strong

You said "So, effective anti-war protests, the fight for women's rights and racial equality and GLBT rights, are inconsequential?"

I pointed out if you are going pat yourself on the back for the good things, you need to take an equal amount of responsibility for the bad things. Really, this is a conversation I expect to have with my 4 year old and NOT a 64 year old. However, this mentality is one of the complaints younger generations have for boomers. There are a litany examples in this thread that seem to support that view.

[thucythucy]

111. "I pointed out if you are going to pat yourself

on the back for the good things, you need to take an equal amount of responsibility for the bad things."

Why?

This seems a rather simplistic way to view history.

Isn't it possible that some changes--ending the war in Vietnam, civil and human rights for people of color, women, GLBTs, environmental awareness--were the result of grassroots activism that faced incredible resistance from the powers that be--including lethal violence--and thus deserves credit where credit is due? While other things--the enormous increase in corporate power, the economy being tanked by 30 years of Reaganism foisted on us by the corporate elite, the absorption of media by those same elites, thus making grassroots change more difficult--were due to the connivance of the intensely powerful one percent, and thus less amenable to grassroots action, no matter what?

Saying that people should take "equal responsibility" for the good and the bad things that happen in their culture during their time on earth seems awfully arbitrary. It ignores the fact that different changes/events/developments/trends are due to widely different reasons.

And without a more nuanced understanding of history, trying to have an impact in any way at all, it seems to me, becomes that much more difficult.

Just my opinion, anyway.

[joeglow3]

113. You think people weren't vested in those rights not being granted?

You think the war machine was not vested in continuing the conflict in Vietnam. Of course they were and they fought for the status quo. The grassroots groups showed they can be overcome.

However, they decided they were okay with economy because they got some benefit from it and didn't bother to resist. They could have and could have enacted the change they showed possible in other areas.

[thucythucy]

122. Well, if you could outline a retrospective plan

of action on how precisely this could have been done, I'd love to see it.

Some struggles are "easier" to win than others--I put "easier" in quotes because ANY social change for the better is usually tremendously difficult to achieve. And so, "the grassroots groups showed" that SOMETIMES the powers that be can be overcome, but not other times.

Most boomers I know got damn little if anything out of the way the economic table tilted during the past thirty some odd years. We've got boomers trying to deal with their aging parents--worried about their Social Security--at the same time they're dealing with a shinking job market for older people, while the younger people in their families try to make a place in that same economy. The boomers I know, in other words, are trying to extend themselves supporting the generation ahead of them, and the generation[s] behind. But hey, they didn't overthrow predatory capitalism when they had the chance, so what good are they?

"They could have and could have enacted the change they showed possible in other areas."

You honestly think the reason we don't have more economic justice in this society is because the Boomer generation--those activists who worked on social justice issues anyway--just didn't want it? Again, that seems awfully simplistic to me. Kind of close to "blame the victim."

There are certain mega-factors in politics that are generally beyond the control of the masses, no matter which generation they belong to. I can understand the impulse to want to deny that truth--who wants to admit life is so unjust and uncontrollable--but my reading of history tells me that's just the way it is.

Again, if you personally have a way to confront and defeat those forces, go for it. I wish you all the luck in the world.

Meanwhile, I'd ask you to remember that you'll get old one day as well. You might consider how harshly you'll be judged by your own standards, if and when they come to be widely accepted, and the entire world isn't remade in the image you think best for everyone.

[joeglow3]

124. How did unions come to fruition?

Is it any surprise that they began their decline during this same timeframe. Again, the boomers were happy to get a little money and considered themselves taken care of, so they said screw labor and let the whole structure fall in on themselves.

The generations before them were able to enact change and bring unions into existence. This generation didn't even bother to take the steps to maintain the status quo.

[thucythucy]

132. Unions "came to fruition"

through more than a century of struggle, during which hundreds of activists, at the very least, were brutally killed. It ain't easy, changing the world.

BTW, you do know that many unions during the sixties actually supported the war in Vietnam, and racial segregation, and sexist exclusion of women from the workforce, right? That in some cases union leadership, like the Teabaggers today, actually aligned with the powers that be to support the status quo?

Again, blaming an entire generation for the lapsed economy of the past three to four decades is simplistic in the extreme. But if it's what you need to do to explain your current situation, go right ahead.

Just don't expect to be very successful as a social/political activist. Along those lines, I notice you offered no plan of your own on how the changes you said were possible could have been done.

Could it be it's because, when push comes to shove, you don't have one?

IMHO, the closest we as a society came to stopping and reversing the reaction that started in the late sixties was with the candidacy of Bobby Kennedy. Who was assassinated. By the time progressives recovered from that brutal fact, Nixon was in the White House, stacking the Supreme Court with reactionaries, and his FBI was busy trying to dismantle every organization connected to positive social change--from the Black Panthers to the Mobilization to End the War to the Farm Workers Union to SNCC to the Poor Peoples' Campaign.

Again, what is your amazing plan for how it could have been stopped? What would YOU have done, in a similar situation?

Inter-generational whining and blame-throwing plays right into the hands of the political/economic reactionaries. But, again, if that's what you need to do to feel in some control of things, go for it.

Just don't expect everyone to agree.

[joeglow3]

154. Took them a 100 years to get unions and boomers 20 to lose them

Like I said, good job.

[bettyellen]

175. so, no answers either. not one of the bright lights of your generation, I guess?

[joeglow3]

190. We get to start the 100 year struggle all over

Sucks what one generation did to fuck it all up.

[bettyellen]

194. suck that your generation is not smart enough to come out for mid term elections....

and yet you think they are up to spark a "hundred year struggle"? Yeah, PM me when you guys get that going, okay?

[madrchsod]

205. ah..... another troll to ignore

[bettyellen]

165. oh jeeze, you have no idea, do you.

[joeglow3]

167. That it took boomers 20 years to lose what workers spent 100 years fighting for

Yeah, I get it. Thanks Betty Ellen. My wife, kids and myself appreciate this turd you are giving us. But, you got yours so all is cool.

[bettyellen]

168. HA HA HA HA .

Not so much with the critical thinking here, but you have your memes down, good boy!

[joeglow3]

215. Personal attacks says a lot about critical thinking skills

[jeff47]

179. You have that backwards, IMO.

There are certain mega-factors in politics that are generally beyond the control of the masses, no matter which generation they belong to.

You have this backwards, IMO.

Those mega-factors are caused by the masses. Yes, adept politicians harness them, but you don't get the movement without the bodies. For an example, there's the Romney campaign.

The boomer generation was about 30% liberal, 40% conservative, 30% centrist in the 1960s. That alignment more-or-less stayed the same over the decades. The 10% conservative lean is how the country got turned so far to the right. It was exploited by adept politicians, but it had to be there to be exploited.

That doesn't "lay the blame" on any individual boomers. Or even on the generation as a whole. It just means there was an overall conservative lean that the right-wing could exploit.

Meanwhile, I'd ask you to remember that you'll get old one day as well. You might consider how harshly you'll be judged by your own standards, if and when they come to be widely accepted, and the entire world isn't remade in the image you think best for everyone.

Not that poster, but I've got a lovely cop-out planned: Gen X. Nobody ever gave a damn about what we wanted. Now bring me my flannel and put on Pearl Jam.

[joshcryer]

184. The boomer generation is responsible for the fall of progressivism.

Absolutely 100% without a question.

Given that the US is the world's largest economic superpower everything from Carter until now stems from the votes of those pesky selfish boomers who wanted their cake and ate it too.

[eilen]

252. I'm not a millenial but it is really rich of you to start an OP

whining about how millenials don't like boomers who you claim are authors of all good things.... and then tell them to stop whining when they point out the failures of your generation. The Me Generation accusing their progeny of being entitled and petulant after helicoptering them almost to death. I'm getting the popcorn because these millenials will have your lunch.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

248. Baby boomers are, as a generation, selfish and short sighted

They are the first generation coddled I. Postwar prosperity and child-centrism.

They are the ones trying to raid social security and pensions. They are the ones least financially prepared to face retirement years.

[RobinA]

42. Boomer Here

I'm not embarrassed by my generation. All generations have ups and downs, good points and not so good points. And every generation has its cadre of complete idiots who wind up in powerful places. Generations are products of their times. The problem with all these generational slurs and accolades is that they assume all generations are monoliths.

[tammywammy]

50. Not a boomer, but +1

Excellent post

[llmart]

191. Huh?

Speak for yourself, because this boomer doesn't agree with you. I can't even imagine (and don't want to) what life would be like for women if boomers hadn't fought for women's rights.

I, for one, am sick of the meme "Greatest Generation" because no one generation is better than another. You live in the times you were plunked down in and you have no control over that. I'm also sick of all the boomer bashing.

The so-called Greatest Generation had pensions and Social Security and Medicare. I know very few boomers who have a pension. It was taken away from us when deregulation allowed companies to do whatever they wanted to. Deregulation and union busting were Reagan's babies, and it was the so-called Greatest Generation who fell for him hook, line and sinker. I sure as hell didn't vote for him.

[CorrectOfCenter]

9. As a millennial, I fear for the day when we get in power.

We're good on social issues, but we're way too libertarian-leaning.

[cali]

11. `that's an interesting point

[TroglodyteScholar]

25. A few days/weeks of homelessness and/or hunger will change that libertarian lean in a g-damn hurry.

Not suggesting that it's called for, of course...just that it would do the trick for that nasty little tendency.

[jeff47]

112. Many teenage-to-twentysomethings have libertarian leanings

It doesn't take too much "real world" to burn that off. Usually by 30 the same people realize libertarian paradise is just as impossible as communist paradise.

[bluestate10]

243. The split toward progressive libertarianism is pretty significant. Millennials are far more

likely than Boomers to do good and stick with their efforts through thick and thin.

[geek tragedy]

10. Every generation is smarter than its predecessor and wiser than its successor. nt

[cali]

13. do you actually believe that?

[geek tragedy]

17. No, it's speaking to their point of view. Gen Xers groused about how out of touch

bomers were and now grouse about how milennials have an egregious sense of entitlement. Boomers said "don't trust anyone over 30" before they started buying minivans.

The kids who runs across the neighbor's lawn will one day be the grumpy old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn.

[snooper2]

14. REALLY? You saw a "boomer" thread and you had to start your own to get 137 posts?

LOL...


At least it's a change from the PORN!

[cali]

19. actually, there have been lots of threads posted about this issue

so yeah, that thread sparked this one, but had it been an anomaly, I wouldn't have posted this one.

And so what? I find it rather interesting that this bothers you, hon.

[snooper2]

22. Nothing bother me...well, except stupid people. And these fucking bugs we had in Texas

Hackberry nipple-gall maker bugs

Nasty little bastards!

[tammywammy]

44. Things that bother me

People perpetuating silly generational stereotypes in order to bash the older or younger generation. For example: All millennials are lazy do nothing whiners. Boomers gave us Reagan and fucked everything up!

Each generation has pros and cons, but the "kids these days..." shit is tiresome.

Also, your use of "hon", though not directed at me, is demeaning.

[LanternWaste]

26. Interesting allegation...

Interesting allegation...

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. I fear the dominance of a generation that cannot remember a world before Ronald Reagan

[tammywammy]

16. Oh good generational warfare, must mean the porn war is over. n/t

[TroglodyteScholar]

28. Who won?

Innies or outties?

[hughee99]

29. I'm not sure about my DU warfare cycle, but I think up next is the regional war.

"People from the south are..."

[Sissyk]

81. That is SOOOO last month!

I want the kudzu to come back. I missed it and for the life of me I can't figure out what the arguments were about. lol!

[Cleita]

18. Maybe it's because one is the parent generation and the other their

children. Young people never want to be like their parents until they are in their fifties and start appreciating why they were the way they were. I myself am the silent generation and I read somewhere that we are supposed to be copastetic with the millennials. The person who did the study claimed that generations cycled and each new generations have similarities with a couple of generations before them. I don't remember who did it. I don't think it was any you referenced but along those lines.

I am looking forward to the next generation who is similar to the greatest generation. Maybe will will get a new Roosevelt and another New Deal. Of course I will be taking a dirt nap by then.

[jeff47]

114. Grandchildren.

Boomer's kids are generally "Generation X". Gen X's kids are generally millennials.

[Prism]

20. Wrecked economy, expensive education system

Yeah, it's a total mystery.

[cali]

27. yes, because it's the fault of an entire generation

I really do despair for your lot if that's representative of your critical thinking skills.

[hughee99]

31. Did you just call out a "broad brush" and make one at the same time?

Impressive!

[loli phabay]

33. i put it down to grumpy old person syndrome, not so much get off my lawn as you owe me

Respect. Its interesting to see what side the contempt is coming from.

[cali]

45. I'm playing the author's game. I noted that in another post in this thread

[Prism]

32. You're trying to assuage your conscience

But it is a simple, objective truth that Boomers are leaving a wreck behind. The economy is in the toilet, people are accumulating six figure debt to attain an education that many Boomers got for free, no one my age is under any illusion we'll be getting Social Security, and global warming has been entirely ignored.

It's nice that you care. Good for you. But yes, the Boomers did fuck us, and fuck us well.

Oh, there are silver linings socially. We're a more socially liberal nation. That's awesome.

But economically? Well, you got yours. I'm happy for you. Truly. Can't help you with the obvious guilty feeling. You'll just have to cope with treads like this, I suppose.

[RobinA]

47. Oh, We Can Cope

with threads like these. We were young once. The Boomers are the country-wreckers now. Your turn will come.

[Prism]

58. I have no doubt of this whatsoever

When we're in charge, we will have to own the problems we create or fail to solve.

Which is why I don't get the constant Boomer refrain of "Not our fault!" as if the entire country fell out of a clear blue sky.

[joeglow3]

65. My problem is your inability to own up to your mistakes

This started as a great big pat on the back for all the good things boomers did. When people point out all the bad shit they did, the response has been:

1. We couldn't control that,
2. You are just whiney,
3. You will have people bitching about you some day, and/or
4. personal attacks

In short, childish behavior.

[thucythucy]

225. My problem is you don't actually answer

the questions posed to you, or engage in actual discussion. Rather, you just post the same generalizations again and again, as in "It took 100 years to build the labor movement...."

Dividing progressives along generational lines serves no one except the powers that be. I've asked you again and again what your plan is, even an outline for what could have been done, and what you think should be done now, and all I get is the same one or two sentence zingers. Evidently, though you're willing to post repeatedly on the topic, you haven't put very much thought into what the alternatives might have been.

Take a look at post 199 in this thread, a post no one has as yet seen fit to question. Short version: for very many women, GLBTs, people of color, people with disabilities, the last forty years have seen some significant gains. On the issue of sexual harassment alone there has been real progress. Many men used to take it for granted that they could abuse women in the workplace, professors at colleges were known for basing their grades on the sort of "compensation" the young women in their classes were willing to provide. I know an older woman who, in college, was told flat out by her professor, "I hate women, so I advise you drop this (required) course. I don't think women should be in this field, and I'll give you an F just for wasting my time." This was perfectly legal at the time--she had no recourse, whatsoever. Today a professor like that would most likely lose his job. Just one example of how things have changed for the better.

This isn't to minimize the enormous problems we all face today, which includes Boomers who have contributed trillions in tax dollars to Social Security--which would have been solvent forever under Boomer Al Gore's "lockbox" plan--who now are threatened with having it all taken away as part of the Republican plan to pit one generation against another, just as they pit working class whites against blacks, straights against gays, able-bodied against people with disabilities, etc. A meme you've bought into entirely, and a plan in which you are serving their interests quite nicely, judging from your posts here.

You keep saying it's up to you "to rebuild" the labor movement. So then, you're a union organizer, yes? And so we'd like to hear your wisdom on how to jumpstart the movement, something beyond sulking and flamebaiting.

So have at it. Let's hear your plan. You obviously have time to vent your spleen in this thread, so you must therefore have had some time to think about what YOU will do, what you want others to do. You have youth and anger, but do you have a PLAN?

Go for it. We await the unfolding of your political brilliance.

[joeglow3]

228. Did you see the mass walkout/protest that just took place this week?

[thucythucy]

235. Are you talking about the climate conference?

Were YOU responsible for that? Wow, I had no idea!

But you still haven't answered any of my questions.

Interesting to note, and also a bit depressing, that this whole anti-Boomer meme was first introduced into the public discourse by none other than George Will. He's been flogging the "self-indulgent" Boomer bit since the 1980s.

Sad to see it's taken such hold, even among self-described progressives.

And have you read the post to which I steered you? Any responses to that that can't be fit onto a bumper sticker?

And while I'm at it, here's another question for you which I'm pretty sure you won't answer.

Growing up, my heros (among others) were James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the three civil rights activists who, of their own free will, risked (and lost) their lives in the struggle. They chose to work in the heart of the racist beast, and paid the ultimate price. All of them were Boomers.

So who among your own cohort do you admire for sacrificing their lives in the cause of human and civil rights? Just curious to know where you're coming from.

[joeglow3]

236. No. The fast food protest

[thucythucy]

238. So you were responsible for that?

Anyway, you obviously can't be bothered to enter into an actual discussion, so I'm done playing.

Best of luck with your political work, whatever that may be, if any.

[joeglow3]

246. Yes

[thucythucy]

262. Good for you!

I think you might find, however, that political organizing, like much else in life, goes easier if you don't go out of your way to alienate an entire generation of potential supporters.

Best wishes.

[joeglow3]

264. Bleh. That generation has already shown a willingingness to butt fuck my generation.

[HappyMe]

53. Guilty?

Threads like this don't bother me in the least. With a few changes, someday someone will be typing up a post like yours aimed at you.

[Prism]

59. Yup

And they will be justified if my generation fails just as spectacularly.

[HappyMe]

62. Every generation fails in some way or another.

I have no doubt in my mind that yours will fail spectacularly in some area(s).

[Prism]

70. Without question

But when measuring generations and their success, I think a simple rule should apply: Are you leaving the next generation better off than you were? I think on the Boomer/Milennial question, the answer is obvious.

[HappyMe]

80. Yes, I know.

We're horrible, crappy people. Every single one of us boomers is responsible for all of the world's problems.
And all because my parents handed me everything on a silver platter......oh, wait...

All you can do I guess, is hope your generation hands a bright, glorious world over to your kids. I think maybe you should consider getting to work on that. Time passes quickly. I get involved in local politics, write letters, go to some protests, help gotv because complaining and wringing my hands doesn't do anything.

[Prism]

89. No one said that

Seriously, in a discussion of Boomer vs Millennial, drawing the victim card just doesn't work. Boomers have most of the power and most of the wealth in aggregate. I know plenty of stellar Boomers. The majority of them I know are just ace people.

But we're talking in aggregate. Do you dispute that, as a whole, the Boomer Generation has left a harder world for those who are following? It's very nice that you personally do some swell things, but that doesn't argue against the Millennial complaint that the Boomer generation has not exactly done us a solid at this point.

[HappyMe]

101. I'm not drawing the victim card.

You are doing a good enough job with that.

As far as did my generation make mistakes - of course we did. But as you will find out, at the time a decision is made it may have been the best one given the circumstances.

It might very well be a harder world now. I think that it's a cumulative effect of all that has gone before us, and the boomers too. Blaming one generation solely for everything gives us way more power than we ever had. I would like to know where my boomer wealth is, because I sure as hell don't have it.

[thucythucy]

199. Re: your question: "Are you leaving the next generation

better off than you were?" itself begs some questions. First and foremost, who is it you're talking about?

If you're talking about entitled white men who expect the whole world to revolve around their entitlement, then definitely, the world is worse today than it was for them in 1960.

If you're talking about people of color, GLBTs, women, or people with disabilities, the world is, I would argue, in the US at least, a better place. For some people it's hugely better--for instance, children with disabilities, who today aren't locked by the hundreds of thousands into massive state institutions where they're routinely raped, beaten, castrated and otherwise mutilitated, sometimes even murdered. That right there is a HUGE improvement, in my book at least.

In 1960, a woman who was raped was told a) it's your fault and b) keep your mouth shut. There was NO support for a woman in such a situation, not anything you could count on, anyway. Way too much of that still goes on today, but at least there are rape crisis centers and counselors. Such things didn't even exist until the women's movement founded them in the late 60s early 70s. I count that as a huge improvement.

In 1960 most women couldn't even buy birth control. Condoms were illegal in some states. Abortion was a crime in all of them. As under attack as reproductive rights are today, in some parts of the country they still exist. I count that as an improvement, don't you?

In 1960 most black people in the south couldn't vote. The very idea of a black governor, let alone a black president, was pie-in-the-sky laughable. The right to vote is again under attack--but compared to 1960, even 1970...

In 1960 most women were expected to stay at home and be dutiful wives. If their husbands raped or beat them, tough shit. A woman who'd been divorced was a slut. Also a woman who had sex before marriage. And forget about being an unwed mother, you were "ruined" for life.

In 1960 very many Latino men, women and children were the virtual slaves of agri-business. No rights, no voice, no power. Check out the documentary "Harvest of Shame" sometime and you'll see what I mean. Again, not that there isn't exploitation and hardship today. But in 1960 this wasn't even seen as anything wrong. It was "the nature of things" that white people subordinated brown people. Hell, it was even in most school textbooks!

And getting back to people with disabilities--my community of heart--there were no curb cuts, no accessible transit, no ramps ANYWHERE, or hardly anywhere. A person in a wheelchair couldn't even find a place to piss or shit, once outside their own home (or the institutions where most of us were imprisoned), let alone a job, a spouse, a life. I think the Boomers did just fine by us, thank you.

I'm not saying everything is wine and roses now, especially for people who are in a racial, ethnic, sexual or other minority. But to say the world, or the States anyway, are way worse for most people is I think a gross over simplification.

Like I say, for white men, maybe. Even there, at least those who turn eighteen and aren't rich aren't faced with the prospect of having their asses drafted and sent to a jungle somewhere to fight in a war they want no part of. That alone, again, is hugely better--unless of course you're one of those folks who misses the draft.

Problems today--especially the economic problems--are immense, no doubt about it. Had the Supreme Court not botched the 2000 election, had Gore been able to carry on the Clinton legacy of budget surplusses, relative peace, and relative economic prosperity, we'd be in a vastly different place today. That's not something you can pin on this or that generation, but rather the elitists who stole that election and the judges who enabled them (most of them appointed by Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I--none of whom were Boomers).

Then again, of course, Clinton was a Boomer, as was Dim Son.

Just goes to show it's dangerous to generalize.

The struggle continues, and each of us has to do what we can with what we have. That's all we can do.

Best wishes.

[Blue_In_AK]

200. Plus a million.

Best response yet.

[madrchsod]

206. well here`s my ....

to you for an excellent post from an old and in the way 66yr old

[kiva]

216. Excellent!

You win the thread.

[Egalitarian Thug]

74. They had the benefits given them because of things their parents did, they took these

benefits to improve their own lives, and then pulled the ladder up behind them, denying them to their own kids. They got the free/low cost education, they grew up with access to health care, they grew up in cites and towns that had, supported, and recognized the value of the commons.

The Hippies were right, but not very many of them were ever really Hippies. Most of them were the arrogant, greedy, short-sighted fools that eagerly cut their own throats in the mistaken belief that they would never face any of the consequences of their actions. As adults, they did exactly what they did in their youth, take it, break it, and leave it for someone else to deal with. And as for the generation unfortunate enough to immediately follow them, well we got a lifetime of ill-used leftovers and the bills for their party,

Theirs is the generation that stopped looking up and turned inward.

[Prism]

83. Ayep

And when called on it, they bitch and moan and complain that everyone's being just so terribly unfair.

And they call Millennials the narcissists. As if we wouldn't have gotten a billion self-infatuated selfies out of Woodstock had Facebook existed back then.

[Scootaloo]

224. That's it in a nutshell

Imagine they call us "entitled" because we'd like to have some access to the things they simply expected and took for granted!

[LittleBlue]

30. Here is the biggest problem with boomers

They were preceded by the Greatest Generation. The ones who endured the Great Depression, turned the economy around, started modern social welfare, and then defeated Nazism and created a free world.

The boomers were unfortunate enough to follow people who are viewed as the saviors of humanity. Not only that, they are viewed as ambitious and greedy by comparison to their stoic, content parents.

Us Gen-X/Y/Millennials have nothing like that to live up to.

[hughee99]

34. How can you say Gen-X/Y/Millenials have nothing to live up to?

The Boomers were the REAL greatest generation. Just ask one, they'll tell you.

[loli phabay]

39. lol.

[HappyMe]

41. lol!

That's funny.

Sorry, but I don't know anybody my age that considers themselves the 'greatest'. Every generation complains about the one before them. Your turn to be blamed for everything is coming.

[cali]

46. really? links to evidence of that bee?

Like all generations, it's a mixed bag.

[hughee99]

79. Yes, all generations are a mixed bag,

and while you can find lots of different groups who will readily point out the problems their own generation faced, and the shortcomings of their own generation, in my own experience, you'll find NO generation quicker to "toot their own horn" than the Boomers. I could link to this thread or almost any other DU thread on this subject as evidence.

[joeglow3]

68. I LOVE it

This thread offers all the proof of that.

[Jesus Malverde]

76. duzy!!...nt

[Vashta Nerada]

85. Ha!

[RobinA]

48. I Saw

what you did there...

[LittleBlue]

55. I wasn't really looking to be facetious with that

Take teenagers today to view a WW2-era movie. Even kids who might be ill-mannered otherwise feel a mixture of pride and awe toward their great grandparents.

My generation has to accumulate wealth and get married to equal our parents, maybe have a house in the suburbs. That's much more easily attainable than noble-in-our-poverty hero status.

[kiva]

217. No, they were preceded by the Silent Generation.

Too young for WWII and too young for Vietnam - if they dodged Korea, they were war-free. They were young - not kids, but young workers - when the economy boomed after the war. They were also often the parents of the later baby boomers.

[LittleBlue]

219. Jeez, you're being pedantic

Millions of Boomers have WW2 vets for parents. The ones born right after WW2 ended are Boomers.

That comment is really unnecessary.

[kiva]

233. And what exactly did I say that contridicted what you said?

I'm a boomer whose parents are Greatest Generation. Many of my friends are boomers with Silent Generation parents, just depends on when your parents reproduced.

Pedantic? Maybe. Unnecessary? Only if you believe you should be able to make inaccurate statements on a message board and not be called on your mistakes.

[eilen]

253. Much of the achievements Boomers take credit for were actually

accomplished by the generation before them-- The Silents. They were born during the war years. My mother and father were both born during that time-1939 and 1943.

I was born 1965-- early gen xer.

the later xers had boomer parents.

The Generation Jones (boomer/x cuspers-- in their mid to late 50's now) are at the tail end. They were children during the whole radical 60's time--not old enough for Woodstock.

Mostly the people who benefited during the Reagan years the most were Boomers, they were the hippies turned into yuppies.

[randr]

36. Some of the Millennials I know

think growing old is an attitude or option.
Those of us who once felt this way know how wrong we were.

[LongTomH]

40. How about "We're all in this together!" instead of a generational warfare!

As far as generations go, I would actually be part of the 'transitional generation,' just before the Boomers; I was born just before the official start of the Baby Boom (Dec, 1944). But culturally, I grew up with the Baby Boomers and the events and influence that shaped their live: Elvis, JFK, the Beatles, Vietnam, the Moon Landing, Nixon.

[RobinA]

57. People Complaining

about this generation doing this or that are giving the "generation" concept way too much power. Any group of people alive during the Depression would have endured the depression. It's not like one group of people would have all jumped off a bridge while another group of people would have plodded stoically onward. Every generation plays the cards they are dealt.

It so happens that the greatest economic boom the western world has ever seen started slowing down in the '70's. Boomers didn't cause the boom, nor did they cause the end of the boom. They benefitted from it for awhile and are now being hurt by it. It so happens that a severe depression hit in the late '20's. If the greatest generation is to be credited with surviving that depression, they should be credited with causing it. But all this is way too simplistic. Generational similarities are results, not causes.

[wickerwoman]

49. I think part of it is a lack of understanding of the difficulties millenials face.

Boomer parents tell their millenial kids "you could get a job if you really wanted one" after they spent a whole morning reading rejection emails, "just work at McDonalds until things turn around" after they've already been turned down for dozens of crappy fast food jobs. They make jokes about "boomerang kids" as if the actual choice their child was facing wasn't homelessness or mom's sofa. They turn their child's despair into something that is all about the inconvenience to them- oh dear... when will Johnny finally grow up and move out so I can get a new iPad?

Meanwhile, Johnny sees very clearly that he will never be able to attain the lifestyle his parents take for granted. He will literally be expected to work ten times harder just to survive - not even to get ahead or to build up a savings buffer. His parents weren't competing with 1.5 billion Chinese people straight out of the gate. They didn't graduate college $60,000 in debt. For the majority of their working lives, they were able to find jobs that let them buy houses and start families. How many people in their 20s now can afford to have kids at the same age their parents did? And yet how many of them have pressure from their parents to "grow up, get a job, settle down, give me grandkids"? How many of them have to put up with comments about what a late start they're making to their career and how they should really be saving for retirement now (nevermind they're living paycheck to paycheck off two "part-time" jobs)?

I'm not sure it's a question of blaming boomers so much as resenting the lack of understanding from them that millennials are growing up in a very different world and have problems that can't be solved the same way they have been in the past.

[Laelth]

100. Spot on.

As an X'er, I think it's the "if I could do it, why can't you?" attitude of some boomers that grates upon my generation. Boomers often fail to take into account how much harder it is to survive these days. The United States is much poorer now than it was when the Boomers came of age. Somehow, this fact gets ignored far too often (especially if you have to ask your parents for assistance).

-Laelth

[tabbycat31]

172. +1000

[jeff47]

51. Well....what'd your generation do?

Your generation started out quite well.

But as the 70s wore on, your generation became less focused on those good things. The "hippies" were only about 20-30% of the baby boomers. And for various reasons, they stopped trying. That left the 40% of your generation that were "Nixon Youth" to have a much larger effect. To the point where the right side of your generation is the major remaining component of the Republican party.

The negative ones get a lot more press because they've had such an enormous and long-lasting effect. The turn to social darwinism of our political discourse happened because the former "Nixon Youth" pushed it into power. That has led to a cascade of an enormous number of things that far outweigh the positive elements.

And this goes very far beyond politics. For example, in your quote about millennials:

the proportion of students who said being wealthy was very important to them increased from 45% for Baby Boomers (surveyed between 1967 and 1985) to 70% for Gen X and 75% for Millennials.

Why? Because once those Nixon Youth changed our politics, being wealthy became far more critical - you couldn't count on anyone else because society had shifted so far to the right.

As a result, being wealthy became far more critical to withstanding the setbacks that crop up in anyone's life. Additionally, it was no longer possible to have a stable, well-paying factory job with a generous pension, making wealth necessary for a comfortable retirement. And that doesn't get into saddling them with $100k in debt for college.

Plus, it doesn't help the inter-generational resentment when you post bullshit like this:

Boomers were able to have a real impact on the culture in a way that millennials haven't been able to

Millennials are in their single-digits to 20s. You are claiming they are jealous of what your generation did over the last 50 years. The vast majority of them can not vote. Or drive.

Or did you happen to forget about "Gen X" again?

[RobinA]

60. Just So You Know?

This hippie and many others have not stopped trying. We're just outnumbered daily.

Feel free to pitch in.

[jeff47]

71. Some are. Many stopped when the draft did.

Last edited Tue Dec 3, 2013, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Feel free to pitch in.

We've been trying to fix it for a long time now. We got the stupid "spooky/unknown" label of Gen X because we are so outnumbered we had no political or economic power. Thanks to the oldest of the millennials, we're finally able to start changing that.

But thanks for confirming you continue to overlook us.

[comrade snarky]

221. Some didn't and I appreciate them

The Student Activists, Freedom Riders and others were truly heroic.

But lets not pretend "Tune in, Turn on and Drop Out" is an effective slogan if you want to win an election.

[Laelth]

86. Gen X is regularly forgotten. That comes as no shock to me. n/t

-Laelth

[tammywammy]

96. I read once that Gen X is similar to the Silent Generation. n/t

[bluestate10]

244. I seriously doubt that 20-23% of Boomers were Hippies. Hippies stood for something.

Given the Nixon and Reagan landslides, I would put the Hippie amount of Boomers at no more than 10%. The rest of the Boomers that participated in public group action were hanger-ons that had no fucking emotional attachment to anything other than their own desires, mostly getting stoned and laid.

[jeff47]

245. Nixon and Reagan also got votes from older generations.

And a 10% margin is a rather large margin, especially since that's only the "core" of the voting block. There's 40% centrists that split between the parties.

Most of the breakdowns of the "Baby Boomers" I've seen are 20-30% "Hippie", 30-40% "Centrist", 40% "Nixon Youth" in the late 1960s. And political alignment doesn't actually shift all that much over the years.

[GliderGuider]

52. The world is a lot bigger than any subgroup of people.

We boomers did the best we could, just like every other group of people for the last 200,000 years.

The problem is that there is now planetary-scale Bad Shit happening, and to ease their own distress people traditionally look for other groups to scapegoat.

No matter where I look, I don't see any scapegoats - just other people.

[NuclearDem]

54. Damn it, enough with the fucking infighting.

The Boomers didn't steal my generation's future, Wall Street did.

Wall Street, the Moral Majority, the trickle down Reaganites, and the Third Way collaborators sabotaged my generation's access to affordable education, a living wage, and Social Security. Half my life has been spent so far in a time of armed conflict.

That's not the Boomers' fault, or the Greatest Generation's fault, or the millennials' fault. It's the end result of unfettered capitalism and creeping fascism that has been in the works ever since the days of the robber barons, turn of the century American imperialism, and the rise of American religious fundamentalism.

And you know who's to blame for all of that? Wall Street and the politicians they've owned to varying degrees for damn near a century.

But nevermind, let's keep pissing all over each other. It's exactly what the oligarchy has wanted us to do since Day One.

[LongTomH]

67. Agreed!!!!

That's what I was trying to say, in my own halting way. Things won't start to improve until there's some inter-generational solidarity!

[joeglow3]

69. Boomers sat by and let it happen

They knew they could impact change. As the original topic creater pointed out, look at the changes they caused related to women's rights, minority rights, LGBT rights, etc. They just choose to sit those out and let those things happen.

[ohheckyeah]

102. Has it ever occurred to you that your

generation could have stopped it? Has it ever occurred to you that boomers are aging, many having health problems, and they are just tired of the fight, or dealing with their aging parents and not keeping up with every damn thing going on? Do you really think we wanted to see our 401k plans tank?

I see young women sitting back doing nothing about the attacks on women's rights that are going on and expecting the older women to fight the battle yet again. It's your generations turn to do something besides blame everybody else.

[joeglow3]

107. This started in the 80's

I was 8. What would you have liked me to have done?

[ohheckyeah]

108. Did you expect us to be

psychic? I didn't vote for Reagan and I don't think anybody knew where he would take this country. The economy royally sucked under Carter and that's a great part of what ushered in Reagan. Not to mention, the 80s followed the exhausting 70s during which time many of us lost our peers to VietNam. Please, excuse us for not putting aside our grief and exhaustion and doing everything we could 24/7 to take care of you.

What did you do to stop the collapse that happened under Bush or were you still 8?

[joeglow3]

110. I was in college and apathetic

The point is I don't see a lot of 20/30 somethings sucking each other's dicks over all the great things we did. If Boomers are going to do that, also take responsibility for what they failed to do, using the same criteria they did to pat themselves on the back.

[ohheckyeah]

117. I'm not sucking anything

over the great things Boomers did. (By-the-way, how crude of you.) Maybe you could quit trying to blame everything in your life you don't like on everybody else.....a pastime a lot of 20/30 somethings enjoy regularly.

Did my generation screw up? Yeah, we're human and we were handed a shit sandwich to deal with in the form of VietNam and the shit economy that followed. I remember friends paying 23% interest on a friggin' car loan.

We certainly didn't destroy the country.single handed...previous and subsequent generations have their fair share of the blame, including your generation's apathy. I didn't have time to be apathetic during the college years because I didn't get to go to college, something true for many boomers. I went to work right out of high school.

So, go ahead and pat your apathetic self on the back for not claiming to have done anything great because that's probably at least truthful.

[joeglow3]

119. College today is the high school dropout of your generation

I got to spend four more years in college and incur $75,000 in loans to get a job making what a high school dropout could make in your generation. I worked 50 hours a week AND went to school full time to get this job. Thus, politics was not high on my priority list. I didn't have the luxury you did of getting a good job right out of high school and being able to focus on other things.

Thanks.

[ohheckyeah]

123. A good job?

Please, I wasn't making shit. Luxury? LOL You really need a reality check. You're looking back at history with rose colored glasses because nobody I knew had a good job. We did what we had to do.

Do you think we like losing our jobs at 50 because we're too old? Do you think we like not being able to retire until we're 80? Do you think when we were trying to make ends meet in the 80s with the shit economy that we had the time, energy, or luxury of politics being high on OUR priority list? Think about it....23% interest on a friggin' car loan. I don't know what home interest rates were because I couldn't afford to purchase a home.

But, of course, you don't address any of what I've said about what it was like for us because it's all about you and how put upon you are.

[joeglow3]

130. I worked next to a lady with a high school degree

She started working for the company 20 years earlier and went there right out of high school. The requirement for me to get a EXACT SAME JOB today was essentially a masters degree (150 credit hours).

Were you making money our of high school. I was LOSING $75,000. I assure you, I would have loved to have gotten my same job out of high school like my co-worker did instead of waiting 5 years and paying $150,000, with interest.

[ohheckyeah]

135. And of course that experience

must be everyone's experience

I wonder what she made compared to what you made AFTER she worked 20 years.

$75,000 interest in 5 years? Seriously? Who did you finance with - Mafia R Us?

[joeglow3]

155. Most people don't pay off 75,000 in student loans in 5 years

Most college loans are a house payment, stretched over 20+ years. And no those aren't mafia rates. They are government rates.

[ohheckyeah]

174. Well, if it's paid

move on. The bitterness and finger pointing will ruin your life.

[Blue_In_AK]

158. We were handed Vietnam,

not to mention the fact that the people we respected, our leaders from the generation before us, we're brutally murdered. I think older boomers, such as myself, really were disheartened by that loss. We tried hard to carry on their visions and get things accomplished, but it was pretty obvious that negative forces were arrayed against us. The election of Ronald Reagan -- for whom I never voted, either as governor of California or as president -- was the nail in the coffin.

I don't really blame the younger people for being bitter -- we were pretty hard on the generation before us, too -- but after you guys are forced to fight and die in a fruitless war and after your leaders are assassinated, then we'll talk.

[jeff47]

162. Start talking, then.

There seems to be these places called "Iraq" and "Afghanistan".......

[Blue_In_AK]

164. Hello, volunteer army.

Totally 100% different situation.

I had lots of friends and relatives who died in Vietnam or were permanently scarred who had no choice about going there. Could it be that our protests against the war had anything at all to do with eliminating the draft?

[jeff47]

166. Hello, crappy civilian job and education market

making a lot of those 'volunteers' selecting it as the only viable way out.

Could it be that our protests against the war had anything at all to do with eliminating the draft?

It's still around, as any male that turns 18 can remind you.

It's not necessary to actively conscript, because there's enough people in such terrible conditions that joining the military is their only good option. And stop-loss was plenty close to active conscription....because it was active conscription. Just on the way out instead of on the way in.

Now, tell me again about all the people who had plenty of choice about going to Iraq when they signed up in 1998 to pay for school because 20 years of slashing education spending made it impossible to afford any other way. It's such a lovely tale.

[ohheckyeah]

173. Hear hear! n/t

[HappyMe]

118. Apathetic?

I don't think somebody that's apathetic should be demanding anything from anybody.

What 'great things' are you talking about?

[ohheckyeah]

125. Well, he was entitled to be apathetic,

don't you know? While we weren't allowed to take a breath and to enjoy peace for a quick second. We weren't allowed to not be on the street corner protesting because, well, because we needed to make life perfect for him.

[HappyMe]

133. The apathy thing really

gave me a chuckle.

Funny how everything is our fault, and yet here is someone that doesn't give enough of a damn to at least try to change things.

I still do what I can to bring about positive changes. I guess I'm just a foolish, greedy boomer and can't help myself.

[ohheckyeah]

136. Yeah, me, too.

My husband who is older than I, bought his first home at the age of 60.....and I guarantee you many of the young people would want to redo the house because it doesn't have top of the line everything. I don't know how we manage to get by with only 1100 square feet of space and no granite counter tops.

The poster is entitled to his apathy but us greedy boomers had to be on top of everything all the time. Makes me want to hurl.

I still fight for a woman's right to choose but can't get pregnant....where are the young women? I don't see many of them too concerned. I live in a very red area and alienate people because I'm outspoken about LGBT rights.....foolish me.

[HappyMe]

140. I did notice the last time I

went to a rally for women's right to choose there were only about three 20-30 year old women there. The rest of us had snow on the roof. I will still fight for this, but at some point the young women are going to have to step up. They cannot take this for granted.

[ohheckyeah]

143. There are times I want to take the attitude

that it is no longer my problem....screw it, but it isn't in my nature. I don't know about you, but I'm weary of fighting the same battles we fought in the 70s.

[HappyMe]

147. Yeah, it is getting old

fighting for the same damn things over and over. I would like to throw in the towel, but I can't just yet.

[ohheckyeah]

149. I understand.

I'd like to retire and let someone else fight the fight but that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.

[jeff47]

109. When we were 10?

Has it ever occurred to you that your generation could have stopped it?

At 2, I proved not very effective at aiding Carter's election. At 6 years old, I did not have much of a chance to work against Reagan's election. At 14, I really couldn't help Dukakis. By the time I could vote for Clinton, the massive rightward shift in our country had already happened. For example, your shitty 401k had long since replaced pensions.

As an added bonus, my generation was massively outnumbered. To the point where marketers labeled us "Gen X" as shorthand for "Shit, we never bothered to find out anything about these people." If we couldn't attract the attention of marketing, it should be apparent we did not have the numbers to have much political clout.

Now that millennials are coming of age, and "Nixon Youth" are dying, we will be able to do something about it.

I see young women sitting back doing nothing about the attacks on women's rights that are going on and expecting the older women to fight the battle yet again.

Yeah, damn them for worrying about buying food and paying college loans!!!

The world changed during your lifetime. That means the following generations have to make different choices, because some doors closed. Others opened. They can not (and should not) walk the same path.

[Blue_In_AK]

189. I'm sorry, but do you really think we were all rolling around in money

when we were in our early 20s fighting and protesting for civil rights, abortion rights, environmental rights, fighting to end the war? I don't know you, of course, but I would wager that I was quite as broke as you when I first got out on my own and, in fact, have had to struggle to make ends meet most of my life - despite my cheap but rather worthless college degree.

And, again, on the draft - registering at 18 is NOT the same as being drafted, and you know that. Granted, a lot of today's military joined for the job, just as in my day, but it was still their free choice, not something they could be arrested for if they didn't choose to participate. Not something that they'd have to flee to Canada to avoid.

I guess it's true what they say -- you had to have been there.

But I do hope that things look up for you all soon. I have two gen-X daughters (41 and 36) and one Millennial (28) myself, not to mention my little grandchildren, and I would like the world to be perfect for them. Unfortunately, I don't think you can look back on any period in history where things were "just right," like Goldilocks .

[jeff47]

232. You weren't rolling around in debt.

but I would wager that I was quite as broke as you when I first got out on my own and, in fact, have had to struggle to make ends meet most of my life - despite my cheap but rather worthless college degree.

Well, my rather worthless college degree cost about $80k. So yes, I was more "broke" when I first got out on my own, since I had (presumably) similar crappy starter jobs while being in $80k more debt.

Who did that? Mostly former "Nixon Youth" that pushed for massive cuts in education spending. While they're technically part of the Boomer generation, they aren't all Boomers - I've been trying to be careful to point out that an entire generation can not be labeled by a component of that generation. Those right-wingers got it through because they happened to outnumber the left wing by about 10%.

But that's just the economic side of things. On the political side, "the kids" were greatly outnumbered so we had very little clout. It doesn't take long to realize you're not going to get anywhere politically - We couldn't even get "the powers that be" to bother to come out against us. That's resulted in GenX's record low voting rate - and also why we weren't "out in the streets".

On the plus side, our lack of economic clout has resulted in GenX being a bit less materialistic - marketing ignoring us was probably a good thing overall. It's amusing to think about the history of ads on sporting events - When I was a kid, it was all "beer-party"-style commercials. As boomers aged, it changed to "beer-with-your-friends" commercials. And now "treat-your-disease" commercials.

And, again, on the draft - registering at 18 is NOT the same as being drafted, and you know that.

To be utterly pedantic, Selective Service is "the draft", they're just not conscripting. For now.

but it was still their free choice, not something they could be arrested for if they didn't choose to participate.

If you believed the marketing and signed up for ROTC to pay for school in 1998, you signed up not expecting the gross incompetence of the Bush administration to send you to Iraq and then massively fuck that up. The only wars you would have seen were the air campaigns during the Clinton administration and the first Iraq war, which was pretty bloodless for the US - we had supposedly "learned the lessons of Vietnam".

But the Bush administration did fuck it up. To claim such people made that choice with full information is to ignore that they did not have such information, and ignores the lack of other good options thanks to the efforts of the former "Nixon Youth" to de-fund education. And ignores the conscription when "Stop-Loss" came into effect.

"It was worse back in my day!" is as crappy when a Boomer uses it on GenX as when a WWII generation used it on a Boomer. It ignores today's problems in order to celebrate yesterday's problems. And I'm sure the millennials will be annoyed when GenX does the same thing.

[mike_c]

56. I presume it's the same sort of contempt we had for our parents....

We weren't happy with the world they left us, either.

[Jesus Malverde]

64. Once again the boomers are self interested. Focusing on their own children the millenials.

Forgetting the hardest working, left to save the country generation X.

Gen X has been living under the rapacious locust like shadow of the boomers for its whole existence.

Gen X has been a victim of the cultural battles waged within the baby boom. Boomers as a whole, as they "grew up" and started having millenials embraced conservative social norms like the war on drugs, the war on free sex, and a love for the military and war incompatible with their own experiences during the vietnam war.

The boomers have never, ever, paid their fare share of taxes. Instead incurring huge debts to be passed on after they are gone. The United States has never in it's history encountered such a demographic imbalance completely overwhelming all cultural, social, and economic areas.

The nation is like a snake, it's used to consuming small animals as part of it's diet. It keeps moving and is nimble. Then comes along this deer called boomer and the snake eats it. At first the snake feels the energy of the massive meal. Soon however it realizes it's trying to digest way more than it can handle and becomes slow and can no longer hunt. In the end all the resources of the snake are trying to digest the non nutritious parts of boomer the deer and the snake can barely move. Like the snake that is immobile, America is caught in the grip of the boomers who every day contribute less but demand more and more...

[jeff47]

120. Uh...Millennials are Gen X's kids.

Boomers were around 40-60 years old in 2000. Millennials are boomer's grandchildren.

[Jesus Malverde]

121. Strauss and Howe use 1982 as the Millennials' starting birth year and 2004 as the last birth year.[

There is some overlap but the fact is that millennials are a demographic boom begotten from a demographic boom. Millennials are sometimes also called Echo Boomers.

Gen X is itself not significant enough to have begotten a sizable second gen. Due to the recession of the nineties many gen x'ers waited even longer to have kids if any.

[jeff47]

128. And lots of other people use 90's or later.

meaning kids born today would be the tail end of the millennials.

IMO the problem with Strauss and Howe's dates is they seem to start with an intended description for each generation, and then choose a block of years to match that. In other words, defining the data so that they get the intended result instead of looking at the data first and then determining the result.

But it's not like social sciences are easy to make empirical.

[tabbycat31]

258. Kids today are another generation

I was born in 1980 and my sister in 1982 (my parents were both born in 1949 and are Boomers). From the reports I've seen, we're early millennials or Generation Y (1980 was actually the 'lost year' as Gen X ends in 1979 and millennial begin in 1981 from some sources I've read). I was a very sheltered child and do not identify with Gen X at all. (I could not tell you who Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston were at the peak of their careers in the 80s--- the music I was exposed to then was more of the Wheels on the Bus type). I didn't see a PG movie until the 90s. From my own experiences, it's easier to lump me with someone born in the 90s than the 60s. A youngest child in the family born the same time as me might say otherwise.

I would consider my cousins born in 2000 and 2001 to be of a different generation. The event that defined the millennial generation was 9/11. My cousins were in diapers when that happened (one was less than 2 weeks old). Their sister who was born in 1994 IMO is the tail end of the generation (and she is old enough to remember 9/11).

I've heard the too young to remember 9/11 generation referred to as Generation Z. They'll probably be given a better name when they come of age.

[Demo_Chris]

66. When one considered what the boomer generation inherited versus what they did with it....

Well, lets just say that future generations are going to remember the boomers, and talk about them the way people today talk about Caligula's Rome. They inherited the wealthiest and greatest nation in human history, threw the world's largest party, and burned it to the ground. And this while continuously congratulating themselves on how marvelous they are.

[Laelth]

73. Gen X is none too fond of the boomers, either.

That, at least, has been my experience.

Boomers lack a frame of reference to understand how much harder it is to live in this world now. The United States was at its richest in 1973, and it has been getting poorer ever since. Boomers came of age when we were at our richest, and they don't seem to understand why their children and grandchildren are struggling. That lack of sympathy and concern we get from most boomers (especially our family members) is disconcerting.

-Laelth

[TDale313]

116. Very, very true.

Look, not a fan of this kind of Generational Warfare, but many Boomers seem not to get just how much harder things have gotten for the generations following them. I won't cast blame, but I will say some of the "We did it. Why can't our kids/grandkids" attitude is grating to say the least. And I strongly suspect we GenXer's are gonna bear the brunt. They're trying very hard to dismantle/"reform" SS and Medicare just as we'll be eligible. They'll wait till most boomers are through, but they've been telling us for decades not to expect it to actually be there in its current form when we retire. Which is just crap, but seems to be crap way too much of Washington is buying.

[taught_me_patience]

75. The perception is that they are selfish

They got theirs and have left us holding the bag... they got their education then dismantled funding for Universities. They got their homes, then made it (nearly) impossible to develop more. They'll get their social security, then the trust fund will run out. The drove their gas hogging SUVs of the 90's, dwinding precious oil and gassing up the environment. I could go on and on.

[Jesus Malverde]

95. This thread has all the ingredients of a mega thesis

I forgot about all the massive SUV's needed to ferry around baby millennials SAFELY.

[ohheckyeah]

105. The boomers I know

worked their way through college. Yeah, they might have houses, but they are houses the younger generations turn their nose up at because they don't have "spa like" master bathrooms, granite counter tops, and stainless steel appliances.

[TDale313]

129. Bull. Many younger people would kill for a starter home.

Unfortunately they're living with mom and dad (or Grandma and Grandpa), under-or- unemployed, saddled with student loans more than a mortgage would cost for a degree that they were told would secure them a decent standard of living- and realizing that that's just not gonna happen.

[ohheckyeah]

142. My husband was 60 when we bought this home,

which was his first. From my experience what we consider a starter home isn't what younger people consider a starter home. Our starter homes are our LAST homes.

You think it's a picnic for mom and dad or grandma and grandpa to have their kids/grand-kids living with them? You don't think they are suffering through it, too? No, that couldn't be, could it because then it wouldn't be all about the poor younger people. You think the older generations wanted things like this or is it possible they, too, are victims of a unbridled greed and capitalism that they had little chance of reining in?

Maybe the younger people should be damn thankful to have parents and grandparents to help them out. My parents didn't have the money to do that.

[HappyMe]

150. I was close to 40 when my ex and I bought our first home.

Believe me, I'll bet it's no fun for the parents that have kids still at home. You have to take the same amount of money and feed more people with it.

[TDale313]

151. No, I realize it's not.

But there seems to be an assumption that the "kids" are just being lazy and/or entitled, and I think that's often just not the case.

Just to be clear, I'm not particularly young, not living at home, and have had very generous boomer parents who I am very grateful to. But things are much different (and in many ways much harder) on the generation coming up. Decades of Reaganomics and outsourcing means many of them will not have the standard of living their parents and grandparents had. And isn't the whole point to leave our children better off than we were?

[jeff47]

156. That's nice. You notice it's not possible today?

The boomers I know worked their way through college.

I grew up in California. You could work your way through college back when boomers were going to college. A part-time/summer job paid for everything you'd need for two semesters in a UC.

That isn't the case anymore. Boomers voted with a lot of other Californians to slash education spending, resulting in a nice hefty tuition and fee bill for public universities. In addition, pay has tanked - in part because of opposition to raising the minimum wage.

It is not possible to "work your way" through College with a part-time/summer job anymore. You may be able to work through if you work full time and take 1-2 classes. So it will only take 8 to 16 years to complete a normal curriculum....assuming your job actually cares about your class schedule, which is pretty unlikely today.

As for homes, the Kardashians are not representative of the following generations as a whole. Or should we pretend you're exactly like June Cleaver?

[TDale313]

159. ^^^ this ^^^

[tabbycat31]

260. I probably will never own a home

My Boomer parents had a 5 BR house at the age of 27 (they're still living there now).

They took European vacations fresh out of grad school. If a millennial did that then they would be deemed as selfish and irresponsible. They graduated with no student loan debt. To them a degree is a piece of paper that is a magic ticket to prosperity. They were able to pay for college with a summer job waiting tables. Try doing that today.

And in some areas, new construction is basically limited to Boomers and up (they're concentrated in 55+ communities). I talk to voters for a living. Whenever I am on a local or state level race, I always hear from Boomers (I know exactly how old the people I'm supposed to talk to are from their voter registration and the voters I've talked to range in age from 18-96). The most common complaint from the Boomers is about school taxes and how their kids are grown and gone and why should they have to pay them. I never hear complaints like that from any other generation (my WWII grandparents are all still alive and have never had that attitude and I have never heard that from a WWII generation voter at the doors or on the phones but I hear it all the time from Boomers). I actually talked a state legislative candidate out of using education as a platform because of the high number of 55+ communities in the district (that district's majority of voters were 50-65).

[ohheckyeah]

261. Well, good for them.

That's your experience. I don't know any boomers who had a 5 BR house at 27 or who took European vacations....most have never taken a European vacation or owned a 5 BR house.

[Vashta Nerada]

90. Yeah, what generation voted for Reagan twice?

[AngryAmish]

93. The generational theft thing seems to be rubbing some Millenials the wrong way

Ever notice that other people always have to pay for the things Boomers want? They got the votes and they use them.

[YoungDemCA]

97. The Boomers are such a ridiculously large generation; therefore, it's impossible to generalize...

I would bet that just as many Boomers are/were conservative as were liberal, and many more somewhere in between. Likewise, for every example of a Boomer being materialistic or narcissistic you can find a counter-example of a Boomer being empathetic and anti-consumerist.

Point being: you can't generalize that much about such an enormous and diverse number of people who happened to be born during the same years.

[Jesus Malverde]

103. What you can generalize.

There is this huge group of people.

They consumed their fare share and more, while not paying for it.

They were educated for almost free at the university level, while today students are expected to incur huge debts to subsidize crazily inflated academic salaries. Positions which are dominated by never retiring boomers.

This generation took advantage of all the benefits of free trade and has only recently begun to wonder if it was a bad idea. But they are too occupied now in their later years with healthcare and retirement that they don't give a shit or a penny to improve the economy for others. The issues of the day are not looking towards the future, but to the present as the boomers have always lived (one of the reasons retirement is a "crisis&quot .

Encouraged and abetted a dominant military and unending war. The boomers never demanded a peace dividend, seduced with the promise of supremacy on the world stage. boomer leadership has brought us an arrogant aggressive foreign policy, one which embraces the boomer mantra of free trade.

[jeff47]

160. Statistics still work.

You can't say "every boomer is like this". You can still apply statistics.

About 30% of the boomers were "Hippies" back in the 60s. At the same time, about 40% of the boomers were "Nixon Youth". The remaining 30% of the boomers were middle-of-the-road politically. That political alignment has generally remained the same over the years.

So it is wrong to say "Boomers turned the country sharply to the right". Because only about 55% were right-of-center. However, it's accurate to say "the largest block of Boomers turned the country sharply to the right".

And so on with statements about consumerism, narcissism and such. The statement never applies to everyone in a group, but it can apply to a significant percentage.

[Orrex]

98. My first exposure to this generational conflict was in 1982

It was during a grade school science class that was, in retrospect, surprisingly progressive.

The boomer-era teachers discussed various "evironmental crises," among them "the greenhouse effect," "population/food crisis," and "toxic pollution build-up." For each crisis discussed, the lesson was the same: it would be up to my generation (later called "X&quot to deal with it.

Well, thanks a lot. They knew enough, as a generation, to identify the problems, but it was clear that the boomers had no will to do anything about them. Certainly they couldn't possibly take steps to slow the growth of these problems or to lay the groundwork for future solutions.


So when I hear boomers complain about being scapegoated for today's myriad catastrophes, I recall that science class three decades ago, when the problems were already so clear and we had much greater resources to address them.

I don't blame any individual boomer, of course, and in fact I credit them for identifying the problems at all, but--in identifying them--they took on a responsibility that they don't seem to have fulfilled.

[Tikki]

104. So our grandchildren will know...The boomer members of my family:

Drive high mpg cars…no big trucks or SUV
Use very little natural gas in our home..no oil or coal
live small
dry on the line almost all the time
eat from a garden or buy from a local farmer
shop local and union
recycle, re-purpose and reuse
point out hypocrisy when able
vacation in our State more than often
volunteer
vote Democratic and with a conscience
There is never one trip with the grandchildren where we...
...don't point out and discuss the environment they see and how to protect it.
Get involved in their education…yes, the grandchildren
Be kind and gracious to all generations above, in our and younger..always smile at young ones
Be kind to all..
Open to all people and their rights…even gun owners, but back stronger laws…
...to protect the innocent
Pay our taxes

We are thinking that the Millennials are already doing the majority of the above to make this World a better place…
Thanks Millennials

The Tikkis

[DisgustipatedinCA]

126. The state we're in is the fault of both Millenials and Boomers

Thank you.

-Generation X

[Jesus Malverde]

134. +1...nt

[bvar22]

127. I would be bitter too ....

...if I missed the 60s and 70s.
Man...what a great time to be alive.
We wouldn't trade that for anything.


---bvar22 & Starkraven
Living Well on a low Taxable Income
and stuff we learned in the 60s.
Less is MORE

Grow your own

Share

Give Peace a chance

Blow up your TV

Question Authority

2nd Hand is better

Love your Mother (Earth)

[hueymahl]

138. Great ERA, buy you are missing the point

All those high principles and morals and hopes for the future? What happened to them? Boomers went strait into Disco in the 70s and completely sold out in the 80s. McMansions in the 90's and exploding debt in the 00's. Now they are getting ready to retire and wondering why things didn't work out.

No, any bitterness is not from missing the 60's, it is from the asshats that killed the 60's out of self interest.

Boomers always wanted to be different than their parents (the greatest generation). Well congratulations, you are in every way!

[HappyMe]

145. lol!

Yes, we all have shitloads of money and McMansions!

Disco sucks.

I still write letters and go to some protests. The last right to choose rally I attended, there was a grand total of three 20-30 year old women there.

Are you working to bring about any change, or does the extent of your concern only include 'fuck boomers'?

[jeff47]

161. It's difficult to attend a rally when you're working 2-3 minimum wage part time jobs. (nt)

[ohheckyeah]

146. Really?

You think all of us had McMansions? You think all of us were into disco and sold out? Who do you think handed our generation the VietNam war....our own generation? I think not. We don't sit around and whine about the generation who did.

[bvar22]

163. Disco???

Man, I'm still listening to Jimi and Janis, and still fighting the WalMartization of America.

The problem is your attempt to lump everybody into one homogenous group, and then blame that group for the ills of the World.
It was never like that, and isn't like than now.

Most of us are still fighting.
You should be fighting too instead of whining about whose fault it is.

[jeff47]

171. The problem is not all of you are fighting on this side.

About 30% of the baby boomers were "hippies". About 40% of the baby boomers were "Nixon Youth". That political alignment has more-or-less stayed the same over the decades. And that 10% deficit hurt the course of politics and economics.

We should keep fighting, but we should also not ignore the complaints of the subsequent generations - those problems also have to be addressed. And many times there can be very complementary solutions to fight for.

[bvar22]

197. Not all of "you" are fighting for the same side?

So HOW is that different from today.

I'm not responsible for those who went to college, took jobs in their Daddy's companies, and moved to the suburbs.

If you want to complain....go to them,
but also go to the "Democrats" who didn't support OWS last year,
and the "Centrist" Business Friendly "New Democrats" who really sold you out,
starting with Bill Clinton.
Same people...different decade.

You DID get out in the streets and support OWS, didn't you?


There is only "us",
and there is only "now"
so whining and blaming really doesn't do any good beyond exacerbating an imaginary divide.....for what possible purpose?

[jeff47]

226. What you see as "whining and blaming" is people trying to talk about now.

Today's problems are not the same as yesterday's problems. What you see as "whining and blaming" is people trying to tell you about the problems they have today, and how fighting yesterday's battles won't solve them.

[bvar22]

249. What I see as "whining and blaming" is time wasted Whining & Blaming.

You DID get out in the streets and support OWS,
and psoted a lot of posts supportive of OWS, didn't you?



--bvar22
cursed with a good memory.

[jeff47]

251. Sorry, had to feed my kid instead.

Oddly enough she doesn't stop eating if I stop getting paid.

Oh wait....I forgot that I'm supposed to be able to march in the streets whenever, despite all those bills from places like "college" and "the supermarket".



Again, today's kids have different problems. Try asking about them. As an added bonus, that conversation gets you a chance to talk about the problems you'd like addressed.

[ohheckyeah]

139. It never occurred to me

to blame my parent's generation for the VietNam war......they suffered as well because their oldest child and only son was there. We just got through it because that's what we had to do. It was the worst of times and the best of times.

[joshcryer]

185. Question authority. Vote Regan.

[hueymahl]

131. Irony, thy name is Boomer

Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers Millennials along with younger Gen Xers to be part of what she calls "Generation Me". Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to the Millennials but also a sense of entitlement and narcissism based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties. She questions the predictions of Strauss and Howe that this generation will come out civic-minded.

The irony of Boomer consultant to Big Business, Jean Twenge (http://www.jeantwenge.com/) comparing Boomers (the ultimate Me Generation) to the Mellinials and labeling THEM "Generation Me" is just too sweet.

Fuck the Boomers. There are many great persons in their generation, but as a whole, they have come close to ruining the planet. And their culture sucks too.

[ohheckyeah]

148. Oh, good grief...

yeah, nobody else has any responsibility for the condition the planet is in.

When you experience half of your graduating class shipped off to war or drafted as well as your brother, get back to me about how tough life has been for you guys.

[hueymahl]

152. Self absorbed much?

First of all, you sound like a whining old boomer. Second, what makes you think I am not part of the boomer generation?

[eShirl]

137. just another wedge for the 1% to distract and divide the 99%

[Cali_Democrat]

144. The OP's intention is obvious

distract, divide etc....

Who benefits?

You said it.

Thank you.

[polichick]

170. Surely you don't think everyone on a discussion board should cheer together...

for something or someone - instead of actually having a discussion.

[Comrade Grumpy]

141. Gawd, this is stupid. Good thing there aren't any actual burning issues to deal with.

[MisterP]

153. everyone's bitching about "Boomer-caused" economic problems--but let's see who

really passed NAFTA and the IWR and also created RW populism as the "alternative" to that, who created the think tanks to redefine eating healthy as ridiculous woo, who hire J Edgar Hoover and Alex Jones: it's a decades-long corporate coup, from Team B and Sen. Cranston to the Contract on America to the Clinton impeachment to New Labour to the 2000 theft to Libya, Syria, and the Veal Pen; even if every one of these planetary predators is a Boomer that doesn't say much about the Boomers: all generations are now stuck in the world these Powell-Memo freaks created

saying that "welfare and education budgets got too big by 1980, so we had to tighten our belts" is just repeating what Hayek ("it's more moral to let a retarded child die than tax someone for their care&quot and Milton Friedman ("we need five--no--FIFTY Pinochets) and Ayn Rand and Stockman and Thomas Friedman keep saying in order to drive down "labor costs"

[Thirties Child]

157. One generation to the one before: pfft

I'm a Depression baby and my Boomer daughter says we had the worst taste ever, blames us for giving the world the 70s.

[JI7]

178. i think much of it has to do with Reagan

they voted for that evil which slowed progress in this country. much of the problems goes back to his presidency.

so they see boomers as giving us reagan while were able to give us obama.

i'm neither. i as born in late 78.

[musiclawyer]

180. The real decline started with .....

Reagan through Clinton era politicians ending in Bush ....People who willfully outsourced the middle class and de-regulated the economy to famish. (Obama has continued this long middle class death march in some respects and merely slowed it in others. But he will not be a transformational. )

So you can't place blame completely on boomers. The mad men were still alive and voting in the 1980s. The millennials and gen xer can change change things because they know the media lies and they have sufficient numbers to demand change top to bottom. As always, it's in their hands. Don't screw it up .......

[joshcryer]

182. The boomers tried to turn back civil rights and brought us the fucking drug war.

Not to mention facilitating the war on women.

[Blue_In_AK]

193. You might be taken more seriously if you said

SOME boomers, but hyperbole is so much fun.

[Fumesucker]

211. Nixon was a Boomer?

I learn so many new and interesting things on DU..

[Hippo_Tron]

183. Let me turn this around: It seems like there's a lot of contempt for Millennials from Boomers

I can't tell you the number of times I've read articles with the same trite arguments about our ridiculous sense of entitlement that comes from getting participation trophies and self-esteem lessons.

Some Millennials do have an undeserved sense of entitlement just as some Boomers do. Some Boomers had an undeserved sense of entitlement in their early 20's and got over it like a lot of Millennials will. Some Boomers really are responsible for the economic mess we're in, whereas others have spent their whole lives fighting corporate greed. Some Millennials really don't give a shit about the world around them and some are currently entering careers where they hope to change that world for the better.

At the end of the day, I don't think my generation is fundamentally much different than my parents' generation was at my age. The world around us is different than when Boomers were our age and we're acting differently because of it, but I don't think the Boomers would be acting much differently in our place just as we wouldn't be acting much differently in theirs.

[Blue_In_AK]

192. This is a very sensible post.

Two thumbs up from a tired old first-wave boomer, sitting here in my sensible shoes.

[CFLDem]

195. The legacy of the boomer generation

is a nation destroyed by greed and forever stuck in the war on terra.

Reaganism, two Gulf wars, the dot com bust, the housing bubble, the Great Recession, the current school loan bubble, the dilapidated infrastructure, the ending of an American based manned space program, and all sorts of doom and gloom is all theirs.

But what really warrants contempt is many boomers have the gall to preach to X, Y, and Zs how to clean up the mess they created and how short we are of their lofty expectations.

Who the heck do boomers think raised those generations?!

[Blue_In_AK]

198. Boomers could say that the legacy of the "greatest" generation

was the Vietnam War, sexual repression, back alley abortions, abject racial discrimination, the KKK, boring music, on and on and on.

Young people have been complaining about their parents' generations since the beginning of time.

And if the best you all can do is Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, etc., for your generation's politicians, then you'd better get busy and improve things.

[Blue_In_AK]

196. Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan,

ALL Gen-X. Ergo, all Gen-Xers suck.

See how that works?

[eilen]

255. I have a theory that these ALEC Xers

were abandoned during formative years by their Boomer parents searching for themselves and are working out their revenge fantasies politically. They really want someone to pay attention to them and give them that damn trophy.

[Blue_In_AK]

256. That makes me giggle.

It's as good an explanation as any.

[Zen Democrat]

201. We're still going through the changes of the 60s.

[polichick]

209. True - changes that would've been completed sooner if the powers that be...

hadn't been threatened enough to organize think tanks, buy up communication networks, divide the people, and infest both parties with "leaders" who serve corporations and the 1%.

[winter is coming]

202. Classification by "generation" is divisive bullshit. n/t

[liberalmuse]

203. As a boomer, I don't blame them.

I'm a tail end Boomer and haven't liked my generation since the late '80's or early '90's. Granted, there are a lot of decent Boomers, many who have been fighting for change since the '60's, but too many in this generation are less than mediocre and bought into the bullshit Reagan fed them in the '80's. People my age know better than to vote Republican, but they still do because they are selfish assholes who are proud of their self-imposed ignorance and don't give a flying fuck about others as long as they have theirs. Aside from the early Boomers, most have never had to fight for this country or sacrifice, unless you count delaying gratification for a couple of days as a sacrifice. You don't shit on what your parents left you and then turn around and leave a huge mess for your kids to deal with. You just don't. The Boomers are going to be the most hated generation in American history, mark my words.

This is my opinion and I'm sure many of you won't like it, but it's the truth as I see it. I've tried too hard to have in-depth discussions with people my age and it is an exercise in futility much of the time. Millenials are a different matter - perhaps it's youth, but I've found most I've run into are aware of the important issues at hand and actually give a shit about helping to address and fix them. The large quantity of Boomers I seem to encounter only care about discussing shopping, sports, making money and tv shows like, "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars". It's enough to make your eyes glaze over. There are way too many people in our age group who don't even bother to take the effort to become informed about civil matters. Instead, they let their church, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News tell them how to think (and their churches pretty much endorse right wing talking points right from the pulpit), so forget about having a semi-informed discussion about politics. Forget about having a conversation and not hearing them express contempt for the poor or immigrants or the younger generations.

I'm not talking about all Boomers, just the sort mentioned above. They like to put down other generations because looking at their own would take too much self reflection and work to fix. I guess you could say I'm utterly disappointed in my generation. I used to think we were better than this.

[HockeyMom]

204. This Boomer is worse off because my Dad was ILA UNION

He had a PENSION. He had UNION Health Clinic. Even after he passed, my MOM got his UNION benefits. My generation elminiated not only most Penions, but Unions and their benefits as well. Whoopppeee, for 401K's. Yeah, right, unless you are a MILLIONAIRE to begin with. My generation got hit with all the Offshoring, and anyone who even had that little 401K, had to use THAT we live on because our jobs went overseas. Yeah, the elimination of Union jobs, Pensions, and the 401K SCAM, hit our generation.

Millennials are just being hit with a continuation of what happened to the Boomers.

[Scootaloo]

208. Well, as a millennial / X-er hybrid...

Depending on how you look I came in at the tail end of one or the head start of the other, so... I lean more punk than hipster, so I guess file me closer to Gen x.

1) Boomers didn't do a fucking thing to end the Vietnam war. NO. THING. You know how Europeans feel when Americans strut around demanding praise for "Winning World War 2"? That's sort of how the rest of us feel when Boomers do this. No. Sorry, that war went on for nine fucking years and killed over fifty thousand Americans, and probably over a million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. You think burning a draft card and having a sing-along in the mud stopped the war? no, the Veitnamese won the damn war, and that's why we stopped fighting it. This is a weird conceit of Boomerism that transcends the right / left boundary - whatever hte reason for the war ending, it had nothing to do with the Vietnamese.

2) Gay rights, civil rights, and some amount of women's rights happened concurrently with the boomer years. Correlation does not equal causation, however, and with few exceptions, the leading figures of these movements were not boomers. Rosa Parks was born in 1913, Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1929, Harvey Milk in 1930, Alice Rossi in 1922, Betty Friedan 1921, Morris Kight in 1919, Dale Jennings, 1917, Coretta Scott King, 1927, Medgar Evers 1923, Russel Means, 1939, Cesar Chavez, 1927 - these people were not Boomers, they were the boomers's parents. I'm sorry, but nodding and saying "right on" when you heard them speak doesn't actually put you in their class, folks.

3) The organic food movement actually began in the early 1900's. Granted it was a mostly European thing, and Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" helped it cross the Atlantic. By the way, she was born in 1907, she was some boomers' grandparent.

If course, while taking all the credit for all this stuff they didn't do, it's worth noting that they refuse to take blame for the bad shit that happened concurrently as well. It's perfectly logical that if we can attribute a baby boomer who was ten years old when King spoke in Washington with all the ribbons and accolades King himself is worth... then we might as well blame the same boomer for the shot that went through King's skull just four years later. But no, it's all of the good, none of the bad. everything bad is their parents' fault. Or their kids fau;t.

The baby boomers are, in essence, eternally fifteen. They may have the body of a middle-aged walmartapottamus, but in their heads they're some Time magazine photo they once saw of an attractive hippy at Woodstock (Even if hte Boomer never left Plano, Texas and was a Goldwater Kid before being a Reagan Democrat.) They also seem to carry the child's sense of entitlement - they deserve all the credit, none of the blame, and have a frothing tantrum if you ever call them on it.

The attitude is annoying enough. But then you sit back and look at what they actually have accomplished? Not much of it is admirable, i'm sorry to say.

First, they squandered whatever savings - political, economic, ecological - that was left them by their own parents. Who, let's be fair, weren't exactly model stewards of such things themselves. But those folks at least understood that it was a hard fight for even that much. Did the boomers keep up the fight? Well... No. In fact a large number of them seem to have made it the point of their existence to utterly eradicate such things. We mostly call these people Republicans, these days (In fact, check it out - Most of the Republicans you hate? They were born after 1946, and are clumped between 46 and 60 - they're boomers, y'all. Keep Limbaugh in mind next time you preen about your generation)

But even for those who didn't make it their goal - and I'm happy to admit there were many who tried, in some way, to reverse such problems - most were just... Well, they lived about as you'd expect. Eat, shit, spend, eat, shit, spend. Who cares if the labor strength your parents nad grandparents fought for is slipping away, you're too hip for a job that doesn't involve making pumpkin bread art. Who cares if your lifestyle is stripping hte planet's resources and causing greater demand for human suffering in the third world - out of sight, out of mind!

Yup, to sustain and expand the lifestyle they demand but can't really afford, boomers are working so very hard to put the bill on their kids and grandkids. It's like they think they're on an eternal cruise and the rest of us exist to scrape their twelve-appletini vomit out of the carpet for them.

I suppose that's forgivable - It's how most people of any generation live, more or less just staring at their own feet as they shuffle from birth to death. But most people of other generations don't shriek about what wonderful, magnificent, exceptional people they are, worthy of all honor and no shame, in the fashion the boomers do. When you're going to waggle your finger about "like, civil rights and organic food, man" make sure you weren't one of the assholes shanking people last week in a Wal Mart feeding frenzy. or one of the people sponging profit from that feeding frenzy (Walton kids - kids no more, Boomers one and all.)

Basically it boils down to the fact that I'm going to inherit a denuded landscape because you wanted your eat-and-shit, where there are no labor rights because you weren't interested at the time and now you don't want to pay more than three bucks for your eat-and-shit, where brown and Muslim people can be murdered for the hell of it because you're scared to death of them and can't understand the concept of white entitlement, where god only knows what's in the food because - again, you don't want to spend more than a few bucks for your crap - and where, eventually, we will need to figure out where to put ten million double-wide corpses once the toxic cocktail you suck down to convince yourself that you're immune to aging reaches its limit. I'd say toss 'em to the sharks, but at this rate, there won't be any.

That'd be bad enough - and it is - but I have to hear this constant prattle about what world-saving wonderfucks you are, because you happened to be converting oxygen to carbon dioxide at the same time as the Stonewall Riots were happening.

No generation is angelic, and I certainly claim no such title for my own (whichever it is.) But for fuck's sake, enough with the breaking oyur arm to pat your own back about shit you never did, folks.

And yes, I know I will get a lot of hair-pulling and yowling over this. Oh well, I expect no different from people so invested in their own fantastical greatness.

[Demo_Chris]

210. Perfectly said, but you left out one very interesting thing about the greed generation

War. Specifically, that the self-proclaimed anti-war boomers suddenly became the all-war-all-the-time generation the minute they were too old to be asked to fight themselves. They did the same with free trade by the way, they didn't vote to fuck over themselves --or they didn't think they were -- they voted to fuck over their kids.

You might also have mentioned the infrastructure they inherited then allowed to crumble to dust. They couldn't even be bothered to maintain it, and that's selfishness on a scale that truly staggers the imagination.

Or the national debt in the billions that they inherited, and have now run up to 17 TRILLION and climbing. 17 Trillion, because fuck it let someone else pay for it.

Or the cost of education, or healthcare, or food, or... or to hell with it.

[Scootaloo]

222. I figured that was all implied when I noted the squandering of savings

It was already a long post!

[Demo_Chris]

223. True enough. Anyway, well said! nt

[Zorra]

237. Hippie punching? Really?

...

Study: Conservatives More Likely To Make Up Facts In Order to Justify Their Beliefs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024116669

[Scootaloo]

239. Interesting link

Keep it in mind next time you want to claim to have ended the Vietnam War, or want to take credit for the civil rights movement.

[eilen]

257. Just an instance, an example of Boomer Hubris: Healthcare

Okay, so healthcare costs are through the roof. And lookie who is retiring now, who is the 65 and older-- boomers.

And my hospital, like many hospitals around the country is busy, busy busy developing property. Building towers full of private rooms.

Now, the hospital I used to work at which was built in 1965, had 4 bed wards. That was good enough for the Civics (GI generation) and the Silents and even the generation before them.

We are also being required to take a Niche program on Gerontology to learn and understand all about this large population of people retiring and entering their hospitalization intense years. The Millennial nurses in particular are being socialized and trained to care for them as people my age are mostly moving on to management. A special concentration is on the expectations and idiosyncracies of this cohort lol. Our CEO is a Boomer as was the one before her. I just find this kind of hilarious considering we have been taking care of old people for years. I think they just want us to understand that this cohort complains a lot. In my 20 year career I am seeing more hissy fits, temper tantrums by patients and family members in the past year than ever before.

Oh, and btw, we can't get raises or bonuses because of the cost of this and because of Obamacare lowering our reimbursements because these patients cannot be expected to be responsible for their health. If they are noncompliant and have to return -- we get no compensation for providing more care. They are succeeding in creating the BurgerKingization of healthcare.

[LeftyMom]

213. "Let me tell you why you resent me" is not generally the best way to start a conversation.

It is, however, the sort of thing that builds resentment.

[killbotfactory]

218. Economically, the rich and wealthy run the US and our current situation is by their design.

It doesn't matter what generation you are, we've always been at the mercy of the 1% except for those brief moments in time when we act in unity against their influence.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

230. All of us

No matter when we were born are ruled by our invisible masters called "the system" or 'that is the way things are" and so on....

[Blue_In_AK]

234. Thank you.

YOU get it.

[bluestate10]

240. The two groups have been in conflict for years. Millennials feel that Boomers are self

indulgent and left the cupboard empty for them. I think that on average, Boomers have been a disappointment, they got a massive platform coming out of the Sixties, but they have largely been one of the groups that have elected republicans over and over - that is a fucking disgrace. I think that by and large, Millennials are a more adaptable group and as such, will have more positive impact on America than the larger Boomer group has had.

[Blue_In_AK]

250. Since I've been told that I'll live into my 90s,

I plan to be around to see how much better they do. I have my doubts.

[Harmony Blue]

254. I love Boomers

my dad was a boomer but he passed away. Boomers are the most liberal of the older generations and he imparted me important progressive ideals before he died.

I am classified often a a gen x/millennial but in the end I see myself as an extension of the boomers, so I don;t feel in conflict with the Boomers. I feel like I can still learn from Boomers (as I did with my father) and that they can offer me guidance on what they did right and what they wrong for me to use in the future.



As more and more Boomers retire the greater the burden it will be on us younger generations but no matter what we will not abandon the Boomers in their time of need. We may not have enough numbers in the workforce in the younger generation in proportion to the retiring Boomers at the top but we will try. We can't and will not give up.

[tabbycat31]

259. I asked this question to my Boomer father a few weeks ago

I asked him what the #1 and #2 employers in this country were. His response was "GM and the federal government."

That might have been true in his generation, but today it's Walmart and McDonalds.

[Dawgs]

263. Not a millennial, but my contempt for boomers comes from my workplace.

Here in Atlanta, five of the fifteen that work for my company are boomers. One is a Democrat and the other four are hard-core republicans.

Of the five only two deserve their jobs. One that doesn't openly sleeps in his office two hours a day. Another one that should be making calls to customers all day listens and watches propaganda from right wing web sites, like Alex Jones, instead.

All of these white men are around 65. None of them planned for retirement, and all suffer from right wing policies that they support.

My company is suffering in so many ways because of how some of them work. Three of the five waste most of their time and offer so much less than a millennial could offer if we had them instead.

[WinkyDink]

265. Well, MY contempt is for generalizations made from a personal small sample of "N."

But I'll be a hypocrite and follow your example:

I'm 64, retired from teaching H.S. English at 52, thank GOD. The newer faculty were ignorant beyond belief, stuffed full not of knowledge of literature, literary criticism, or the historical contexts of the taught works; oh, NOOOO.

THESE whippersnappers were eager to be a "guide on the side, not a sage on the stage." Because, you know, sagacity is frowned upon in education.

So contempt for another generation? I have plenty of it.