Folks, please try to be polite even when you disagree. I had to remove a couple of messages from this thread. Please try to focus on the topic and related issues. Thanks.
I don't think most of us are wealthy, nor powerful, at least nobody I know in my age cohort is. Some of us, maybe more than you think, didn't take the shots, and maybe even convinced a few young people not to take them.
So yes, powerful boomers messed up the world. Just as every generation's powerful did before them, and as Gen-Xers will, too.
Haven't you met folk who are 30 and thoroughly ossified? I have, and too often.
Age can be a part of it, but I'm not convinced that it's the whole of it, or even most of it. The greedy ones grab all the chips, then they make rules so they can keep all the chips. I doubt that's ever going to change.
So...respectfully...gotta disagree with you on this one.
The Boomers were very easy to lead by that powerful cohort with empty slogans and base flattery. They grew up with the world centered on them and were thus massively spoiled. Spoiling a child isn’t a light thing, and it was the WWII generation’s greatest sin upon the future, even considering nukes.
I don’t care much for gen-x and on but we didn’t mostly grow up so spoiled and emotionally lazy. We couldn’t since our parents certainly didn’t spoil us and we had to think for ourselves. The gen-x “leaders” I have seen will, once the Boomers who prop them up go, be tossed to the winds.
We will see how much we can right this ship or if it continues to list and keels over but if we can remove the death grip of the Boomers we at least have a chance.
This is wrong in more ways than can be counted. But it is interesting to see such a skewed view, I expect sincerely held.
The Boomers were preceded by the "Greatest Generation", also called the Silent Generation. They probably were, too. The Boomers are clearly the "Work Hard Generation". The reason that, for practical purposes, everything is now broken, everything is racist, everything is awful is that the Boomers are, gradually, withdrawing or dying -- and the the generations behind (there is hope for the just turning 20's but not much else) are far more self centered ("I need work-life balance") than would ever occur to Boomers...so nothing gets done, few are working, fewer are working hard, and it all spirals down. You are also the "blaming generations" as evidenced by this article. It is always someone else's fault.
Who will you blame when the rest of the Boomers are gone and things work even less well? Hope I am around to see.
Excellent points, Dr. K! I am glad you spoke up and have a different opinion. It will be interesting to see if others share your point of view and have their own thoughts to add.
There's a fallacy in your thinking here. You're looking at a single positive alleged characteristic of a cohort of the Boomer generation, extrapolating it to the whole, and then comparing it to a negative stereotype of a tiny cohort of the later generations and doing the same. There are steady, competent types in any generation. You pretending that's most or all of the Boomers is ridiculous. Just like pretending all the younger generation don't want to work. Sure, the kids are all lazy and incompetent. Where have I heard that before?
And anyway, did you ask yourself why some in the younger generations, mainly raised by Boomers, are so disaffected and/or not wanting to work hard?
The Boomers nurtured nothing for the future. Apprenticeships and training went out the window, public education was made into a joke along with eliminating our industrial base, all under the Boomers. Who didn't train the younger generations to take over what was left -- if that really is a serious problem?
Boomers led us through one disaster after another over the past 25 years, weakening and degrading our infrastructure to the point where things are falling apart in ways they never should have. All so you could have your WWII tough-guy fantasy war on terror and everything that's come after, culminating in the final stupid war against Russia that we cannot win.
Boomers have been greedy, grasping and selfish to an extreme degree. Did you know the Boomers are the first generation in US history to not significantly raise taxes on themselves when required? Instead, you just kicked the money printer into overdrive because why not? You won't have to pay the eventual bill.
History will not look kindly on them and it's not because later generations are whiny losers blaming others for their lives.
When Boomers were young they could buy a house on a single middle class salary. College cost almost nothing as did healthcare. These things are all pipe-dreams now. We have been looted and pillaged by the policies Boomers voted for and enacted so please, at long last, can you all just shut the fuck up.
I know the stones are old, they were pretty old in the 80's. But Van Halen? At least two of them were Gen X, I Thought Ozzy was too. There is just something about the boomers that makes me question the world. for some of the most educated people, they do trust government a lot, despite it biting them on the ass in Vietnam.
My parents are boomers, and I love them dearly, but they were the first to take the clot shots, and didn't even think about it. When I ask them why, mom said, "Because the doctor said to," and dad "Because the news said to take it." When I ask them about the lockdowns, they were okay with it, and I argued that it was being done wrong, (The sick should be quarantined and those not sick should be working.) They argued that the asshats in DC knew best.
I had to remind that those same asshats weren't doing their jobs and could get out a wet paper bag without help.
I recently came across a Zoomer asking why Gen X was being let off of the hook, and the woman in the video said, "We are the last feral generation, we knew freedom, we will eat you for breakfast, while you are still crying that it's not fair."
I rather enjoyed this piece - and I'm a Boomer. Of course I enjoyed it! It's about us. Yes, I enjoyed it and agree with some, but very little of it. I proudly view 'My Generation' as having upheld the values and virtues of The Greatest Generation. In fact, I identify with that cohort as much as with my own. I was a war baby. All adult males in my family served our country; my uncle was a B-17 pilot shot down over Germany (he survived). I served in Vietnam. Don't you worry about us Boomers! Worry instead about Ze Young Leaders and power mad fools in D.C. We'll leave you be and wish you peace, while they might take your lot - and us - in one Big Obit. Pray this doesn't happen.
Whenever we speak of generations, it's important to acknowledge they're not a block. I think Morgthorak did so at the beginning and middle of this piece. That said, the bulk of the Boomer generation was spoiled children, easily led with slogans and flattery. There is a fundamental difficulty most of them have in seeing the world as it is and we see it in so many of the decisions made over the past 25-30 years.
Our Boomer leaders picked the next generation of leaders to flatter themselves. That's why we see so few gen-X or millennial leaders coming up with any character or integrity. The Boomers "elites" don't like anyone with those qualities, like a vampire hates a cross.
The one thing I consistently see from all Boomers when these questions arise is a knee-jerk reaction that either dismisses or curses our own experience. I can acknowledge the shortcomings of my generation. Why are Boomers so thin-skinned they can't admit the terrible things many in their generation took part in? Just more of the same as far as I can see.
As a powerhouse of a nation full of natural resources and an industrious resourceful population you should ask yourself why the US was in any of these wars
No nation or combination of nations would have the capability to invade or conquer America
It is mostly our fellow genXers sterilizing kids, teaching critical theory in the law schools, selling deathvax jabs, running the bloody White House. But then maybe once the boomers are gone their assumptions will hold no sway anymore? Maybe. But we clearly have a decade before that happens, and America as an ideal and functioning nation state could be a dead letter by that point.
In a world of blaming something/someone other than ourselves for a predicament---why not the boomers. Everyone’s got choices, mine included not vaxing but am certainly responsible for a host of other mistakes. Loved the article and the discussion. God Bless!!!
As a boomer born in ‘57, I’ve accepted that I’m in the twilight of my life, that I’ve entered into the season of late autumn, soon to enter into the dead of winter. I’m already (prematurely?) ready to leave this veil of tears. I’ve already seen too much evil — especially in the form of war — to last me a lifetime, and I know that there’s more evil and death to come. I’ve seen suicide too. One (my youngest brother) up close and personal.
Good morning Gary. Don't let the tone of this article get to you too much. I think I was in a bit of a mood when I wrote it. 😂
There are some good boomers, so stick around and see what else life has in store for you. Christ will call you home when it is your time and he is ready for you.
We are not gonna bury them, that's for sure. I think the Millennial gen are just waiting for the right time and place to give them a shove out of the culture for good.
However, some of the most have-it-together people I know are boomers who never left their hippy ways.
Actually, the 1965 immigration act was done by the silent generation, I believe. So I don’t think you can blame the boomers for it, but then they never change the law back to what it was before, so you can blame them for that part if you want once they took power.
The boomers called them that (they most certainly did not call themselves the "greatest" anything) but only after they were mostly dead. The boomers hated their parents values and trashed them every which way they could and only made saints out of them so they could bask in that empty narcissist's trick of glorifying oneself by recognizing greatness in others.
Typical. Boomers take credit for what they were given. Everything we have is because of the WWII generation. Boomers lived of their fumes for the decades of their ascendancy and now blame the younger generations for their failures. Just like the Biden admin is now blaming the Ukrainians for the failure that was inevitable when they ginned up this conflict with Russia. All you Boomers are living like it's still the cold war and we're fighting the Soviets. Sad.
The vast cohort of the Boomer generation was spoiled and never grew up. Now we will be left to clean up your mess.
Ironically enough, my boomer parents did work hard but managed to somehow come out of it with all their efforts completely wasted and dissipated due to what I can only interpret as resentment and childishness.
Folks, please try to be polite even when you disagree. I had to remove a couple of messages from this thread. Please try to focus on the topic and related issues. Thanks.
I don't think most of us are wealthy, nor powerful, at least nobody I know in my age cohort is. Some of us, maybe more than you think, didn't take the shots, and maybe even convinced a few young people not to take them.
So yes, powerful boomers messed up the world. Just as every generation's powerful did before them, and as Gen-Xers will, too.
Haven't you met folk who are 30 and thoroughly ossified? I have, and too often.
Age can be a part of it, but I'm not convinced that it's the whole of it, or even most of it. The greedy ones grab all the chips, then they make rules so they can keep all the chips. I doubt that's ever going to change.
So...respectfully...gotta disagree with you on this one.
The Boomers were very easy to lead by that powerful cohort with empty slogans and base flattery. They grew up with the world centered on them and were thus massively spoiled. Spoiling a child isn’t a light thing, and it was the WWII generation’s greatest sin upon the future, even considering nukes.
I don’t care much for gen-x and on but we didn’t mostly grow up so spoiled and emotionally lazy. We couldn’t since our parents certainly didn’t spoil us and we had to think for ourselves. The gen-x “leaders” I have seen will, once the Boomers who prop them up go, be tossed to the winds.
We will see how much we can right this ship or if it continues to list and keels over but if we can remove the death grip of the Boomers we at least have a chance.
This is wrong in more ways than can be counted. But it is interesting to see such a skewed view, I expect sincerely held.
The Boomers were preceded by the "Greatest Generation", also called the Silent Generation. They probably were, too. The Boomers are clearly the "Work Hard Generation". The reason that, for practical purposes, everything is now broken, everything is racist, everything is awful is that the Boomers are, gradually, withdrawing or dying -- and the the generations behind (there is hope for the just turning 20's but not much else) are far more self centered ("I need work-life balance") than would ever occur to Boomers...so nothing gets done, few are working, fewer are working hard, and it all spirals down. You are also the "blaming generations" as evidenced by this article. It is always someone else's fault.
Who will you blame when the rest of the Boomers are gone and things work even less well? Hope I am around to see.
Excellent points, Dr. K! I am glad you spoke up and have a different opinion. It will be interesting to see if others share your point of view and have their own thoughts to add.
There's a fallacy in your thinking here. You're looking at a single positive alleged characteristic of a cohort of the Boomer generation, extrapolating it to the whole, and then comparing it to a negative stereotype of a tiny cohort of the later generations and doing the same. There are steady, competent types in any generation. You pretending that's most or all of the Boomers is ridiculous. Just like pretending all the younger generation don't want to work. Sure, the kids are all lazy and incompetent. Where have I heard that before?
And anyway, did you ask yourself why some in the younger generations, mainly raised by Boomers, are so disaffected and/or not wanting to work hard?
The Boomers nurtured nothing for the future. Apprenticeships and training went out the window, public education was made into a joke along with eliminating our industrial base, all under the Boomers. Who didn't train the younger generations to take over what was left -- if that really is a serious problem?
Boomers led us through one disaster after another over the past 25 years, weakening and degrading our infrastructure to the point where things are falling apart in ways they never should have. All so you could have your WWII tough-guy fantasy war on terror and everything that's come after, culminating in the final stupid war against Russia that we cannot win.
Boomers have been greedy, grasping and selfish to an extreme degree. Did you know the Boomers are the first generation in US history to not significantly raise taxes on themselves when required? Instead, you just kicked the money printer into overdrive because why not? You won't have to pay the eventual bill.
History will not look kindly on them and it's not because later generations are whiny losers blaming others for their lives.
When Boomers were young they could buy a house on a single middle class salary. College cost almost nothing as did healthcare. These things are all pipe-dreams now. We have been looted and pillaged by the policies Boomers voted for and enacted so please, at long last, can you all just shut the fuck up.
Whine much?
I know the stones are old, they were pretty old in the 80's. But Van Halen? At least two of them were Gen X, I Thought Ozzy was too. There is just something about the boomers that makes me question the world. for some of the most educated people, they do trust government a lot, despite it biting them on the ass in Vietnam.
My parents are boomers, and I love them dearly, but they were the first to take the clot shots, and didn't even think about it. When I ask them why, mom said, "Because the doctor said to," and dad "Because the news said to take it." When I ask them about the lockdowns, they were okay with it, and I argued that it was being done wrong, (The sick should be quarantined and those not sick should be working.) They argued that the asshats in DC knew best.
I had to remind that those same asshats weren't doing their jobs and could get out a wet paper bag without help.
I recently came across a Zoomer asking why Gen X was being let off of the hook, and the woman in the video said, "We are the last feral generation, we knew freedom, we will eat you for breakfast, while you are still crying that it's not fair."
I rather enjoyed this piece - and I'm a Boomer. Of course I enjoyed it! It's about us. Yes, I enjoyed it and agree with some, but very little of it. I proudly view 'My Generation' as having upheld the values and virtues of The Greatest Generation. In fact, I identify with that cohort as much as with my own. I was a war baby. All adult males in my family served our country; my uncle was a B-17 pilot shot down over Germany (he survived). I served in Vietnam. Don't you worry about us Boomers! Worry instead about Ze Young Leaders and power mad fools in D.C. We'll leave you be and wish you peace, while they might take your lot - and us - in one Big Obit. Pray this doesn't happen.
https://youtu.be/qN5zw04WxCc?si=JQs9T5PM_CTJ7dJ7
Whenever we speak of generations, it's important to acknowledge they're not a block. I think Morgthorak did so at the beginning and middle of this piece. That said, the bulk of the Boomer generation was spoiled children, easily led with slogans and flattery. There is a fundamental difficulty most of them have in seeing the world as it is and we see it in so many of the decisions made over the past 25-30 years.
Our Boomer leaders picked the next generation of leaders to flatter themselves. That's why we see so few gen-X or millennial leaders coming up with any character or integrity. The Boomers "elites" don't like anyone with those qualities, like a vampire hates a cross.
The one thing I consistently see from all Boomers when these questions arise is a knee-jerk reaction that either dismisses or curses our own experience. I can acknowledge the shortcomings of my generation. Why are Boomers so thin-skinned they can't admit the terrible things many in their generation took part in? Just more of the same as far as I can see.
As a powerhouse of a nation full of natural resources and an industrious resourceful population you should ask yourself why the US was in any of these wars
No nation or combination of nations would have the capability to invade or conquer America
It is mostly our fellow genXers sterilizing kids, teaching critical theory in the law schools, selling deathvax jabs, running the bloody White House. But then maybe once the boomers are gone their assumptions will hold no sway anymore? Maybe. But we clearly have a decade before that happens, and America as an ideal and functioning nation state could be a dead letter by that point.
In a world of blaming something/someone other than ourselves for a predicament---why not the boomers. Everyone’s got choices, mine included not vaxing but am certainly responsible for a host of other mistakes. Loved the article and the discussion. God Bless!!!
As a boomer born in ‘57, I’ve accepted that I’m in the twilight of my life, that I’ve entered into the season of late autumn, soon to enter into the dead of winter. I’m already (prematurely?) ready to leave this veil of tears. I’ve already seen too much evil — especially in the form of war — to last me a lifetime, and I know that there’s more evil and death to come. I’ve seen suicide too. One (my youngest brother) up close and personal.
Good morning Gary. Don't let the tone of this article get to you too much. I think I was in a bit of a mood when I wrote it. 😂
There are some good boomers, so stick around and see what else life has in store for you. Christ will call you home when it is your time and he is ready for you.
We are not gonna bury them, that's for sure. I think the Millennial gen are just waiting for the right time and place to give them a shove out of the culture for good.
However, some of the most have-it-together people I know are boomers who never left their hippy ways.
thank you very much for the kind words, Mark. I am glad to have you here as part of the community. 👍🏻
Actually, the 1965 immigration act was done by the silent generation, I believe. So I don’t think you can blame the boomers for it, but then they never change the law back to what it was before, so you can blame them for that part if you want once they took power.
Hahahahaha. Wow.
Good luck to you. Greatest generation my ass.
Most brainwashed generation. Your entire generation was war. Born from war, rich from war. Dead on war.
The boomers called them that (they most certainly did not call themselves the "greatest" anything) but only after they were mostly dead. The boomers hated their parents values and trashed them every which way they could and only made saints out of them so they could bask in that empty narcissist's trick of glorifying oneself by recognizing greatness in others.
Typical. Boomers take credit for what they were given. Everything we have is because of the WWII generation. Boomers lived of their fumes for the decades of their ascendancy and now blame the younger generations for their failures. Just like the Biden admin is now blaming the Ukrainians for the failure that was inevitable when they ginned up this conflict with Russia. All you Boomers are living like it's still the cold war and we're fighting the Soviets. Sad.
The vast cohort of the Boomer generation was spoiled and never grew up. Now we will be left to clean up your mess.
Ironically enough, my boomer parents did work hard but managed to somehow come out of it with all their efforts completely wasted and dissipated due to what I can only interpret as resentment and childishness.