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I totally agree. The country went down the toilet under the Boomers' watch.
And now the Opinion Page. And baby boomers, it's all about you. Well, isn't it always? In the New York Times this morning, columnist Bill Keller argues it's time for the generation that fought in and against the war in Vietnam, the generation that gave us flower power and credit default swaps to step up and take one for the team. Medicare and Social Security spending has to come down, he argues, and boomers need to make entitlement reform, quote, our generation's cause. It's not our fault there are a lot of us, he writes, but we have resisted any move to fix the system.
The Entitled Generation
The notion that our generation has been spoiled rotten is not a terribly new thought. A dozen years ago Paul Begala (of Bill Clinton and CNN fame) published in Esquire the classic of boomer-loathing, “The Worst Generation.” “The Baby Boomers are the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history,” he declared. It’s a sturdy genre. Perhaps while Googling yourself you have come across the blog Boomer Deathwatch (“Because one day, they’ll all be dead”, a checklist of famous boomers who hit their actuarial sell-by dates. Even Barack Obama, who styles himself post-boomer though he was born in 1961, complained in “The Audacity of Hope” that today’s hyperpolarized political discourse began with the “psychodrama of the baby boom generation.”
Yes, yes, this criticism is glib. We didn’t start the war in Vietnam, but members of our generation fought both in it and against it, demonstrating some of the spirit of sacrifice we are not famous for. Our ranks include the outsourcers of Bain and the wizards of the Wall Street casino, but also the entrepreneurial genius of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The Bill Clinton of Monicagate was the first boomer president, but so was the Bill Clinton of relative peace and prosperity. Our record-buying dollars gave the world disco — so sorry about that — but also Motown and Springsteen. I’d say the argument will continue forever if that didn’t sound like such an all-about-us, boomer thing to say.
But even though the caricature is way too easy, it has stuck, and we all know that it contains more than a nugget of truth. We are an entitled bunch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/keller-the-entitled-generation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The Worst Generation
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and hate the Boomers
By Paul Begala
AT A PRESS GATHERING just after the 1992 election, David Broder, the dean of Washington reporters, commented to me that my Clintonista colleagues and I seemed so, well, so young to him. "I guess you Baby Boomers are really taking over," he said.
That's when it happened. I'd never been called a Boomer before. Poor Broder. My eyes got squinty and my face got red. The veins in my temples throbbed. The look on his face was horrible. He must have thought I was about to rip off his head and spit down his neck. Which I was.
"I am not a Baby Boomer," I snapped. "I am so tired of hearing about the goddamn Baby Boomers! I've spent my whole life swimming behind that garbage barge of a generation. They ruined everything they've passed through and left me in their wake."
Broder shook his head and walked away.
But the garbage barge just chugs on. As they enter late middle age, the Boomers still can't grow up. Guys who once dropped acid are now downing Viagra; women who once eschewed lipstick are now getting liposuction. At the risk of feeding their narcissism, I believe it's time someone stated the simple truth: The Baby Boomers are the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history.
I hate the Boomers.
I KNOW IT'S A SIN to hate, so let me put it this way:
If they were animals, they'd be a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path and leaving but a wasteland. If they were plants, they'd be kudzu, choking off every other living thing with their sheer mass. If they were artists, they'd be abstract expressionists, interested only in the emotions of that moment--not in the lasting result of the creative process. If they were a baseball club, they'd be the Florida Marlins: prefab prima donnas who bought their way to prominence, then disbanded--a temporary association but not a team.
Of course, it is as unfair to demonize an entire generation as it is to characterize an entire gender or race or religion. And I don't literally mean that everyone born between 1946 and 1964 is a selfish pig. But...
Mornin' Art.
I was born on the latter cusp and so am included in this generation, but feel concerned for future generations nonetheless...
Mornin' Art.
I was born on the latter cusp and so am included in this generation, but feel concerned for future generations nonetheless...
Hi Val. You get a pass, hun
Time for me to put on my snowsuit and change the oil in my car. Damn, it's cold out there this morning!
This brings me to a soon-to-be released study by the incorrigible pragmatists at Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank. The study takes a familiar refrain and presents it with a graphic wallop. Though it was intended as a wake-up call, not an indictment of a generation, it can be read as both.
Third Way | Fresh Thinking
The authors examined two categories of federal spending over the past 50 years, representing two of governments fundamental missions. One was investments, which includes maintaining our national infrastructure, keeping our military equipped, helping assure that our work force is educated to a high standard, and underwriting the kind of basic scientific research that is too risky or long-term to attract private money. The report calls this the legacy of President Kennedys New Frontier, though the largest infrastructure project in our history, the interstate highway system, was Eisenhowers baby, a reminder of the days when Republicans still believed in that stuff. The other category was entitlements, a catchall word for the safety-net programs that provide a measure of economic stability for the aging and poor: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
You will not be surprised to hear that the red line tracking entitlements goes up while the blue line reflecting investments goes down. What is alarming is the trajectory.
I contend that on the whole the, "Baby Boomers" are the most selfish, lazy, freeloading generation America has ever known, look what their turning over to the next generation...
ah.. btw. ( I am one but I'm not included)..(D))