Reply #76: Bickering Baby Boomers [View All]

That's the one I like best. One of the articles of faith for Obama & his supporters seems to be that those pesky baby boomers had their chance with Clinton (with Clinton?!?) & they should now lay down & die so that -- I don't know, is it the Brittany Spears Generation currently? -- can take over, with their superior energy, savvy, & hip. Er, hep. Hop? Hope?

Me, I was born in 1953, & the thought that my generation will be represented in the history books by Bill Clinton makes me vomit.

As for the Baby Boomer Generation having had its shot, how many U.S. Presidents are associated with WWII? I count Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, & Bush I. All of these were in some capacity members of the armed services during WWII. Kennedy & Bush saw combat, Eisenhower probably didn't see any fire fights but sure played an important role, Nixon was overseas but not in combat, & Johnson & Reagan were in uniform stateside. That's seven presidents, forty years of "Greatest Generation" presidents who had some connection with WWII.

So when a puerile Obama supporter makes Corporate Republican-scripted remarks about pot-smoking, hippie baby boomers needing to bow out, I just think of how convincing, & how convinced, Pete Townshend sounded when he wrote "Hope I die before I get old..." Then I think of Pete, bald & beaky as Donald Pleasance, wearing a Good Suit & hanging out at his club, selling "Won't Get Fooled Again" to a soft drink company, or wherever it was it went. I think that that the entire Named Generation construct & its artificial attempt to pigeonhole people for easy consumption by the status quo serves the powers that be far more than it serves the people who are tricked into using it.

And I figure the Starbucks Generation should be paying its dues until at least the year 2032.

Ah, well.