If we didn't have the boomers, we would be ______ ?

considerably worse off.

Well, that is true for me (30-40), you?

ess :-)

The star sign, I mean.

No, seriously, I know.

sorry about that

If no babies had been born from 1946-1964, we would have had to sustain our population through immigration, or depopulate. If we depopulated, the economy would have collapsed and we would be unable to keep the immigrants out. If we welcomed people from the entire world, I think we would be a better country today all in all, as long as the education system remained as good as it was in those years. We would have more empathy and understanding of peoples from all over the world, and a less Anglo-dominated society.

if that is correct, not sure.

Let's say that half of the population is from parents who were of breeding age during the second world war, so maybe a hundred millior or so fewer people might not be such a bad thing. Then you have to ask, what has this generation done for the nation. Not much comes to mind to be quite honest about it. You might be able to peg the space age on us, but in truth it was begun by the preceeding generation, not ours. AIDS came into being on our watch, no question about that. So there is a real big count against us. Oh, and we squander everything, and I do mean everything. The generation before us wasn't able to squander, the next one won't be able to either, just us boomers and our kids to a lessor extent.

They really haven't come of age or really been able to govern. Why, you ask? Look at health care - it's allowed "The Greatest Generation" continuing living way way past their prime. They are biggest voters. They are the ones that politicans pander too when they talk about seniors.

If you look at that way, 85 year olds are still running this country. They won't give up the ghost. It will be the mid boomers who will finally outlive these seniors. The early boomers haven't been given the chance, they have been marginalized for being hippies, etc.

If you think I am slamming seniors, you are full of it. I work at a senior health care facility and see what is happening to them too via Republican Medicare. The doctor here had to personally for the antibiotics of patient on Tuesday because he could afford the medication that allow him to save his foot (diabetes). Now that's frickin' sad - he could eat or save his foot. The doc here kicks out the drug companies because of their prices. There really are some good doc's out there who care about nutrition and their patients not being on the new designer drug. He will NOT prescribe them - not needed.

So - we (I'm a mid boomer) keep hanging in there, really waiting for our turn to govern. Surely it will happen in our lifetimes. It hasn't for a lot of the early boomers.

I feel really beat up these days about what my generation DIDN'T contribute (or a more deserved criticism, complete), most of which is coming from people my children's age, although some from a presidential candidate who is a boomer himself.

It's easier to rewrite history than to make it.

On the other hand, I do see juniors picking up some of the good things (activism, a sense of social responsibility, environmental conscience, civil rights), and that's a relief.

You'll do it better than we did. But thanks to anyone who at least nods toward some of the progenitors instead of dismissing them out of hand. It's a mistake the boomers made about our own predecessors, I think.

:hi:

we did not have any choice that our parents decided to over populate the country , don't make the same mistake they did .

I know my parents grew up during the depression and they did instill the idea of not wasting things , my wife and I never wasted anything and still don;t take anything for granted .

Using blanket terminology; we may as well blame Adam and Eve for eating apples instead of delicious rack of lamb on a daily basis.

Of course, without that knowledge, we'd never have been able to give nicknames for boobs, but oh well...

Someone had to do all that screwing to produce the next generation...

It was a tough job, but someone had to do it!

where did I hear that before
}(

:rofl:

but I would if I could.

Old folk are cute is what I'm sayin' mkay?

:D

My whipper ain't snappin' much either--it's too cold, and my arthur-itis is acting up!

water expanding into ice being a notable counter-example.

But good luck with that Arthroatis! Bad stuff, that.

:-)

She'll be wide open with anticipation.

Social Security $$$!!! That shit is going to be gone, and they will have still made you pay in!! The pre-boomers and some of their sold-out boomers have done a number on all of us. Myself, I ain't exactly expecting to hang around another 30 or 40 years, so I won't know just how the deal goes down. I'm sure it will be pretty...if you like shit brown.

is in jeopardy. Same thing.

I don't think they have done a number on us, governments have.

Those of us born after about 1955 have had little to do with all the complaints. We were too young to be part of the 60s, and came of age at the end of the Vietnam mess. I did not get out of college until 1981. I will not be of "retirement age" until 2025. So put away the broad brush, please.

Bereft of Scorsese films, Spielberg films, Lucas films, Stephen King books, Clapton music, Dead shows, the right of reproductive choice, women with fine butts wearing tight hip-hugger jeans (my preference), homosexual rights (i.e. men wearing same while holding hands with other men just like someone who loves someone else), the internet, Woodstock, the Stones, the Who, Led Zep, comfortable shoes, and some living proof that a small dedicated group of people can actually change the world...

...that's the only thing that ever has.

Boomers sometimes make me nuts (I somethimes think that certain members of that generation must have gotten Narcissism-booster injections every day until puberty, by order of the Town Marshall)...but that hardly permits any broad-brush characterization of the whole...cuz some in that generational crew sat at Mississippi lunch counters and took beatings for it, rode the Freedom buses and got beat again, some were killed for it, and in doing so changed American politics, changed music, made damned sure that having sex was about more than procreation and falling asleep faster, made weed more popular than Budweiser, hounded Nixon, and filled the ranks of the news media with the last real practitioners of the craft of actual journalism.

Etc.

I'm getting kinda sick of all the goddam Boomer-medicine commercials, but it's a small price to pay for...mmm...stuff like desegregation, choice, Nixon undone, not still fighting in Vietnam, good music, dry mouth and the munchies...and yes, the idea that folks can throw some serious weight in America when they come together as one big fist, or as one big embrace, or as one big idea, no matter how hippy-dippy the idea might sound.

I wasn't drafted, didn't see Jack and Bobby and Malcom and Medgar and Martin get shot down. Etc.

It's a better world because of them. Mostly.

as well for you as it did for Brokaw with his similar "Greatest Generation" nonsense

_|_

"Respect for your elders shows character." - Winston Wolf

"I have charachter!" - Renee

"Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character." - Winston Wolf

Words to live by.

*koff*

it ennobles no one - mitchum

Sweet.

little old me

However, my favorite Robert Mitchum quote is "I used to be pretty once"

;)

:)

Their numbers might create a kind of glass ceiling over the younger generation, especially if they don't retire until they are 80, as looks to be the case.

Probably most of the illegal aliens would be legal, immigration policies being more generous.

You also wouldn't have the boomlet occuring when boomers were of child bearing age - might have one of those government programs paying people to have kids.

Generation Gap of the '60s, meet the Generation Gap of the "double-aughts"

:evilgrin:

-Hoot

And get the hell off my lawn.

They're our parents, so without them, we don't exist. As a generation, they were the first to make self-indulgence, self-absorption, selfishness in general, and greed a real art form, but I can't say that my generation (X) is any better - we just have more limited opportunities to be greedy selfish pricks than they did.