I was reading a Times article about Republicans and what they need to do to regain power. Apart from the obvious – be like Obama – or the other obvious question: Why the hell is the Times helping to provide a focus to the Republicans, anyway!?! – it occurred to me I have basically lived most of my life in a Conservative Amerika.
Ronald Regan was elected a few weeks before I turned 6 years old. That was 28 years ago. I don’t recall much about the congress then, or when Bush succeeded him, but shortly after Clinton (who in my opinion was a Regan Democrat on all things economic and drug related) ascended the throne, the congress went crazy Republican with Newt Gingrich as it’s leader. Then we got Bush. Now we’re here.
I’m not sure what it is like to live in a land where you are truly free. Or, I’m not sure what it’s not like to live in Amerika’s version of Liberal where it was Bill Clinton that privatized Prisons, but many others were getting richer – what else will be privatized to the detriment of society. It has just occurred to me that no one except our very old grandparents can imagine living in a time when there was a Works Progress Administration, and the Government was an entity who saw its function as helping the people to achieve the American Dream; or at the very least, providing them with basic minimums like food.
I must stop here and confess the motivating thought that lead to this writing: I am very angry with our parents who thought that after the ruff and tumble of their generation, we should personally need to be heavily regulated, our music, our drugs, etc. – at the same time, deciding to throw our futures away on greedy gambling without regulation. Here, I can honestly say that our parents generation was marked by it’s failed leaders, while assassinating it’s only worthwhile Leaders. They have been unimpressive underachievers, leaving us ultimately with a disdain for intellect and a clear path to the Dark Ages, while our Grandparents produced leaders that created a U.N., a NATO, instituted a Geneva Convention (the very one this crop of leaders seems determined to rebel against), instituted a framework that could lead to an improvement of the Human Condition around the world through peace, and words. And here we are with the impetuous child like belief that these current leaders are the ones that are right and their parents wrong; we’re still living out our parents rebellion and it’s effects upon us, while they fret and fear over our non-rebellion, they legislate our love, spy on us at all costs and generally act considerably less tolerant than our Grandparents.
It is time to stop looking to our parents for the examples they never were, and start looking to those from a generation that produced something decent. Instead of losing focus and zooming on the second world war, which was, after all, only about 4 years in all for America, look at the most progressive period in American history – the 30’s, where Social Security took hold, where public service was just that – a privilege to serve your fellow American, where work was considered a right and no man disposable.
That is not to say that World War II was nothing. Many a conservative republican points to it as their identifying link with their parents. I think nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that America underwent the changes it did, when asked, shows a courage for purpose that their children were never able to muster. For each sacrifice made in the name of country during World War II, there is an indulgence on the Boomer’s part during the last 30+ years of foreign wars, including Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Columbia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan twice, Iraq twice, Yemen, Sudan, and on and on – these are simply the public operations. As their parents stepped back at the shock of World War II, fresh off the heels of World War I, they made bold attempts at peace and reconciliation, these boomer children have destroyed their children’s inheritance. When viewed from the comparative lens of generational achievements, the boomers score resoundingly low, despite their false bravado in the truth of their cause.
Looking closely at our parents offerings to us as a nest egg, you will find temper tantrums, egoism, and a race to re-create the Lord of The Flies, so sure were they in their rebellion against their parents. This is not to say there were not some good ideas – but the leaders they have selected repeatedly, have failed repeatedly. They have failed to Shepard the citizenry, contenting themselves, finally, with Protecting our Security – defined only as safe from bombs. They do not believe in protecting job security, or security for free speech, or security for the bill of rights, or even the security of a basic education. No – they have opted for the easiest task possible, resulting in our futures squandered at the very cost of the security provided them by their parents.
In 1980, the boomer’s hoisted a dead albatross of rebellion around our collective necks. They declared that the tax structure their parents set up should be rebelled against, they declared a cost-free education something to rebel against, they declared an enlightened citizenry as something to be rebelled against, they declared a free exchange of ideas a weakness to be rebelled against, they decided a world wide framework to resolve national disputes something to rebel against. This rebellion and many, many more hang around our neck today singing a NewSpeak song called “Conservative”. They are, when defined by their ideas and actions, not at all conservative. Instead, they have been very liberal in their changes, in their dismantling of social safety nets created by their parents, liberal in their dismantling public education, infrastructure, communities, small businesses, citizen services and the list goes on.
So effective have the boomers been, that to even contemplate a government that serves it’s people in direct and meaningful ways is potentially heretical. But to conceive of our future as it may very likely be, seems as bad as being a heretic. The labor market is crashing, the stock market is crashing (the one we all had to put our retirement into – another Regan offering), the homeless are increasing, homes lost, a downward spiral in education, health care, even our living space -the environment- is being meticulously destroyed – the current state of affairs left us by our parents is approaching apocryphal; bluntly, the future is bleak.
screaming at low volumes
