Tannishblog

I’m sick of the Baby Boomers. We all know of them - the children of the Greatest Generation, born after WWII and before 1960 (roughly), who found themselves, by virtue of numbers, a force to be reckoned with early in their lifecycle. Clearly, it went to their heads.

During the Summer of Love, America gave the keys to our nation to a group of hippies. The media taught them they mattered, they were powerful, they were the future. Now we live in that future, and the Boomers, cannot hide the effects of wanton capitalism, reckless consumerism, exploitation of developing nations, and pollution. These are the same issues the hippies were denouncing 40 years ago. Instead, they conformed, reformed, and accelerated the same vicious cycles.

So many of them, draft dodgers and war haters in their youth, became chicken hawks when they realized how wars can affect stock portfolios. So many of them, once advocates of affirmative action, desegregation and civil liberties as defined by the 1960’s, have reversed themselves or - as Don Imus represents - exposed their inner racist and innate misogyny to the world. Too many children have been born to Boomer parents who ignore them in favor of selfish monetary pursuits, fleeting sexual adventures, and narcissistic preoccupation with angst never outgrown.

People refer to those born after the Baby Boomers as "the ME generation." This is an error perpetrated by members of the Boomers, who themselves are the greediest, most selfish generation in American history. Just look at the people in power now, how they comport themselves. Read the news. Our government is run by a generation of bloated self-worth, fed by a media designed for them in mind, now run by them, too. Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the New American Century, has been found to have secured his girlfriend a fat pay check using clout gain by his patronage-begotten position as head of the World Bank. His response was to refuse the option of stepping down. Selfish bastard.

And then there’s the Bush Administration… Every thing they touch, from the Iraqi Oil Grab debacle and the breaking of the Geneva Conventions to the firing of US attorneys for political gain, shouts out their greed and selfishness, their convictions that they can do whatever they want, just as they were told when they were children. In fact, in many ways they still are children: just watch the pouting tirades of our President. (Anyone who flips the bird at a running camera and thinks it’s funny is truly unfit for public office.)

Now we learn that Boomers aren’t as healthy as their parents. Perchance a a lofe of drug abuse, rehabilitation and excessive consumerism is hard on the body?

The world may still survive them, but the whole of the 21st century will be dominated by reparation for the damage done by one generation of people. It’s good that they are finally dying off, to leave the world a shambles for their estranged offspring to try and fix. Humanity can learn from them what not to do in the future. Sometimes negative lessons are the most potent.

Good Riddance.