Author Topic: Not-So-Great Generation  (Read 4494 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Richpo64

  • Guest
Not-So-Great Generation
« on: November 21, 2007, 07:53:15 PM »
Not-So-Great Generation
The boomers will be best remembered for their self-glorification.

by William Kristol
11/26/2007, Volume 013, Issue 11



Q: If the World War II generation was the "greatest generation," what is the Vietnam War generation?
A: I don't think the full judgment of history is in yet. There is certainly greatness in the '60s generation. They changed our attitudes about race in America, which was long overdue.
--Tom Brokaw, interviewed in the November 19 U. S. News & World Report, on his new book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties.

Whoa! The '60s generation changed our attitudes about race in America? Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King Jr.--were they from the Vietnam war generation? Earl Warren, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey? For that matter, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, murdered on June 21, 1964, in Mississippi? None of these was a member of the " '60s generation." None was a boomer.

There really was greatness in the "greatest generation." It fought and won World War II, then came home to achieve widespread prosperity and overcome segregation while seeing the Cold War through to a successful conclusion. But the greatest generation had one flaw, its greatest flaw, you might say: It begat the baby boomers.

The most prominent of the boomers spent their youth scorning those of their compatriots who fought communism, while moralizing and posturing at no cost to themselves. They went on to enjoy the benefits of their parents' labors, sacrificed little, and produced nothing particularly notable. But the boomers were unparalleled when it came to self-glorification, a talent they began developing as teenagers and have continued to improve up to this day. They were also good at bamboozling their parents, and members of the "silent generation" like Tom Brokaw, to be overly deferential to them--even to the point of giving them credit for things they didn't do.

Now the first boomers are applying for Social Security. Their time is passing--without eliciting any discernible consternation among their successors. It's not that every last one is unworthy. But for each David Petraeus or Ray Odierno (two very impressive members), there are countless posturers and blowhards who have received wildly disproportionate attention. We've had two boomer presidents now, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. They followed eight presidents whose lives were more or less defined by the experience of World War II, or the Cold War: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush. (Carter is the exception that proves the rule--a bit young to be defined by World War II, he turned out to be a kind of baby boomer avant la lettre.) With all due respect to Clinton's intelligence and Bush's determination--it's hard to make the case that boomer presidents were an improvement. (And some of the most impressive characters in the Clinton and Bush administrations--Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Vice President Dick Cheney, to name two--weren't boomers.)

The boomer urge for self-glorification is still going strong. In its latest issue, Newsweek celebrates "1968: The Year That Made Us Who We Are." Recently Hillary Clinton spoke at Wellesley reliving the glory days of her "experiment in human living" 1969 commencement speech. For her reprise, she received mostly fawning coverage, in accord with the how-wonderful-our-kids-are coverage her original remarks received four decades ago. But rereading that fatuous oration today makes one think that the romance of the '60s must surely fade.

Maybe we'll even see this in the 2008 presidential election. Maybe the American public will decide two boomer presidents are enough. The Republicans will either nominate a pre-boomer (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson) or an anti-boomer (the square Mitt Romney or the preacher Mike Huckabee). As for the Democrats, they can pick from two quintessential boomers--Hillary Clinton and John Edwards--or go for Barack Obama, barely on the edge of boomer-dom (Obama was born in 1961) but really a post-boomer.

America's hopes for the future rest mostly with the 9/11 generation. Despite their unfortunate propensity so far to vote Democratic, these young men and women will, I believe, turn out to be far more impressive than we boomers who begat them. It would of course be a fitting fate, after all the soaring rhetoric about the boomers, if they turned out to be basically a parenthesis. They may go down in history as occupying space between the generation that won World War II and presided over a relatively successful second-half of the twentieth century, and the 9/11 generation that will deal with the threats the boomers neglected during that quintessential boomer decade, the '90s. It is the 9/11 generation that will have to construct and maintain a new American century. The best we boomers can do now is help them get started on the job. Meanwhile, the experience of the boomers should hearten us: America is such a great country that it will end up surviving even a not-so-great generation.

--William Kristol

 
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
? Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. 
 

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2007, 10:48:48 PM »
Like everything else Kristol writes, this piece is pure garbage. 

I would like to take issue with just one aspect of the piece (because I could literally take this crap apart one line at a time, one word at a time - - an easy but endless task when just about every word the guy writes is part of some obvious lie or hoax.)  He begins his piece with a comment about the "Viet Nam War generation" - - a worthless bunch of losers, according to Kristol.  Did they really "change our attitudes about race" in America, as Tom Brokaw apparently said? 

Who exactly are the Vietnam War generation?  Most of us know who we think are the Vietnam War generation.  For myself, it's the generation of activists who made the Sixties so different from the decades before and after.  The activists, the "take it to the street" guys who never hesitated to confront the forces of evil, the Southern cops with their batons and dogs and fire-hoses, the KKK with their bombs and guns.  People who demanded action, not platitudes and put their lives and their bodies on the line for it.

Kristol very cleverly never defines "the Vietnam War generation."  However, he tells us that Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney could not be of that generation because they weren't "boomers."  A preposterous claim.  He confuses (deliberately, IMHO) the definition of "baby boomer" (someone born when the troops came home, in 1946 and subsequent years) with the broader class of the Vietnam War generation.  We think of the latter as the kids, the students, the demonstrators.  A common byword amongst them was "Don't trust anyone over thirty."  Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were all in their early to mid-twenties when they were murdered in the middle of the decade, in 1964.   They were students.  They were active in the fight against racism and fascism in Amerikkka.  By every criterion (except Kristol's arbitrary "boomer" definition) they WERE the "Vietnam War generation."  It was precisely their contemporaries in the struggle against racism and fascism who moved into the antiwar movement following the Amerikkkan invasion of Vietnam in 1965, using the same methods of organization, struggle and recruitment that they had honed in the Civil Rights movement.

What I found typical of Kristol's argument here was what I find typical of all "conservative" (actually, crypto-fascist) polemicists - - the brazen denial of the truth.  As in, Kerry, wounded in combat, and the holder of three medals proving it, was actually NOT wounded in combat, but is a coward and a liar; the Republican Party is NOT the party of racism and the Southern Strategy of Barry Goldwater had no intention of recruiting white Southern racists to the cause; and three young student civil rights workers, murdered in their twenties in Mississippi in 1964 were not members of the Vietnam War generation.

Not only were Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney NOT members of the Vietnam War generation, but the REAL advances in anti-racist action were made by other generations:  by the older and/or veteran civil rights fighters like Bayard Rustin and Rosa Parks (Bayard Rustin in particular would probably still be fighting racism step by painful step and inch by painful inch even as we speak, were it not for the Vietnam War generation) and by the Amerikkkan ruling class leaders such as LBJ, Earl Warren and Hubert Humphrey, basically reactive leaders even more gradualistic in their approach than the veteran movement leaders.

Just so we're clear about credit for the advances - - I don't mean to take away anything from anyone.  All the people mentioned by Kristol contributed to the slow dismantling of Jim Crow segregation in the Southern States, but to those of us who remember those days, the struggle came to a head in the streets of Amerikkka where lives were laid on the line by kids in their teens and twenties who fought the cops and the Sheriffs' deputies and brought the TV cameras that made sure that the ugly side of Amerikkka got plenty of exposure in a world where two Cold War opponents were actively competing for Third World friends and allies.

Kristol wants to tear down the accomplishments of that magnificent generation.  Sorry, pal.  No can do.

Religious Dick

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1153
  • Drunk, drunk, drunk in the gardens and the graves
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2007, 01:02:53 AM »
Whaddaya know? Bill Kristol and Nick Gillespie agree on something!

Year of the Rat
 
 

Somehow it seems appropriate that

members of the baby-boom

generation would finally make

peace with their parents the

same year that Dr. Spock cashed

his last royalty check.

 
As leading-edge boomers enter

their 50s en masse and resign

themselves to the arduous task

of clipping Depends coupons,

they have largely forgotten the

words to their one-time anthem,

"The Times They Are A-Changin',"

and its defiant invocation of a

generational Death Race 2000

scenario: "Come mothers and

fathers throughout the land / and

don't criticize what you can't

understand / Your sons and your

daughters are beyond your

command / your old road is rapidly

aging / please get out of the new

one if you can't lend your

hand / for the times they are

a-changin'." These days, the

boomers are whistling a new

tune, one of gushing admiration

and respect for old people. It's

summed up in the title of a new

book about people lucky enough

to live through the two great,

character-building historical

episodes of the 20th century,

the Great Depression and World

War II. The book, "written" by

NBC news animatron Tom Brokaw,

is simply titled The Greatest

Generation.

 
Given that the Vietnam War had

been one of the major sources of

generational friction, it is

particularly ironic that the war

movie Saving Private Ryan has

been a prime factor in sewing up

the generation gap. (Well, that

and the fact that the "greatest

generation" has one foot firmly

in the grave: Whether it's

mountain lions, American

Indians, or nagging parents who

tell you that they never had

half the opportunities you've

had, there's nothing like

imminent extinction to prime the

nostalgia pump.)

 
 

The ultra-violent battle

scenes of Saving Private Ryan did more

than erase the memory of Steven

Spielberg's first attempt at a

World War II movie, the

hilarious yuk fest 1941 (which

in its own small way added to

the horrors of this bloody

century and doubtlessly fueled

co-star John Belushi's desire to

destroy himself). Through the

ritual sacrifice of America's

sweetheart, Tom Hanks, Saving

Private Ryan helped create a

newfound appreciation for the

almost casual heroism of

American combatants during World

War II. (Whether Hanks' latest -

You've Got Mail - will similarly

legitimatize cyber sex remains to

be seen). Another of the year's

most-anticipated releases,

Terence Malick's Guadalcanal

drama The Thin Red Line, is

likely to deepen those feelings

in a generation that derided John

Wayne as a camp icon - though

the casting of hemp pitchman

Woody Harrelson in a heroic role

plainly reflects vestigial

ambivalence on the part of

boomers.

 
Of course, however long overdue

the boomers' gratitude and

empathy may be for the folks who

suffered through bread lines,

survived the Axis powers, and

then raised the generation Spiro

Agnew accused of throwing the

"longest panty raid in American

history," there remains

something characteristically

self-absorbed it all. Hence, in

an interview with film critic

Roger Ebert, Saving Private

Ryan director Steven Spielberg

referred to World War II as the

"key, the turning point of the

whole century ... It was as

simple as this: The century

either was going to produce the

baby boomers or it was not going

to produce the baby boomers.

World War II allowed my

generation to exist." If nothing

else, such a novel

interpretation of a conflict

that left tens of millions dead

drains the humor out of Hogan's

Heroes even more than Bob

Crane's brutal murder or Richard

Dawson's battle-fatigued hosting

of Family Feud.

 
There is something similarly

disquieting about the lessons

the boomers are learning from the

"greatest generation." Seemingly

drawing largely on such primary

historical sources as The

Waltons and the Bowery Boys

movies, marble-mouthed TV

personality Tom Brokaw wrote in

Newsweek that during World War

II, "ordinary people found

common cause, made extraordinary

sacrifices, and never whined or

whimpered. Their offspring, the

baby boomers, seem to have

forgotten the example of their

parents. We should be reflecting

more on what we can learn from

the men and women who ... were

called to duty at home and

abroad.... We must restore the

World War II generation's sense

of national purpose, not merely

of individual needs. They saw so

much horror and deprivation in

their formative years that they

rarely engage in self-pity. No

one could ever say that of the

Me Generation." Apparently never

having attended a Who concert

during the 1970s, Brokaw zeroed

in on what he took to be the unique

character of the period: "The

one time we got together was

during World War II," he quotes

Hawaiian Sen. Daniel Inouye,

who lost an arm during the war.

"We stood as one, we clenched

our fists as one."

 
Brokaw grants that

there's "no overarching

national crisis" today (other,

perhaps, than the broadcast

networks' declining ratings),

and he's a bit vague on spelling out

exactly who will be called upon

to make what "extraordinary

sacrifices" without complaint.

But the chances are better that

Willard Scott will dress up as

Ben Franklin or Carmen Miranda

for a weathercast than he, Dan

Rather, Peter Jennings, or

the honchos at Dreamworks SKG

will scrub toilets at the local

grammar school or work for scale

and use the extra shekels to

retire the national debt, to buy

up all extant copies of 1941, or

to make some other gesture that

would bring some small measure

of joy to the world.

 
Indeed, when you hear a

zillionaire utter phrases like

"national purpose" and

"extraordinary sacrifice,"

citizenship in the Republic of

Texas starts sounding better and

better all the time. The costs

of "national crises" are always

paid by the relatively young.

Those of us who were

born at the tail end of the baby

boom or later lived through

the shift from the Me

Generation to the We Generation,

a stroke of luck that

inspired maximum

cynicism. The sudden reverence

for the elderly, as with all

things related to the boomers,

seems overly self-interested and

sanctimonious. Things were fishy

enough when the same folks who

exclaimed, "Don't trust anyone

over 30" in the '60s only a few

years later offered up Logan's

Run, with its revisionist

message that even actor Michael

York should be allowed to live

into a fourth decade.

 
 

Can anyone seriously doubt that -

given the boomers' penchant for

sucking up all the shrimp and

steak in the buffet line of life

- they are setting up the rest

of us not merely to fork over

ever more generous portions of

our wages to fund their Social

Security and Medicare (hey, why

shouldn't face lifts and Viagra

prescriptions be covered?) but

to deny us any last crumb of joy

that comes simply from being

younger than them? We have,

after all, spent a lifetime

being castigated for following

in the boomers' footsteps and

being found wanting: They were

idealistic, we were cynical;

they did drugs to open the doors

of perception, we did them just

to get high; they dodged the

draft out of high moral purpose,

we simply forgot to register for

selective service at the post

office; they had the Manson

Family, we had the Menendez

Brothers; their congressional

impeachment hearing was about a

president fucking the country

over, ours is about blowjobs;

and on and on. And now, in a

stunning, cunning gambit, they

are laying the groundwork to rob

us of our last remaining

generational birthright: the

simple, unfettered pleasure of

some day dancing on their graves.

http://suck.com/daily/98/12/29/
I speak of civil, social man under law, and no other.
-Sir Edmund Burke

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2007, 08:51:55 AM »
When it comes to William Kristol, I can only think that Billy Cristol is far the better thinker, plus, he is funny.
The boomers I know are a hard-working bunch, and have been so ever since they reaches 25 or so. If they are collecting their Social security, it is deserved, because they paid into it. Their main character problem seems to me to be turning up the volume up too high on their music.

Clinton was a political genius with a character flaw, which was exploited by Richard Mellon Scaife Ken Starr and their conspiracy. Juniorbush is a walking character flaw who unfortunately got inflicted upon us due to his managing to not follow his destiny as a coke-snorting boozehound.

 
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2007, 12:24:19 PM »
  Most of us know who we think are the Vietnam War generation.  For myself, it's the generation of activists who made the Sixties so different from the decades before and after.  The activists, the "take it to the street" guys who never hesitated to confront the forces of evil, the Southern cops with their batons and dogs and fire-hoses, the KKK with their bombs and guns.  People who demanded action, not platitudes and put their lives and their bodies on the line for it.




Did they fail?

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2007, 06:42:26 PM »

<<Did they fail?>>

Good question.  Were the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act failures?  OTOH, are racism, fascism and militarism dead and gone in Amerikkka?

They set very high goals for themselves and for their country.  In terms of the goals they set, they failed.  In the same way that Jesus Christ failed, that Karl Marx failed, that Lenin failed.    They tried to make a better world, a gentler, more just world and in the end it could be said that the world defeated them.  It could also be said:  they (the Viet Nam War generation)  made a difference.  They left a better world than the one they found before them.  And then, gradually, over time, the snakes got back in the garden.

IMHO, it was the generations after the Vietnam War generation that failed.  They got bushwhacked by the forces of reaction, they lost their way.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2007, 08:00:37 PM »

<<Did they fail?>>

Good question.  Were the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act failures?  OTOH, are racism, fascism and militarism dead and gone in Amerikkka?

They set very high goals for themselves and for their country.  In terms of the goals they set, they failed.  In the same way that Jesus Christ failed, that Karl Marx failed, that Lenin failed.    They tried to make a better world, a gentler, more just world and in the end it could be said that the world defeated them.  It could also be said:  they (the Viet Nam War generation)  made a difference.  They left a better world than the one they found before them.  And then, gradually, over time, the snakes got back in the garden.

IMHO, it was the generations after the Vietnam War generation that failed.  They got bushwhacked by the forces of reaction, they lost their way.

The voting rights act ought to apply to all of the states , why not?

If you are a hammer all problems are nails, if you are a racism fighter are there any problems not dependant on racism?

Jesus Christ opened the doors of heaven and holds the keys to hell, he did not fail.
DrMLKjr managed a giant social upheaval in such a way that bloodletting as minimized and results were maximized , all Americans should be gratefull that he succeeded his failure would have been no less than another civil war.

 Marx and Lenin were successfull in their day , but their thinking has been superseded and outmoded by better thinking , we can be glad that the world was not entirely remade in the form of Communism forever, half the world was for half a century and that was trial enough to prove the fallacy of the concept.

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2007, 11:45:06 PM »
<<The voting rights act ought to apply to all of the states , why not?>>

The act was a solution to a problem.  It was applied where the problem was found, not all over the country.

Your question is kinda like seeing a guy with a cast on his broken leg - - why not put casts on all his limbs rather than just that one?

BTW, I kind of agree with you about communism.  There were huge problems associated with putting it into practice, particularly with the passage of time - - but I think there should be some effort put into seeing whether it's fixable or not.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2007, 11:48:11 PM by Michael Tee »

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2007, 07:07:58 AM »
<<The voting rights act ought to apply to all of the states , why not?>>

The act was a solution to a problem.  It was applied where the problem was found, not all over the country.

Your question is kinda like seeing a guy with a cast on his broken leg - - why not put casts on all his limbs rather than just that one?

BTW, I kind of agree with you about communism.  There were huge problems associated with putting it into practice, particularly with the passage of time - - but I think there should be some effort put into seeing whether it's fixable or not.


The cast should be on a broken limb untill it heals , but voteing rights are equally threatened in all states now , it should come off or go on all of the states untill the healing is equall.

I am pleased to see Communism go , but of course I grew up under the lee of a prime target of atomic bombing.

Richpo64

  • Guest
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2007, 11:30:39 AM »
>>The activists, the "take it to the street" guys who never hesitated to confront the forces of evil, the Southern cops with their batons and dogs and fire-hoses, the KKK with their bombs and guns.<<

Who were of course democrats.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2007, 02:44:18 PM »
Who were of course democrats.

---------------------------------------------
Who became Republicans when organizations such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party got control of the Democratic party in the 1960's. At this point, Nixon and Reagan started their "Southern Strategy" and these rasists were welcomed into the GOP.

This is why your hero Ronald Reagan started his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a podunk redneck town famous for only one thing: the murder of innocent civil rights workers.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Richpo64

  • Guest
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2007, 02:46:20 PM »
Dance around it anyway you like. They were democrats. If it weren't for Republican there would have been no Civil Rights Act.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2007, 11:31:05 PM »
Who were of course democrats.

---------------------------------------------
Who became Republicans when organizations such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party got control of the Democratic party in the 1960's. At this point, Nixon and Reagan started their "Southern Strategy" and these rasists were welcomed into the GOP.

This is why your hero Ronald Reagan started his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a podunk redneck town famous for only one thing: the murder of innocent civil rights workers.


Who became Republicans magicly?

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2007, 09:58:59 AM »
Racists who had voted for Democrats, were rejected by the Democratic Party, and voted first for George Wallace, then when it became obvious that Wallace would never rise to any sort of power outside of Alabama, voted Republican. Reagan came to Philadelphia, Mississippi, sort of the Cradle of Racxism, to let them know that he was against "busing", and other racist hotbutton issues of the day.

When Reagan was elected, the number of enforcement officers for EEOC compliance dropped in an 'economy' campaign.

 

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Richpo64

  • Guest
Re: Not-So-Great Generation
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2007, 02:50:34 PM »
>>When Reagan was elected, the number of enforcement officers for EEOC compliance dropped in an 'economy' campaign.<<

I'm going to ask you to prove this because I know it's wrong. Do you even know who ran the EEOC under Reagan?