I call those that came of age in the late 60s the "Endless Summer" generation. They never thought they would get old, they can't come to terms with their own mortality, they can't see the younger generations as adults because that would mean that they are now what they thought of as their own parents. They are clinging to every bit of "youth" and power that they can touch and it is smothering Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z, and soon it will smother Alphas. This is why we have politicians in power who are older than dirt and STILL running for re-election. It is why our nation went to such extremes to during the pandemic, to save those who have already lived their best years but won't let the next generations live theirs. It is why our next presidential nominees will probably all be over 70 years old.
My parents are boomers. Our relationship has been strained by my choices for myself (injection refusal) and my family the past two years. My father shared some FB post about masks being just masks and implying those who don't want or choose to wear masks as selfish. I have an amazing daughter with lots of developmental challenges. Masks are truely damaging for her as they are for my other two kids. But it hits a lot of deeper for kids like her. Let's just say I haven't looked at my parents the same and never will. I love them and they gave me a great childhood but you don't put a burden like than on kids, especially our most vulnerable. Thanks for the post.
Wonderful post and spot on for many things. Your characterizations of the successive generations is wonderfully accurate. Given a Washington career that began before you were out of diapers somewhat alters my perception.
You make a solid case for social failings, but those are symptoms and omits the engineers who orchestrate by policy just as the COVID crisis accomplished the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history.
"While I couldn’t necessarily see what the future held for me, I was generally optimistic that I could do whatever and go wherever I wanted without a hint that I would ever feel the boot of oppression on me. I didn’t trust the government and was always interested in the “unofficial” story, but I believed that overall, we had enough good people in high places to lead us according to traditional American principles. We were still the “good guys”.
All of that changed on 9/11. The world completely changed that day, and that’s the day that the America I knew ceased to exist. Oh, the following days and weeks were filled with patriotism. I remember weeping as I watched all of Congress sing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, with nary a hint of division or political posturing.
I believe that was the last genuine, authentic, united moment that the United States has witnessed."
If Washington had a single caring bone in their collective bodies everyone would know about 9-11 heroes who pulled off the greatest sea evacuation in history. Our bloated, corrupt system didn't even protect the airspace around the Pentagon. Does failure get any bigger or does the official story always stink like old fish?
The unity emotion shared by folks around the world is genuine but the political side is pure theater and it has been this way longer than my lifetime. The Iran Contra Gang were Bush Cheney White House. Ground Zero workers and injured public fought for ten years and public humiliation by Jon Stewart finally got related illness, cancers etc qualified for coverage.
My parents were of "the Greatest Generation." My eldest sister remembers as a toddler, being picked up by her hair & bounced off walls by our mother. My earliest childhood memory is of my mother looking in a mirror smearing on lipstick & humming. Suddenly she turns, starts screaming, & belts me across the face. I was 3.
She took me off the bottle at 3 months. I spent the next decade or so being screamed at, hit & threatened for sucking my thumb.
When I was 5 my mother beat me until I peed all over myself, even as I begged her to let me go to the bathroom & then she could hit me. Then when dinner guests -- aunt, uncle, cousins arrived -- apologized for absent father cleaning up mess. Mary is such a baby she wet her pants. Made into a laughing stock with roomful of adults & children mocking & laughing at me.
At 5, they got us an easter chick. It somehow got into the laundry & she told the "funny" story for years after, giggling about listening to our pet frantically peeping as it was tossed about until drowning. When I was 8 my father got us a gsd puppy, Mike. He really was my sisters. He got mad at her & hit her so hard he knocked her off his feet. Mike rushed to her defense. So Mike had to go. At 10 they killed our hamster.
I was made to take piano lessons that year. After 3 months I had progressed so well that I played in a student recital. I played perfectly & everybody was whispering what a great job I did. Except my mother was in a rage. It was, "too easy a piece." And so I went into purgatory of perpetual punishment. No matter what I did was never good enough. Only 99 on a test? Only 100? What about the bonus point? Only #2 in your class? (#1 was genius daughter of NASA scientist & his genius wife )
I was 11 when my father started barging into the bathroom when I was on toilet or in the tub. They were the nee upper middle class -- my mother drove a benz & wore furs & diamonds. And while I sat on the toilet half naked, daddio stood over me berating me for "wasting toilet paper" & ordering me to use only a single square folded into quarters.
I was 14, last kid left, when they started taking off for weekends & leaving me literally locked out in the street.
And so on. Twice weekly violent rages, while my father looked the other way on went on his on rage.
At 16 they got me a horse, which I had never asked for but loved dearly. I spent a year being berated by my father as a liar & spoiled brat. As a result of his refusal to even consider that I had never once lied, Teago suffered unnecessarily for weeks from an untreated broken leg before being taken to the vet hospital & killed. The other boarders at the barn went to my father as a group & offered to testify if my father wanted to sue the perps who broke his leg. Instead he went off on them for not coming to him sooner. That he had assumed I was lying.
That filthy pedophile killed my boy as surely as if he took a sledge hammer & smashed his hock himself. He died alone, afraid, at the hands of strangers.
We were good kids. I was called down to the principal's office exactly once, when I was 17. For my *mother's* horrific behavior, which he asked me to speak to her about!
Spoiled Mary was given a car for graduation.
*Paid for with wages that he stole from me!*
My real graduation "gift" was a letter from the IRS demanding immediate payment of back taxes, along with interest & penalties, or face prosecution & prison.
The coup de grace was when he had the fucking gall to show up on my doorstep 10 years later, unannounced unexpected, as I was about to head out to my first party since I was a kid.
He wanted a favor & drove 7 hours to get it
He wanted me to testify on his behalf in a lawsuit.
He was planning to sue my middle sister -- his "favorite" daughter -- and her ex for custody of their son. To take with him to the opposite side of the country. That dirty sob actually thought I'd help him steal my sister*s son!!!
I've been taught, if you don't have anything to say remain silence. I will remain silence for my comments to your blanket statement about the Boomers, is so off the mark.
Interesting piece from Wayne Dyer about Letting Go... What is over, is over. Might help with the blaming.
Every generation has their robber barons and their sheeple. But also their cultural transformers... the baby boomers brought us rock and roll, civil rights, sexual liberation, and the human potential movement.
Your attack on Boomers, of which I am one, is uncalled for and inaccurate. Every generation rebels in some way against the establishment. I did not participate in the chaos but many who did were rebelling against the secular, quasi-religious-for-show aspect of the Post WWII industrialization of this country. Your generation is a milk-toast generation in response to the Boomer generation. Don't make waves, believe the institutions, avoid conflict whenever possible.
You should read Neil Howe's boopk "The 4th Turning" Much to be learned about the personalities of the generations there. A must read to fully understand social cycles.
I call those that came of age in the late 60s the "Endless Summer" generation. They never thought they would get old, they can't come to terms with their own mortality, they can't see the younger generations as adults because that would mean that they are now what they thought of as their own parents. They are clinging to every bit of "youth" and power that they can touch and it is smothering Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z, and soon it will smother Alphas. This is why we have politicians in power who are older than dirt and STILL running for re-election. It is why our nation went to such extremes to during the pandemic, to save those who have already lived their best years but won't let the next generations live theirs. It is why our next presidential nominees will probably all be over 70 years old.
My parents are boomers. Our relationship has been strained by my choices for myself (injection refusal) and my family the past two years. My father shared some FB post about masks being just masks and implying those who don't want or choose to wear masks as selfish. I have an amazing daughter with lots of developmental challenges. Masks are truely damaging for her as they are for my other two kids. But it hits a lot of deeper for kids like her. Let's just say I haven't looked at my parents the same and never will. I love them and they gave me a great childhood but you don't put a burden like than on kids, especially our most vulnerable. Thanks for the post.
Wonderful post and spot on for many things. Your characterizations of the successive generations is wonderfully accurate. Given a Washington career that began before you were out of diapers somewhat alters my perception.
You make a solid case for social failings, but those are symptoms and omits the engineers who orchestrate by policy just as the COVID crisis accomplished the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history.
"While I couldn’t necessarily see what the future held for me, I was generally optimistic that I could do whatever and go wherever I wanted without a hint that I would ever feel the boot of oppression on me. I didn’t trust the government and was always interested in the “unofficial” story, but I believed that overall, we had enough good people in high places to lead us according to traditional American principles. We were still the “good guys”.
All of that changed on 9/11. The world completely changed that day, and that’s the day that the America I knew ceased to exist. Oh, the following days and weeks were filled with patriotism. I remember weeping as I watched all of Congress sing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, with nary a hint of division or political posturing.
I believe that was the last genuine, authentic, united moment that the United States has witnessed."
If Washington had a single caring bone in their collective bodies everyone would know about 9-11 heroes who pulled off the greatest sea evacuation in history. Our bloated, corrupt system didn't even protect the airspace around the Pentagon. Does failure get any bigger or does the official story always stink like old fish?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
The unity emotion shared by folks around the world is genuine but the political side is pure theater and it has been this way longer than my lifetime. The Iran Contra Gang were Bush Cheney White House. Ground Zero workers and injured public fought for ten years and public humiliation by Jon Stewart finally got related illness, cancers etc qualified for coverage.
Declassified Archive Iran Contra https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm
Catherine Austin Fitts ~ Best short lesson on how the game is rigged.
https://dillonreadandco.com/
Fuck the intergenerational warfare.
My parents were of "the Greatest Generation." My eldest sister remembers as a toddler, being picked up by her hair & bounced off walls by our mother. My earliest childhood memory is of my mother looking in a mirror smearing on lipstick & humming. Suddenly she turns, starts screaming, & belts me across the face. I was 3.
She took me off the bottle at 3 months. I spent the next decade or so being screamed at, hit & threatened for sucking my thumb.
When I was 5 my mother beat me until I peed all over myself, even as I begged her to let me go to the bathroom & then she could hit me. Then when dinner guests -- aunt, uncle, cousins arrived -- apologized for absent father cleaning up mess. Mary is such a baby she wet her pants. Made into a laughing stock with roomful of adults & children mocking & laughing at me.
At 5, they got us an easter chick. It somehow got into the laundry & she told the "funny" story for years after, giggling about listening to our pet frantically peeping as it was tossed about until drowning. When I was 8 my father got us a gsd puppy, Mike. He really was my sisters. He got mad at her & hit her so hard he knocked her off his feet. Mike rushed to her defense. So Mike had to go. At 10 they killed our hamster.
I was made to take piano lessons that year. After 3 months I had progressed so well that I played in a student recital. I played perfectly & everybody was whispering what a great job I did. Except my mother was in a rage. It was, "too easy a piece." And so I went into purgatory of perpetual punishment. No matter what I did was never good enough. Only 99 on a test? Only 100? What about the bonus point? Only #2 in your class? (#1 was genius daughter of NASA scientist & his genius wife )
I was 11 when my father started barging into the bathroom when I was on toilet or in the tub. They were the nee upper middle class -- my mother drove a benz & wore furs & diamonds. And while I sat on the toilet half naked, daddio stood over me berating me for "wasting toilet paper" & ordering me to use only a single square folded into quarters.
I was 14, last kid left, when they started taking off for weekends & leaving me literally locked out in the street.
And so on. Twice weekly violent rages, while my father looked the other way on went on his on rage.
At 16 they got me a horse, which I had never asked for but loved dearly. I spent a year being berated by my father as a liar & spoiled brat. As a result of his refusal to even consider that I had never once lied, Teago suffered unnecessarily for weeks from an untreated broken leg before being taken to the vet hospital & killed. The other boarders at the barn went to my father as a group & offered to testify if my father wanted to sue the perps who broke his leg. Instead he went off on them for not coming to him sooner. That he had assumed I was lying.
That filthy pedophile killed my boy as surely as if he took a sledge hammer & smashed his hock himself. He died alone, afraid, at the hands of strangers.
We were good kids. I was called down to the principal's office exactly once, when I was 17. For my *mother's* horrific behavior, which he asked me to speak to her about!
Spoiled Mary was given a car for graduation.
*Paid for with wages that he stole from me!*
My real graduation "gift" was a letter from the IRS demanding immediate payment of back taxes, along with interest & penalties, or face prosecution & prison.
The coup de grace was when he had the fucking gall to show up on my doorstep 10 years later, unannounced unexpected, as I was about to head out to my first party since I was a kid.
He wanted a favor & drove 7 hours to get it
He wanted me to testify on his behalf in a lawsuit.
He was planning to sue my middle sister -- his "favorite" daughter -- and her ex for custody of their son. To take with him to the opposite side of the country. That dirty sob actually thought I'd help him steal my sister*s son!!!
Greatest Generation my ass!
I've been taught, if you don't have anything to say remain silence. I will remain silence for my comments to your blanket statement about the Boomers, is so off the mark.
Interesting piece from Wayne Dyer about Letting Go... What is over, is over. Might help with the blaming.
https://youtu.be/piDbuUdEuMU
Every generation has their robber barons and their sheeple. But also their cultural transformers... the baby boomers brought us rock and roll, civil rights, sexual liberation, and the human potential movement.
Your attack on Boomers, of which I am one, is uncalled for and inaccurate. Every generation rebels in some way against the establishment. I did not participate in the chaos but many who did were rebelling against the secular, quasi-religious-for-show aspect of the Post WWII industrialization of this country. Your generation is a milk-toast generation in response to the Boomer generation. Don't make waves, believe the institutions, avoid conflict whenever possible.
You should read Neil Howe's boopk "The 4th Turning" Much to be learned about the personalities of the generations there. A must read to fully understand social cycles.