Will The Real Boomers Please Stand Up
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato
What's wrong with my country? My generation is the largest segment of the US population ever, a giant life force of workers, teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, leaders, philosphers, thinkers. White and blue collar, we've been there, done that, it's OUR turn to run the country, and we keep screwing it up.
So, more to the point, what's wrong with my generation?
Thirty years ago as idealistic new voters we fought and marched and wrote and protested and ultimately helped bring about -among many other things- the rightful downfall of Richard Nixon for committing political and moral crimes against us and against our country. And now, thirty years later, we elect and re-elect him AGAIN in the person of George W. Bush. Have we lost our minds??
How can so many of us have forgotten the once chilling specter of the "Moral Majority" -- self-righteous, pompous bigots who threatened our rights and freedoms because "God told them to"? Have that many of us become the New Moral Majority? We're the generation who invented change -in legal as well as moral tolerance- and thus changed the lives and prospects of women and children and blacks and Latinos and all who were in the "minority" until we came along. And we're still in our prime. So how did we become a minority ourselves?
Or are that many of us fat cats now? Are that many of us Republicans?? How did that happen? What became of the dream and the promise of my generation? It's a nightmare, it's Groundhog Day. Soldiers are dying in an unholy foreign war fought for political gain. The world is choking on its own waste and pollution. Citizens of the richest country in the world are out of work, out of resources, out of hope, while government and favored corporations steal and spend obscene amounts of our money.
This was supposed to be our bright, hard-earned future, but we're living far less well in it, our parents are living and dying without proper health care in it -- and our children will inherit it. What the HELL do we say to them?
Our leaders spit on us, demean us with their private agendas and public intolerance and yet we seem helpless to stop them. Worse, we reelected them.
I wish God would talk to ME and tell me why.
What's wrong with my country? My generation is the largest segment of the US population ever, a giant life force of workers, teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, leaders, philosphers, thinkers. White and blue collar, we've been there, done that, it's OUR turn to run the country, and we keep screwing it up.
So, more to the point, what's wrong with my generation?
Thirty years ago as idealistic new voters we fought and marched and wrote and protested and ultimately helped bring about -among many other things- the rightful downfall of Richard Nixon for committing political and moral crimes against us and against our country. And now, thirty years later, we elect and re-elect him AGAIN in the person of George W. Bush. Have we lost our minds??
How can so many of us have forgotten the once chilling specter of the "Moral Majority" -- self-righteous, pompous bigots who threatened our rights and freedoms because "God told them to"? Have that many of us become the New Moral Majority? We're the generation who invented change -in legal as well as moral tolerance- and thus changed the lives and prospects of women and children and blacks and Latinos and all who were in the "minority" until we came along. And we're still in our prime. So how did we become a minority ourselves?
Or are that many of us fat cats now? Are that many of us Republicans?? How did that happen? What became of the dream and the promise of my generation? It's a nightmare, it's Groundhog Day. Soldiers are dying in an unholy foreign war fought for political gain. The world is choking on its own waste and pollution. Citizens of the richest country in the world are out of work, out of resources, out of hope, while government and favored corporations steal and spend obscene amounts of our money.
This was supposed to be our bright, hard-earned future, but we're living far less well in it, our parents are living and dying without proper health care in it -- and our children will inherit it. What the HELL do we say to them?
Our leaders spit on us, demean us with their private agendas and public intolerance and yet we seem helpless to stop them. Worse, we reelected them.
I wish God would talk to ME and tell me why.
Labels: Political Polemics, Soapbox Specials
posted by Sally Swift at 5:06 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Sally, love your blogs, a breath of fresh air, to say the least.
You answered your own question:
"So how did we become a minority ourselves?"
"...many of us fat cats now?"
I certainly cannot speak for what it is like to be an American, but I can speak of Canadians - "fat cats", once protesters of the 60's, to the comfortable Middle Class.
The only real change is in the concept of comfort. Two cars in every driveway, house payments equal a lifetime of wages in our parent's day, and monies being set aside for children's university education, but still something is missing...
What is missing is our generation has lost a vision once cherrished, a vision turned from wonder to a mere matter of survival in the middle class and an unknown need to "keep up with the Jones'".
A long time ago an old teacher asked: "For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?"
Many years ago we answered those questions...today we are simply too damn busy, busy making money to survive and too busy just keeping up.
That same teacher helped with a song I am sure you are quite familiar with and those words go something like this: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose..."
No, I am not very religious, I do have my beliefs in many things, and today I do believe that I am going back, back to where those days you speak of, began...I am going to "stop and smell the roses", take time to write, take time to rid myself of my job and retire to live.
Keep up the great blogs Sally,
greg
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