“We’re basically waiting for all the people who are still bitter about modernity to pass away in large enough numbers that those of us willing to move into the future can actually capture the electorate. “

This is so spot on.  That’s exactly what’s happening.  But,  we’re talking largely about the baby boom generation (i.e. Palin, Bachman, etc.)  who will be with us for at least the next 30+ years.  If this is what’s happening, and we really won’t be allowed to clean up until after them, we’re totally screwed.

If you’re interested in reading just how far down the pipes the country already is, read Matt Taibbi’s wonderful “Griftopia.” Even though it’s depressing as hell, it’s kind of comforting to know just how bad things really are. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’ve been getting a bit of the “everything’s too hard, we give up” vibe myself, though it seems less “tired and resigned” and more “too much work, too boring, let’s BURN IT ALL DOWN.” But I live in Texas so feh.  :/

Maybe it’s that the people who want to improve things are worn down and the nihilists are energized and excited—they may finally be able to accomplish their anti-goals!

Maybe not, Rare.  Boomers are split down partisan lines.  While they’re more conservative than not, the conservative Boomers need to make an alliance with even older, more conservative generations to get their way.  When the Millenials start to make up a bigger part of the electorate, their more liberal side plus the liberal Boomers (and under-loved Gen Xers) might actually produce a sustainable majority.  Obama’s election was actually evidence that this shift is happening.  It would be more solidified if younger people voted more reliably.

Read it, Rumble, and have to second the recommendation.  It’s even more readable than “The Big Short”.

The problem is that the Baby Boom is much larger than the successive generations, so even as they die out, their influence is greater.  So the strategy has to be to get as many Baby Boomers as possible to actually, you know, vote for progressive causes, rather than just assuming they’re selfish pricks.

More pedestrian deaths is probably related to more people not being able to afford cars, but the roads still set up for cars’ benefit.  I am one of the few in my town who will stop for people waiting at a ped xing, but then practically everyone else honks and then zooms around me, so it’s dangerous for me and for the pedestrian if s/he is fool enough to step into the road.  I hate it.  Yes, there are pedestrians who walk out into the middle of traffic in the middle of the block, but they’re not the majority.

The problem isn’t that boomers are a larger generation, as Amanda pointed out they’re pretty close to split down the middle. The problem is Boomers and older folks vote and the rest of us don’t in the same kind of numbers. I suspect but don’t know that more conservative boomers are more enthusiastic at the polls, too. Obama’s election was a break in that, and a view of what’s possible if you engage the majority of Americans instead of the people that politicians mostly talk to, but it was only a fleeting glimpse.

Fox News demographic saw something nasty in the woodshed.

I agree there’s a general feeling of resignation, though I wonder how much can be gained by just waiting for the Boomers to clear out. The people I know who are about my age down in Texas and NOLA all spout the exact same ideologies as their parents. We can wait until the Boomers go, or until the problems are so inescapable that our country is forced to deal with them. But I see part of our problem being the enormity of scale, and sometimes I think perhaps it would be better if places that are ready to move forward were able to do so. But then I wonder who would reign in the craziness of certain other places, and I feel helpless and resigned all over again.

RT @xenijardin RT @iowahawkblog: RT @petersuderman: Is it any coincidence that the acronym for Winning The Future is WTF? #SOTU

I know to a certain extent I’ve given up.
I’m still going to vote for Seattle’s congressman for life as well as our Senator from Boeing and that other female Senator, but when the paper is full of people screaming and wailing about basic infrastructure repairs, there’s only so much energy a person can expend.
I’m tired of dodging potholes while the eastern part of the state throws a tantrum because they’re only getting $1.30 back for every dollar they send to Olympia in taxes.

I can’t blame Obama for saying we’re just going to band-aid over everything for the next couple years.  After all why bother when you can finish the country’s foremost address on policy saying, “We do big things,” just to be followed by the opposition rebutting with “No we can’t and we won’t.”

Most conservative arguments against modern policies are basically, “America is too stupid and incompetent to get this to work.” And sadly this has percolated into the public consensus: “We can’t do it” has become the national conservative mantra. And at that point, America becomes like any other country—even a little bit less than other countries, because western 1st world nations have generally reconciled themselves to modernity and modern public amenities and services.

Obama was trying to do better in his SOTU speech: trying to egg Americans on by needling their adolescent side to encourage them to “compete” and become “independent” rather than accept mediocrity. I kind of hope it works, but the conservative reply is always going to be, “we are too dumb to do it, so let’s do nothing.”

We’re heading for collapse or revolution. The only thing I’m uncertain of is the time scale.

Has anybody else around here read Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story? It’s often very funny, but it kind of hurts to laugh because the satire is such a scarily direct extrapolation of reality.

Also, the President of the United States sent me an email last night titles “We do big things”.

Apparently, the economy has more electrolytes.

feisty, yes rural white people are roughly the same generation to generation. But younger generations are more urban, and less white, and that makes a big difference.

“This is in response to a slight uptick in pedestrian deaths, one that strikes me as small enough to be statistically insignificant.”

I’m sure you realize that that quote is going to be used against you to accuse you of hating people who get hit by cars.

I totally agree with you that we have given up. I feel like people on both sides of the aisle have just started phoning it in and not even attempting to solve problems. The question is, what do we do besides hold our breath until the old farts start to croak? For example, how do we motivate more young people to fight for reproductive rights? Like them, I have always lived in a country where abortion is legal, but unlike them I have always felt like it’s legal “for now”. How do we motivate a sense of urgency in folks about this, the environment, growing income inequality, etc.? It seems to me like many people have tried, but “it’s too big to fix” still hangs in the air.

Apparently, the economy has more electrolytes.

Ouch, that had to leave a mark…

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

It’s amazing to me how swiftly Obama transitioned from “first black President, a beacon of hope” to “Another milquetoast Democrat who isn’t willing to take on Reaganomics.”  Part of why, I think, Obama has given up is that he hates the liberal economic consensus that ran this country into prosperity and took it to the moon in the 50s-70s.  And he doesn’t know why.

If your economics are conservative, and you are sane, then you are depressed.

I have been pushing back a great despondency for the past two years, saying “Give it time, give it time.”  But the thing I have been pushing back and to the sides of my mind, just scrolled through my head, in big, neon capital letters: “THE JOBS ARE NOT COMING BACK.”  We don’t make things.  Our businesses view employment and workers as expenses, not necessities.  The business model is to deny workers every shred of dignity while using Orwellian terms like “Associates” for their minimum wage drones.  The labor movement has been destroyed.  We give lip service to respecting and compensating teachers while removing all their discretion and weeding out the most experienced.  We seem to believe that anybody—business executives, for example—can run schools and school systems—except actual teachers.We pat WalMart on the back for stocking “healthy” food (which they should do anyway), and put no pressure on them to pay a living wage, stop terrorizing employees, and provide health care.  We would rather have our arms ripped out than pay taxes for necessary services that might benefit someone else who might really need them.

But, we’re talking largely about the baby boom generation (i.e. Palin, Bachman, etc.) who will be with us for at least the next 30+ years.

In fairness to Baby Boomers, Sarah Palin barely qualifies as a member of that generation - she was born in 1964. She’s 2.5 years younger than President Obama, who is rarely described as being a member of the same generation as George W. Bush and the Clintons, all indisputably Boomers, and all teenagers when Obama was born. Michele Bachmann is certainly a Baby Boomer, though even she is on the young end of that generation - she turned 19 only three weeks prior to the end of the Vietnam War. When I think of stereotypical Baby Boomers, I think of people who were at least of high school age during Woodstock and old enough to have gotten draft cards in the middle of the Vietnam War.

Having said all of that, the age cohort of Sarah Palin (and for that matter President Obama) does contain a disturbingly large number of people who voted for Ronald Reagan while they were in college. This age group was slightly more skewed to McCain in 2008 than people who were ten years older than them. Basically it’s the people who were born between 1960-1965, all of whom were in their mid-to-late 40s during the last presidential election. The exit poll data backs it up - McCain got better support from this group than he did from 50-somethings, though obviously the partisan lean swung even more dramatically to him among those age 60 and older.

Just a semantic nitpick, because while there are a lot of legitimate criticisms to be made about the Baby Boomers, I don’t really blame them for Sarah Palin, who is younger than 99% of all Boomers. She was just about to start kindergarten during Woodstock, she was only ten when Nixon resigned, and she was still in high school when MTV first went on the air. She may technically fall into the very final months of what is considered the Baby Boom Generation, but she hardly symbolizes the group as a whole.

We can wait until the Boomers go, or until the problems are so inescapable that our country is forced to deal with them.

Oh, the problems will be inescapable decades before the Boomers are gone. What’s going on in Europe right now is a preview of what we’ll be getting about a decade down the road: young people fed up with subsidising a bunch of entitled older people with long lifespans. The issue isn’t Social Security (which I have no doubt that conservatives will try to dig into, “under duress” of course), but medical care and especially end of life care. HCR or no HCR, one thing I’m confident of is that Boomers will take their health care costs out of the hides of their children and grandchildren.

Combine that with the social problem of Boomers refusing to retire and make room in the workplace (ever since their dreams of an easy “free market” retirement went up in smoke in 2008), and the on-going de-funding of public K-12 schools and universities, and Millenials are basically screwed (the Gen Xers had low expectations and cynicism to begin with, and planned accordingly).

Earnest question: are there places where any of you go for hope infusions or anything?  Specifically existential-type discussion of the “Why We Fight” variety.  Like some others have already said, it’s getting really hard lately for me to see a point.  I know that’s not helpful, but I’m finding it harder to care. 

Sorry for being all gloom and doom.

This is something that’s been at play for 30-odd years now. Obama’s message last night was the same message that progressives have been saying for the last 30-years, in that economies need to educate and streamline themselves out of the issues that they have.

Which the problem IS the productivity to begin with. Modern nations simply don’t need as much labor as they used to. So instead of spreading this additional leisure time among the entire population to ensure a full employment positive market that helps wages keep up with the rest of the economy, we use it as a sledge to keep wages low in order to help keep investments high and inflation low.

THAT’S the problem. And until there’s a complete crash we will not see a solution because too many people think that the poor need to work more, not less.

Gracchus, count me as one aging (55) fringe-Boomer who is utterly appalled at the vast sums of money wasted on “care” during the last few months of existence (I won’t call it life).

“We don’t make things.  Our businesses view employment and workers as expenses, not necessities.  The business model is to deny workers every shred of dignity while using Orwellian terms like “Associates” for their minimum wage drones.  The labor movement has been destroyed.”

It’s so much more profitable to engage in cynical financial masturbation a la Wall Street, especially when they know Uncle Sam will bail them out if they lose the lunch money on stupid bets down at the track. 

Those who are silly enough insist on making/selling “products” just shut down everything here in the States, and contract with China to get their products made.  Pay pennies for wages and outsource the pollution.  Get support from a foreign government that believes in the importance of governing, as opposed to the state and federal governments here, which are all too often controlled by the cut-taxes-on-the-wealthy-or-we’ll-do-nothing, scorched-earth, hey-let’s-start-a-war-somewhere Republicans.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.  Likewise, there are none so nonfunctional as those who refuse to function.  That’s where we are. 

We have enough economic strength to make every American relatively wealthy, we could have virtually 100% employment, we could lead (as we have done in the past) in almost every technological field, we could maintain the best education system, we could provide the best medical care to all Americans.  But “we”, the wealthiest and most powerful, have just decided to not have those things, except for themselves.

Obama could have been the rebirth of FDR.  Instead, whether he wanted to be or not, he’s being pushed into becoming the rebirth of Herbert Hoover.  Sad…

Gracchus, count me as one aging (55) fringe-Boomer who is utterly appalled at the vast sums of money wasted on “care” during the last few months of existence (I won’t call it life).

I wish there were more of you. As it is, a lot of Boomers (conservatives and liberals) think they’ll be able to live forever and expect the continuation of their “extraordinary and unique” generation’s lifespan to take place on the backs of other, less worthy generations. It’s a bloody teenager’s mentality.

Which the problem IS the productivity to begin with. Modern nations simply don’t need as much labor as they used to. So instead of spreading this additional leisure time among the entire population to ensure a full employment positive market that helps wages keep up with the rest of the economy, we use it as a sledge to keep wages low in order to help keep investments high and inflation low.

Seconding this. The Protestant Work Ethic doesn’t do so well when there’s not enough work to go around.

I mean, I’ll probably be working well into my later years, but you’d have to be crazy or masochistic to take pride in working a 9-5, 40-hour work week in your 70s or 80s—especially if you’re working for someone else.

But again, the current pride in such situations is a cover for despair—when you’re 65 and see a quarter or half of your retirement savings and/or home equity vanish into the pockets of the banksters and you’re unwilling to acknowledge the systematic problems, what else can you do but pretend that you always wanted to be a greeter at Wal-Mart?

Obviously anecdata, but I’d be hard-pressed to describe the millenials I deal with continual as truly liberal. On social issues, sure. But “socially liberally, fiscally conservative” seems to be the default political stance of most I run into. Admittedly these tend to be high-earning millenials, but still.

My concern is that the Rs will use the general let-down feeling from Obama’s presidency to argue for another generation of Republican control, the same way Carter was used as the Republican bogeyman between about 1980 and 2000. Demographic voting patterns aren’t carved in stone, after all.

Anecdote: It doesn’t help that some of the conservative Boomers’ parents are getting well and truly nasty.  My Gramma has decided at 85+ years old to finally lay it all out there and be as racist as they come, and it’s definitely starting to bleed over into my parent’s generation.

Though now that I think about it, even if the Dems do maintain control of the White House for the next 20 years, they’ve been pushed far enough to the right that I’m not sure it matters.

Hey, everybody!  Take it easy on us Boomers!  My first vote was cast for George MckGovern, and I’ve been a liberal/progressive ever since, as are all my friends.  And we all vote, so getting rid of us won’t up the progressive vote.  And we don’t want to live forever, suckiing up lots of medical care to squeeze out the last few months of life.  And I would dearly love to retire, and hand my job over to some GenX-er with more energy, if only the value of my stocks and 401K hadn’t crashed, and I hadn’t run up my credit cards getting my kids through college.  It’s the same old ruling class trick - if they can get us all fighting among ourselves, we won’t be able to unite to take power from them.  They’ve been doing it since they convinced the poor whites to be suspicious of the slaves, since poor white + slaves could have overthrown the few aristocrats, right up to the present day when they’re getting everybody to turn against labor unions, state employees, minorities, anybody who would be enough to make enough of a coalition to overcome them.
The worst part of the speech, for me, was when he talked about the importance of education, of how respected teachers are in Korea, and we should emulate that.  Doesn’t he know that all over the country,  the states are cutting teachers to try and balance the budget?  We don’t need to train more teachers; we’re dumping the ones we have already because it’s more important to have low taxes than a good education system.

Was the link to Maddow to a specific story, or just to Maddow in general???

The baby boom didn’t last until 1970, you know. The first book to identify Xers as distinct from boomers culturally suggested that the cohort begins in 1961, though as with all generational divides it’s hard to tell when one begins and another ends. Obama (born in 1961) is not really a Baby Boomer though, and neither is Palin.

As much as it pains me to say this, Palin is Gen Xer. She is *barely* gen x, but she’s only 3 years older than Kurt Cobain and the same age as Chris Farley, Mira Sorvino, Courtney Love, and Clive Owen. She’s two years older than Adam Sandler and one year older than Chris Rock. And she’s less than a year younger than Jarvis Cocker.  If Jarvis Cocker and Courtney Love and Chris Rock are Baby Boomers, than the term is meaningless.

Point: While it’s true that the Baby Boom are selfish parasites par excellance and that they are going into their abe simpson years with the basic attitude that if they can’t take it with them, it should be destroyed, there are enough members of Gen X, especially the oldest members of our generation, who are going to be causing a lot of problems even after that self abosrbed collection of selfish, increasingly racist parasites have finally died off. Rand Paul and Palin being the obvious examples.

And Baby boomers who aren’t among the vast majority of your cohort fucking the country up: Please do stop whining right now. You want me to stop resenting your generation? Then why not prove to me that the majority of you aren’t responsible for sending America on its slide to third world status. Until you can do that, please rest assured that yes, I know that not all of you are gleefully slashing taxes and gutting the safety net and generally making sure the country you inherited dies with you. Ok?

Anyway, echoing what Amanda says here, it really is disheartening knowing the country has basically given up. Listening to Never Provoke Republicans’ coverage of the STFU* last night, I kept hearing some smug idiot say “well Americans sure love their cars” whenever the topic of investment in rail came up. Once again suggesting that because we don’t do something, or haven’t done something, we can’t do something. It’s maddening, particularly the way pundits adopt a tone suggesting they’re not participants in the culture but anthropologists, separate and above it.

Also, maddening because of course prior to the 1950s America had quite the public transit infrastructure which we voluntarily dismantled. If only we could have beenb so resigned to the way things are(tm) in the 50s, or the late 70s when the republicans really set about destroying the prosperity of the country.

Ross, first, nobody’s whining, and second, that’s a piss-poor way to recruit support for rational policies. Do you want to fix things or do you just want to feel self-righteous?

Weimer America?

I was concerned that my comment would be taken as “baby boomers suck”, and I apologize if it did.  What i was trying to say is that, given the sheer numbers of them, if they are as conservative as Palin/Beck/et al and we can’t fix anything until after them, the third-world country status isn’t that far off.  (I stand corrected on Palin’s generational affiliation - didn’t know her age).  Wasn’t trying to imply they’re all the same, or all just as bad, etc. 

My parents are right in the middle of the baby boomer years and are Glenn Beck fans. They are who I had in mind.  If the majority are like them, as much as I love them, we’re screwed.

Until people who care more about the possibility that women are having unauthorized orgasms than about the state of our economy and our future, we’re going to continue this slide downhill, and that’s basically all there is to it.

You are missing part of this sentance.  Please fix as it looks like you are making the point that until we kick those bums out nothing will get better and that is absolutely true and needs to be said.  Repeatedly.

Ross, do you have the statistics on the proportion of baby boomers fucking the country up? Why should I have to prove that it’s not my generation, but yours, that’s fucking everything up?  Let’s try to get some facts going here.

oldfeminist, I appreciate the sentiment, but how exactly do you actually change the minds of people who are older, set in their ways, and see the younger generations not as people to invest in, but a threat that needs to be stomped out? I mean, obviously a lot of older people are great, but teabaggers are mainly old people that are going to grab what they can on the way out, and don’t give a shit if they don’t leave anything behind, and want you to know it. 

To be clear that I’m not being ageist, we face a similar problem getting easily distracted younger voters to pay attention long enough to vote.

The two groups working together have created a vicious downward spiral.

Earnest question: are there places where any of you go for hope infusions or anything?

Yes.  But you have to speak Cantonese.

Better yet, let’s try to unite everybody who is capable of apprehending reality, instead of dividing ourselves into warring camps based on the calendar or any other silly characteristics.

Sorry, look, I’m not feeling self righteous, I’m feeling cynical and despondent that because boomers are too selfish to pay their taxes, teenagers today can’t afford college anymore.

I’d love to fix things. But it seems even when we win, the wealthiest people get their taxes slashed and the wars are escalated. Yay! I love how democracy only works for theocrats, racists and plutocrats.

Cris @23: They do replace themselves, but in ever-shrinking numbers.  Here’s the relevant data:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/

Conservatives try to wave this sort of thing off by saying people get more conservative as they age, but actually, people just get more hardened into their chosen political views as they age.  The country is slowly moving to the left, and it’s actually creating a greater if less covered generational war than in the 60s. 

The “get your government hands off my Medicare” people are actually expressing this, albeit in a weird, convulted way.  They’re basically saying all government spending should be on them, and none for the young’uns, and they’re expressing the fear that if they have to share, they’ll get fewer goodies, though the evidence is against that.

Apparently, the economy has more electrolytes.

Comment #14: Yamara

Brawndo will make you able to win at things you can’t even win!  Like The FUTURE!

Part of why, I think, Obama has given up is that he hates the liberal economic consensus that ran this country into prosperity and took it to the moon in the 50s-70s.  And he doesn’t know why.

Comment #19: Punditus Maximus

I disagree.  He subscribes to the Chicago School of economics.  Which means he (probably) agrees that markets are self correcting and that they need the most minimal regulations as possible.  His lack of corporate oversite and annemic stimulus package are some evidence of that.

And yes, Palin is the real life Alex P Keaton

I’ll add that I don’t mean to make it so personal, but it would be nice if the country wasn’t sliding into the ocean and the only successful political party didn’t facilitate that by exploiting the basest, most racists, selfish instincts of the largest generation of Americans as they age.

I also wanted to point out that Gen X has quite a few nasty figures of our own. But that doesn’t make us a larger generation, or one that has held power longer than the Boomers.

@#38:
“Weimer America?”

If you mean weiner, well duh.  If you mean Weimar, well…we don’t have enough political factionalization (no seriously, look at how many parties Weimar Germany had).  But that may not stop us if, as then, the conservatives continue to allow themselves to be used by reactionaries without realizing that they can’t actually keep them under control.

I’m not sure I’m giving up—I hope it’s more like refocusing. If we accept that things at the federal level are well and truly screwed for the next couple years at least, what organized things can we do at regional and local levels?

If we accept that things at the federal level are well and truly screwed for the next couple years at least, what organized things can we do at regional and local levels?

Nothing. States can’t run deficits and local elections get even smaller turnouts than federal ones. Plus come to california and see for yourself. When the biggest state with the most variety of home grown industries and the center of America’s technical dominance can’t bother to make junior colleges affordable and everything is falling apart, it’s a bad, bad time to live in America.

Sorry to be so much of a downer but if the states are on their own then the country is F’d.

Weimer America?

No, don’t be stupid, and try to be more creative. This is French Fourth Republic America. I get the feeling we’re waiting for a de Gaulle.

Tyro @12: the null solution is always a solution, though it is seldom a really good one.  Why would you look at solutions if everything was fine?
Theresa @ 20: you are right about “the jobs” not coming back, but wrong about the reason.  What used to take 5 machinists now takes 1 and a series of CNCs.  We still make things in the USA, and even export them, but we do it with fewer people.  This too is modernization.
Ben @22: I’m in the same boat (though I’d seen enough of Obama all he got last time was my vote).
Ross @36: FU for most of your rant. 
For your last para, what “Americans” like is not so much their cars as having to get where they need to be within their strained schedules.  Even places with public transit don’t often have well planned or easy to use public transit.  I could get from my house to work by public transit - wal 1 mi, ride a bus, walk .75 mi to the nearby but not connected commuter rail, ride it into Boston, catch a train back out to Woburn, catch a bus to Burlington - if I had 4-6 hours to spare in my day, each way.  As a civil engineer who specialized in transportation, I find it maddening.

Oh, and that’s what I feel on a bad day anyway, that we’ll end up with a de Gaulle type figure in charge with a more centralize constitution sometime between 2016 and 2020. On a good day I figure we’ll pull through.

Well, some people are just too casual about “third world” really means.  Republic of Gilead is not sf enough, people.

This is the part where delusions of grandeur really helps because the whole John Donne sentimentality is probably important here.  At the end of the road is not a end of the road sign.  It’s simply a stop sign at an intersection without lights.  There is a person there.  You really, really don’t want to meet that person.

Well I find it maddening that you fail reading comprehension forever. Look, here is what I said:

“Once again suggesting that because we don’t do something, or haven’t done something, we can’t do something. It’s maddening, particularly the way pundits adopt a tone suggesting they’re not participants in the culture but anthropologists, separate and above it.
“
Because my fucking point was that the gasbags on NPR were repeating the same tired bullshit about how if we don’t do something, we can’t do something. I wasn’t speaking klingon, you know.

Yup Palin is a yuppie. There’s always another angle to be played, another avenue to be explored…another scam to be run.

If anyone says the United States is “third world” it’s a good bet they’ve never actually traveled to a real “third world” country.

God, I hate that term anyway, even when it’s accurate.

So yet again, this progressive blog has devolved into boomer bashing: boomers who “refuse to retire”—ya mean the ones with no pensions, no mortgage-free homes, their savings wiped out by Wall Street, who can’t move in with their parents and hitch onto the parental health insurance?

Those Baby Boomers that don’t face age discrimination and can find jobs, are still intent on selfishly eating and sleeping under a roof, yeah, damn ‘em.

The so-called Greatest Generation brought us Nixon and Reagan and two generations of Bushes.

My friends and relatives have continued to be progressive through decades of Republicans: if you think that’s easy, good luck to you, with your Palins and Bachmans and the younger assholes in their wake.

The people I know close enough to Social Security are selfishly praying they make it to that mark, so they can retire on that “luxury” alone, and holding their breath till they get to Medicare.

(And Baby Boomers poll like everyone else as not wanting to slash either, but to tax fairly for both to survive.)

If you want to demonize a group: how about white people? In greater numbers than Baby Boomers they’re voting Republican and crazy conservative, hold all the power and money, dominate Wall Street and corporations and are the CEOs eating this country alive.

Minorities are gaining in numbers and influence, and vote Democratic, but I don’t hear anyone on this thread—and too many like it—waiting for the crazy ass white folks to die off in enough numbers so this country can finally be progressive.

What? Oh, that’s because this blog and it’s comments are dominated by Caucasians, who refuse to take responsibility for the sins of their kind.

Oh and the white elite just luuuuuv to see the generations fighting for scraps amongst themselves rather than looking to see just who is throwing those scraps down and encouraging the fight, so as to take the spotlight off their power and greed.

The above argument is equal parts snark and truth.

Also, about the jobs “not coming back’. I’m sure we’re all aware that a series of free trade agreements essentially gave large companies carte blanche to relocate their operations overseas. There’s no reason we can’t manufacture clothes or cars or machinery here, other than that it won’t allow as much obscene wealth to pool in the hands of people at the very top.

Digby said it best, but to paraphrase a point she made, hearing the head of All State talking about the “global marketplace” as the excuse for why their entire customer care operation is overseas, when All State is not a Global company (Unless Canada counts as “global”) is the perfect example of the con we’re being suckered into buying. The jobs aren’t coming back because we’ve created an economic framework in which capital can go wherever it wants, but labor is bound by increasingly restrictive immigration laws. It’s not magic, it’s something we could deal with if we were allowed to have an honest discussion of the economy.

Ross—

The United States is the world’s #1 manufacturer. Still. Consumer goods != manufacturing, people. For example, I’ve never in my life bought a jumbo jet or nuclear reactor or bulldozer, and probably never will.

“At the end of the day, we’re a country where people will circle a parking lot for 15 minutes to avoid 2 more minutes of walking.”

I had a similar thought the other day as a I saw at least 20 cars waiting in line at the drive-thru of an In-N-Out Burger in Arroyo Grande, CA.  “At the end of the day,” I thought (paraphrasing your comment that hadn’t been written yet) “we’re a nation that will sit in line with our vehicles idling—and gas is $3.50/g out my way—rather than get our asses out of the car and walk up to the counter.”  I was “in-and-out” of there (so to speak) in under 3 minutes. Made a mental note of the positions of the cars in line on my way in…and they’d barely moved when I came out.

When you’re willing to burn $3 worth of gas and a half-hour of your life waiting in the drive-thru: That’s giving up.

Sorry Judybrowni, yes, you’re right, particularly about the racial makeup of the bad guys, but there’s a lot of strawmen in your post. I don’t think anyone on this blog is unaware of the role racism plays in all of this. Especially since a lot of references to the role racism plays in this have been made over and over again.

I can’t speak for everyone else, particularly since my basic disgust for the way the country is shaking out is making me super cranky, but allow me to apologize for incorrectly insinuating that the generation who has dominated politics for nearly 40 years might have some responsibility for the sickening direction the country is headed.

More seriously, allow me also to apologize for failing to note how the greediest generation immediately ceased their support for the New Deal the second the civil rights movement began to have real victories.

I hadn’t considered that there might be racist undertones to using the term third world, so let me apologize. I will say this: I did not suggest that the US is a third world country. However, I believe however that we are sliding into vast inequality, into a polluted nightmare, into a permant overlcass and underclass, and into a creeping police state. And every attempt to mitigate these disturbing developments is met with the shrieking opposition of christian fundamentalists, greedy old people, patriachical assholes and oligarchs. So when I said ‘sliding into third world status’ I meant it’s happening, not that it’s happened.

However, again, I didn’t consider the racist undertones of the term so I sincerely apologize for that.

For example, I’ve never in my life bought a jumbo jet or nuclear reactor or bulldozer, and probably never will.

Really? Well I don’t know where you’re shopping but just the other day I was lamenting how the economy is so bad I can’t afford fuel for my G4.

Speaking of racist undertones, does anyone else smell a real whiff of the “yellow peril” in all the hand irrational wringing about China and how they’re to blame for everything wrong with the economy? And sadly the Democrats were the ones running ads like that in the last election cycle.

Calling rewrite: “The Caucasians who have dominated politics for 40 years might have some responsibility for the sickening direction the country is headed.”

“How the White People immediately ceased their support for the New Deal, the second the Civil Rights movement began to have real victories.”

There, now it makes sense.

By your own argument, until the White People die off in decent numbers, or take responsibility for the sins of the their race, this country is fucked.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009104319/g20-manufacturing-output-capita

There are a lot of ways to measure this.  Yes, the US is still the country with the most total manufacturing output.  We are, however, not close to on top per capita.

I often wonder what it is the French produce, then I realize that its just . . . less.  The French produce comfortable leisure, well distributed.  Not the worst way to live a life.

Also, who knew Italy was an industrial powerhouse?  Also, “it’s.”

“White People immediately ceased their support for the New Deal, the second the Civil Rights movement began to have real victories.”

Corrected, and it bears repeating.

Ben, have you ever read Slapstick? It’s Vonnegut (so rest assured it’s not racist). There’s a scene where these wealthy Socialites are lamenting the rapid decline of American power prestige, and one of them, remarking on the fact that China has emerged as the world’s foremost technological and economic power, says IIRC “remember when we used to make everything?”, as if it’s some kind of magical process rather than something a country designs policies to promote.

First, props to KV for correctly predicting that China would become a BFD, and second, for the way he describes an America that has simply given up in the way Amanda notes here.

Judi, my use of the Term ‘greediest generation’ and reference to the civil rights movement should not have required you to pedantically ‘correct’ anything. If I actually have to explain to people here that they were white racists angry that black people were suddenly succeeding in forcing them to treat black people (slightly more) like humans, then we are a much dumber group of people than I thought.

@judibrowni . . . well, yeah.  White people’s unwillingness to just be rich and happy and not have to hurt people who aren’t like them is at the core of our nation’s troubles.

Yeah, but I’m responding to the people who parrot “we don’t make anything except burgers, movies, and bombs anymore!”

It’s just not even close to true. Even in per capita we’re #4 in the world, behind two export-or-die nations (Germany and Japan) and one that makes mostly luxury goods (Italy).

In exports we’re #3.

I know there are major things wrong with this country but my God are Americans melodramatic people. We go from thinking “We can do now wrong! #1 FOREVAH!” to “oh my God we’re DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED! DOOOMED” ITS ALL OVER!11!”  within the space of 10 years. Manic-depressive nation.

For your last para, what “Americans” like is not so much their cars as having to get where they need to be within their strained schedules.  Even places with public transit don’t often have well planned or easy to use public transit.  I could get from my house to work by public transit - wal 1 mi, ride a bus, walk .75 mi to the nearby but not connected commuter rail, ride it into Boston, catch a train back out to Woburn, catch a bus to Burlington - if I had 4-6 hours to spare in my day, each way.  As a civil engineer who specialized in transportation, I find it maddening.

Comment #54: helen w. h.

Anecdata.
I’ll counter with my commute last year where I walked across the street, took the bus downtown, walked half a block to transfer, took another bus to a city across the lake, then walked a block to work.  Now they’re looking at replacing the cross-lake bus with light rail to make it faster and reduce highway traffic.

...and the wing-nuts in my state are going ballistic because we’re trying to transport people from where they live to where they work quickly and efficiently.  (You kow, that whole “making Government more like business”)

“remember when we used to make everything?

Yeah, it was when the rest of the world lived in utter poverty (the late 1940s). Am I supposed to get upset when other countries raise their standard of living?

As for China, the weird thing about the last 200 years is how it’s been very weak relative to its history. It’s not “becoming” a world power, it’s just returning to being one. They will be a big deal, but the USA will continue to be a big deal, too, and the EU will be (if it can get through the Euro crisis) and so will India and Brazil. People need to learn the difference between relative and absolute decline. Relative decline can be a good thing, both for the world and America.

IOW, what I’m saying is that the 21st Century will look more like the 19th than the 20th in international relations. No country will be dominant in the 21st, nor will there be two big powers like the 20th, it’s going to be a group of powers, and that group will include a USA that has relatively declined.

I admit things look pretty grim right now, but I’m hopeful we won’t have to wait as long as Amanda fears for there to be political progress.  The reason the Democrats lost the House is simply that the economy is in the tank—- I think the political scientists have shown pretty conclusively that the state of the economy is a huge component in federal elections.  Either the economy improves or alternatively people will start blaming the GOP for it, just like they “blamed” the Dems for the Great Recession even though it started when Bush was president.  The long-term demographics still lean in our favor. 

Also, I’m with Ezra Klein that we’ll likely remember the 111th Congress as a very important one for progressives.  Even if Obama never passes another piece of legislation (which is certainly possible), he will still have the strongest legislative record of any Democratic president since LBJ.  (On the GOP side post-LBJ, only Reagan arguably achieved as much as Obama.)  Sure, many of the things Obama, Pelosi, and Co. got done which were not what I (or most people here) would have preferred: the Health Care Bill was pretty much the GOP response to Clintons proposal in the 90s, the stimulus was way too small, and why the @#$! did it take 2 years to repeal DADT?  But the fact remains that the other Democratic presidents since Truman failed to pass any kind of meaningful heath care reform for the general population…

I remember when we did things like go to the moon, because it was hard and there and awesome.  And the technological challenges spawned by that project fed our industry for a decade and a half.

Actually, I don’t remember that, because Nixon shut down that program before I was born.

Anyways.

Which the problem IS the productivity to begin with. Modern nations simply don’t need as much labor as they used to. So instead of spreading this additional leisure time among the entire population to ensure a full employment positive market that helps wages keep up with the rest of the economy, we use it as a sledge to keep wages low in order to help keep investments high and inflation low.

This is complete and total bullshit.  This claim has been made for centuries.  If this claim were true when people first started making it, we would have 100 percent unemployment by now.

Specialization is a good thing.  Productivity is a good thing.  If we didn’t have both, all but a miniscule elite would be working 18 hours a day while living in abject squalor and poverty, just like our ancestors did several hundred years ago, just as the most impoverished residents of this planet do today.

The problem with unemployment in this country is the fault of our economy switching to service jobs AND the government abdicating its responsibility to protect workers and make the rich pay their share.

Your bogus productivity-causes-unemployment argument is the economic equivalent of complaining about kids these days.

Judybrown: I don’t think anyone who’s spent much time reading this blog and many others doesn’t realize that the older generation that we’re fervently wishing would hurry up and die are not only much whiter than later cohorts, but much more racist, as well.

<blokquote>I remember when we did things like go to the moon, because it was hard and there and awesome. </blockquote>

No, we did it so we could rub the Soviet’s noses in it, and one-up them for being first in space. There was really no point of going to the moon besides that at the end of the day.

Sigh.

You, Ross, don’t understand that the arguments against Baby Boomers (and the wish of this blog for them to die) neither make sense, nor are productive.

Substitute “white people” in any of your arguments, and they make some kind of sense (but not much, which is my point about your arguments.)

And thanks a heap for wishing me dead, again, everybody! 40 years of voting and fighting for progressive ideas don’t count for much around here, apparently.

Well, once my generation is gone—I’m 57, squarely baby boomer—and you young whippersnappers take over, you’ll all be in your fifties and sixties!    And we can pretty much count on young urban hipsters grousing, thirty years from now, about what old, useless fogies people like Amanda Marcotte are, and how they need to just get out of the way so that they can have some real progress.

Ross, anybody who uses generational-warfare rhetoric is a pathetic dupe of the conservatives and is playing their game. It’s that simple.

Felagund, wishing me dead because there are racists among my generation, is about as attractive as wishing you dead because there are (still) racists and homophobes among yours.

There are fewer racists (and homophobes) in your generation because my generation fought to eradicate discrimation to bring about a less racist (and homophobic) country, against odds bigger than you face.

Your generation popping out of a womb didn’t magically lessen racism or homophobia, there was much work done by the generations before you to make that happen.

Wishing us dead to change things is magical thinking (and a disgusting kind of discrimination, as well.)

There’s no reason we can’t manufacture clothes or cars or machinery here, other than that it won’t allow as much obscene wealth to pool in the hands of people at the very top.

We do manufacture cars and machinery here, because manufacturing those things requires expertise, and it’s difficult/impossible to train an uneducated Bangladeshi to do it.  If anything, increased automation and productivity makes it more necessary to manufacture those things here, because more complicated equipment necessitates better educated/skilled workers.

As for clothes, you do realize how low skilled garment workers are?  We still manufacture some clothes here, but largely in sweatshops staffed by undocumented workers earning less than minimum wage.  There’s a reason why American Apparel tried to carve a niche for itself simply by not running below-minimum-wage sweatshops.  Bringing clothing manufacturing back to this country would be a waste of resources, similar to driving out undocumented workers and trying to employ U.S. citizens to pick strawberries.

I’m not trying to defend the practice of exploiting low-skilled workers, but there’s a reason why those jobs pay so little, and it’s difficult, to the point of being impossible, to unionize such low-skilled private sector workers.  They’re too easy to replace, and their wages are too low to support union dues.

We do manufacture cars and machinery here,

Right, including many Toyotas, Hondas, and Nissans. IIRC in the 90s America’s #1 car export was the Honda Accord wagon, made in Ohio.

Gracchus wrote:

Gracchus, count me as one aging (55) fringe-Boomer who is utterly appalled at the vast sums of money wasted on “care” during the last few months of existence (I won’t call it life).  (Steve LaBonne)

I wish there were more of you. As it is, a lot of Boomers (conservatives and liberals) think they’ll be able to live forever and expect the continuation of their “extraordinary and unique” generation’s lifespan to take place on the backs of other, less worthy generations. It’s a bloody teenager’s mentality.

Should we assume, then, that when you (plural) reach 80 years of age, or whatever point it is when you will require significant sums of money to remain alive, you will commit suicide?

It’s really easy to say that “I sure wouldn’t want to live that way,” when the statement isn’t an actual decision to end your life. 

Suicide statistics for the disabled are difficult to come by, but the last ones I saw noted a slight uptick in suicide by white males after they turned 65, and a very slight increase in suicide during the first three months following a disabling accident, but for the very greatest part, the elderly and the disabled don’t commit suicide at rates significantly greater than the population as a whole.

And that means that, for your stated concern to have any policy meaning, you would have to support active euthanasia for those who cost a lot of money “during the last few months of existence.” 

So, be blunt here: is that what you wish to say you support?

Oh, it’s just another magical thinking argument for wishing Baby Boomers dead, Dana.

Interesting how suddenly “death panels” and the like become appealing to those on a Progressive blog, if they believe they could apply ‘em to the boogeyman Boomers.

Ross @ 57: I’ll assume that was directed at me.  My read comp is fine.  I said nothing specific about your 2nd to last para and partially agreed with your last, following with my take on the problem as it stands.  It’s you who appears to have that problem.
@ 61:  We do manufacture those things here.  As Ben @62 points out.  The manufacturing trends for the USA production (output/hour) increased by 4.2 due to hours decreasing by 1.6 and output increasing by 2.6 average anuual rates of change since ‘79 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dec ‘10).  In other words, for the last 30 years we have made more stuff in less time at a rate of 2.6% more each year.  We have about 1,000,000 people in direct manufacture of machinery alone - vehicles are a separate category (BLS also).  US manufacturers directly exported more than $710 million from the US in 07-08 (US Census Bureau/Department of Commerce, April ‘10).
Contrary to what you said, part of the problem is that capital can’t as freely come back and has to be used where the rich have siphoned it to be sheltered from taxes (especially those of the corp type) because other contries are often more protective of the fruits of their production, and others’ as well, and less inclined to allow the loopholes.  The export of capital is one problem, barriers to import of capitol another.
I’m an x-er, too.  The fact you seem to be experiencing a pile-on would educate you if you weren’t clearly such an ass.

We seem to have touched a nerve with judybrowni. The context of Roos’s comments are that the boomers are notable for whining about how “younger generations” weren’t as socially conscious and as great as they were. And yet, it wasn’t younger generations fucking up the environment. It wasn’t younger generations agitating in favor of stupid wars and torture. It wasn’t younger generations who were responsible for our messed up culture of the 1980s. I look at Ross’s comments less as a call to generational warfare and more as a call for te boomers to look a bit more closely in the mirror when it comes to America’s post-Nixonland problems.

I look at the boomers as basically the “children of the wealthy” generation. The nation invested, sacrificed, and built to create a better future. And, like many children of successful parents, they decided, “hey, instead of all of that sacrifice and taxes that were required in the past, I want to enjoy our wealth for myself!” So they did, and a good time was had by all, and those tax cuts were spent on some good quality cocaine back in the 80s as well as some nice McMansions, and if the public universities got starved and stuff, well, no big deal, because making those sorts of investments were really painful. And “we can’t do it” is the mantra because anything else seems like it would require effort—or even worse somehow imply that things could be better than they are now.

Damn, I’ve got to remember to refresh before I post.  Keep at it, Ben; I usually feel alone in the wilderness of ignorance re manufacturing here.

cynickal @ 75: My situation re public transit is unfortunatoely much more common than yours and the conservatives everywhere continue to be dupes to (or co-conspirators of) the car-petroleum industries and shriek bloody murder when anyone tries to improve the situation.

Ben you completely misunderstood my point. Which is that Vonnegut’s observations were strikingly close to Amanda’s in that the country just gave up. I was not making a zero sum argument about China versus us nor was I arguing that Vonnegut’s point was that China becoming a BFD is bad. Jesus.

Yes I know about China’s magnificent history but clearly you haven’t read the book or you’d know it was written in the 80s when everyone thought the major 21st century power was going to be Japan. Vonnegut observed otherwise.

Tyro: again,  substitute “white people” for “boomers” in your argument, and yup, again, it makes some kind of sense.

But Tyro is either defensive about being part of that complicit race: or, having white priviledge, is blind to it.

The white elite would be pleased Tyro wants to fight others on the bottom for the scraps they’ve thrown, rather than fight those truly in power.

Which is that Vonnegut’s observations were strikingly close to Amanda’s in that the country just gave up. I was not making a zero sum argument about China versus us nor was I arguing that Vonnegut’s point was that China becoming a BFD is bad. Jesus.

Sorry, Ross, my mistake. China’s rise (or rather, their return) is so often couched in terms of being a Very Bad Thing that I jumped to a conclusion I shouldn’t have. I’ll check out the book.

Also very interesting that it was written during the Japan hype since a lot of people who are bearish on China are comparing them to Japan in the late ‘80s. I think it’s quite different, though.

Should we assume, then, that when you (plural) reach 80 years of age, or whatever point it is when you will require significant sums of money to remain alive, you will commit suicide?

Can’t speak for him, but for myself, the clock-out plan kicks in around 75. Provided I am even able to make it that long without living on cat food in the street…

The United States is the world’s #1 manufacturer. Still. Consumer goods != manufacturing, people. For example, I’ve never in my life bought a jumbo jet or nuclear reactor or bulldozer, and probably never will.

Ben, interesting point. There was another large imperial power earlier in the century that had a very high technical competence in manufacture of heavy goods machinery - they were at one time the largest producer of such in the world. However, they weren’t really big on consumer goods manufacturing. Instead, they just imported all that stuff, and stuck to making only the really important stuff, like nuclear reactors, and planes, and bulldozers, and high-value mining and petroleum extraction. That would be the Soviet Union, whose economy was eventually forced to change due to the fundamental instability of relying on heavy goods manufacturing and non-renewable resources for your economic base.

If by Tyro’s argument, he and his generation popping out the womb magically made this a much less racist nation, then by George, his generation’s magic womb popping must also have created the economic decline in this country!

Can’t have one without the other, honey.

Katydid—

No, katydid, the USSR didn’t import consumer goods. Everything was Soviet-made, it’s juts that the quality and design of what they made utterly sucked because of the defects of a Stalinist economy. Their capital goods weren’t that great, either, and weren’t bought by anybody except other countries in the Soviet block (and even then they were heavily subsidized). Their economy was overdependent on something, but that was commodities, which is a bad thing because their prices are so unstable. Putin is repeating the same mistake.

The white elite would be pleased Tyro wants to fight others on the bottom for the scraps they’ve thrown, rather than fight those truly in power.

Boomers imagine themselves to be at the bottom?

Things like the GI bill, free public universities, and functional public infrastructure were all things that the boomers were able to take advantage of in a way that later generations weren’t all the while complaining about how materialistic and unidealistic later generations were compared to themselves. Some people are tired of hearing how we never did anythin because we didn’t go to an anti-Vietnam protest or two. You seem a bit hyper sensitive about it when someone deigns to point out, “y’all weren’t all that.”

cynickal @ 75: My situation re public transit is unfortunatoely much more common than yours and the conservatives everywhere continue to be dupes to (or co-conspirators of) the car-petroleum industries and shriek bloody murder when anyone tries to improve the situation.

Helen, I’m afraid you’ve set up a bit of a “no true American” fallacy here. If “most Americans” don’t so much want to drive their cars as need to get somewhere that public transportation doesn’t go, and then “conservatives everywhere continue to be dupes to (or co-conspirators of) the car-petroleum industries and shriek bloody murder when anyone tries to improve the situation,” and given the evidence that the US is (at least) half on the conservative side of the spectrum, haven’t you created a bit of a tangle?

I’m afraid your argument just isn’t founded in truth, though. Americans just like their cars. A lot of Americans won’t take public transport even if it’s available. For example, I live a mile and a half from my university (walkable bikeable). There’s sidewalks and a bike path the whole way. There’s an express bus service every 15 minutes, which only takes about five more minutes to get to campus than driving. Despite all this, people still drive to campus from the apartment complex that I live in and pay $1.50 an hour to park in a garage. Why? Certainly not because they have to - because they like their cars.  If they didn’t, they could live near their work, work near their homes, and/or advocate for usable public transport systems, but very few of them in fact do this.

Let me correct something—they did import consumer goods, but only from other Stalinist countries to sell oil and prop up friendly governments.

Ben, they imported quite a lot of consumer goods, as well as commodities. (For example, Cuba’s entire economy was based on selling sugar to the USSR). They imported from non-aligned countries as well as Stalinist countries, and the Stalinist era was over by the early 1960s in any case. Might I gently point out, we didn’t import very much from Communist countries, nor do we still. Had a Cuban cigar lately?

Ha ha! Well, what “plans” to “clock out” at 75!

My guess is he’s about a half century younger than that, from which 75 seems too fucking old to live!

Oh honey, my father is 88 and still going fairly strong, his grandfather died at 94, only because he’d gone up to fix the roof, it started sleeting, and great grandpa Lewis then eventually succumbed to pneumonia.

I’ve met too many 80 and ups living full lives to wish them dead.

I’ve got 15 years to go to 75, and um, hey, I’m not contemplating suicide at the 75 mark.

So, you want to die before you get too old to live, Well, What?

Count on that changing as you age, Well, What.

Especially, if this is yet another symptom of “Death Panels for Boomers” syndrome.

Tyro, way to misread.  judibrown is saying she is at the bottom, as are many poor, female or other minority boomers, and you as a priviledged white male can focus on the generational average rather than the reality of who is at the bottom being diverse.  Which I’m sure you actually saw and are ignoring ‘cause you don’t usually strike me as that obtuse.

Should we assume, then, that when you (plural) reach 80 years of age, or whatever point it is when you will require significant sums of money to remain alive, you will commit suicide?

Dana, outlining the latest Republican retirement proposals…

http://www.theonion.com/video/obama-drastically-scales-back-goals-for-america-af,14343/

Ben, they imported quite a lot of consumer goods, as well as commodities. (For example, Cuba’s entire economy was based on selling sugar to the USSR).

Well, yeah, you very well can’t grow sugar in the Ukraine or Siberia!

They imported from non-aligned countries as well as Stalinist countries, and the Stalinist era was over by the early 1960s in any case.

It was miniscule compared to the trade with their satellites.  I’m using “Stalinist” in a really general sense here, I know some Marxists read this blog and they might object to using “Communist”.

Even their total foreign trade, in general, was small, from the wiki:

Soviet foreign trade played only a minor role in the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and because it historically had pursued a policy of self-sufficiency.

Emphasis was added.

So, be blunt here: is that what you wish to say you support? So, be blunt here: is that what you wish to say you support?

No, I meant just what I said. What I support are people being realistic about end-of-life care. I’m glad that my parents will be around much longer than their parents were, but they’re not obsessed with length of life so much as quality of life (then again, they’re Silent generation types, with fairly low expectations).

My complaint is with Boomer expectations: that their healthcare will be subsidised by younger generations as long as they can hold on. It’s about their facing concepts like the fact that palliative care (which, I’ll state for a “pro-life” idiot like yourself, is not euthanasia) is often the better alternative to indefinite high-quality life extension carried on the backs of their children and grandchildren.

Now, of course, a subset of Boomers don’t think they’ll live forever. Steve LaBonne at #27 is a good example—I doubt he’s arguing for euthanasia or the “death panel” nonsense that conservatives like yourself use to scare the rubes. This isn’t a discussion about the small subset of Boomer liberals and progressives who stayed true to their roots.

Facts are facts: Americans are (for the moment) living longer. Longer life expectancy is a good thing, but it also brings up real questions of sustainability and realism—especially when you’re talking about a generational cohort as large as the Boomers.

Believing that one can live forever with a high quality of life is not helpful in that regard, and I see that belief in the Boomer generation more than I do in my own, the Millenials, or even with older generations. I do see it in conservative Xtianist Boomers, who are so frightened of death and an afterlife where they’re worried they will indeed get their just rewards. I’m afraid I also see it in some progressive Boomers, who fall for any variety of pricey life extension woo as long as it’s endorsed by Oprah but don’t think about the larger costs.

So despite judybrown’s unfounded comment, I don’t wish Boomers dead. I do wish they’d stop seeing themselves as a special snowflake generation, to be preserved forever no matter what the impact on succeeding generations. Eventually the torch has to be passed, and the Boomers have demonstrated themselves to be particularly reluctant to do so.

I also wish they’d acknowledge the fact that the height of their political power was not during their teens and twenties, but during their 30s, 40s and 50s. To be clear, that period does not conform to the blessed 1960s, hallowed be its name, nor to the the Civil Rights movement of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, which was more the province of the Silent generation.

No, the Boomers had their real political ascendance during the 1980s, 1990s and the oughts—that 30-year period we discuss so often here in regard to all sorts of declines in workers’ rights, environmental standards, and the development of Taibbi’s “griftopia,” among other things. Indeed, in many ways Boomers set the stage for the decimation of their retirement portfolios in 2008 during the preceding 30 years. That they can deny this is a speaks to the success of conservatives like David Brooks, who has built an entire career on making Boomers feel good about selling out to Reaganism while still retaining some “bohemian” cred.

Amanda’s point, I think, is that once that period comes to an end we’re likely to see a different kind of politics and policy-making, one focused less on confrontation for confrontation’s sake (a favourite with Boomer politicians from the 1960s to the present) and more on getting things done with a minimum of drama and posturing.

Basically, switching from consumer goods to primarily capital goods is actually the sign of a very advanced manufacturing economy, not one that’s declining. Even China knows this, that’s why they’re so big on solar panels and high speed rail tech and trying to get away from sweatshirts and laptops (which will go to Vietnam and Bangladesh).

Should we assume, then, that when you (plural) reach 80 years of age, or whatever point it is when you will require significant sums of money to remain alive, you will commit suicide?

I would and will refuse anything more more than simple, inexpensive palliative care even at a considerably earlier age than that. And both my daughter and my significant other are well aware of this (and I will have a living will to that effect well before this becomes an issue.) And under the right circumstances I would go so far as to avail myself of assisted suicide if our society ever becomes sane about that, but I don’t want to be responsible for somebody going to jail.

Tyro: the white elite love how you fall for the scape-goating, rabid Boomer Bashing: it will make it so much easier for them to slash Social Security for your generation.

By the by, you may not have memory, but the boomer generation and those actually on Social Security refused the white Bush elite plan to “privatize” and slash Social Security, even tho it was couched as slashes only for those of younger generations.

Boomers on the bottom with you, oh yeah, they’ve lost their houses, their savings (with no years left to make them again), their jobs (with age discrimination rampant), their health care at a time when they need it most, seen pensions go the way of the dodo bird (it’s the Greatest Generation who were the last the enjoy those en mass.)

But of course, all that should make you happy. As long as you’ve got the scape goat you’ve been handed by the white power elite.

I should add that the troll’s farting about “active euthanasia” is an exceptionally stupid and dishonest red herring even by his standards. Hospice care is dirt cheap compared to keeping people breathing for a few extra months using all available technology. The latter is where the money is going now.

For the record, I really haven’t seen anyone be the beneficiary of “heroic” medical extension of life I didnt think was warranted. I mean, I’m sure it happens, just not in my experience. Sooner or later, the body has a systemic failure and/or your medications mess up in major ways, sending you into a downward spiral. I suppose there are situations were the doctors try to bring someone out of that downward spiral by keeping someone on life-support for several months in the hope that the patient pulls out of it, but none of my relatives ended up in that situation during the last months of their lives. I guess Steve has seen something different. Ultimately, I really doubt there will be much change in the way that Medicare handles end of life issues simply because no one wants to cut their parents’ lives short—and anti-cancer chemotherapy and surgery as well as vascular surgery can add many years to someone’s life, and not a life spent hooked up to machines the entire time, either. Steve, you think at 75 if you got diagnosed with skin cancer or were told you needed a bypass that you’d opt to do nothing instead of accepting well-known, working remedies? I somehow doubt that.

Last night, the emptiness of it pissed me off, particularly how he talked a big game about innovation and moving forward and education, and then proceeded to concede the argument to Republicans that we really shouldn’t do any of those things because they cost money.

What part of the speech conveyed that latter idea?

katydid, I didn’t say doesn’t go, I showed how in my case doesn’t go efficiently.  This is common due to poor execution of nodes, for the most part.  The other big issue is first mile-last mile problem. 
The people you are describing are that way because society (as presented by MSM-advertizing-life experience) has taught them to do so.  TV shows make a big deal about public transit being unsafe and dirty, many of them are no doubt middle class so more likely to be from suburbs, etc.  Some of them may have childcare of job restrictions that require them to be someplace within a window your walking and bus don’t meet.  Also, is the bus the same, more or less than that $1.50 to park?
As to live near where you work et al.  If a couple works at jobs 50 miles apart just too bad for them, they can’t be together?  If someone’s job changes (fired/relassigned/whatever) they should break their lease/sell their house?  If it is half a couple they should break up and move apart?  You are either very young, very priviledged or naive. 
As for advocating - civil engineer, one of those professionals flunking US infrastructure?  Few other people have time or knowledge to advocate for real solutions.
More anecdata:  My daughter did commute 50+ miles from our house to school when she was getting her BS - car-train-subway-bus with walking between modes - but that was about 90 minutes each way on a good day because it was almost a direct line.  Driving would have been longer and cost more.  It sould have been faster if we had more efficient intermodel tranfer points.
Even with the truly horrible connections and limited service, those commuter railcars are standing room only during rush hour every day.  As are Boston’s subways.  I pass or am passed by several express busses running the length of the I-93 corridor from NH to Boston everyday.  Packed to the gills again.  Those folks only drive far enough to catch their bus. 
In NY where the system is better, the crowding is worse. 
While it is true that some people in the US do love their cars and will refuse to give them up, a significant number of others would be more than happy if they could read or sleep while commuting.

Nearly half of senior citizens would be below the poverty line, if not for Social Security payments. Nearly ten percent still fall below the poverty line while collecting Social Security.

“Leaving aside Social Security income, nearly one of every two elderly people — 46.8 percent — has income below the poverty line.[1]”
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1111

Including the much despised Baby Boomers, do the math—that means that nearly forty percent of Senior citizens are living only $1,000 or so a month above the poverty line, with another 9 percent still below.

Maybe someone should inform those greedy Baby Boomers that they’re really wealthy.

So far, everyone *not* in the baby boomer generation are lazy, entitled death panelists sponging off their parents and are blind to white privilege.  But, anyone engaging in generational warfare (apparently defined as, “criticizing baby boomers”) is a conservative dupe.
         
Perhaps the point isn’t that every.single.baby.boomer is to blame for everything, and more that it’s that generation’s assholes who *ARE* in power and who *ARE* and *HAVE BEEN* screwing things up for several decades. And that, given this, people are jaded, exhausted and fed up with trying to fight the tide that keeps drowning out all attempts at positive change. Since that’s likely not any of the baby boomer posters here - on a left-wing, progressive, feminist blog - what are we bickering about? Why is it necessary to invoke phantom baby boomer bashing rather than admitting the truth?

How’s that saying go, “if the shoe doesn’t fit, stop trying to so hard to wear it”.

Well in fairness, that comment was made by Gracchus who is a notorious idiot who once claimed that Heidi Llamar single handedly won the Battle of the Atlantic.

Cite, Stickie? In fact, I said that Hedy Lamarr was an example of a woman who developed a critical military invention—a phenomenon that you claimed didn’t exist at all. As I recall, you also made the ridiculous claim that there were no well-known African-American computer hackers (real hackers, not morons who think using a proxy makes them L337).

Of course, at the time you studiously ignored those proofs of your delusions, but I guess that’s par for the course with a White Supremacist who claims the Race War will be coming along Real Soon Now. I’ll let Amanda ban you now.

My comment is supposedly “unfounded” about this diary and comments being infected by wishing baby boomers dead?

“We’re basically waiting for all the people who are still bitter about modernity to pass away in large enough numbers that those of us willing to move into the future can actually capture the electorate.”

And that magical thinking death wish in the diary even before we get to the foam-in-the mouth boomer bashing in the comments, the hints about when we should commit suicide, if we were responsible (75), but instead will greedily insist on health care as we age.

Oh, and SWPL, what part of “equal parts of truth and snark” as the last line of my first post don’t you get?

My comment is supposedly “unfounded” about this diary and comments being infected by wishing baby boomers dead?

No, your implication at #91 (in reference to Dana’s preceding comment about me in particular) about my own views is unfounded. Dana wasn’t addressing Amanda or anyone else. If you weren’t talking about me, you might have been more clear about it. Now that it’s understood you weren’t talking about me, all is groovy.

SWPL—niiiiiiice, misqoute my snark out of context to support your own weird liberal bashing and the lie that Social Security somehow is tied to the deficit, instead of being funded by a surplus now and for upcoming decades.

You’re not helping.

By the by, I’ve never stated to which minority groups I belong, although it appears assumptions have been made from my sig line.

Still doesn’t change the fact that, if all the “boomer” bashing in this diary and thread had been substitued by the term “white people” we not only would have come closer to the truth, but it might also be more helpful in changing the disasterous fuckup we’re in at the moment.

Ah Gracchus, but you were the asshole stating that “Boomers refusing to retire” was somehow contributing to this clusterfuck economy.

And that’s in just the first comment you wrote.

Honey, all the Boomers I know who can afford to retire, are. Especially haven’t been able to find work, otherwise.

But, even in that first comment, you decried the sin of our healthcare coming “out of the hides” of the younger generation.

Generational warfare, just what the white elite wants so they can gut Social Security and Medicare with ease.

Also: boomer bash all you like, but unless you can get your generation out to actually vote their supposed ideals, the clusterfuck continues.

@ judybrowni: Don’t assume, it makes you an asshat. I’m neither quite as young as you guess nor as genetically blessed as you and yours seem to be. (Everyone and their grandpa’s a fucking golden god on the internet aren’t they?) We don’t all cling so fiercely to our speshul snowflake existences.

I have no reasonable expectations of good physical and mental health much beyond my late-60s/early 70s. Certain of my family members “lived” a long time, with terrible illness; certain others died quite young (younger than you seem to be); certain others still have a slower but nonetheless outrageously costly and painful decline.

Without drastic social and economic revival, a person like me has no reasonable expectation of being financially secure at the point where I fall apart. To ignore the likelihood of my old-age misery is to be a goddamn fool.

Now granted, stranger things have happened; were I somehow to become able to finance my own decrepit old age, I might feel differently. But this thread is about the EXTREME doubts many of us have that this nation will ever do anything else but sicken, and die.

Ah Gracchus, but you were the asshole stating that “Boomers refusing to retire” was somehow contributing to this clusterfuck economy.

And you’ll note I made it clear that many of them were refusing to retire because their investments were decimated as a result of 30 years of “free market” economics (economics that many of those 60s veterans enabled). But yes, some who have a choice refuse.

Honey, all the Boomers I know who can afford to retire, are. Especially haven’t been able to find work, otherwise.

So they can afford to retire and do, but would rather work? You’re making my point.

I know quite a few senior citizens who don’t have to work but do, and I’m cool with that. They’re mostly self-employed or academics, and often they’re creating jobs or mentoring opportunities for younger people.

But there are also Boomers who hang on like grim death to their corporate jobs, and not because they have to. I’ve heard some senior management types claim that the business would fall apart without them (not surprisingly, the ones who say that usually turn out to be time-serving deadwood).

But, even in that first comment, you decried the sin of our healthcare coming “out of the hides” of the younger generation.

No, I pointed out that the expectations are unrealistic, using what’s happening in Europe currently as an example. There you have a large older cohort insisting that it’s entitled to extremely generous (compared to the U.S.) healthcare and other old-age programmes, but who ignore the fact that the young people who’ll be paying for it are a much smaller cohort, and in many cases are shut out of the jobs that will create tax revenues for the reasons described above.

Generational warfare, just what the white elite wants so they can gut Social Security and Medicare with ease.

There’s no plausible reason for conservatives to gut Social Security, even taking into account demographic realities. Same with Medicare, which even elderly conservatives believe is their entitlement. They want to try that (and I believe they’re stupid enough to do so), they’ll lose elderly Republican voters.

Also: boomer bash all you like, but unless you can get your generation out to actually vote their supposed ideals, the clusterfuck continues.

Are you claiming that Millenials and Xers don’t vote? “No-Drama” Obama basically owes his victory in the primary against the Boomer Hillary and his victory in the general against the Silent Generation McCain.

As for me, I was working on Democratic campaigns in the 1980s when I was a teenager, during the same elections that introduced us to the phenomenon of Boomer Yuppie “Reagan Democrats.” During those same campaigns, by the way, I ran into countless Boomer Democratic campaign workers who were more than happy to bash my generation’s commitment and then tell me and the other Xer volunteers about the ‘60s, ma-a-an.

I’ll admit that there’s a lot of Xer cynicism out there, especially about the Dems, but these days any liberal who thinks the Democratic Party reflects his ideals (with the exception of preventing Republicans from taking office) is fooling himself.

again @ judybrowni, p.s. Note that nowhere in any of my comments have I
—suggested “death panels,”
—commanded you to off yourself in 15 years, or
—wished anyone dead.

I said what I, personally, me and only me, who is not you or anyone else, plan to do. This was in response to what Dana no doubt thought was the Stupidest Rhetorical Question Evar.

I don’t see what the Rachel Maddow clip you linked to has to do with women having unauthorized orgasms. Did you post the wrong link?

Thanks for saying it Amanda.  Its good to know other people feel it too. 

Someone brought up American Apparel, thing is, it is a good model for future(if we ignore the weirdo at the helm), you pay a bit more but you get more choice of fit, color, and style and a quality upgrade that people doing it for the lowest possible cost just do not care about.  There is a selling point in things that are better for a little more.  They are successful, as proof they are spawning imitators, like Alternative Apparel, who I think is even better and for a bit more also.  It just takes a mindset that its not a competition for who can make something the cheapest but who can do something good.  It takes a while for things to shake out and differences become apparent.

I’m a optimist for the long run but in the meantime there is just a lot of BS around.  Sometimes you just have to wait a bit.  Here’s hoping we all live that long.

As has been said before arguments about generations are stupid. First it’s intellectually lazy because the differences inside a particular generation are much much larger than differences between generations. Second, it’s stupid because you’re dividing groups that make natural allies—someone who’s poor and 55 has much more in common with someone who’s poor and 35 than with a rich 55 year old. It’s not boomers or the silent generation or Xers that are causing our problems, it’s Republicans and the rich. You always hear statements about how each generation talks about how lazy the kids are today, ... but the same thing is true about kids and the elderly—in each generation the young complain about how the elderly are taking all the good jobs, controlling power, .... Really, at least be original.

As an aside, all those people who are still working past retirement age are not boomers. The oldest boomers were born in 1945 which makes them 65 now.

Sometimes the company would fall apart if certain people leave but of course the young person raring to go if not going to see that.  Sometimes the best thing to do is go start your own company.  Not willing to do that?  Then you are holding on to your corporate job like everybody else.  Good luck

Sometimes the company would fall apart if certain people leave but of course the young person raring to go if not going to see that. Sometimes the best thing to do is go start your own company.  Not willing to do that?  Then you are holding on to your corporate job like everybody else.  Good luck

The number of jobs in this world that can only be competently performed by a single, irreplaceable individual is a vanishingly, nay mythically, small number.

The number of people who can successfully avoid starvation by starting their own businesses is not mythically small, but it is still quite small.

And in a stable functioning society it shouldn’t require an eyerolling amount of good luck to secure paid employment—that is the whole motherfucking point of the post and the thread. Shit that is broken is supposed to be fixed, not tolerated indefinitely.

I mean really. Is your name Stephen Hawking? No? Then someone else on this earth can do your job.

Nice way to try to conflate yourselves into all the responses I made to other commenters and the thread and diary in general, guys, but yes, Well, What, your gentle hint about 75 being the top notch to aim for, seemed aimed at more than just the possible genetic longevity in your family.

(On my mother’s side my grandparents died earlier in their 70s, before Medicare was enacted, and were scraping along on Social Security, so they may not have been able to afford at least some of the medical care that might have prolonged their lives.)

My father at 88 has enjoyed 25 years of a pension, Social Security, a house paid for, and Medicare since 65. My greatgrandfather Lewis enjoyed a more generous union pension and medical insurance benefits from an earlier age, which may be the reason he was healthy enough to climb up on that roof to try to repair it at age 94.

And Gracchus said our healthcare would come “out of the hides” of a younger generation—then why is it that the Social Democracies with cradle-to-grave healthcare have booming economies (Australia, Canada and Germany, among them.)

Obama may have had the boost of the younger generations, but we got a Republican House out of their inability to turn out for the mid-term—and the forthcoming disasterous “compromises” with Republicans that your Republican-lite Obama will be making, including—if we go by the ‘deficit commission” he stuffed with ultra-conservative slashers—slashing Social Security and Medicare for you.

Never said conservative voters want to gut either Social Security and Medicare. The “plausible reason” political conservatives in government want to gut Social Security is to hand the cash over to Wall Street to play with and/or fund new wars or follies with which to further enrich the elite while screwing the middle, working class and poor.

But if they can get Obama and the Democrats to go along, all the better—they’ll then have Democrats to blame in the next elections, which if they’re mid-term or not exciting enough, the Millenials might not show up for, either.

And the last point, since I shouldn’t have wasted time debating with you um people in the first place: one of the reasons Roosevelt enacted Social Security was to encourage those of retirement age to retire and open the job field for those younger during a Depression. Lowering the retirement age, upping benefits, and extending Medicare downward would accomplish the same thing in this economy. President Obama’s hand-picked “Deficit” commission is recommending the reverse (and by the by, Obama was well aware those were the views of the commission heads, before he appointed ‘em.)

Insisting that somehow Baby Boomers don’t deserve retirement benefits or healthcare as they age is assisting the enemies of your Social Security and Medicare benefits.

And falling for the scapegoat they’ve handed you. Let your imagined resentments have full play boys, and it’s only going to impoverish your old age.

@135

I wasn’t directing my comment at someone trying to avoid starvation but someone who thinks they can run the company.  So there, jeez.

The work force has been evolving for a long time and will continue to, its not about a irreplaceable individual but about certain traits that will make a difference in the future.  Some things are a advantage, the trick is figuring out what those are.  I get the point of the thread just fine, but thanks.

Ooops should have said the one of the reasons Roosevelt enacted Social Security during the Depression was to <i>enable<> seniors to retire and so open up job field to those younger.

Which he did, and they did by the bucketfull, because they suddenly could afford to.

Somehow limiting the old age benefits of the Baby Boomers (who had their deductions doubled decades ago in order to fund their numbers) will not open up the job market, but the reverse.

But even if the Baby Boomers hadn’t already funded their own Social Security benefits already, I’d like to introduce you to:

“Ida May Fuller (September 6, 1874 – January 31, 1975) was the first American to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check. She received the check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.

Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont, during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller

By your lights, a greedy bitch, I suppose.

But hey, never let the facts get in the way of petty, unfounded resentment stirred up by Republicans and the ultrarich for their own benefit.

I rode the Northeast Corridor Amtrak train for the first time in some years, and was shocked at how much worse looking the neighborhoods were that the railway passes through. They were always poor-looking, but now some of them looked like bombed-out war zones, especially on the outskirts of Philadelphia. The houses were standing, but only just.

”More seriously, allow me also to apologize for failing to note how the greediest generation immediately ceased their support for the New Deal the second the civil rights movement began to have real victories.”

LBJ beat AuH2O like a rented mule – with the votes of the WW2 generation

It wasn’t until Reagan that the New Deal started to be rolled back, with higher support from boomers and gen xers more then by the “Grey Panthers”

Ben - you won’t regret it. Slapstick has one of the funniest concepts vonnegut ever came up with regarding the means by which a declining empire tries to unify the fraying country under (what is essentially) a new religion.

jefft452

Most gen exers couldn’t vote during the Reagan years.

I’ve been taking it for years and even in the late 1990s they looked shitty. Trains tend to go through the worst neighborhoods.

And again, the statement probably gets even more accurate if you amend it to “WHITE PEOPLE ceased their support for the New Deal under Reagan…”

Don’t have the statistics, but it’s a distinct possibility “white men” might even skew higher.

If people have money, they generally move away from the noise of transportation, of all sorts:

Hence those big suburban lawns, penthouse apartments, etc.

Although I wouldn’t doubt that rich people also may have the muscle to keep trains and super highways out of their backyard.

God dammit Judi, will you please shut the fuck up already?

Just assume whenever we’re talking about the assholes thing sconservatives assholes do, they are white conservatives assholes.

Jesus, fucking seriously. Seriously, which fucking blog do you think you’re reading?

And sorry for bring mean about it, but this constant pretending not to understand what everyone is talking about and constant pretending that people are saying shit they are not saying and this constant pretending to have never visited a blog before is getting on my last goddamned nerve.

Well, shut the fuck up yourself, Ross, and it’s you who seem not to understand how blogs, the real world, or rational argument works.

I have to agree with an earlier comment: your lack-o-facts, generational bashing, bullying and long-winded, empty bombast “is a piss poor way to recruit support for rational policies.”

At the very least.

Well, what? wrote:

Should we assume, then, that when you (plural) reach 80 years of age, or whatever point it is when you will require significant sums of money to remain alive, you will commit suicide?

Can’t speak for him, but for myself, the clock-out plan kicks in around 75. Provided I am even able to make it that long without living on cat food in the street…

Really?  And how close are you to 75? 

Reality is that very few people commit suicide, even those who have said many times that they “wouldn’t want to live that way,” once they find themselves living that way.

I know a paraplegic living a pretty interesting life as an actor and standup comedian (really, if you count the wheelchair.)

He’s also, by the lights of some in this commentary thread, greedily sucking up those medical benefits, and for his whole damn life, not just the last couple decades.

But he’s a Millenial, so maybe that makes it okay by them, although it’s a bit hard to follow their logic of who we should or shouldn’t push off the ice floe.

Gracchus tells us:

Facts are facts: Americans are (for the moment) living longer. Longer life expectancy is a good thing, but it also brings up real questions of sustainability and realism—especially when you’re talking about a generational cohort as large as the Boomers.

Sustainability and realism?  You said that you do not support active euthanasia on those who have reached the end of existence and are just lingering on, but simply appreciate that people are taking end-of-life directives more seriously.  Yet that still leads to your unsustainability problem, because very few people actively choose death.

More, a very significant part of the costs is incurred not by immediately life-threatening conditions, but the requirement for long-term skilled nursing care; the Alzheimer’s patient is not normally facing a quick death.

So despite judybrown’s unfounded comment, I don’t wish Boomers dead. I do wish they’d stop seeing themselves as a special snowflake generation, to be preserved forever no matter what the impact on succeeding generations. Eventually the torch has to be passed, and the Boomers have demonstrated themselves to be particularly reluctant to do so.

What does that mean?  Is it a complaint that sometimes healthy people who have reached 65 choose not to retire, or is it a complaint that older people still vote?

I don’t know where people are getting the impression that any of us are arguing that it is beneficiaries of SS who are the parasites. Or that SS benefits ought to be cut. Quite the opposite. I believe they should be expanded, fully funded, the age requirement lowered, etc.

I also want the wealthy to pay their taxes, and for the group who in no way exists in one generation only to stop freaking out about taxes and stop voting for resentful, racist reasons, and for my vote to actually matter - you know, like when you elect the Democrat and expect that they won’t escalate wars, slash taxes on the rich, suggest cutting the social safety network or appoint crony capitalists to advise them.

”Most gen exers couldn’t vote during the Reagan years.”

Gen x is the one that starts in ’64? Or do I have the wrong name?

I’m not a lot older then that myself, RR’s 2nd term was my 3 presidential election

All the 18-19 yr olds came to work with Reagan buttons

All the guys close to retirement had Union Yes / Reagan No buttons

Personal anecdote only, but if I bother to look it up, wouldn’t I find that the 18-19 vote went heavily for RR in 84?

”...and for my vote to actually matter - you know, like when you elect the Democrat and expect that they won’t escalate wars, slash taxes on the rich, suggest cutting the social safety network or appoint crony capitalists to advise them”

hear! hear!

I was going to severely scold all you do-gooder liberals & socialists for giving up too easy - but, you know… meh.

Don’t know where we got the idea that some on this thread are fulminating against Social Security and Medicare for Boomers?

How about starting with comments like “a young generation fed up with funding (Boomer) long life span” or “Boomers taking their medical care out of the hides of their children and grandchildren,” “Baby boom are selfish parasites.”

There’s more, oh much more, but you get their drift.

Some on this thread weren’t too subtle about pushing the Boomers off the ice floe—and why they believe the Boomers deserve to die young and penniless—so let’s not suddenly be all disingenuous about where that idea came from.

Where are the three billy goats gruff when you need them?

Oh why do I bother to use a word like “disingenuous,” when it’s a lie I’m dealing with?

Although, it is also a disingenuous lie.

Yeah, pretty much my feelings exactly. Krugman posted a lolcat with “meh” text in response to the SOTU and that about covers it for me.

But, please, people. As someone who grew up in a sort of a “third world country,” I can tell you that America ain’t it. And Ben D, you’re right about the Soviet economy. Consumer goods were produced locally, but the shortages were due to the fact that most production was dedicated to defense. They did trade with their Soviet block “partners,” but what little was imported never made it to the stores but had a tendency to fall off the truck and right into the black market. High-demand western goods like jeans or records were never imported at all, but smuggled in.

I remain convinced that my generation’s (I’m an X-er) enthusiasm for perestroika had fuck all to do with desire for “freedom” and everything to do with desire to buy brand-name jeans. My generation was supposed to be on the forefront of the fight for the new democratic Russia, but we either ended up leaving or giving up. Sort of like what Amanda is seeing here. And that’s the only point I’ll be making about this whole generational cluster that keeps popping up here.

I want to point out first of all that “Americans” are not living longer lives.  Rich Americans are.  When you look at life expectancy by income, virtually all of the increase is in the top quintile.  It looks like longer lifespans on average, but it’s a meaningless number to the vast majority of folks, just as when Bill Gates walks into a homeless shelter, the “average” income of people in that building rises to millions.  That average doesn’t change the fact that they’re homeless.  It’s the distribution, stupid.

And as Digby (another evil Boomer, btw) pointed out a few weeks ago, raising the retirement age simply means that those in the bottom 80% will have no choice but to work longer without experiencing any longer retirement because they’re not actually living any longer.  And those who earn the least are generally precisely the same people who work at physically difficult and/or dangerous jobs completely unsuited for most people in their 60s.  From which they would LOVE to retire if the fucking bankers and traders hadn’t stolen their savings.  The poorest older workers are also the ones who’ll both receive the lowest benefit while also being the most dependent on it.  And we’re talking pittances here.

The boomer bashing is both stupid and evil.  It’s pure bigotry to assign any personal characteristics to any demographic group as large as a generation.  It is absolutely no different than bashing an ethnic group.  “Selfish Boomers” is no better or more accurate than “Submissive Asian Women” or “Hot Blooded Latinos” or “Drunken Indians” or “Lazy Niggers.”  You who engage in such are bigots and should be ashamed of yourselves. 

No generation is a monolith; political divides exist.  Sometimes, rarely, the liberal/progressive side dominates.  Sometimes, mostly, not.  The economic decline we’ve been seeing for the last 30 years isn’t a generational issue.  It just isn’t.  It is a class issue.  The ruling class has been waging war against the working class.  They are winning.  Rich Boomers/GreatestGeneration/GenXers/Millennials have successfully rigged our political and economic systems for their own benefit and at the expense of poor Boomers/GreatestGeneration/GenXers/Millennials.

Why does this even need to be explained to alleged progressives/leftists/liberals?  Are you people fucking blind?

That’s all I will say on the matter; I’m no more willing to engage with generational bigots than I am with racists.  You’ve made your position clear, as I’ve made mine.  I’ve got nothing more to say to you.

I’m not even comfortable with bashing The Rich, lefty moonbat that I am.  Even genuinely relevant Class Issues have little to do with the actual individual people who make up any class, but they are all about systemic failures and a corrupt political economy whose sole purpose is to maximize investors’ returns, even if it leaves us in a feudal condition. 

I don’t blame any individual for wanting to improve or maintain their lot in life.  I blame a culture that permits, even exhorts, people to do so by trampling others and ignoring real pressing human needs that this nation, as a whole, old and young, rich and poor, has decided to ignore.  All thanks to decades of corporatist propaganda and ever-popular victim-blaming.  Even the victims blame themselves now.  Including, hell especially, the younger victims who’ve been raised on a steady stream of reheated Reaganism.

And just wondering: how come I almost never see Gracchus’ comments in any thread that doesn’t include an opportunity for generational warfare?  As soon as the word “Boomer” or “generation” appears in a post here or in any comment, it’s only a short wait before s/he shows up to fling poo. 
Ok, so you hate your parents or whatever.  We get it. Lighten up, Francis.

Judybrown: clearly you do not “get” the Gen-X sense of humor.

Oh, ok.  One more thing: the oldest boomers, born in 1945 (like my father) turn 66 this year.  Virtually all the remaining boomers are in their late 50s to early 60s.  Where does anyone get off complaining that they’re not retiring?  They’re not supposed to yet, for fuck’s sake.  If they’re all mostly still on the job in 2021, maybe then it’ll be an issue.  And even then, it’ll likely be an issue of our society failing to provide them the opportunity to retire.  Now, it’s just not.

felagund: clearly neither do I.  And I was born in 1967.

Boomers, the new discrimination and scapegoat for faux progressives.

Who couldn’t get away with either the stereotypes, implied threats or the eliminationist arguments aimed at any other group, but it’s somehow okay on a progressive blog when directed against Baby Boomers.

Let’s try a little experiment with some of the specific phraseology used in this diary and comment thread for Boomer Bashing, and see if we’d feel comfortable using it directed at other groups of American citizens:

“We’re all waiting for (blacks, Jews, Hispanics…) to die off” for the country to get better.

“(Blacks, Jews, Hispanics…) are selfish parasites.”

“(Blacks, Jews, Hispanics…) are taking their medical care out of the hides of” (other Americans)

We’re “fed up with funding the long lifespan of (Blacks, Jews, Hispanics…)”

And if any of those groups protested that sort of language and stereotyping would they also be dismissed as “defensive?” as we have been in this thread.

But the big question is why a progressive blog is supporting Fox News phraseology directed at any group of American citizens.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

RobW: thanks, I was apparently composing my post, while you were posting your even better post.

felagund: I also don’t “get” the sense of humor of Southren whites who hang nooses as decoration in their home or office.

But hey, what do I know, I was only in the professional comedy business for 20 years.

Back on topic a bit, as you dwell on the current situation, remember that this type of thing does happen in the US fairly often:
in the 1930s people in the US and the world seriously wondered if democracy would survive and they didn’t just have someone who was just like Hitler, they had Hitler and the worst war in human history was starting in parts of the world;

in the 1950s, paranoia about Communism was climaxing with McCarthy, while the Soviets got the bomb and then seemed to have leapfrogged the US with sputnik—hide under your desk kids;

in the late 1970s after about 15 years of an amazing run of widening rights, there was the big pushback with the ‘Moral Majority’ while it looked like the US could no longer compete in the world as we lost jobs in droves, oil seemed to be running out with rationing, and Japan seemed to be taking over. There was also stagflation—inflation that was in the teens and unemployment that topped out at 10.5%. Then a bad actor became President.

You all know about the 2000s and now.

One of the things we have to accept about the US is that most of the time it follows a fairly conservative path (with all the attendant idiocy: KKK or Nazis or McCarthy or Birchers or the Moral Majority or the Tea Party), but every once in awhile the US lurchs forward a bit (usually after a long hard struggle—think the end of slavery or women’s votes or the New Deal or the end of Jim Crow or Women’s rights or gay rights or universal healthcare or ...). Right now we seem to in a period of backlash and retrenching and this is extremely frustating, but buck up little campers (and knowing where this comes from gets you ... well, nothing).

If you want to understand the GenX gripes towards the Boomers, think of it in two words: “squandered potential”. The Boomers tried to change the world, and we got more Vietnam and then Reaganomics. I think more than anything, GenX thinks of Boomers as “The Generation That Gave Up”.

But Brian, the Boomers did change the world.  Or more accurately, the world changed; many of the most significant social changes were the result of the actions of a lot of dedicated folks with youthful energy, optimism, and, due to an accident of history and demographics, huge numbers.

Compare the treatment of women; ethnic and religious minorities; the cultural revolution in the arts, film and literature; gay rights; the use of foriegn aid for anything other than weapons; the internet fercrissakes.  It’s incorrect at best, dishonest at worst, to point to the bad shit without acknowledging the good. 

Many Boomers attempted major transformation against entrenched interests while far more opposed them- again, the divide is political, not generational.  The world is fundamentally a better place for the social changes that happened at a dizzying pace in their youth.  Those who worked for change had success largely because of their numbers: a small percentage of a huge cohort managed to change all they could.  Their failure to succeed at everything they attempted, the fact that the world is resistant to sweeping structural changes, and the world today is far from perfect, and since the heyday of their youth has backslid in many ways despite their best efforts, doesn’t mean they accomplished nothing.  Or that they gave up. Or that they’re to blame.

They did their best.  Or rather, a few of them did, despite huge odds and massive resistance including from plenty others of their own generation.

Oh wait.  The “they” I describe above was the hippies, who you despise as an embarrassment and a curse.  Well, never mind then.  Yep, all them boomers who’d been marching for freedom, peace, equality, overnight became Reagan Democrat yuppies.  Unlike their children, of course, who never embraced any conservative politics, right?

The inevitable backlash against fundamental social change began to regain control in the 70s, our generation began to come of age into Reagan’s America.  A whole lot of folks our age embraced that backlash; a whole lot also continued to fight; a whole lot more- the majority of any generation- just went about their lives.

I never saw my parents’ generation as having given up.  I saw them as simply growing up.  Youthful radicalism is for the youth.  Radical changes require radicalism.  Radicalism was popular in their youth, as in every generation, but was actually effective for once due to the sheer size of the cohort. 

Oh, and finally noticed Graccus’ comment describing the experience of being told by older hippie types that it was up to our generation to keep up the fight.  (How is that not a true statement, anyway?)  Apparently some of them were a bit arrogant about it, with the sort of “back in my day…” nostalgia that ALL people due as they get older and talk to younger people.  Hell, we do it our own selves:  “You kids today don’t know what punk is!  In my day, it was a movement!  Now it’s just fashion!” 

So Gracchus had to listen to some greybeard call hir out as a punk way back in the day and has apparently never gotten over that slight.  Now, s/he blames the entire cohort for that insult.  It’s as stupid as if I’d decided to become a lifelong racist at 19 because a couple black guys mugged me in the summer of ‘86 and I’m still pissed about it.

Old folks wax nostalgic and too easily lapse into “the trouble with you kids today…” mode, forgetting the reality of their own youth.  Young folks look around at the fucked up world and blame their parents for making it so, assuming that the world wasn’t already deeply fucked when their parents were kids.

So it goes.  (since someone brought up Vonnegut)

Speaking of Vonnegut, the notion of giving names to generations at all (let alone pitting them against each other) would be a textbook case of a Granfalloon- the text in this case being his novel Cat’s Cradle

Granfalloon: a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is “Hoosiers”; Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common, so really share little more than a name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat’s_Cradle

Socrates himself (permanently pissed) bitched about “kids today…” 2500 years ago.  Then was executed for the crime of corrupting the youth. 

So it goes.

How on earth are “The Boomers” responsible for Vietnam anyway?  The failure of the massive anti-war movement to actually affect the powers that make war is their fault for, I guess, underestimating the powers they fought and overestimating their own power?

“The Boomers” didn’t give us Reaganomics.  Reagan did.  Republicans and Dixiecrats gave us Reagan.

But y’all never miss a chance to punch a hippie, do you?

And in conclusion, you’re a poopyhead.  Also.  Too.

Peace, dude.  (so you don’t get the vapors, that’s intended as a friendly salutation.)

I’ll say this about the boomers—they’re the first generation of parents to see physically beating the crap out of their kids as a form of abuse rather than a proper punishment.  As a Millennial, I’m thankful for that.

This boomer isn’t gonna get to retire any time soon partly due to the crushing weight of increasing college costs for my Millenial Offspring. So that one day they will become gainfully employed, pay taxes and keep Social Security afloat so I’m not destitute in another ten years.

At least y’all coulda come out and voted YES on Prop 19!!  I can’t even legally get high!!

Thank you, RobW.  Remember, Reagan would be 100 this year - hardly a Boomer.  He was swept into office by folks his age who were threatened by all the changes the younger people were demanding - things like equalitiy for blacks and women.  My kids take those things so for granted they can’t imagine that it wasn’t always this way, that girls could hope to be anything boys could hope to be, for example.

Actually, Rob, I’ve known a few old hippies in my time, and they tend to be pretty cool people. I’m talking about the general perception of the Boomer generation.

Fun read.  Saved a lot of time skipping the generational backbiting.

Agree mostly with Ben D. and others who point out the US position in manufacturing is still very strong.  Thanks for bringing that up, all that did.

As for giving up:  personally, I thought after 2008 we’d get a lurch of Liberalism and put Reaganism to bed, but instead we’re getting it propped up for who knows how long.  So yeah, it’s despairing.

I think we have to come to grips with the idea that the change we want may take longer than we’d hoped.  I’m now of the mindset that if, in 30 years when I’m 70, we have a functioning liberal government, then we’ll have truly achieved something for future generations.

That’s cool, Brian.  I was just flashing back to the last time you and I disagreed on this blog. It got heated, and I got more pissed off than I’d care to admit, but I’m over it.  That was just a jibe, no ill intent.  Fact is, I’ve been in pretty much full agreement with most of the commentary I’ve seen of yours since.  If we ever met in the real world, I’m pretty sure we’d be friends.  (Yeah, I know it was quite a while ago.  I blame my Irish Alzheimer’s.)

And let’s be real: some people are, or sometimes act like, assholes and that certainly can include hippies, young or old.  (But not me of course, nuh uh, nope, never.)

To the Topic!

If we’ve finally put aside the whole generation issue as irrelevant (I hope, I hope), I’d like to express my gratitude to Amanda for this post; it’s one of her best in a while.  As she’s been on fire lately, that’s saying something.

I read this with a sense of gratitude, thinking “Yes! This!” because it’s precisely what I’ve been thinking about the last few days: this country, myself included, just seems to have given up on the possibility of improvement.  It feels like things are falling apart, everyone knows it, nobody knows what to do about it.  There’s plenty of ideas, some good ones and a lot of bad ones.  Now, it’s always the case that the path to improvement can be difficult or impossible to see, but I’ve never before gotten the sense that there isn’t a path.  That’s new to me.

It seems the only passion out there is in those who seek to destroy what’s good and real for the sake of evil lies.  And no matter how bad it gets, it just doesn’t seem to ever shift back the other way, not even a little.  Not even after Tucson- instead, that event just seems to have ratcheted it all up to another level.  I fear there will be another “isolated incident” in the near future and the response will be to take it up again.  It’s snowballing, and all it seems a sane person (not that I know any) can do is keep one’s head down, wait for the avalanche, and hope we can dig ourselves out of it afterwards.

It’s particularly harsh if one is already just beginning to recover from a depressive cycle.  The sense of hopelessness, despair even, that I’ve felt before I could pretty easily attribute to my brain chemistry.  This is different: it’s shared, it’s widespread, and it’s not an illusion.

I’m not sure how to feel about that, frankly.  On the one hand, great, it’s nice to know I’m not crazy to feel this way.  On the other hand, it’s a national crisis of despair and resignation to a dismal future.

I know everyone says they’ll just move to Canada if things get really bad (and I wonder how Canadians feel about that), but I’ve lately been researching their immigration laws, student visas, graduate programs at schools north of the border, etc.

Or maybe New Zealand- what would PioToR say to that?  Like Canada, they seem to have plenty of room and aren’t insane.

If I was younger, I’d head out and stay in one of the social democracies: preferably one with a warm climate.

Although their “conservative” governments have done their best to shred the safety net in England and Australia, too, it’s still damn better than what the elite have deigned to allow us here.

Hell, if I’d stayed in England in either of the two decades I was tempted, I’d have healthcare right this very moment, unemployment insurance when I needed it and be facing old age with a more secure pension situation.

Obama ran and won as a progressive, governed as a Republican, and then was surprised Democrats didn’t turn out to vote in the midterms.

Which, however, gives him leave to “compromise” with the crazy ass Republicans all the more. Can’t understand why he’s so depressed, he got what he wanted.

@RobW: My opinion of the boomers is that there was a faction of conservatives that cared only about themselves and oppressing others, a majority that didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other, and another faction that were trying to change the world for the better. Just like every generation before and after them. The percentages may shift, but that’s less to do with the generation than the culture they grew up in.

Now CLASS warfare, that’s a movement I can get behind. The people that had the money and power to create that culture and the ideas that drive it are always without exception the rich and their complicit or stupid puppets.

I wonder how many people on here that are GenXers had boomer parents that were liberals and raised them to think of people as being inherently human and deserving of dignity, and that’s the reason they’re willing to fight some of these battles so hard. If not parents, then writers, professors, or teachers, the question remains the same. Political views rarely spring fully formed from the aether. They have to have something to build on, and modern liberalism is built on the liberals from the generations before us.

As to moving to another country, I’m not sure how much good that would do. It seems a better idea to stay and fight, since the basic principle of modern conservatism is “I want it all, and if I can’t have it I’ll fucking well destroy it!” would ensure the world would go to hell in pretty short order. As depressing as that may be (And my god isn’t it though.) we’re slowing them down. I’m sure we’re making some gains and I’m just too irritated to notice them lately.

Sigh. Just to explain, when I made the remark about “waiting for people to die,” I was *making fun* of the idea that anyone would sit around waiting for such a thing. Not endorsing it. That’s what I mean when I say you don’t get the Gen X sense of humor.

Yet that still leads to your unsustainability problem, because very few people actively choose death.

Yes it does, but a lot of Boomers (especially wealthy and privileged ones) still believe in the seemingly endless resources and prosperity they’ve enjoyed throughout their lives. I can understand this to a point: they grew up in an anomalous period of national prosperity. But it’s 2011 now, the party’s been over for at least a few years, and yet the generational attitude of entitlement and unwarranted optimism often remains.

What does that mean?

Just what it says: Boomers are particularly reluctant to pass the torch, whether it’s in the workplace or in terms of political leadership. Does that match your 8th grade reading comprehension level a bit better, Dana?

Oh, and finally noticed Graccus’ comment describing the experience of being told by older hippie types that it was up to our generation to keep up the fight.

First, I wouldn’t call them hippie types—they were liberal yuppies in their early 30s by that point. And despite the presence of campaign volunteers from other generations (not only Xers, but also Silents and Greatests) the attitude of this fellow and others was that only a Boomer who lived through the 60s and early 70s could understand the nature of political stuggle.

So Gracchus had to listen to some greybeard call hir out as a punk way back in the day and has apparently never gotten over that slight.

Nah, I just found the attitude of that 35 year old “greybeard” illustrative. And one thing I’ll give that Boomer Yuppie, at least he was still working for a Dem instead of going over to Reagan like so many of his former comrades.

Ok, so you hate your parents or whatever.

As far as Xers are concerned, their parents are most often Silents. You have to work on your chronology here. Actually, I don’t see as much disdain for the Boomers from their Millenial children as I do from my fellow Xers.

I’ll say this about the boomers—they’re the first generation of parents to see physically beating the crap out of their kids as a form of abuse rather than a proper punishment.  As a Millennial, I’m thankful for that.

I’d give that “first” distinction to the Silents: what you describe is usually attributed to Dr. Spock, who was writing for the Silent cohort of parents. But yes, the Boomers followed up en masse.

And just wondering: how come I almost never see Gracchus’ comments in any thread that doesn’t include an opportunity for generational warfare?

Perhaps it’s because you don’t read this blog regularly, RobW. If you did, you’d be aware that I regularly make on-topic comments about in the many threads that have nothing to do with generational issues. Now such issues are of interest to me, so when they come up in a given post I am going to make an on-topic comment.

Nobody talks about the torch being passed except the people who want it or the people that have just taken it.  Anyone waiting for it to be passed are going to wait forever.  Its not easy even when you are trying.  So thats what the thread is about for me.

I think its easy to get a bit too into this generational stuff.  I was born in 1962, I think that makes me officially a Boomer but I always identified more with X’ers but more importantly maybe being not really in either makes me not identify too strongly, anyway, I think its a mistake.

And Gracchus said our healthcare would come “out of the hides” of a younger generation—then why is it that the Social Democracies with cradle-to-grave healthcare have booming economies (Australia, Canada and Germany, among them.)

See my comment #129, although judging by this comment I doubt you’ll read it any more carefully than you did the last time.

The social democracies you point to, by the way, are particularly prosperous. If you look at other ones in Europe subject to economic crisis, however, what you see are austerity measures targetted exclusively at the under 45 crowd—the same crowd that shows up for protests. Even in Greece and Ireland, not much austerity is being demanded of their equivalent of the Boomers and older, and the effects of that are already becoming evident. For example, Ireland is once again facing a mass exodus of young people.

Given the constraints of the U.S. situation (e.g. threadbare social safety net, reluctance of young people to seek their fortunes abroad) I can only imagine how bad the inter-generational antipathy will be when the music finally stops playing here.

Nobody talks about the torch being passed except the people who want it or the people that have just taken it.

Heh. No-one has talked about the torch being passed since JFK handed it over to the first wave of Boomers in 1961. Wonder why that is.

I was born in 1962, I think that makes me officially a Boomer but I always identified more with X’ers but more importantly maybe being not really in either makes me not identify too strongly

I wish more Boomers were like you. That attitude allowed Obama to make his margins in 2008—he’s a Boomer who downplayed his generational identification.

I take no particular pride in being an Xer. I don’t see a lot of Millenials who take pride in their own generational identification. Can’t say the same about the Boomers, though.

Heh. No-one has talked about the torch being passed since JFK handed it over to the first wave of Boomers in 1961. Wonder why that is.

That was another moment of boomer narcissism. JFK wasn’t talking about boomers. “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace…”. JFK was talking about his own generation, the WWII generation. He was the first WWII-generation president, a string of which would hold the presidency until the end of George HW Bush’s presidency, succeeded by Clinton, the first boomer president.

Gretchen wrote:

Remember, Reagan would be 100 this year - hardly a Boomer.  He was swept into office by folks his age who were threatened by all the changes the younger people were demanding - things like equalitiy for blacks and women.  My kids take those things so for granted they can’t imagine that it wasn’t always this way, that girls could hope to be anything boys could hope to be, for example.

Uhhh, he was swept into office by everybody, because his opponent, Jimmy Carter, was widely seen as a failure during his term.  We had unemployment just under 10%, interest rates near 20%, and the Ayatollah had been holding American diplomats hostage in our embassy in Tehran for a year.

That was another moment of boomer narcissism. JFK wasn’t talking about boomers.

Good point. I should have said “supposedly handed it over.”

Gracchus wrote:

Just what it says: Boomers are particularly reluctant to pass the torch, whether it’s in the workplace or in terms of political leadership. Does that match your 8th grade reading comprehension level a bit better, Dana?

So, what are you suggesting here, a mandatory retirement age, for the workplace and politicians alike?  Perhaps you’d like a maximum voting age as well.

Barack Obama won the presidency with the votes of the boomers, too, though certainly not this boomer; for the first time, I am older than our President; I expect that it will stay that way.  Come 2012, my guess is that I will be voting for a Presidential candidate younger than I am.  Last November, I voted for a Senate candidate eight years younger than I am, and a House candidate three years younger than I am.  Had I voted for their opponents, I’d have been voting for a Senate candidate two years older than I am, and a House candidate who was 73 years old.

What we actually have is a government of people primarily in their fifties and sixties.  These are normally the ages of the peak of someone’s career, which is, quite naturally, when you’d see people in the top offices.  While there are always a few long-serving careerists, fifties and sixties are the primary ages.

The baby boom started in 1946, after the end of World War II.  That puts the oldest of the boomers at 65 right now, just now hitting the traditional retirement age.  I don’t know how y’all can complain that the boomers haven’t retired when the oldest are just now 65.

felagund

- don’t bother.  We’ve learned that anyone outside the baby boomer generation is a horrible terrible brat who deserves to have shit they never said jammed in their mouths and that we should be ashamed of ourselves for things we didn’t say, even after it’s been clarified what was intended.  Respect your elders, regardless of how much disrespect they show you.

And, if this was supposed to inspire people out of their jaded “meh” moments . . . uh. . .. fail. . .

So, what are you suggesting here, a mandatory retirement age, for the workplace and politicians alike?  Perhaps you’d like a maximum voting age as well.

Dana, I’m tired of repeating myself. If you want to draw the conclusion that I’m for these these things and “death panels” to boot, you’re welcome to. It’s not like anyone here (even your temporary generational allies of convenience like judybrowni) takes you or your bad-faith arguments seriously.

Respect your elders, regardless of how much disrespect they show you.

Unless, of course, the elders are Silents or, worse, Greatests. You want to see inter-generational rancor in America, there’s no match for the hatred shown by Boomers to their parents’ generation (probably because they dared to accept the Greatest Generation classification even after witnessing the glory that is the Boomers).

What we actually have is a government of people primarily in their fifties and sixties.  These are normally the ages of the peak of someone’s career

This, by the way, is another excellent example of Boomer exceptionalism. Historically, this situation hasn’t been “normal” until very recently, thanks to improvements in health and medicine. Before the Boomers, careers peaked (you might want to look up the definition of this word in your Student’s Dictionary, Dana) in one’s 40s and early 50s.

Jimmy Carter, was widely seen as a failure during his term.  We had unemployment just under 10%

The bureau of labor statistics tells me that unemployment in 1980 was 7.1%. It 1981, things were relatively steady at 7.6%. The Volker years to crack down on inflation spiked the unemployment rate to 10% in 1982 and 1983.

“The bureau of labor statistics tells me that unemployment in 1980 was 7.1%. It 1981, things were relatively steady at 7.6%. The Volker years to crack down on inflation spiked the unemployment rate to 10% in 1982 and 1983.”

...it’s not about truth and facts and logic, it’s about how great Dana and his ilk felt when Ronnie Reagan was sworn in and then the Iranians honored their secret agreement with Ronnie’s political operatives and released the American Embassy hostages. 

They never remember Reagan tripling the National Debt, they never remember Reagan cuttin’ and runnin’ after the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, never remember the secret deals they made with Iran to sell them arms and repair parts for military equipment in order to get money to spend supporting a guerilla war in El Salvador, in order to circumvent Congress, or how asinine the Big Invasion of Granada to Reclaim Our Military Testicles was, etc.

No, all they “remember” are bogus memes about how terrible Jimmy Carter was…

Or maybe New Zealand- what would PioToR say to that?  Like Canada, they seem to have plenty of room and aren’t insane.

I’m petitioning to have a law passed.  We’ll accept American immigrants fleeing the collapse if they otherwise meet our criteria ONLY IF the following conditions are met:

- They never get the vote
- They never contribute to any political party or try to influence an election
- The moment they open their big mouths and talk about “freedom”, “liberty”, “First/Second Amendment Rights” or “tax and spend”, they get shipped right back off to Jesusland.

That’s pretty funny, PiATOR. Now do Mexicans!

I do love, though, who foreign Collapsitarians assume that having the largest economy, the largest importer in the world, which patrols the world’s oceans to enable transoceanic trade go belly up would somehow leave them completely unscathed!

I love how you can make a joke about not wanting to share in the insanity of hubris and fantasy, and someone will come along to prove your point.

@MikeEss: I’m not a boomer, but the main thing I remember Reagan for was raising taxes on the poor while simultaneously lowering them for the rich. While claiming he was helping all Americans, of course.

“Jews can move to the US as long as they don’t try to get involved in financial services or open their big mouths about Israel! LOL!”

“That’s kind of a fucked up thing to say.”

“Hey, it was just a joke!”.

Lame.

“Jews can move to the US as long as they don’t try to get involved in financial services or open their big mouths about Israel! LOL!”

If Jewish teachings on finance had specifically led to the collapse of a massive financial system, you might have another opinion.

And if you wanna compare one person’s opinion on the idea of members of a wealthier and more powerful nation moving to his nation to the historical suffering of the Jews - go right ahead.

You have a choice
- either there’s no collapse, which means that there’s no immigrants fleeing it, and my comment is pointless, OR
- there is a collapse, which suggests that maybe the amount of bullshit that regularly gets hauled out and has the Stars and Stripes painted on it may not be desired as an import to other countries.

I think prejudice based on national origin is nasty and low no matter who it’s directed at. I don’t make fun of Chinese people because of what happens in Tibet, or Jews because of what goes on in the Palestinian Territories, or the French because of their institutional racism against North African immigrants, or Indians because of the caste system.

If there was a collapse it would be pointless to emigrate, because the rest of the world would be just as bad off or worse. I’m guessing an island nation dependent on exports of agriculture and commodities would be worse off.

I’m an x-er, my spouse a boomer.  We are six months apart in age, but our parents were 20+years apart.  His parents were the end of the Silent/begining GG (mid and late ‘20s)  while mine were the start of the Boomers (‘45).  It makes for some very big disconnects in our experiences.

Helen, can you clarify?  if you’re 6 months apart in age you’re not different generations. A little more information, if you don’t mind of course.

I think prejudice based on national origin is nasty and low no matter who it’s directed at.

[Raises an eyebrow]

My best friend at work is American.  Hell, my best friend is Australian.

The prejudice is directed at certain American ideas and their effects on the body politic.  I like living in a (relatively) sane country - I don’t want it to be hijacked by nonsense about bribery of politicians being free speech, about guns being fetishes for freedom, about government being the enemy, or about “freedom” and “liberty” being excuses for imperialism.  We have our own political nonsense to deal with (*cough**cough*muldoon*COUGH*), thank you.

In a discussion over nationalist prejudice, we get this as a defense:

My best friend at work is American.

Res ipsa loquitur. I think we’re done here.

It ain’t dismissable as a defense if it’s true - his name is Stephen, and he has a wicked appreciation of good schlock movies.

Are you really so intellectually constipated that you can’t distinguish between antipathy for ideas and antipathy for persons?

Gracchus, ether quit defining the worth of people by the year they were born, and quit insisting on bullshit media-invented labels applying to entire populations or just admit you’re a fucking bigot.  You really need chronology explained?  Ok, my folks were born in 1945 and ‘48.  Early boomers, right?  I was born in ‘67.  Early GenX, right?  And these labels have exactly fuck-all to do with anything.

If my folks had been born 4 years earlier, that’d make them Silents, yes?  Would they then no longer be subject to your constant debasement?  Would they then be judged as themselves according to their deeds and not as faceless members of a demographic cohort on whom the state of the world can be blamed?  Neither of them ever voted Republican.  Both despised Reagan and all he stood for.  Just like a whole bunch of others around their age did.  Or didn’t.  Or did something else.  “The Boomers” just don’t exist as anything other than a construct of limited utility to sociologists that sensationalist media promoted far and wide because they make money by generating controversy and because it is useful to have liberals bashing each other over bullshit.

Why am I so pissed?  Because, besides the blatant bigotry and counterproductive infighting, you’re basically talking shit about my mom and dad without a clue who they are or what they’re about.  Why shouldn’t I be pissed?

And your clarification of the incident that so pissed you off changes nothing.  Somebody pissed you off 30 years ago and you’ve been pissed at everybody within a range of their age ever since, that’s what it looks like.  An illustrative example, my ass.  I could just as easily point to those black dudes who robbed me in ‘86 as illustrative of the criminal and violent nature of black people.  I don’t, because to do so would be wrong, as in, both stupid and evil.

I do read this blog regularly, but haven’t commented much here in a while.  It’s not a daily read anymore for me.  I pretty much always skip the music threads because my tolerance for IMSery is only slightly greater than my tolerance for bigotry.  And I read the comment threads on maybe 2/3 of the posts I do read and not always the whole thread.  So, yeah, it’s possible I’ve missed your comments, or not noticed, your comments on other topics.  But Gracchus, every time somebody even mentions the words “generation” or “boomer” you seem to make it a point to derail the thread into boomer bashing.  If there is a boomer-bash going on, it’s invariably one you start and refuse to let go of.  And for no fucking reason- it’s irrelevant to the post, for one.  And a totally imaginary distinction- the most important fucking point which you fucking refuse to fucking get.

It’s a granfalloon, a classic example of one.

Besides the bigotry, it’s a complete derail, and that’s just rude.  Get over it, already, you’ve made your point.  Repeatedly.  That you’ve convinced nobody ought to tell you something.

Pass the torch economically?  It’s been pointed out over and over and over that people don’t fucking keep working shitty jobs because they’re trying to hog all your wealth- they don’t retire because they can’t.  Because of class warfare.  From which generational warfare is a stupid and false distraction which serves only the class that’s winning. 

Pass the torch politically?  That makes no sense at all: should they not be active?  If so, boomer bashing calls them quitters.  If they stay active, they’re what, taking your rightful place in the local party’s pecking order?  I just don’t get your point because you don’t have a point to make.  I’m 43.  The Democratic Party- not the voters, I mean the activists, precinct chairs and the like- in my town is dominated by no single age group, really.  There’s retirees and college undergrads.  If anything there’s a few more retirees, but this is a retirement-heavy city.  And current retirees aren’t boomers, now, are they? Most of the elected office holders are around my age, within about a decade or so.  I’m older than my state rep, my state senator, and my governor.  I’m within a few years of most of my city council.  My mayor’s a boomer.  Only one of my state’s congressvarmints isn’t a boomer- and he’s an asshole Republican.  Most of our delegatation to the US Congress are people in their 50s and 60s; when in US fucking History has that not been the case?

It is an evil and stupid lie to apply Generational Labels in the context of politics as if they’re at all meaningful or predictive precisely because it causes allies to fight over bullshit.  Again, if you think this bullshit matters, you have been fooled.  You are doing the ruling class’s work.  Congrats.

Christ, what an asshole you are.

I’m moving on.  Gracchus can, and no doubt will, have more to say, and I don’t give a shit.  If it’s about boomers, I’m not even reading anymore, whoever writes it.  It’s beneath me to continue engaging with bigots whose minds can’t be changed.

PioToR:  Your terms are acceptable.  Now, how’s the food?

Ben D. :  I get where you’re coming from, and I agree.  It was kind of a rude thing to say, if one chooses to see it as such.  Or you could choose to look at the context and treat it as a good-natured jibe, friends teasing each other.  See how I’m not getting too bent about it?  I just don’t see a little bit of a dig like that as really all that offensive- not least because the restrictions he described would actually be reasonable in the event of a wave of American refugees that might even outnumber native New Zealanders. 

If you really want to get into it, one could, I suppose, point out the relative power imbalance between the US and NZ as nations.  The “weak” (no offence, kiwis) mocking the “strong” (and we as a nation do like to throw our weight around, don’t we?) is not offensive. 

Your counterexample of the Jews doesn’t really scan: there’s a long bloody history of persecution there the likes of which “Americans” as a group have never experienced despite our own persecution of minorities within our nation.  But yeah, the “My best friend is a _” defense is kind of lame.

If anything, you’d probably have a better case against my own use of the term “Irish Alzheimers.”  The joke there was self-deprecating, acknowleging the unfair grudge I’d held against BrianX and referencing my own ancestry.  Of course I should have considered that most readers wouldn’t know that.  I meant no offense.  However, I do see that it is offensive and I apologize for using it.

Anyway, PioToR’s a good sport, often insightful, usually funny, rarely offensive.  You know that; you’re not new here.  Though I can see how it can be read as offensive, I took no offense because it didn’t offend me and if it had, fuck it.  Life’s too short. 

There’s a huge difference between what Gracchus is doing and PioToR’s throwaway jibe: G. has a long history here of leaping on any opportunity to turn any thread into a hate fest against a generation.  S/he seems to honestly despise Boomers and is trying to convince everyone else why we should too.  Fuck that, life’s too short. 

P’s comment was a joking response to a joke, tossed off without much thought, perhaps offensive to some but not to me, and clearly not indicating an actual hatred for Americans.  The entire exchange is a joke: I don’t actually plan to move to NZ and NZ is not actually expecting a huge influx of US ‘fugees.  Anyway, you can blame me as well as him: I set him up for it, gave him the straight line and he delivered a punch line that was within the bounds of what I expected.  We were playing around with each other.  I guess that makes me, what, a self-loathing Yank?  Fine, that’s me.  Fuck it.  Life’s too short.

There’s a small chance the joke won’t be funny at all if reality turns and bites us in the ass, the US collapses into war, poverty and chaos, and NZ in fact does experience a massive influx of tens of millions of American refugees, I’d say they’d be in the right to put limits on our activities there, we’d likely outnumber them if that many of us tried to move there.  Barring restrictions on those who obtain actual NZ citizenship, of course.  A naturalized NZ citizen is, by definition, no longer an American but a New Zealander.  And would necessarily have the same God-given rights and freedom under their Constitution as any other New Zea…  Doh! 

(Dammit, broke the rules already.  Oh well, Canada’s closer anyway.)

At any rate, I’d just as soon not get into it further.  Too much potential for more divisiveness, too much a distraction from the topic, which I took to be the general sense of hopelessness in America.  We’ve not had enough of that yet?

I can tell all of you that this thread hasn’t exactly done much to improve my outlook for America’s political future.  We can’t even talk about the despair we’re all feeling without A) bashing our own allies who happen to be of a certain age or B) picking fights with allies overseas. 

Clearly, the stereotype of Americans as knee-jerk dogmatic jingoists who are quick to aggression is utterly unfounded.

This thread’s too depressing.  Let’s see what else is up here… Oh, ok.  An asshole anti-environmentalist in NM government, that’s promising.

PioToR:  Your terms are acceptable.  Now, how’s the food?

Excellent.  We use Marmite on everything, including icecream.

Ross, I was born in 1965 and so am one of the oldest x-ers.  My spouse was born in 1964 and so one of the youngest boomers.  The difference in our ages had less impact in our experience, since it is about half a year, than did the fact his parents were 20 years older than mine.  Our daughter was born in 1983 making her one of the youngers x-ers, supposedly the same generation as I am. 
The idea of “generations” based wholy on date is stupid; especially as most people reproduce over spans of time, not points unless they have a single child, and begin to do so at vastily divergent points in their lives.

Excellent.  We use Marmite on everything, including icecream.

Oo, gross.  Sorry, just ick.  And I like red bean and green tea ice flavors of ice cream.  You just DON’T joke like that about ruining perfectly good ice cream.

That’s right, Helen - of course I’m only joking...

quiche, okay, but Marmite Snickers ice cream - not just ruining ice cream, but chocolate as well.  Truly sick.