A Few Words in Defense of Baby Boomers

brianlux

Because I started a thread that pretty much morphed into a bash on Baby Boomers, I feel a bit of an obligation to say a few words in defense of my generation. I get it that younger generations have issues with us boomers. In fact, I was the first person on that thread to disparage my own generation.

But as much as it might appear so, not all was a bed of roses in those days. First and foremost, if you were black, brown, yellow or particularly if you were red, it was not such an easy time. Link Wray wrote a great song called "Ice People" and part of the lyric goes like this:

"The red man lives and dies on the reservation
And the black man just lives anywhere he can
And the poor white man he doesn't live anywhere at all,
He can't say I'm red I'm black I'm red I'm yellow, I'm tanned."

And then there was Viet Nam. The armed forces had a lottery system and as your number got closer to being called, the more you worried about going into a pointless war and coming home in a pine box. The anxiety that wait produced was overwhelming. And a lot of guys did come home in pine boxes and pretty much everybody in my generation had a class mate who died in Nam. And the ones who made it back more often than not were physically and mentally scarred for life. I know two guys who are like that right here in my small town. Every helicopter that passes over their heads today is a death sentence.

And what about the things we gave to younger generations? Are you enjoying that weekend high on you legal or at least barely illegal weed? I went home to see my folks for a weekend back in 1969 and when I got back to the dorm I was living in the place had been raided and a bunch of people were busted, even a few just for having seeds. I was damn lucky. And some of the people who had quantity were sent up to do hard time in a federal penitentiary for many years. Anyway, I hope you're enjoying that low-risk, high quality doobie.

And of course there's that minor matter of music. I'm pretty sure all that 60's music had something to do with a certain band with the initials "PJ" coming into existence. Of course, if you really hate the boomer generation you're probably not a fan of that kind of music so if you'd like, I'd be happy to find something to do with your mom and dads old Beatles, Stones, Who, Hendrix, Doors, etc. records. You're welcome- don't mention it!

OK, enough with the sarcasm (thank you Stone for helping me understand that about your generation!) Yes, we could have done a lot better. Yes, many of us are selfish and have given up on "the dream". But some of us are still in trenches of one sort or another working to make a better world and I think your world has gained at least a few good things from us.

Thanks for listening.

Oh yes, and "peace, and love" and rock on, of course!

Brian

PJfanwillneverleave1

Pine box has traction in your defense.
Colour back then and the attitudes towards it still resides in America deeply. (sad)
At the end of the day soldiers were lost hoping to provide a life that others may speak of.

eddiec

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

At the end of the day soldiers were lost hoping to provide a life that others may speak of.

What does this mean? Am I reading it correctly that the soldiers fighting in Vietnam believed they were there to liberate a people?

brianlux

I was thinking earlier how indigenous peoples tend to see the generations as a continuous flow rather than segmented, packaged and labeled the way we westerners and Europeans see them. We may have to fly lower to the ground to get there again and realize the steady flow that is our varying ages.

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

Pine box has traction in your defense.
Colour back then and the attitudes towards it still resides in America deeply. (sad)
At the end of the day soldiers were lost hoping to provide a life that others may speak of.

Very few of the guys that came back from Nam believed they had been sent there for any justifiable reason. One of the two guys I spoke of above said he went over there all gung ho to serve his country and came back realizing the whole mess was a fiasco and had nothing to do with serving his country. This was and is a typical response. A lot of lives were wasted over there... on all sides.

ldent42

The only thing I'm going to have to disagree with here is the legal weed. It's only legal in like two states. Meanwhile there's still a ton of people (usually people of color) who are/were locked up for absurdly long sentences for carrying some herb on them. I worked with a girl who's man got locked up for 3 years for carrying $50 worth of weed going back to his building, but because his building is adjacent to a high school, he gets hit with intent to distribute. This was about 2007ish so figure he got busted around 2004.

Another point, as I pointed out in the other thread, I don't like the idea of blaming the Boomers for everything. There's MORE than enough blame to go around and Gen x & y share a good portion of it too, if for no other reason than not doing more to fight these perceived injustices.

The main thing though is I think we forget that a lot about Vietnam. From what I've heard, not only were they drafted into service for a real clusterfuck of a situation, but those who did return home were NOT by any means granted a hero's welcome (the way you see today and the way you saw after WW2) I can't confirm this but I seem to recall hearing that the Knights of Columbus and the VFWs basically wanted nothing to do with the guys come home from Nam. Today we provide resources and support (albeit certainly not as much as we should) both institutional and organizational, and oh yea, that little thing called 'the draft' has all but gone up in a puff of smoke. To me, THAT is probably the biggest thing that the baby boomers have done. Have you seen these Nam vets at the VA? They chill there for no other purpose than to help out the new guys navigating the system. To be supportive. To be a friend to those who they KNOW need it. To be the person they didn't have helping them out when they came home. Fuck me I'm getting all weepy.

Certainly the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even into the 80s in a lesser degree were no fun time to be a person of color, a female, a homosexual, a transgender - okay it might be easier to just phrase this as "anything other than a straight, white, cisgender male". But look at where we are now. I think marriage equality might have been a better example than the weed, B-lux. Integrated classrooms, even if (at least here) socioeconomic inequalities still keep schools racially segregated, at least it's not fully the way it was. And this of course spills over to the gender bias in STEM fields but we have programs specifically designed to combat that. Girls who code, the robot wars girls' team, etc.

Economically I think there is justification for the shit the Boomers get. It may not be all their fault but I mean they've at the very least shone a light on the huge blind spot in the social safety net - the issue with having the previous generation's dollars paying for the next generations benefits when there is a huge population boom. I've searched as thoroughly as I could think to and I still can't find the thing I read about this but I've found there two interesting articles.

The LA times from '92 predicting what basically has happened/is happening also happens to support my "there's just more of them" stance about Boomers http://articles.latimes.com/1992-01-04/news/mn-1265_1_older-baby-boomers

Here's some math https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/04/08/the-changing-social-safety-net-in-charts/
Ok by math I mean charts depicting how social spending has changed over time.

I talk too much.

brianlux

Great post,, what I can read of it, Ident. (I'm in Oregon on my old man's OOOOLD computer. Talk about generation gap! Not even sure if this message will post!!

Catch ya'll late in a few days.

PJ_Soul

FWIW, since you mentioned what it was like for non-whites Brian, I only ever thought white baby boomers were doing the kind of damage the generation is accused of, since they were the ones who chose and ran government, had all the money and made all the decisions.... and perpetuated all the difficulties you mentioned for non-white people.

brianlux

PJ_Soul said:

FWIW, since you mentioned what it was like for non-whites Brian, I only ever thought white baby boomers were doing the kind of damage the generation is accused of, since they were the ones who chose and ran government, had all the money and made all the decisions.... and perpetuated all the difficulties you mentioned for non-white people.

Oh for sure, PJ_Soul. I do think many whites boomers were sincere in their idealism at the time but so many let a lot of there motivation wane as it got time to have babies and a mortgage.

At the same time, I am very desirous of pointing out there were and are "warriors" of all colors who worked and continue to work for progressive causes, equitable and fair opportunity for all races and national origins, the advancement of pro-education/critical thinking, and the urgent need for environmental awareness and responsibility. The leaders of these movements have had a great impact and have often provided ideas or inspiration for those who follow in their footsteps and continue working toward those goals and are becoming themselves new activist champions. I see that happening today and am encouraged. And I'm continually more aware of how unproductive is the "luxury of pessimism".