2016: The National "Cry For Help"

[Bob Butler 54]

Quote:

Quote:Some of my Millie coworkers have complained about Boomers, and shared memes like this:

One of the best summations of what the Boomers did that I have ever seen.

Hmm.  There's no small amount of truth in the above.  However...

The deficits came with Voodoo Economics.  This boomer never voted for that (expletive deleted.)  Not all boomers are alike in all things.

I never had kids.

My first salary out of college was higher than that.

I got my dream job with the help of my colleges' find-a-job department.

I did move back in with my parents for a decade or so.

Why wake up?  Well, yes, it would be nice if the country as a whole graduated beyond voodoo economics.

I do feel that in some ways the GI's saw the peak of the time when America was Great, not the Boomers.  My father got a full time job with New England Telephone shortly after returning from World War II.  He retired out the phone company decades later.  There was a loyalty, a two way street, back in the day.  As he took stock options whenever the company offered them, he retired a millionaire though his education ended at high school and he never go promoted past mid management.  In the 1960s he bought a second home, a summer home, lakefront property.  I'm currently typing this note in that home, which I inherited a few years back.  My lake is surrounded by 1960s era second homes, many of which were built by the GI home owners, who were good with tools.  Many of these properties are now winterized, but in the 1960s lots of folks could afford second homes just so their kids could water ski.  

Not to say I would wish to have been born in my father's time.  His free tour of Italy provided by the government in 1944 to 1946 didn't sound like a lot of fun.  I was just old enough to avoid Vietnam.  I'd say my timing was good enough to be very pleased with.

I'm also pleased with the Awakening changes.  The anti war, race equality (sorta), gender equality (sorta) and ecological awareness (sorta) were worthy changes to the culture.  The timing of my life allowed me to live in a culture better in many ways.  

But the work ethic, the willingness go pay taxes to get great things done, were the hallmark of the GIs.  The Boomers participated in the end of it, but it fell apart with the National Malaise that Carter spoke of.  Tax and spend liberalism turned into borrow and spend trickle down.  The willingness to work hard, get taxed hard, and pay for an improving society ended.  Some Boomers voted for this change, some voted against.

I think Reagan had his fingers on the pulse of the country.  I don't think the economic aspects of the unravelling could have been avoided.  Tax and spend had been going on for too long.  Too many sacrifices had been made to sustain it.  Even the GIs ran out of gas.  Unravellings are supposed to be times of selfishness, when people become less willing to sacrifice for the common good, become ready for tax cuts and selfish indulgence.  Well, when a country drops a work ethic dedicated to the common good to favor selfish indulgence, what does one expect to happen in the long run?

And, yes, I've done my share of the unravelling selfish indulgence.  So have a lot of Xers and Millenials.  I see the unraveling values shift as effecting all generations.  The Boomers just had the advantage of more years in the work force before work ethic collapsed.  Yes, I appreciate that, but I didn't chose the year I was born.

How does America become Great Again?  A return to hard work and a willingness to apply the results to the common good would be one plausible answer.  That died with the arrival of the unravelling.  Crises are supposed to be a time when everyone has to come together to confront grave problems.  Thus far, I'm not really seeing that supposed-to-be cyclical shift.  Too many people think a return to greatness just requires wishful thinking and voting for empty promises.  We've got problems.  At some point we've got to resolve to fix them.