Before you melt down in shame, Bob. ask yourself one question: "What
caused the Boomers to become what they are?"
The author said: "Boomers weren't genetically predestined to be
dysfunctional; they were conditioned to be."
He then took a wrong turn and began heaping the blame onto the
Boomers. But he was right to say that the dis functional condition
was...well, conditioned.
So does he really believe that the Boomers set out to become dis
functional all by themselves? Or could it be that they were "herded"
along the road to dis functionality. The author writes as if all
boomers are affected by this condition. Hold on! What about those
Boomers born within the Ruling Class...the 1%ers?
When we step back and start from a position that we have always had an
Oligarchy, and that most of us are not now, nor were we ever members
of that elite body, then we can speculate as to who is behind this
conditioning. But blaming the victim is not going to gain us
anything. Nor is blaming "government", or even the Republican or
Democratic Parties. Who are we supporting in a life style that we,
ourselves will never enjoy? Who do we defend when we send drones off
around the globe, killing...murdering people who we've never met, and
who have no idea why they are being murdered. Is it "us" we are
making safe? Or is it the interests of the Oligarchy that is the
recipient of our sacrifices...the blood of our sons and daughters and
fathers and mothers who are pressed into "the Service of their
Country"?
No Bob, don't blame your generation for that which has been forced
upon you. The Boomers are the victims. But they do not need to
remain under the conditioning of the Oligarchy. Once they begin to
wake up and realize that they have been led down this road by the Pied
Pipers of the Ruling Class, they will begin to stir and to rise up.
But just a word of warning, drones that can be sent across the oceans
can also be pointed at the Homeland.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/8/17, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The sad answer to my question in the subject line is a shameful yes. IMHO,
> this article accurately describes how baby boomers, Democrats and
> Republicans alike, have driven America into the ground. When I first began
> reading this thing, I was hoping that I could come up with good arguments
> against this author's well-reasoned points but I cannot. I look forward to
> his book which I intend to read. (see end of article.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> How the baby boomers destroyed everything
>
>
>
> By Bruce Cannon GibneyFebruary 26, 2017
>
>
>
> Even before the election, Americans were asking just how we got here - to
> this sullen moment of national reckoning. Since November, the autopsy has
> dragged
>
> on so long it seems there could be nothing left to dissect. But the search
> continues, because no truly satisfying answer has yet been offered.
> Deplorables,
>
> deportables, economic malaise, rural resentment, coastal hauteur whatever -
> these are just symptoms. The root illness remains undiagnosed, but here it
>
> is: the baby boomers, that vast generation of Americans born in the first
> two decades after World War II. The body politic rests on the slab because
> boomers
>
> put it there, because decades of boomerism produced the problems and
> disaffection of which 2016 was merely the latest expression.
>
>
>
> It's a shocking hypothesis, but then again, America has suffered a shocking
> decline. In 1971, Alan Shepard was playing golf on the moon. Today, America
>
> can't put a man into orbit (or, allegedly,
>
> the Oval Office)
>
> without Russian assistance. Something changed, and that something was the
> boomers and the sociopathic agenda they emplaced.
>
>
>
> My indictment of boomers may seem overbroad, but the thesis is quite
> specific: the unusual prevalence of sociopathy in an unusually large
> generation. How
>
> does that disorder manifest? Improvidence is reflected in low levels of
>
> savings
>
> and high levels of
>
> bankruptcy.
>
> Deceit shows up as a distaste for facts, a subject on display in everything
> from Enron's quarterly reports to daily press briefings. Interpersonal
> failures
>
> and unbridled hostility appeared in unusually high levels of divorce and
> crime from the 1970s to early 1990s. These problems expressed themselves at
> generationally
>
> unique levels in boomers, to a greater extent than in boomers' parents or
> children at comparable ages. (My forthcoming book lays out all these data
> in
>
> detail.)
>
>
>
> Boomers weren't genetically predestined to be dysfunctional; they were
> conditioned to be. They were the first generation to be raised
> permissively,
> the
>
> first reared on television and subject to its developmental harms, and the
> only living group raised in an era of seemingly effortless prosperity. Can
> too
>
> much license, TV, and unearned wealth distort personalities? May I suggest
> looking south toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
>
>
>
> The boomers' sociopathic inclinations might be of sociological, but not
> political, interest except for one fact: Boomers have a lot of voting
> power.
> Although
>
> boomers
>
> peaked at just over half the voting age population in the early 1980s,
>
> their influence kept growing as they voted more frequently, unleashed a
> flood of political money, and elected co-generationalists, all in reckless
> pursuit
>
> of the sociopathic agenda. In the 1970s, the older establishment had
> already
> begun bending to boomer power, though not always cravenly enough, a problem
>
> boomers resolved by becoming the establishment itself. Boomers' notable
> early achievement was electing Bill Clinton, who began the long saga that
> meandered
>
> through Bush II and ends - well, who knows how exactly it will end?
>
>
>
> What happened in the White House happened everywhere else. By 1994, boomers
> held a majority of House seats, a proportion that peaked at 79 percent in
> 2008
>
> and remains a still formidable 69 percent. The rest of government went the
> same way: Boomers make up 86 percent of governors, about three-quarters of
> the
>
> proposed Cabinet, and much of the judiciary and bureaucracy. Except for
> youthful Silicon Valley, the private sector also fell into boomer hands
> decades
>
> ago and remains there.
>
>
>
> In Pa., boomers see the American Dream slipping away
>
>
>
> Many from Butler High School's class of 1976 are now weary, worn, or
> furious. For some, those feelings are driving their votes.
>
>
>
> Baby boomers and their parents' friends
>
>
>
> By the late 1990s, as boomerism really expressed itself, disasters arrived:
> financial scandals, economic infirmities, mounting debt, unaddressed
> climate
>
> change, a growing entitlements crisis, and more. Since it was politically
> untenable to locate blame in obvious places, other explanations were
> manufactured
>
> for the nation's woes. (Immigrants!) Especially on the coasts, other
> explanations have been long suspected, such as the predations of a swollen
> GOP. Not
>
> implausible, but then you have to ask where the swelling comes from, and
> that circles back to boomers who, despite their hippie reputation, are net
> Republican.
>
>
>
> Anyway, the boomers' retrograde preferences mattered more than nominal
> political affiliation, pushing even modern Democrats to the
>
> right of Richard Nixon
>
> on many matters. After all, it wasn't Nixon, or even Ronald Reagan, who
> planted so many of the noxious seeds that blossom now; it was Clinton, the
> ur-boomer
>
> progressive. The "end of welfare as we know it"?
>
> Clinton.
>
> Berserk policies on crime, immigration, gays, deregulation, and
> surveillance
> that bloated into today's prison state, travel bans, transgender showdowns,
>
> and financial crises? Clinton again. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
> Penalty Act,
>
> Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act,
>
> Defense of Marriage Act,
>
> repeal of
>
> Glass-Steagall,
>
> etc.? Clinton provided the themes; Bush II and Donald Trump, the
> variations;
> and other boomers, the orchestra and applause.
>
>
>
> Barack Obama has been conspicuously absent, because my argument is as much
> cultural as chronological. While birth makes Obama a late boomer, his
> upbringing
>
> left him distant - geographically and socially - from the boomer
> mainstream.
> Not coincidentally, No Drama Obama was the most sober thing about American
>
> politics in 25 years. But he was limited to moderating inherited
> catastrophes - and prevented from pursuing policies that might benefit
> people of lesser
>
> means, whiteness, and age than the boomers he faced in Congress.
>
>
>
> Surely, by 2016, it was time for a thorough reconsideration of the dogmas
> that caused so much harm, but the last election hardly featured real policy
> discussion.
>
> So what if Social Security faces partial insolvency after
>
> 2034,
>
> or that climate change has scientists and generals fretting for the world
> circa 2040? By then, the median boomer will be dead. The only germane issue
> for
>
> the aging, unempathetic sociopath was blocking reform of senior
> entitlements. Youths like Paul Ryan, with his irksome calculations and
> future focus, couldn't
>
> be trusted on this issue. But boomers Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,
> whatever their other infirmities, pledged
>
> loyalty
>
> on this crucial item.
>
>
>
> I don't imply that Clinton and Trump were otherwise equivalent. They
> weren't. Nor do I assert that all of their co-generationalists are
> sociopaths. They
>
> aren't. But I don't shrink from arguing that an unusually large fraction of
> boomers behaves sociopathically, with the power to realize their agenda.
> The
>
> Koch brothers can't carry all the blame: The 1 percent is, by definition,
> just 1 percent, unable to dictate national policy on its own. A giant
> generation
>
> of boomers can and does, and their overriding imperative is to consume at
> someone else's expense. To say they succeeded is to understate.
>
>
>
> The simplicity of the boomer agenda amplified the considerable power of
> boomer votes, while clarifying otherwise complex issues, especially of
> benefits
>
> and taxes. Benefits, at least for the boomer middle class, were to be
> expanded - period. Taxes, for the same group, would be cut or reallocated.
> This dynamic
>
> illuminates otherwise inexplicable deviations from orthodoxy practiced by a
> machine supposedly seized by ideological gridlock. It explains why Reagan
> lowered
>
> taxes on income while raising them on capital gains (when boomers had
> salaries but not portfolios), why Bill Clinton lowered taxes on houses and
> stocks
>
> (when boomers owned those in quantity), and why Bush II cut taxes with
> unseemly attention lavished on the "death tax" (just as the boomers'
> parents
> neared
>
> expiration) while embracing
>
> the largest expansion in welfare since the 1960s
>
> (Medicare Part D, in time to benefit aging boomers). The machine works, at
> least from the boomer perspective.
>
>
>
> All these giveaways had consequences. The rich got richer, as we know, but
> the rich are old. That is, they're boomers. The patterns of general boomer
> gains
>
> mirrored those of the very wealthy. From 1989 to 2013, wealth gaps between
> older and younger households grew in the same way as those between the top
> 5
>
> percent and the bottom 95 percent. Today's seniors (boomers) are much
> wealthier relative to the present young than the seniors of the 1980s were
> to then-young
>
> boomers. All those tax breaks, bailouts, easy money, deregulation, and the
> bubbles they spawned supported that boomer wealth accumulation while
> shifting
>
> the true costs to the future, to the young.
>
>
>
> Still, no amount of tax reallocation could keep the government together and
> goodies flowing, so boomers tolerated astounding debt expansion while
> chopping
>
> other parts of the budget. Gross national debt,
>
> 35 percent of GDP
>
> when the boomers came of age, is now
>
> 105 percent,
>
> a peacetime record expanding 3 percent annually, forever. But this
> understates the problem, because not only does the family farm have a giant
> mortgage,
>
> it also desperately needs repair and modernization.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, boomers show no appetite for maintaining the assets their
> parents accumulated. Public higher education, nearly free for boomers, has
> become
>
> dauntingly expensive. Infrastructure is neither built nor maintained, and
> not even "responsible" boomers take this seriously. It was then-candidates
> John
>
> McCain and Hillary Clinton, those paragons of boomer probity, who proposed
> a
>
>
> gas-tax holiday
>
> in 2008, the
>
> year the Highway Trust Fund went bust.
>
> Federal
>
> research and development funding
>
> also suffered, with dispiriting consequences for the future. Smartphones
> may
> be fairly recent, but their core technologies were developed with
> government
>
> money long ago. Enjoy your iPhone now, because your iCopter and iKidney
> will
> be indefinitely delayed.
>
>
>
> The consequences of boomer overconsumption, underinvestment, and appetite
> for risk reveal themselves every time a bridge or bank collapses, but can
> be
>
> summarized in America's prolonged economic mediocrity. Finding decent
> growth
> requires stretching all the way back to the 1990s, and even so, the 1990s
>
> barely edged out 1970s' squalor on a per capita GDP basis. Thanks to boomer
> policies, the new normal is 1.6 percent real growth, well below the 2.5 to
>
> 3.5 percent rates prevailing from the 1950s to the 1980s. For the young,
> the
> price will be incomes 30 percent to 50 percent lower than they could have
>
> been.
>
>
>
> When problems grow large, boomers resort to deceit, and the huge
> degradation
> of truth suggests just how bad things have gotten. Whether it be
> misrepresentations
>
> by Worldcom, Lehman Brothers, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, or General
> Michael Flynn, boomer culture has wallowed in duplicity for decades.
> Untruths are
>
> emitted, others bear the consequences, and this has been the case for
> decades. The dubious draft deferments of the 1960s became the
> off-balance-sheet obligations
>
> of the 1990s, ginned-up weapons of mass destruction of the 2000s, and
> today's phantom terrorism in Bowling Green and Sweden. "Alternative facts"
> are just
>
> the most recent consequences of the boomers' declaration of epistemic
> bankruptcy.
>
>
>
> If Trump has given America one gift, it's a free hand to condemn the
> generation of which he is the impeachable id. Henceforth, let us expect no
> more from
>
> people who achieved so little, who have such small interest in the future.
> Let us dispense with ideas that aging flower children have substantial
> claims
>
> on goodness, as boomers liberal and conservative alike engaged in
> warrantless wiretapping, extrajudicial assassinations, gratuitous assaults
> on the dignity
>
> of minorities, mass disenfranchisement, the erection of a vast and useless
> penal state, and policies of cavalier disregard. Let us turn boomers out
> from
>
> offices high, corner, and otherwise, and keenly assess boomers'
> contributions to society against their demands for interminable subsidy,
> finding some reasonable
>
> settlement. And let us do it soon.
>
>
>
> Bruce Cannon Gibney is a venture capitalist and writer and the author of
> the
> forthcoming book "
>
> A Generation of Sociopaths: How The Baby Boomers Betrayed America
>
>
>
> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/02/26/how-baby-boomers-destroyed-every
> thing/lVB9eG5mATw3wxo6XmDZFL/story.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ReadMore_Pos5
>
>
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