Flimsy Sanity: Baby Boomer Hate

Flimsy Sanity

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Baby Boomer Hate

I'll admit I am hooked on blogs. I have always found it interesting how different people see, taste or hear the same things so completely differently and I find the common man's opinions more interesting than the media darlings or the politicians. I go to favorite blogs and read comments and check out some of the writers and one thing leads to another and pretty soon I am lost and can't tell you how I got there. So when I ran across this hate filled one I was really stunned about how much this guy hates me and my kind. I subscribe to a lot of the 60's philosophies and I still believe in peaceful coexistence with my neighbor no matter how mean and greedy he is. I do not think I could beat him into thinking my way and the law says I can't kill him.

I believe the Vietnam war was a mistake and caused death not only for our soldiers but for the Vietnamese who supported us and I believe the Iraq war will end the same with more deaths to the natives than if we had never interfered but with an even worse than Vietnam scenerio that will go on for generations - and we won't change their mind on their religion. Religious zealots see all confrontations as persecution and it only makes them more resolute - the longer the war goes on, the larger the number of terrorists. Sure some of the Islamic ways seem cruel and unreasonable to us but as my grandfather used to say, "Don't stir shit if you don't want to smell it."

I do believe my parents generation did some wonderful things but they also perpetuated some injustice against blacks and women. The writer contrasts the greatest generation to the baby boomers. He talks of the bravery and survival skills of the "Greatest Generation" as though they actually had some voice in the depression or World War II. Like today, they were just victims of the times and survival is what all animals do - as we will probably get to do another depression because of the huge deficit and our obligations to other countries carrying our debt and we will survive that one too. As far as World War II went the writer should read more history because we were very not the deciding force in the war. Russia (who the writer hates so) bore the brunt of the fight. " Looking only at Anglo-American forces engaged against German soldiers on our two fronts, northwest Europe and Italy, the United States lost 139,380 soldiers (killed and missing) during the conflict. General Eisenhower had just over 3,000,000 men under his command, with about a third of them safely in England, and faced a German Army of less than 1,500,000 of which our forces killed 834,314. At the same time, Soviet armies in excess of 20,000,000 soldiers were fighting German armies totaling 5,700,000 at their strongest and killed 2,415,690 of them as they fought their way out of Russia and on to Berlin."

The purpose of studying history is to recognize patterns. Human emotions are universal and although labels may change jealousy, greed, religious fanaticism, power drunkenness stay the same whether you call the system communism or capitalism - its corruption that causes the woe, not the idealistic state. As for war to solve problems, Smedley Darlington Butler said of war so long ago, "It (war) is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."


The returning servicemen of World War II created a better world mostly through the benefits of liberal agendas like the GI bill that created a larger middle class and it was a liberal agenda that got us out of the depression.

Finally, I don't defend Clinton. His affair convinces me he was too stupid to be president. Peggy Vaughan, author of The Monogamy Myth, estimates that 60 percent of husbands and 40 percent of wives will have an affair at some point in their marriage and most will lie about it but in this day and times surely the most visible celebrity in the world cannot lead a clandestine life. I hated how Clinton was a Republican in fact while posing as a Democrat. I think Bush is even stupider and more insane as is anyone else who believes God talks to them personally.

Despite the author's descriptions of the characteristics of the "baby boomers" they fall into a wide range and were not all free-loving drug addicts anymore than all current youth are slackers or that draft dodgers and scalawags did not exist during World War II. The baby boomers did keep the world from exploding and hopefully the next generation will be able to make the same claim.

4 Comments:

  • At 4:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You know, i read that whole article, right to the bitter end, and was amazed at his lack of analysis.

    How on earth could he have lumped in the hippies from the sixties in with the 'upwardly mobile' of the Me Decade?

    And did he forget how the ardent marching of young, socially responsible citizens helped to create social institutions that we all now take as being commonplace (social security, welfare, childrens services, health care etc.) as well as helping to end an unjust and unnecessary war?

    I have seen other blogs which showed venomous hatred towards hippies as being self-involved drug addicts; some of them have really shocked me with their lack of human compassion and understanding.

    I fail to see how any culture could be adequately advanced without the presence of these two qualities.

     
  • At 8:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    MESSAGE

     
  • At 5:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    MESSAGE

     
  • At 5:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

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