One Baby Boomer’s Personal Response to Generational Blame |
Two Left Hands, Clackamas Community College, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
There are enough problems in the world without getting into an intergenerational American dust-up. But if journalists like Emily Holzknecht and Binyamin Appelbaum and their recorded speakers want to go after their elders, this Baby Boomer from the Bronx is ready to tussle. If the New York Times columnists and interviewees want to pin the world’s problems on Baby Boomers like me in “Thanks a lot, Boomers,” they’d better be ready for some pushback. As Aretha Franklin sang: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.” I’ll tell you exactly what it means to me.
Dean Baker gave an economic explanation of why the article/video was wrong in CounterPunch, (Blame the Rich, Not the Boomers for Economic Inequality – CounterPunch.org); this response is personal.
In their Times’ three-minute, thirty-six-second Opinion video, “younger Americans from the New York region spell out the frustrations of the generations that followed the baby boomers.” (Already there’s a lack of respect in not capitalizing Baby Boomers.)
What do they want? “We’ve noticed that many of you are pretty upset about the state of the nation. And we get it. We really do. But do you ever stop and ask yourselves how we got here?” they challenge. “We have one simple request: How about an apology?” Apologize! And then they tell us to “Protest yourself.”
“You were handed the world on a silver platter,” one speaker declares. “For the last several decades,” another says, “Boomer presidents” – from Bill Clinton to DJT – are to blame for the dire state of the world. “What is your........