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| Ad Astra...Our Aspirations, Through Work, Will Take us to the Stars |
The responses to that post were predictable, particularly those from people who have followed my posts and blogs for several years, and who have assumed I am imbued with a relatively sunny, positive, and proactive sort of nature.
Some quotes:
And finally, there was this thoughtful, hopeful, appropriately angry reply from a millennial who is well-educated, very much an activist, and versed in the political world:
A thoughtful reply seems necessary here, and I’ll take the writer’s points on, but not necessarily in order.
There are Democratic candidates I like, presidential and congressional, and to whose campaigns I have donated more than the minimum amount of money. I have, for example, donated to Pete Buttigieg, Valerie Plame, and Amy McGrath, among others. It should be noted that none of the candidates I support live in my home state of Virginia; I simply believe these candidates merit a broader blanket of support, none more so than McGrath. I will, in all likelihood, contribute to the campaign of the final presidential contender from the Democratic party. And, of course, I will vote against Trump. I never sit home on election day.
However, my contributions do not imply that I think, at the presidential level, the candidate of my choice, or any other choice, will win against the Trump machine. Something snapped in America in 2015-16—a torn ACL of national will that finally gave license to a portion of the electorate to rebel in the most egregious way. The candidate and the voters who supported him, despite his most despicable acts--mocking a disabled reporter, mocking a war hero and Gold Star families, using vile language about women, groping his daughter and laughing about dating her, paying off sexual liaisons…the list goes on and on—took advantage of a deep-seated and long-seething anger that was, like the Yellowstone magma dome, a super eruption waiting to happen. And no one of substance, even in his own party, stood against the obvious signs of catastrophe.
And yet it was all predictable, except no one, or no organization, was able to energize the public to such a degree that nationwide mobilization against poverty, racism, failing schools, and general malaise toward social issues would take hold. I was there in the midst of the March for our Lives in 2018, right along with hundreds if not thousands of men and women of my generation. The march was uplifting, but, ultimately, an empty calorie event that did not move the gun control needle one millimeter (or have I imagined the gun slaughters that continued afterward)? My advice to all those young people who have since turned 18: If you don’t vote in November, 2020, your march’s message will become a footnote in history.
It is an irritating meme that the Boomer generation is somehow responsible for the mess we’re in; that men and women born after World War II into a resurgent America where anything was possible are now the targets of the slings and arrows of Millennial anger. Make no mistake about our passion for change: we marched, we pulled the levers, we supported passages of Civil Rights and Education Acts, we stood for environmental changes, we died at Kent State and in Vietnam, our heroes were assassinated, our cities burned, our friends came home in body bags, our president lied, cheated, and stole. We were held hostage by gas-producing nations; our diplomats were held hostage by a terrorist nation.
Don’t begin to lecture us that we did nothing, paid no price, felt no pain. We had great hopes that by the turn of the 21st century the word racism would not even be in the dictionary; we had hopes that men and women of all colors, creeds, and beliefs would, in all cases, stand on equal ground; we believed that politicians would find ways to reach across the aisle and help end the threat of nuclear annihilation, humanitarian oppression, environmental rape, educational and economic disparity. And, before you throw it all back in my face, yes, we had Nixon, we had Iran-Contra, we had bad actors at all levels of politics. But nothing, nothing like what we have now.
Does this current generation think it is the first to open its eyes to the unresolved problems facing humanity…facing America…facing our families? Well, you’d better get past that sense of self-congratulatory hubris because my generation, and generations before, despite all our failings, all our mistakes and horrible decisions, were also trying to look forward to a better place for our children and our children’s children. We tried to help you get though college using borrowed funds (yes, I know you have your own debts); we nearly lost our shirts and homes in the 1987 market crash (a 22% drop on Black Monday, October 22). That one took about a third of all my family had. And then again in the 2008 recession, so many of us fell prey to unscrupulous banking, real-estate lies, and deceit. A lot of Boomer dreams dried up in those times.
I’m hardly an apologist for the wrongs my generation, and those before mine, committed: Our generation, and those before, were stained and emotionally bruised by the acts of bad, wicked, self-serving leaders—political and corporate and religious. We had McCarthy, the America Firsters, the steel and oil barons, the Tammany Hall gangs, the carpetbaggers, the money-pocketing evangelists, the mobsters, the lynch mobs, the fat-bellied sheriffs, the hucksters and shysters. Yes, we had them all—and they still exist, like cockroaches.
But above all of those evils were good, honest, hard-working people who fought our wars, who built our factories, who worked on cures for diseases, who cared for the sick and not thinking about insurance providers, who plowed the land on farms small and large, who taught our children for the sheer pleasure of passing on knowledge and not teaching to the test, who held on to the notion that ethics and fairness were foundational to the upward movement of family and society. How novel.
But a lot of us believed all that—I still do, and so do many of my Boomer contemporaries. And that was why the progressives of my generation marched, and contributed, and voted. But even though we were far from silent on some issues, we were slow to speak and act on other pressing matters. Did it take us far too long to embrace the LGBTQ community? Yes. Did we turn away from AIDS victims? Yes. Did we welcome, openly, honestly, incoming migrants fleeing oppression? Probably not. But some of us…I like to think quite a few of us…did wake up and leave our old skins and sins behind. And as we did that, we held out hope that if we could learn to move forward, the nation would too.
And that is why some who read my latest posts may wonder why I’m so angry. It’s not that I’m “one more Boomer who’s doomed us,” it’s that I’m one lone, voiceless, individual American who sees, increasingly, frustratingly, maddeningly, sorrowfully, how marginalized the middle and lower economic classes of my generation have become, and how imperiously—without effective pushback or powerful declamation—the current party in power—with fortune-filled war chests and consciousless enablers—has taken matches of denial, hatred and ignorance to the Constitution, the legislature, and the judiciary.
There was a time in America when barn-raising was a thing. Look it up. People gathered to help their neighbor raise a barn, or build a house or, in hard times, help plow a neighbor’s field and harvest a storm-threatened crop. There was a time when a man’s word was his bond, and a handshake was no less binding. There have been times—not often, but often enough to merit a mention—when political courage was more important than political capital.
Now, it is all position-taking, offering “plans” to address problems that will only cause more problems. It is pandering to the latest polls, to the “breaking news” outlets. It is shouting, name calling, character assassination, gaslighting, clawing and grasping up the greasy pole of power, boot heels on the faces and fingers of those struggling below. But most of all, it is lying to the electorate about how hard it is going to be to right the ship that is taking on water faster than we can bail.
Not one Democratic candidate has yet to say, “I’m going to have to raise taxes across the board, and while I’ll try to make it hard on the wealthy, everyone, but the most poor, will have to take a hit. You can’t have all the things you want without pain. Roads, fair housing, airports, health care, education, strong defense, clear water, sustainable agriculture, fair wages…all those important “things” and more have a cost, and a multi-trillion dollar debt is not part of my plan.” Give me that candidate and I’ll start to listen. But that’s not what Americans of any party want to hear. We want a custom-tailored way of life that works for us—the Brits call it “bespoke”--and we want our bespoke life delivered tomorrow. Maybe by Amazon Prime.
This is what we've sunk to, this is what we have visited on ourselves.
Those Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 don’t give a damn about democracy or the rule of law. They, like their president/savior, can't find Ukraine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, or Iran on a map, and they certainly have no idea what a Kurd is, nor do they care. It's all about what's in it for them. It’s about hiring an anti-Christ in a stolen blood-soaked flag to do their bidding. That’s how they will justify their vote in 2020.
Some quotes:
“C'mon Jim. Please. Snap out of it. Progress begins with hope, and only ends with our common despair. I believe strongly that many of us would lay down their lives before your predictions come to pass.”
“Jim- this makes me very sad. My kids will only be in their 20s in 2030, just starting their adult lives. Your grandkids will be almost adults. There are too many good people who won’t let this happen. If Ukraine, if Hong Kong, etc., can do it, surely the USA can as well.” (honestly, the references to Ukraine and Hong Kong baffled me)
“I don’t buy it. Things will change for the good. That’s why I’m working so hard for the party.”
“Jim, look at the blue wave we had in the house last year. It’s possible. And from all the tiny voices, a giant roar!!!!” (Shades of Katy Perry)
“I'm surprised to read this from you, Jim. However I am reading the same all through my feed. The toxic landscape of DC is mostly confusing the country. So therefore rather than listen to the in-fighting ad nauseum, they may just stay with the status quo. Imagine if that's true, the Democratic party will be analyzing what they did wrong for years to come. The country is tired. The devil they know is better than the one they don't know...or something like that.”
“Jim, I pray you”re wrong.”
“I pray you are wrong Jim. As I told another. I will vote for a same sex president, a female president, etc. before i vote for a man even Harding would be shocked by.”
“I hope you are not correct ... I'm not giving in to them... never...”
And finally, there was this thoughtful, hopeful, appropriately angry reply from a millennial who is well-educated, very much an activist, and versed in the political world:
“Just because there aren’t any candidates you like doesn’t mean there’s no candidate who can win. You know that I STEEP myself in the political zeitgeist; I’m well aware of how dire things are, and I subscribe to the adage, “If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.” But this kind of nihilistic diatribe is counterproductive, and deeply disconcerting to someone who’s working hard to salvage a future for herself and for her siblings’ children. People my age are still ready to pull the levers on the guillotines and hold power to account. We’re ready to vote. We’re ready to do what it takes. We’re fired up. We’re in the streets, we’re making calls, we’re doing the work. You have a right to your despair, but, respectfully, your melodramatic alarmism is based in your feelings, not in reality. If you can’t be constructive, if your position is that nothing you do matters and therefore no one should bother to try, then you’re just one more Boomer who’s doomed us.”
A thoughtful reply seems necessary here, and I’ll take the writer’s points on, but not necessarily in order.
There are Democratic candidates I like, presidential and congressional, and to whose campaigns I have donated more than the minimum amount of money. I have, for example, donated to Pete Buttigieg, Valerie Plame, and Amy McGrath, among others. It should be noted that none of the candidates I support live in my home state of Virginia; I simply believe these candidates merit a broader blanket of support, none more so than McGrath. I will, in all likelihood, contribute to the campaign of the final presidential contender from the Democratic party. And, of course, I will vote against Trump. I never sit home on election day.
However, my contributions do not imply that I think, at the presidential level, the candidate of my choice, or any other choice, will win against the Trump machine. Something snapped in America in 2015-16—a torn ACL of national will that finally gave license to a portion of the electorate to rebel in the most egregious way. The candidate and the voters who supported him, despite his most despicable acts--mocking a disabled reporter, mocking a war hero and Gold Star families, using vile language about women, groping his daughter and laughing about dating her, paying off sexual liaisons…the list goes on and on—took advantage of a deep-seated and long-seething anger that was, like the Yellowstone magma dome, a super eruption waiting to happen. And no one of substance, even in his own party, stood against the obvious signs of catastrophe.
And yet it was all predictable, except no one, or no organization, was able to energize the public to such a degree that nationwide mobilization against poverty, racism, failing schools, and general malaise toward social issues would take hold. I was there in the midst of the March for our Lives in 2018, right along with hundreds if not thousands of men and women of my generation. The march was uplifting, but, ultimately, an empty calorie event that did not move the gun control needle one millimeter (or have I imagined the gun slaughters that continued afterward)? My advice to all those young people who have since turned 18: If you don’t vote in November, 2020, your march’s message will become a footnote in history.
It is an irritating meme that the Boomer generation is somehow responsible for the mess we’re in; that men and women born after World War II into a resurgent America where anything was possible are now the targets of the slings and arrows of Millennial anger. Make no mistake about our passion for change: we marched, we pulled the levers, we supported passages of Civil Rights and Education Acts, we stood for environmental changes, we died at Kent State and in Vietnam, our heroes were assassinated, our cities burned, our friends came home in body bags, our president lied, cheated, and stole. We were held hostage by gas-producing nations; our diplomats were held hostage by a terrorist nation.
Don’t begin to lecture us that we did nothing, paid no price, felt no pain. We had great hopes that by the turn of the 21st century the word racism would not even be in the dictionary; we had hopes that men and women of all colors, creeds, and beliefs would, in all cases, stand on equal ground; we believed that politicians would find ways to reach across the aisle and help end the threat of nuclear annihilation, humanitarian oppression, environmental rape, educational and economic disparity. And, before you throw it all back in my face, yes, we had Nixon, we had Iran-Contra, we had bad actors at all levels of politics. But nothing, nothing like what we have now.
Does this current generation think it is the first to open its eyes to the unresolved problems facing humanity…facing America…facing our families? Well, you’d better get past that sense of self-congratulatory hubris because my generation, and generations before, despite all our failings, all our mistakes and horrible decisions, were also trying to look forward to a better place for our children and our children’s children. We tried to help you get though college using borrowed funds (yes, I know you have your own debts); we nearly lost our shirts and homes in the 1987 market crash (a 22% drop on Black Monday, October 22). That one took about a third of all my family had. And then again in the 2008 recession, so many of us fell prey to unscrupulous banking, real-estate lies, and deceit. A lot of Boomer dreams dried up in those times.
I’m hardly an apologist for the wrongs my generation, and those before mine, committed: Our generation, and those before, were stained and emotionally bruised by the acts of bad, wicked, self-serving leaders—political and corporate and religious. We had McCarthy, the America Firsters, the steel and oil barons, the Tammany Hall gangs, the carpetbaggers, the money-pocketing evangelists, the mobsters, the lynch mobs, the fat-bellied sheriffs, the hucksters and shysters. Yes, we had them all—and they still exist, like cockroaches.
But above all of those evils were good, honest, hard-working people who fought our wars, who built our factories, who worked on cures for diseases, who cared for the sick and not thinking about insurance providers, who plowed the land on farms small and large, who taught our children for the sheer pleasure of passing on knowledge and not teaching to the test, who held on to the notion that ethics and fairness were foundational to the upward movement of family and society. How novel.
But a lot of us believed all that—I still do, and so do many of my Boomer contemporaries. And that was why the progressives of my generation marched, and contributed, and voted. But even though we were far from silent on some issues, we were slow to speak and act on other pressing matters. Did it take us far too long to embrace the LGBTQ community? Yes. Did we turn away from AIDS victims? Yes. Did we welcome, openly, honestly, incoming migrants fleeing oppression? Probably not. But some of us…I like to think quite a few of us…did wake up and leave our old skins and sins behind. And as we did that, we held out hope that if we could learn to move forward, the nation would too.
And that is why some who read my latest posts may wonder why I’m so angry. It’s not that I’m “one more Boomer who’s doomed us,” it’s that I’m one lone, voiceless, individual American who sees, increasingly, frustratingly, maddeningly, sorrowfully, how marginalized the middle and lower economic classes of my generation have become, and how imperiously—without effective pushback or powerful declamation—the current party in power—with fortune-filled war chests and consciousless enablers—has taken matches of denial, hatred and ignorance to the Constitution, the legislature, and the judiciary.
There was a time in America when barn-raising was a thing. Look it up. People gathered to help their neighbor raise a barn, or build a house or, in hard times, help plow a neighbor’s field and harvest a storm-threatened crop. There was a time when a man’s word was his bond, and a handshake was no less binding. There have been times—not often, but often enough to merit a mention—when political courage was more important than political capital.
Now, it is all position-taking, offering “plans” to address problems that will only cause more problems. It is pandering to the latest polls, to the “breaking news” outlets. It is shouting, name calling, character assassination, gaslighting, clawing and grasping up the greasy pole of power, boot heels on the faces and fingers of those struggling below. But most of all, it is lying to the electorate about how hard it is going to be to right the ship that is taking on water faster than we can bail.
Not one Democratic candidate has yet to say, “I’m going to have to raise taxes across the board, and while I’ll try to make it hard on the wealthy, everyone, but the most poor, will have to take a hit. You can’t have all the things you want without pain. Roads, fair housing, airports, health care, education, strong defense, clear water, sustainable agriculture, fair wages…all those important “things” and more have a cost, and a multi-trillion dollar debt is not part of my plan.” Give me that candidate and I’ll start to listen. But that’s not what Americans of any party want to hear. We want a custom-tailored way of life that works for us—the Brits call it “bespoke”--and we want our bespoke life delivered tomorrow. Maybe by Amazon Prime.
This is what we've sunk to, this is what we have visited on ourselves.
Those Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 don’t give a damn about democracy or the rule of law. They, like their president/savior, can't find Ukraine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, or Iran on a map, and they certainly have no idea what a Kurd is, nor do they care. It's all about what's in it for them. It’s about hiring an anti-Christ in a stolen blood-soaked flag to do their bidding. That’s how they will justify their vote in 2020.
Well, my friends, if you want them to reap the wildest whirlwind they have ever seen, then prove me wrong…get out and make it happen. Open your windows and shout it out. And get to the damn polls. Because if you don’t, what you will have, contrary to Ben Franklin, will not be a republic, but something terrible beyond a monarchy.
