>Here's a bit of self-criticism which probably won't become trendy
>among baby-boomers. It's provided by William Finnegan in his book
>"Cold New World" --
>
>"But for those of us who grew up during the long postwar boom, it is
>easy to forget just how large a role government programs played in the
>spread of mass prosperity -- starting with the New Deal and including,
>crucially Social Security, the Federal Housing Administration's home
>loan programs, the G.I. Bill, the antipoverty programs of the 1960s
>(particularly Medicare and Medicaid), the industrial subsidies and
>jobs programs (though they were not called that) of the immense Cold
>War military buildup (including construction of the interstate highway
>system), and, above all, wave after wave of massive investment in
>public education. It is easy to forget because, having reaped the
>benefits of all this public investment, my generation (and our
>parents') decided at some point that paying taxes on our hard-earned
>incomes had become an undue burden, was almost un-American, and a
>Reagan-style amnesia because convenient to all the tax-cutting and
>privatization that followed."
Maybe my age is showing, but I just don't get this generational thing. Do Americans in their 20s and 30s have any friendlier attitudes towards government programs than those in their 40s and 50s? And when Queenan - who's a reactionary misanthrope, by the way - writes about his "generation" isn't he really writing about American culture? Why generationalize it? is it more ideologically acceptable?
Doug