>I thought it was unfair that my generation was being blamed for America's
>industrial decline. We had been too young to have any influence on any of
>the important decisions. We had not chosen to run up 2 trillion in Federal
>debt, we had not decided to build an economy that sucked too much oil, we
>had not chosen to let the Savings and Loans industry speculate in real
>estate. It was reactionary to blame the young for the nation's problems,
>though I understood some of the psychology involved after I read Barbara
>Ehrenreich's book Fear of Falling. Then it was clear: the worst fear of
>middle class parents is that they or their children will end up poorer than
>they themselves are now.
>
>In contrast, as we flirt with this next recession, boomer bashing seems
>mildly progressive. At least the blame, if there is to be blame, is being
>put in the right place: boomers were the generation in charge during the 199
>0s, they had the Presidency and they had control of most of the financial
>leavers. If someone screwed up, it was them.
How can bashing any age group be progressive - or reactionary, or anything else either? Generations are divided by class, race, gender, and whatever other interest and demographic subset you want to name. I could go on about X'ers wasting time and money in the dot.com idiocy, but that would be equally bankrupt. The S&Ls were run into the ground by people older than the boomers - mostly Tom Brokaw's heroic WW 2 generation.
Just wait until generations Y, Z, and A' bash you with and equal lack of justification. Speaking of which, I heard a couple of years ago that Grecian Formula was working on a hair-coloring product targeted at Gen X men. Anything ever come of that?
Doug