American Thinker: So far as I’m aware, none of the big leaders of the Greatest Generation was a member of the Greatest Generation. Sure, the Greatest did the grunt work — but was Patton one of them? Was Churchill, or Eisenhower, or MacArthur, or Roosevelt? The Greatest Generation’s chief work during the Great Depression was the suffering required, many times as dependents, to harden them for World War 2. No great accomplishments were made by them until then, and almost no notable philosophy. The great films we know from their period, such as It’s a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind, were made (mostly) by men significantly older than them — men who did the grunt work in the ’20s and the ’30s, and many of whom, in the case at least of Frank Capra and Michael Curtiz, were born in Europe in the 1800s. The Greatest read Hemingway and Faulkner but were neither Hemingway nor Faulkner. Walt Disney, born in 1901, barely made “the cut.”
We owe the Greatest a great debt. But beyond World War 2 and the ’50s, we got little out of them except a brake on the nut-job political theories of their children — who derided the Greatest as we in turn deride the Boomers. These children, the Boomers, accomplished little really heroic for us — but then again, who were the leaders of the Boomers? They get too much blame for what appears to be a case of bad parenting. We all know that easy times produce weak children, but beyond this, who was really writing, thinking, and shaping the thoughts of Americans during the so-called Boomer years?
I submit a theory: that it was in many ways the members of the Greatest Generation. And I submit a second theory beyond this: that what America had achieved, to that point, was as high as we were ever going to get. Our technology would improve — but our fighting spirit? Our culture? Our sense of beauty? Our sense of national cohesion, or civic know-how? In many aspects of life, there was largely nowhere left to go but down. We’re in a better position to accomplish things today because there are more terrible things about America to destroy. We may have more heroes than the Boomers simply because we’ve got more villains. We can bring back beautiful things because, currently, there are too many popular ugly things. The dumber the ruling philosophy, the more brilliant the rebellious intellectuals. read more
The author of this piece agonizes over long standing issues, such as youth rebelling against authority and establishment, and peace and prosperity following hard times for new parents tends to breed softer, less serious offspring.
I am one. And I recognize it. I call my generation the Tweeners. Graduating from HS at the end of Nam, not facing a serious military engagement until after 9/11/2001, at which point I was too old to participate as a foot soldier.
It’s just the way the hands of time progress.
Sometimes a generation gets to live a wonderful life. Sometimes a generation is dealt a shitty hand.
It’s called life.
Each generation owes a debt to the previous for everything they have. Most boomers brought unprecedented wealth & prosperity to those that followed.
The current generation are seemingly complete ingrates. But,
I think/hope the reality is, most of them are good & normal, but like us “boomers”, go about the business of daily life…unseen & unheard…trying not to be distracted by the perpetually offended “snitpusses”.
More AT bullsh!t. Sorry not sorry.
I’ve heard a gazillion times “Boomers” are 1946-1964 (BORN GROYPER, but count me OUT, while genetically born into a Boomer body).
SO, the “greatest generation” – those who fought WWII? – must be born roughly 1921-1927.
That means THEY *DID* MAKE ALL THOSE GREAT FILMS OF THE 1940s (not to disparage the classics of the late 1920s and 1930s).
NO ONE could have foreseen the poison of the Frankfurt School (and, as “Blacklisted By History” proves, McCarthy was RIGHT about the Soviet’s poison).
The ONLY thing I’d curse them for is raising the Boomers as PUSSIES…
…yet I forgive it 100%, considering what they went through to continue the species.
We can blame the boomers for latching on to Communism with both hands and not letting go. I’m a boomer and a former Marine. We can also blame the boomers for being too lazy to fight back, even for their own children, when Christianity and basic morality came under attack in the local K-12 schools. So many things we just let go.
I could go on forever, but one case makes my point, Bill Ayers. He murdered a policeman and was let off on a technicality. We should have lynched him. Instead he has made millions in Chicago and infected the lives of virtually everyone. That falls at the feet of boomers.
Generations aren’t dealt bad hands, they deal with the hands they are dealt badly, in some cases. In others they rise to the occasion. You are responsible for your own actions as an individual. You will answer to God as an individual, not as a group. It’s not too late for the boomers, but it’s close.
Stand up boomers, and do your part. Defeat communism and pass the torch of freedom to the next generation cleanly, proudly, and with determined vitality.
Yeah, I don’t know, I think it’s different now. When I went to college it was unthinkable to accrue large amounts of student debt, let alone think the government would somehow absolve myself of that debt. There was not a sense of entitlement, a sense that I was owed anything, certainly not a free college education, a living wage or free healthcare.
The prevailing wisdom was that the golden ring was there for the taking, limited only by my lack of industry or labor, now many feel the system is rigged, favoring the already monied or influenced and that wealth is a zero-sum game, that the wealthy only exist at the expense of the poor, which is total nonsense.
Blame is only productive if the guilty party is able to rectify their error, otherwise it’s not just a “blame game” it’s a smokescreen for doing nothing.
Anyone can name ten problems, but it’s so much more productive and liberating to come up with solutions.
TO Bongo Boomer
“Most boomers brought unprecedented wealth & prosperity to those that followed.”
HORSESH!T!!! They are THE ONE GENERATION which NEVER experienced a war or financial crisis, yet left ALL following generations in a WORSE situation…all while PRAISING MARXISM….
“Peace Love and Flowers, Out.” IDIOT.
Weird essay. It’s all over the road and pointless. I’m a boomer and I don’t want to be worshiped or demonized. I can quote boomer successes and failures and accept both. The difference between us and Millennials & Gen Zs is that they believe social media propaganda telling them that the world would cease to exist if they weren’t around to save it.
@The Good GENERAL Svejk
“They are THE ONE GENERATION which NEVER experienced a war…”
Uh, Vietnam was a war, as I recall, as was Korea.
TRTS,”Weird essay. It’s all over the road and pointless.”
The writer is definitely confused, probably because he has never learned moral absolutes in his education.
Marxist Subversion and Perversion of America’s Youth
Patriots & Liberty
By Linda Kimball
“In the overthrowing of America, Cultural Marxists are utilizing a criminal methodology which originated in the USSR and whose ultimate goal can be characterized by its operative doctrine—nihilism. “Nihilism: originally in Russia, a social doctrine that defied all authority; revolutionism bent on the overthrow of all existing institutions.” (Funk and Wagnall’s Dictionary, 1948)
Two key strategies included within the doctrine of nihilism were added after WWI by two Marxist theoreticians, Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs. These strategies had to do with how to destroy the Christian West, which both men concluded was the obstacle standing in the way of a communist new world order.
Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 1600 years, it was therefore completely fused with Western civilization. The West, advised Gramsci, would have to be dechristianized and simultaneously atheitized by means of a “long march through the culture” so as to slowly infiltrate and then radically transform every cultural institution from the family, to the church, seminaries, schools, universities, judiciary, media, entertainment, politics, and political parties”
https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Communism/homo_schools.htm
The first recent generation that really indicated the dying of society was already underway. They looked at all the blessings that had been purchased at great cost for them, blessings completely unprecedented in world history, and collectively spit on it.
Sounds like a little “Winter Blues” creeping in.
It will pass… as long as we have, and appreciate (no matter how many barnacles), each other.
Just thankful to God that when I wake up each morning (since 1945), I am surrounded by Americans, and I can pick which ones I want to associate with any day of the week.
Thanks, America!
Great analysis tRuth.
It is natural for the preceding generation to want to provide everything and make life easier for their offspring. That’s what everyone wants isn’t it? That their children have it better and more advantages than they did?
I don’t have a unifying theory for all of the intergenerational friction. By my anecdotal experiences, the generation that produces something often breeds the next generation that feeds off the carcass of that something and manages a decline. Not in all cases but in a lot and with each successive generation, they take more and more for granted.
I’m with the Good General above on most of that. The Boomer generation never experienced a World War which is something everyone from the early 1860s to 1946 experienced. Hundreds of thousands dead after the Civil War. Entire generations and millions killed in the World Wars.
The action of turning their kids over to colleges filled with Marxists was a fatal mistake though and we’ve been living with the damage ever since. Each generation gets more and more radicalized into know nothing Hate America First Last and Always shock troops. So much so that it’s a fireable offense now to say in the workplace that a man is a man and a woman is a woman or that we should all be treated equally under the law.
It is going to lead to another Civil War when everyone who is left alive is told that they are going to be the ones punished to balance the cosmic scales as judged by Howard Zinn, Gramsci, Chomsky and their offbrand acolytes. All Leftist roads lead invariably to totalitarianism and it always starts with a happy face that invariably turns into a frowny one when the brainwashing and expropriation doesn’t take.
Which is where we find ourselves today. 25 Democrat candidates who speeches sound like they were cribbed from Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
Weak minded people in every generation always
look for an excuse or someone to blame for their
own failings. It’s just the boomers turn to take
the knocks from THEIR spoiled kids.
And so ad infinitum……
“I want to speak to your manager!”
Spoiling their kids.
The boomers protested Vietnam, at least until the draft ended. Then they didn’t care about the boat people.
TO Tony R
The Korean War happened when they were about TEN years old.
VIETNAM?!? They protested the war and spat upon America for it.
Oh yeah…AND SPAT UPON those who actually experienced the war.
This is an over the top leftist attempt at getting the generations to kill each other.
Treat this as serious as a heart attack.
Lots of BS here. Gen Xers are the losers responsible the crap that’s taking place today. OK Xer!
Population growth, we can blame the boomers for population growth.
White Guilt, (this gave us Obummer).
That’s what I blame them for, oh and rejecting the values of their parents…
…and their Grand parents.
All this talk about ‘generations’ has always been about division. dividing parents from children, parents from grandparents, & on & on … the truth is all of us have very little in common w/ people that were born approximately 7-8 years before, or after us. We (mostly) always hang around, gravitate to people our age. why? simple, because of common identity & cultural experiences.
I was born in the early ’50’s. I have little in common experiences as someone born in the early ’40’s or the early ’60’s. ‘The Boomers’ are defined as ‘born from 1946 to 1964’ (according to Wiki). I’m sure someone born in ’64 has a lot more in common w/ someone born in ’67 than myself. in my life, anyone older than me by more than 8 years was usually someone with I had little interaction. same goes for people younger than myself. why would I hang around a bunch of twerps? … & people older than me said the same about me & my friends.
The culture one grows up in has a bigger effect on your views than anything else. it is truly up to the parents to instill values in children. what they do with it depends on who they get influenced by when they leave the house. The ‘Deep State’, the ‘counterculture’, the Native American Diaspora, the American Revolution, the ”60’s’ wasn’t created by any one generation.
It is ridiculous to lump everyone born in an approximate period of time (as defined by whom? … journalists? Give me an ‘effin’ break!). it’s also just as ridiculous to blame a certain group of people, that happened to grow up in that same defined approximation of time, for the problems of the country. many ‘generations’ worked to get us to this place in time … not just ‘The Boomers’, or ‘The Greatest’. wanna blame someone? how about the ‘Tweeners’, the ‘Silent Generation’? … after all, they were ‘The Boomers’ parents! … & don’t forget those little bastard ‘Gen X’ers in ‘The Breakfast Club’ fathered the ‘Millennials’!
… so we are all to blame
you want Trump to continue? quit whining about someone to blame & get out & do something about it
(…thank you for indulging in my whine …. jumping off the soapbox now)
We might not be the greatest generation but did everyone forget vietnam? Over 58,000 died in that useless war who were baby boomers!
I’ve been reading “Of Human Bondage”, (I paid for the pile of shit, and for better or worse I’m gonna finish it) and I’m not quite sure how that generation survived anything.