This came in email earlier from a friend who happens to be a former politician and front line combat journalist from South Africa. I think it really sums up the election:
That your state is about to elect the first [endorsed by] Nation of Islam President? I do not share the rose tinted vision of the bien pensants in the media. I think this guy is Jimmy Carter Mark 2. America will probably survive him, but there are many places and people in the world who will not.
Case in point is Sudan where I was for a month and a half a year ago. This perfectly illustrated the different effects of Republican and Democrat foreign policies. There were glimmers of US support during the presidency of George Bush 1 when some pressure was applied to the arab government in Khartoum. But that disappeared during Clinton’s terms and the northern government and their janjaweed militas continued to wage their 23 year war on the south. It was a war prosecuted without discrimination. One of the villages where I was Kenyan told me that when he arrived a year before as one of the first international aid workers every time the village dogs heard a plane overhead they ran for the bush because they were programmed to escape from the Antonovs which frequently came to bomb. British anti-slavery activists have documented how the northerners raided for slaves throught the conflict. The Arabic term for slave (abeed) is the same as the Arabic word for black person.
When W came in it all began to change. He began squeezing the Khartoum government to the point (it is rumoured) that he sent in military teams to aid the SPLA. Whether that part is true or not, it worked. There was a deal and the country is at peace for the first time since the early 80’s.
The point is that any US administration that does not recognise that there are evil bastards in the world and treat them accordingly means that the bad guys try and get away with stuff they would not otherwise attempt. It happened under Carter when the US refused to involve itself in conflicts like Angola, Iran and Afghanistan. The result was widespread killing and misery for the people of those countries. Some of it lasted for years- most of it is out of sight of the media who are not terribly moved unless it fits the script of western wickedness. If the one becomes the president a lot of poor people in distant parts of the world are going to get hammered.OK – rant over. offended by my third world viewpoint
The point to make is whether, to elect the first "black" -- in fact half Arab -- president of the US we're willing to sacrifice millions of Africans.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Remember or Repeat
Tomorrow marks something besides election day. It marks the 29th anniversary of the fall of the American embassy in Iran and the beginning of 444 days of captivity for 52 of the original 60+ hostages. It's important that we remember that time, and the events and leadership -- or perhaps I should say lack of leadership -- that led up to it.
I was in college on Nov. 4, 1979. When I entered the commons for the grad school I was attending, I was met by a number of current and retired members of the military. They were gathered around tables, heads bent together, talking softly but urgently. There was a palpable anger and frustration to the room, one I understood. The consensus among these brave men and women was that we wouldn't be in this position if we had a president who was a force to be reckoned with. Instead of a man of action, we had a man of words and ineffectual words at that. Our enemies didn't respect him, nor did they fear him. And, as proof of that point, these Iranian "students" had stormed our embassy and taken hostages, unconcerned by what might happen.
Because, my friends, they knew we wouldn't do anything they need fear.
The saying goes that if we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat it. What happens tomorrow when we go to the polls very well may put us on a path where we will repeat the problems that led to the fall of the embassy in Tehran. That scares me because our enemies are more brazen, more willing to commit suicide in their attempts to kill as many Americans as possible. We saw that on 9/11. We've seen it on the streets of Israel where suicide bombers walk into crowded shopping areas before blowing themselves -- and everyone around them -- to smithereens. We can't allow that to continue.
Which it will under an Obama Administration. He hasn't shown wisdom nor commitment to the principles that are the very foundation of this country in his personal associations (remaining associated with Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, etc.). He speaks of sitting down and talking with enemies of our country without preconditions for talks. If you listen to him, his rhetoric is more representative of the former USSR under Lenin than the USA. He talks of "redistribution of wealth", the creation of a "civilian police force" to protect national interests instead of the military, mandatory public service, and he has bragged how, under his administration, he would bankrupt any new coal power plant.
What that means is that the only stick he will carry will be the one used to force Americans into the mold he wants. It won't be applied against the enemies of this country. Where they are concerned, he will speak softly and carry an even softer stick. Can we survived that as a nation? Possibly. But dare we risk it?
No, we dare not. So, if you haven't voted, do come Tuesday. As you go into the voting booth, consider what happened 29 years ago when we had another president who spoke softly and carried no stick, a president who thought words alone were enough to survive in a world where there are individuals and countries who would like nothing more than to destroy us and our way of life. The next time, it won't be the storming of an embassy or the hijacking of a few planes to fly into buildings. It will be a dirty bomb in the middle of a major population center or worse.
Vote. Vote your conscience and vote for what is best for this country.
I was in college on Nov. 4, 1979. When I entered the commons for the grad school I was attending, I was met by a number of current and retired members of the military. They were gathered around tables, heads bent together, talking softly but urgently. There was a palpable anger and frustration to the room, one I understood. The consensus among these brave men and women was that we wouldn't be in this position if we had a president who was a force to be reckoned with. Instead of a man of action, we had a man of words and ineffectual words at that. Our enemies didn't respect him, nor did they fear him. And, as proof of that point, these Iranian "students" had stormed our embassy and taken hostages, unconcerned by what might happen.
Because, my friends, they knew we wouldn't do anything they need fear.
The saying goes that if we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat it. What happens tomorrow when we go to the polls very well may put us on a path where we will repeat the problems that led to the fall of the embassy in Tehran. That scares me because our enemies are more brazen, more willing to commit suicide in their attempts to kill as many Americans as possible. We saw that on 9/11. We've seen it on the streets of Israel where suicide bombers walk into crowded shopping areas before blowing themselves -- and everyone around them -- to smithereens. We can't allow that to continue.
Which it will under an Obama Administration. He hasn't shown wisdom nor commitment to the principles that are the very foundation of this country in his personal associations (remaining associated with Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, etc.). He speaks of sitting down and talking with enemies of our country without preconditions for talks. If you listen to him, his rhetoric is more representative of the former USSR under Lenin than the USA. He talks of "redistribution of wealth", the creation of a "civilian police force" to protect national interests instead of the military, mandatory public service, and he has bragged how, under his administration, he would bankrupt any new coal power plant.
What that means is that the only stick he will carry will be the one used to force Americans into the mold he wants. It won't be applied against the enemies of this country. Where they are concerned, he will speak softly and carry an even softer stick. Can we survived that as a nation? Possibly. But dare we risk it?
No, we dare not. So, if you haven't voted, do come Tuesday. As you go into the voting booth, consider what happened 29 years ago when we had another president who spoke softly and carried no stick, a president who thought words alone were enough to survive in a world where there are individuals and countries who would like nothing more than to destroy us and our way of life. The next time, it won't be the storming of an embassy or the hijacking of a few planes to fly into buildings. It will be a dirty bomb in the middle of a major population center or worse.
Vote. Vote your conscience and vote for what is best for this country.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Random Thoughts on the Election
As today is Halloween, perhaps it comes as no surprise when I admit the possible outcome of the upcoming election scares me. I'm old enough to remember the unrest of the 60's, the feeding frenzy surrounding Watergate, Gerald Ford being laughed at by the media because he wasn't the most graceful of men. I remember my concern when Jimmy Carter ran for president because I wasn't convinced he had the experience or the mettle needed to run this country. I remember the fall of our embassy in Iran and all those nights we listened to Nightline, hoping against hope to hear that our hostages had been released. Ronald Reagan proved to be a strong president. Bill Clinton proved you can get away with a lot if you look good and are a persuasive speaker.
I might not have liked all those presidents, or the ones I haven't named. I'll be honest, I disliked a number of them. But none of them scared me the way the possibility of an Obama presidency does.
I've already blogged about some of my concerns, specifically the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. So I won't spend much more time on those topics. However, I feel I must point out that Obama's use, or misuse, of the media reared its ugly head again earlier when his campaign informed reporters from three major newspapers that they would not be allowed to continue traveling with the candidate on his jet as of Sunday. It seems there is just too much demand for seats as the campaign comes to a close. Surprisingly, these reporters work for the Dallas Morning News, Washington Times and the New York Post, all major papers. Not so surprisingly, those same papers had editorial boards that endorsed John McCain. So sorry, you don't toe the line, you get punished, no matter how impartial your reporting might be.
My two biggest concerns about an Obama presidency center on the lack of specifics re: Obama's economic policy and foreign policy (which I'll address in another entry later). It's all well and good to say you're going to cut taxes for 95% of Americans and lower spending. It's great to say you're going to go through the budget line by line and throw out whatever doesn't work or doesn't fit your plan. The problem is the actual feasibility of it all.
There is no question that the military will take a huge budget cut if Obama is elected. That scares me, given the state of the world we live in right now. But he doesn't seem to care. However, any funds taken from the military won't be much more than a drop in the bucket when it comes to the rest of the budget. Also, considering he has talked about having a "national police force" -- and I won't begin to tell you how I feel about that. I'll leave it for another blog -- that will have to be budgeted for. Where will that money come from?
When asked for specifics, we get generalizations. Worse, of late we're hearing phrases coming from him about the redistribution of wealth. When did it become the duty of this country, a country built on the premise that any man or woman could work hard and become successful, to say, "sorry, you make too much money and have too easy a life. So we're going to take what you've worked hard for and give it to someone else." Nothing more. That isn't something that builds confidence, at least not in my mind. I'm not talking taxes. I don't like them but they are necessary. But when a man wanting to be president talks about the "redistribution of wealth", all my alarm bells start ringing.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Obama doesn't mean to take money from those who have and give it to those who don't. The problem is, I don't know. He hasn't explained. Instead, he's made jokes about John McCain calling him socialist because he shared his sandwich as a child. Again, no details, no explanation, just plenty of attempts to deflect the questions with a smile and a laugh.
We need a President who will tell us his goals and how he plans to achieve them. We need a President who understands there will be hard questions to ask and answer, and who won't punish those who are brave enough to ask those same questions. We need a President who values the Constitution of the United States, especially the Bill of Rights, and who will fight to preserve it. John McCain has proven he will defend this country. He has served with honor and bears the scars. He has stood against his political party when he felt it was wrong. He has shown the character and determination necessary to lead us in this time of national and international crises. Barack Obama has yet to show that to me, not when he has a voting record resplendent in its number of non-votes, refusal to take the hard stand against the majority and, most especially, when he has yet to truly outline what he stands for and how he plans to implement it.
Tuesday is election day. If you haven't voted yet, please, do so then. Vote your conscience. Vot for what will be best for this country. Vote.lol
I might not have liked all those presidents, or the ones I haven't named. I'll be honest, I disliked a number of them. But none of them scared me the way the possibility of an Obama presidency does.
I've already blogged about some of my concerns, specifically the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. So I won't spend much more time on those topics. However, I feel I must point out that Obama's use, or misuse, of the media reared its ugly head again earlier when his campaign informed reporters from three major newspapers that they would not be allowed to continue traveling with the candidate on his jet as of Sunday. It seems there is just too much demand for seats as the campaign comes to a close. Surprisingly, these reporters work for the Dallas Morning News, Washington Times and the New York Post, all major papers. Not so surprisingly, those same papers had editorial boards that endorsed John McCain. So sorry, you don't toe the line, you get punished, no matter how impartial your reporting might be.
My two biggest concerns about an Obama presidency center on the lack of specifics re: Obama's economic policy and foreign policy (which I'll address in another entry later). It's all well and good to say you're going to cut taxes for 95% of Americans and lower spending. It's great to say you're going to go through the budget line by line and throw out whatever doesn't work or doesn't fit your plan. The problem is the actual feasibility of it all.
There is no question that the military will take a huge budget cut if Obama is elected. That scares me, given the state of the world we live in right now. But he doesn't seem to care. However, any funds taken from the military won't be much more than a drop in the bucket when it comes to the rest of the budget. Also, considering he has talked about having a "national police force" -- and I won't begin to tell you how I feel about that. I'll leave it for another blog -- that will have to be budgeted for. Where will that money come from?
When asked for specifics, we get generalizations. Worse, of late we're hearing phrases coming from him about the redistribution of wealth. When did it become the duty of this country, a country built on the premise that any man or woman could work hard and become successful, to say, "sorry, you make too much money and have too easy a life. So we're going to take what you've worked hard for and give it to someone else." Nothing more. That isn't something that builds confidence, at least not in my mind. I'm not talking taxes. I don't like them but they are necessary. But when a man wanting to be president talks about the "redistribution of wealth", all my alarm bells start ringing.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Obama doesn't mean to take money from those who have and give it to those who don't. The problem is, I don't know. He hasn't explained. Instead, he's made jokes about John McCain calling him socialist because he shared his sandwich as a child. Again, no details, no explanation, just plenty of attempts to deflect the questions with a smile and a laugh.
We need a President who will tell us his goals and how he plans to achieve them. We need a President who understands there will be hard questions to ask and answer, and who won't punish those who are brave enough to ask those same questions. We need a President who values the Constitution of the United States, especially the Bill of Rights, and who will fight to preserve it. John McCain has proven he will defend this country. He has served with honor and bears the scars. He has stood against his political party when he felt it was wrong. He has shown the character and determination necessary to lead us in this time of national and international crises. Barack Obama has yet to show that to me, not when he has a voting record resplendent in its number of non-votes, refusal to take the hard stand against the majority and, most especially, when he has yet to truly outline what he stands for and how he plans to implement it.
Tuesday is election day. If you haven't voted yet, please, do so then. Vote your conscience. Vot for what will be best for this country. Vote.lol
Monday, October 27, 2008
Freedom of Speech has Left the Building
** An update to my last post before getting started. It seems the oh so sensitive Joe Biden has black listed yet another TV station because their reporter asked some hard questions. This time is was CBS3 in Philadelphia. This time, he was asked about Obama's comments about "redistributing the wealth" as well as payments allegedly made over the years to family members by his campaign. The response of the Obama camp was to call this interview "ambush journalism" and to bar the station from any more interviews. Gee, when did it become wrong to ask candidates the "hard questions"? More importantly, when did we become so complacent as to allow them to get away with this sort of behaviour and yet not raise our voices in protest when the MSM reports lies and distorts the truth about the Republican candidates?
**
That update sort of slides into what has been bothering me lately. The First Amendment of the Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The Freedom of Speech clause doesn't mean we can stand up in a crowded theatre and scream, "Fire!" But it does mean we can voice our opinions about a candidate. If we disagree with what a candidate says, it is our right to say so. It is also our right to question that candidate in order to come to the truth. Unfortunately, that right seems to have been forgotten when applied to those who question or criticize Obama. To do so, it is said, is racist. Excuse me? How is it racist to ask about his association with a man who is proud to have planned the deaths of others, a confessed bomber who attempted to bring down this country? How is it racist to say Obama's comments about "redistribution of wealth" sound like they came straight from the Communist Manifesto by Marx? There are other examples but I'm sure you get my drift here.
While that is bad enough, what really bothers me is the double standard these same "enlightened" people are following and what it implies for this country should Obama be elected. They cry foul if their candidates are asked hard questions or if their policies are questioned. Yet they do nothing, say NOTHING when their followers hang Sarah Palin in effigy (and can you just imagine the howls of outrage if it was Obama being hung in effigy, as there should be) or when those same followers say Governor Palin should be raped and murdered. They support and, in my opinion, encourage MSM to report lies or distort the truth about Governor Palin and her family. Worse, when an average citizen dares to ask a hard question or dispute the claim that Obama is the savoiur this country needs, his life is placed under a microscope and he is vilified.
Politics has never been a "clean" arena. But the depths the parties and their supporters, especially the Democrats, have sunk to this election year is appalling. Aiding and abetting the Democrats in this is most of MSM. A survey has shown that the coverage of John McCain has been "substantially" negative, unlike that of Obama. ( http://journalism.org/node/13307 ). Yet another indication that the media no longer views its role as being the reporters of the news. Instead, they want to frame the news, make the news and, in doing so, influence us in such a way that their choice for president wins.
But back to freedom of speech. The actions of the Obama camp scare me. No, they terrify me. Our children and neighbors are being told to "get in their faces". And guess who they mean -- you and me. Those of us who don't accept the drivel MSM feeds us. Those who still value our right to ask the hard questions and say something doesn't make sense or sound right.
Please, before you step into the voting booth, think about this. Obama and Biden have shown they have no compunction at all when it comes to trying to shut down the members of the press who don't play ball with them. They tell their followers to "get in their face". This is a chilling portent of things to come if Obama is elected president. He shows us now that he has no respect for some of our most basic constitutional rights. Do you want him in a position of real power where, along with his pal Nancy Pelosi, he can actually silence those who don't agree with him?
I don't know about you, but that sounds an awful lot like that same Nazi Germany he once compared the US to. Just like his ideas about "redistributing the wealth" sounds like it came straight from the mouth of Karl Marx.
So, when you go into the voting booth, ask yourself these questions:
**
That update sort of slides into what has been bothering me lately. The First Amendment of the Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The Freedom of Speech clause doesn't mean we can stand up in a crowded theatre and scream, "Fire!" But it does mean we can voice our opinions about a candidate. If we disagree with what a candidate says, it is our right to say so. It is also our right to question that candidate in order to come to the truth. Unfortunately, that right seems to have been forgotten when applied to those who question or criticize Obama. To do so, it is said, is racist. Excuse me? How is it racist to ask about his association with a man who is proud to have planned the deaths of others, a confessed bomber who attempted to bring down this country? How is it racist to say Obama's comments about "redistribution of wealth" sound like they came straight from the Communist Manifesto by Marx? There are other examples but I'm sure you get my drift here.
While that is bad enough, what really bothers me is the double standard these same "enlightened" people are following and what it implies for this country should Obama be elected. They cry foul if their candidates are asked hard questions or if their policies are questioned. Yet they do nothing, say NOTHING when their followers hang Sarah Palin in effigy (and can you just imagine the howls of outrage if it was Obama being hung in effigy, as there should be) or when those same followers say Governor Palin should be raped and murdered. They support and, in my opinion, encourage MSM to report lies or distort the truth about Governor Palin and her family. Worse, when an average citizen dares to ask a hard question or dispute the claim that Obama is the savoiur this country needs, his life is placed under a microscope and he is vilified.
Politics has never been a "clean" arena. But the depths the parties and their supporters, especially the Democrats, have sunk to this election year is appalling. Aiding and abetting the Democrats in this is most of MSM. A survey has shown that the coverage of John McCain has been "substantially" negative, unlike that of Obama. ( http://journalism.org/node/13307 ). Yet another indication that the media no longer views its role as being the reporters of the news. Instead, they want to frame the news, make the news and, in doing so, influence us in such a way that their choice for president wins.
But back to freedom of speech. The actions of the Obama camp scare me. No, they terrify me. Our children and neighbors are being told to "get in their faces". And guess who they mean -- you and me. Those of us who don't accept the drivel MSM feeds us. Those who still value our right to ask the hard questions and say something doesn't make sense or sound right.
Please, before you step into the voting booth, think about this. Obama and Biden have shown they have no compunction at all when it comes to trying to shut down the members of the press who don't play ball with them. They tell their followers to "get in their face". This is a chilling portent of things to come if Obama is elected president. He shows us now that he has no respect for some of our most basic constitutional rights. Do you want him in a position of real power where, along with his pal Nancy Pelosi, he can actually silence those who don't agree with him?
I don't know about you, but that sounds an awful lot like that same Nazi Germany he once compared the US to. Just like his ideas about "redistributing the wealth" sounds like it came straight from the mouth of Karl Marx.
So, when you go into the voting booth, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I want a man running this country who tries to silence the press when it asks difficult, but valid, questions?
- Do I want a man running this country who stands by as his followers publicly attempt to destroy an average citizen simply because he spoke against the candidate's stand on an issue?
- Do I want a man running this country who is so willing to stand by someone (William Ayers) who not only professes a dislike for our country but who committed an act of domestic terrorism? A man who has repeatedly sidestepped or attempted to mislead the public about the truth of his relationship with William Ayers?
- Do I want a man running this country who has, for a number of years, said that he wants to put in place a system that would "redistribute the wealth" of the citizens of this country?
- And, finally, do I want a man running this country who doesn't seem to value those things that make this country great? (Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the ability to do and be what you want as long as you work for it among others)
The Evil That Men Do
The Evil That Men Do
Portia Lamas
I didn’t want to post this as a comment on neo without asking because it’s so incredibly long – so I’m sending it to her and asking her if she is all right with my posting it. If you’re seeing it, she is. Or perhaps she just gave me permission to post a link. Who knows? It really is VERY long.
I didn’t meant to start a thread on the evil of the boomer generation. While it is true that many people – particularly my generation which follows right on their tail – has come to loathe everything boomer and paint them with a broad and dark brush, and while I’ve been known to make comments about living long enough to dance on their graves, this is to an extent and injustice. And not just because there are good boomers among the best – as there are in every generation. I’m not saying this to mollify them or even to throw in some of that worship which they have come to believe is their due from everyone, PARTICULARLY our age cohort.
I assure everyone I come to bury boomerdom not to praise it. Yet, some things need to be said, on how they GOT that way and on the good things they managed along the way which got buried in all the bad. And also, perhaps, about such generic things as how to destroy a country without firing a bullet. And what the real enemies are. And perhaps how we can survive this – I don’t know if we can and I don’t have any real ideas, but perhaps someone out there does.
To begin with let’s talk of the "boomer generation." Were other generations mentioned before? Well, I’ve heard of the lost generation, but by and large the whole concept of "generation" – though existent – seems to have been ignored by American History and Literature until the boomers. I might be wrong on this, because frankly I don’t have the time to do the careful research necessary to back it.
The fact that time and careful research is needed, though, tells you something. NO ONE needs careful research to identify a boomer generation. No one will, even a hundred years from now. They are right there, in every print media, in every radio station, in every record of the time, singing about "My [their] generation." Their effect is undeniable.
Why is that? Well... they’re a REALLY large generation. As such they provided a very attractive marketing target group for a newly prosperous society. All the things they believe about themselves "the best, the brightest" etc started before their turn to the left; before their infatuation with communism, before they began to hate their country.
Am I saying this was a bad thing? Not of itself. Not necessarily. I’m ALL for capitalism. Capitalists have to keep people alive so they can sell to them. It’s much better than the alternative.
So I’m not saying that the marketing was bad or wrong. It was human. I’m saying that it started before these kids ever came to age, that it was a novel experience for them. Regardless of how their parents taught them, or how they were viewed by their parents, they had someone fawning on them as something special. I came onto the scene almost twenty years later, but I grew up reading my brothers’ books. There, on the back of everyone of them, was a page of advertisements. Decoder rings, bikes, "be the first on your block." By the time I came along that marketing had moved on to stuff favored by twenty year olds and teens. My first definition of our generation before I had anything to hold against the boomers was "we came after." As in, we came after all the excitement. After all the neat stuff. At that age I fit what some marketer tried to imprint my people – wedged between boomer and genexer – with "generation Jones." At that age I was envious of everything the boomers had. Don’t discount this marketing campaign as the source of boomer ego. I still have friends who cry at a listing of the products targeted at them as children. There is at least one short story that is nothing more than a listing of these brands. They can’t understand why it leaves my people cold.
From the boomers as a marketing scheme we come to the definition of boomers – of the generation. I know anthropologically and on the books, a generation is 25 years. But the boomers as a "generation" can’t be that long. It can’t even be 20 years. At a maximum stretch I’d give it 15, but I know that the younger of my two older brothers, born in fifty five, when I was growing up considered himself at the very tail end of the generation. He still did some protesting in college, but not as much, and he missed out on all the "exciting stuff," such as the taking of the Dean’s offices and student strikes and all that. And though he still had some classes in which you graded yourself, and a lot where you spent time raising consciousness, it just wasn’t the same. (Echoing his stories, I’m tempted to add ‘man’ to the end of that sentence.)
The generation primarily catered to was exactly that, perhaps birth dates of 46 to 56 or thereabouts. Of course, remember that generations – like decades – as cultural currents do not end at a precise year. There will always be people who identify with the prior generation – Obama is as much a boomer as anyone can be – and those who identify with the next. I have friends who heaved a big sigh of relief in the eighties as schools and students became more "normal." If you look – and I suspect someone could get a grant to do this in sociology or history. Not me. I work for a living – I bet you can trace that truly massive first BOOM moving through the system by the kind of advertisements targeted at them. Decoder rings, milk flavorings, pre-teen primping stuff, teen stuff, love beads, first home, wedding paraphernalia, baby carriers, how to raise your rebellious child books (and did we get a lot of these), do not spank laws and regulations, flash cards and increase your child’s IQ, how to cope with teen children, empty nesting stuff (waning now), and how our retirement is the greatest thing since our birth commercials. All of those are aimed at a rough ten years and about ten years ahead of me. (I’m forty five. The retirement commercials are full force now.) I don’t know for sure nationwide, but I know when I hit the schools they were already starting to contract. There were closed buildings, rooms that weren’t repaired because we didn’t need to use them. Not as bad as the school closings six or seven years later, but there was already a feel that the mass of people that constituted "boomers" was on the wane.
In those early years, we were not considered boomers. The boomers were the others, the generation everyone was talking about. However, this was created by marketing, remember? They need to extend that sense that their products which they just designed/refined for the boomers are still cool and hip. So they started claiming my generation, year by year. When last I looked they were up to sixty four, which is ridiculous. They might have gone further than that now. This in part is to cater to the boomers idea that they’re still young. Ignore it. It’s a distraction.
When I say boomers, I assume 46 to 56 birth dates with some bleed through on either end.
Some of the boomers’ hype about themselves is true. They were probably the best fed American generation ever. And because, as America goes, so does the world, worldwide the boomers were the most prosperous generation ever. Which is not the same as saying that foreign boomers were on the same level as American boomers, but they still enjoyed "wealth never before experienced." (Exceptions to countries behind the iron curtain and of course the usual misery spots.)
We know that early childhood feeding is essential. As such they were probably brighter and more active and healthier than their parents. Here comes the second prong of the generation’s issues. They were brighter, more active and healthier than their parents. Most parents recognized that. All parents always hope for the best for their kids. However most of us know our kids will do "about like we did" accounting for different conditions. Oh, sure there are exceptions. There are rags to riches. They’re few and far between. (Though more common in the US than anyone else.) It is far from the common story. Variations of it, sure. Somewhat ragged to relatively rich is common. But the total change, what the arab horoscopes which -- in one of their few sane ideas compute place of birth, date of birth, status of parents, status of the area born in, and not planets – call "deep slingshot" which comes from the depths of misery to the uppermost riches are rare (No, don’t quote tax records at me. That’s not the same. That records the relative rags to relative riches. Not a meteoric rise, with sudden and permanent results. I.e the very fact people move between the brackets means it wasn’t instant and lasting.)
The boomers’ parents looked at their kids – and perhaps helped by the media hype and by their own traumas from WWII which they wished to overcome – saw something new. A great shining hope. Consciously or not, they raised them like that. "You will change the world" started before student protests.
Call this a story of how those whom the gods mean to destroy they first drive mad.
My guess – and remember I came ten years later, so my vision of it might be colored – is that the rebellion started before it became political. It would have started because these kids would hit late adolescence with sky high expectations and the world would meet them head on and defeat half of them. No one attains their goal every time. And when you’ve been raised to think you’re something special and all doors will open to you, rejection will hurt hardest. Whether what you want is a job or a college education after high school, about half of you are going to fall short of exactly what you want. Maybe more. And if you been raised on hype of how great you are, you’re going to rebel. It can’t be your fault. It’s that ossified older generation. They just don’t "get" you.
And then there was the Vietnam war. The catalyst. You were raised as something special and now they want you to go and die somewhere, for someone you’ve never known? Screw that. You’re special. You’re supposed to have everyone bow before you. You’re not a bullet stopper.
And across the world the third prong of what would drive the boomers to madness kicked in. The marching behemoth of the USSR saw their chance to defeat the US from within, using their own children to do it. This is documented. They sent over agitators. They bombarded Europe with propaganda experts, talking about the boomer revolt here, encouraging the same in the rest of the west.
Suddenly the boomers, raised to believe they were the swiftest, smartest, brightest – the generation everyone must cater to – discovered they were also altruistic, good, kind, the hope of the future. They discovered Aquarius was on the way. They were going to change the world. At first this had a hard edged communist feel, but judging by my brother it waned to hippy-dippy. Most American kids knew they didn’t really want to bring about the revolution. More than anything else, they didn’t want to go to war and they wanted to not grow up. A not uncommon aspiration between late teens and mid twenties. The zeitgeist and the massive doses of narcissism they’d been fed gave them an excuse not to.
They didn’t cut their hair, they didn’t get a job, they went into communes, they experimented with drugs and they joined a thousand different cults. The seventies – their last attempt at not actually trying to achieve anything – was littered with the-spaceship-will-come-tomorrow-and-rescue-us-all. No, I’m not joking, I got the back wash of this via older siblings. I think I lost any interest in the stuff around fourteen, because there was nothing there to hold onto.
This brings me to the final prong of the boomer madness – the one that’s still with us (Oh, very much with us.) – the image is substance thing. Part of this again came from their massive numbers and the hype surrounding them. They literally bent the culture around them. What they said was believed. When they took the colleges on relatively scant achievements – remember, they were protesting – the older generation bowed down or got out of the way. And the boomers, who knew they didn’t have that much substance, formed this idea that it had always been like this, that no one really knew anything, that it was all on how you presented it. They still feel that way – look at the fields they rule. Media, entertainment, education. Yeah. It’s the last prong of their madness.
Here we come to our own – birth dates of 57 or thereabouts to 70 or thereabouts – hostility towards the boomers. No use denying it started in "Jones" of course it did. I remember wishful envy to those ads in the back of mags and books, blooming to utter sneering resentment at the series Thirty Something when I was twenty something. But it went deeper than that. By the time I was twenty something it had become clear my generation wasn’t going to prolong the "boomer way", their modus vivendi, if you will. We went to school and expected to be taught. Worse, with few exceptions, we wanted to be taught what we’d come there to learn, not social consciousness or how to hold a mirror low and preen on the beauty of our sexual organs. And then we left college, cut our hair and went to work.
We followed boomer fashions, we might listen to – some – boomer music, but were not them. We were also the first time they got a wake up call: they were not the last and permanent "youth" generation. They too would pass away, and their works with them.
All I have for this is annedoctal – news reports describing how the "new kids" were evil. They didn’t care about others. They didn’t fight for social justice. They just wanted to make a buck. We were the material girls (and boys) that they sneered at. Personally I found myself at the receiving end of endless rants from siblings, from their friends, from teachers, about how "You don’t care" and about how "Your generation is just materialistic and empty."
This while we were going to school and college which had got filled with boomers as teachers and professors. I suspect most people in my generation have learned to foam at the mouth at two things: the "Call me Bob" teachers, always uttered with gracious condescension; and the "I’ll teach you less than you’ll teach me." Both of these were signs that you were about to spend math class listening to Woodstock tapes and being told how groovy and great and with it the boomers were and how our generation was ruining it all.
This did not make for kind feelings towards them, and I think started the long-corked hatred that erupted in poor neo’s comments. An this brings us to where we’re now, where this election is very much the boomers’ last huzzah and they know it, and they’re pushing with everything they have to get their golden boy in, because this will be their "legacy." They are blinkered by their own information means – lying to themselves has become a boomer thing – who never reported how bad the USSR was before it crashed. They’re blinded by their own self importance. Those that have an inkling they’re wrong are pushing it to the back of their minds. Socialism is what they’ve always pushed, and it’s become their brand new spaceship from Arturus, their new Age of Aquarius.
Pity them. Most of them don’t even realize if they get the golden boy in, what they’ll face instead is forced euthanasia at the hands of the State’s Health Care in another five to ten years, when they become "just a burden on the country." Worse, yet, I suspect most of them would acquiesce to it, happily, thinking they’re the most altruistic, the best, the brightest, the most peaceful.
And this brings me to the good things they did do – and the shining, never materialized shangrilla that might have been if their expectations hadn’t been set quite so high, if their illusions hadn’t been fed by merchants willing to cater to them, by parents who saw in them something new, and finally – and worst of all – by an enemy standing ready to delude them into turning against their own country.
It took me years – I was in my thirties – before I realized that the boomers had materially improved my life. Partly by the fact that they existed – a generation boom is useful and I have no idea if it’s a regularly occurring phenomenon in human societies. But when the young outweigh the old it is a time to break with some ossified rules. Equality for women – before it became the present "feminist" craziness was a good thing. So was equality for minorities. And – I’m libertarian leaning on this, sorry – the fact that gay people could come out of the closet. Same with examining traditions and loosening them some. (Not the complete untying was the result of the hubris described above.)
The fact is the boomers came of age at a time of rapid technological development and society needed to adapt to that. If that was all they did, it would have been great.
And then there is the boomer selfishness, which has made our generation FAR more comfortable. No, no, seriously. The other side of boomer "I want it now" is that they got products made and designed – and social spaces too – in a way that makes common, regular individuals (Call us Average Joe the Plumbers) far more comfortable. This wasn’t as strong in Europe who only got sort of an attenuated boom and if you ever go through the Frankfurt airport, with two toddlers, no water fountains, and few and far spaced bathrooms which have one stall, you should thank the boomer selfishness for what we have here.
I look at my friends who served in Vietnam and at the boomers who woke up after nine eleven and I see what might have been, without the pernicious foreign influence. Without a very ill-timed war to send their rebellion through the roof. They would have grown up. They would have tamed. Their being a little smarter and a little healthier than previous generations would have been a boon to our country and to the world.
That’s not what happened. Call it enemy action. Call it the fact that the previous generation was scarred by WWII and put misguided hopes on the boomers. Call it the fact that by then a good number of their educators were left-leaning. (My father always said one communist in any group is enough to make the whole group act communist. It’s been my observation this is true.) In a way they’re victims. They drank their own Koolaid. They fell through the cracks.
Of course this does not absolve them. At some point we all must raise ourselves, and no one comes from a perfect family or grows up at perfect times. At some point we all must look at ourselves and change what doesn’t work. The boomers chose to perpetuate it. It is clear by how loud they scream that they’re the best that at least most of the know, in their hearts of hearts that they’re not.
However, given the same temptation, how would I have behaved. I don’t know. I didn’t have it. And that makes me squirm in discomfort when I hear wholesale screeds against faceless "boomers." Are you going to be one of those who encourages the state to murder them in their millions through mandated euthanasia? Are you aware the same beast will devour you?
Don’t fight the boomers, fight their hubris. Attack it at every chance and in every place. The best generation? Really? The most altruistic? In what way? Show us the money. Make our blinkered marketers see that while the boomers are still a massive demographic, there are more of us than of them. And by the way, the ten years right behind the boomers are at our peak earning – if somewhat diminished by what boomer hubris did to market and industry ahead of us. As usual.
But most of all, if you are one of my people, keep working. Keep your head down. Make things work. Have fun. Raise your kids well. The time might come – if the boomers win this election for their messiah – that you need to fight and your kids by your side. This is the boomers’ last attempt to make sure they are special and have a special place in history. Don’t give it to them. They don’t know what place they’ll have, if they win. They’ve blinded themselves so they don’t see.
Vote McCain/Palin even if it all seems lost. Don’t give it to Obama. Make him STEAL it. And then fight him when he steals it.
Take a page from the boomer book. Tell your elders to shut up. Tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about. Speak truth to power. Question authority. Look behind the carefully tacked-up cloth of boomer rhetoric that hides the fact that they really are nothing special. Work for the tipping point. And if all else fails, start our own long march through the institutions.
It is not given to us to choose in which times we live, but how we live is ALWAYS our choice. We might be forgotten or never mentioned in history, that’s okay. We were never mentioned while alive. But religious or not, I’m sure most of us agree that we will be judged. Perhaps not by a supernatural entity at the end of time, but by how well our children and grandchildren live after we’re gone. And if even they don’t know our names and forget we existed, their future, and the future of humanity matters.
Don’t let the boomers destroy us. Make sure they go out of natural causes, quietly, in a free society that honors their real accomplishments and ignores the rest because it is no longer relevant. And that my friends is not only the best, but the only true revenge.
Portia Lamas
I didn’t want to post this as a comment on neo without asking because it’s so incredibly long – so I’m sending it to her and asking her if she is all right with my posting it. If you’re seeing it, she is. Or perhaps she just gave me permission to post a link. Who knows? It really is VERY long.
I didn’t meant to start a thread on the evil of the boomer generation. While it is true that many people – particularly my generation which follows right on their tail – has come to loathe everything boomer and paint them with a broad and dark brush, and while I’ve been known to make comments about living long enough to dance on their graves, this is to an extent and injustice. And not just because there are good boomers among the best – as there are in every generation. I’m not saying this to mollify them or even to throw in some of that worship which they have come to believe is their due from everyone, PARTICULARLY our age cohort.
I assure everyone I come to bury boomerdom not to praise it. Yet, some things need to be said, on how they GOT that way and on the good things they managed along the way which got buried in all the bad. And also, perhaps, about such generic things as how to destroy a country without firing a bullet. And what the real enemies are. And perhaps how we can survive this – I don’t know if we can and I don’t have any real ideas, but perhaps someone out there does.
To begin with let’s talk of the "boomer generation." Were other generations mentioned before? Well, I’ve heard of the lost generation, but by and large the whole concept of "generation" – though existent – seems to have been ignored by American History and Literature until the boomers. I might be wrong on this, because frankly I don’t have the time to do the careful research necessary to back it.
The fact that time and careful research is needed, though, tells you something. NO ONE needs careful research to identify a boomer generation. No one will, even a hundred years from now. They are right there, in every print media, in every radio station, in every record of the time, singing about "My [their] generation." Their effect is undeniable.
Why is that? Well... they’re a REALLY large generation. As such they provided a very attractive marketing target group for a newly prosperous society. All the things they believe about themselves "the best, the brightest" etc started before their turn to the left; before their infatuation with communism, before they began to hate their country.
Am I saying this was a bad thing? Not of itself. Not necessarily. I’m ALL for capitalism. Capitalists have to keep people alive so they can sell to them. It’s much better than the alternative.
So I’m not saying that the marketing was bad or wrong. It was human. I’m saying that it started before these kids ever came to age, that it was a novel experience for them. Regardless of how their parents taught them, or how they were viewed by their parents, they had someone fawning on them as something special. I came onto the scene almost twenty years later, but I grew up reading my brothers’ books. There, on the back of everyone of them, was a page of advertisements. Decoder rings, bikes, "be the first on your block." By the time I came along that marketing had moved on to stuff favored by twenty year olds and teens. My first definition of our generation before I had anything to hold against the boomers was "we came after." As in, we came after all the excitement. After all the neat stuff. At that age I fit what some marketer tried to imprint my people – wedged between boomer and genexer – with "generation Jones." At that age I was envious of everything the boomers had. Don’t discount this marketing campaign as the source of boomer ego. I still have friends who cry at a listing of the products targeted at them as children. There is at least one short story that is nothing more than a listing of these brands. They can’t understand why it leaves my people cold.
From the boomers as a marketing scheme we come to the definition of boomers – of the generation. I know anthropologically and on the books, a generation is 25 years. But the boomers as a "generation" can’t be that long. It can’t even be 20 years. At a maximum stretch I’d give it 15, but I know that the younger of my two older brothers, born in fifty five, when I was growing up considered himself at the very tail end of the generation. He still did some protesting in college, but not as much, and he missed out on all the "exciting stuff," such as the taking of the Dean’s offices and student strikes and all that. And though he still had some classes in which you graded yourself, and a lot where you spent time raising consciousness, it just wasn’t the same. (Echoing his stories, I’m tempted to add ‘man’ to the end of that sentence.)
The generation primarily catered to was exactly that, perhaps birth dates of 46 to 56 or thereabouts. Of course, remember that generations – like decades – as cultural currents do not end at a precise year. There will always be people who identify with the prior generation – Obama is as much a boomer as anyone can be – and those who identify with the next. I have friends who heaved a big sigh of relief in the eighties as schools and students became more "normal." If you look – and I suspect someone could get a grant to do this in sociology or history. Not me. I work for a living – I bet you can trace that truly massive first BOOM moving through the system by the kind of advertisements targeted at them. Decoder rings, milk flavorings, pre-teen primping stuff, teen stuff, love beads, first home, wedding paraphernalia, baby carriers, how to raise your rebellious child books (and did we get a lot of these), do not spank laws and regulations, flash cards and increase your child’s IQ, how to cope with teen children, empty nesting stuff (waning now), and how our retirement is the greatest thing since our birth commercials. All of those are aimed at a rough ten years and about ten years ahead of me. (I’m forty five. The retirement commercials are full force now.) I don’t know for sure nationwide, but I know when I hit the schools they were already starting to contract. There were closed buildings, rooms that weren’t repaired because we didn’t need to use them. Not as bad as the school closings six or seven years later, but there was already a feel that the mass of people that constituted "boomers" was on the wane.
In those early years, we were not considered boomers. The boomers were the others, the generation everyone was talking about. However, this was created by marketing, remember? They need to extend that sense that their products which they just designed/refined for the boomers are still cool and hip. So they started claiming my generation, year by year. When last I looked they were up to sixty four, which is ridiculous. They might have gone further than that now. This in part is to cater to the boomers idea that they’re still young. Ignore it. It’s a distraction.
When I say boomers, I assume 46 to 56 birth dates with some bleed through on either end.
Some of the boomers’ hype about themselves is true. They were probably the best fed American generation ever. And because, as America goes, so does the world, worldwide the boomers were the most prosperous generation ever. Which is not the same as saying that foreign boomers were on the same level as American boomers, but they still enjoyed "wealth never before experienced." (Exceptions to countries behind the iron curtain and of course the usual misery spots.)
We know that early childhood feeding is essential. As such they were probably brighter and more active and healthier than their parents. Here comes the second prong of the generation’s issues. They were brighter, more active and healthier than their parents. Most parents recognized that. All parents always hope for the best for their kids. However most of us know our kids will do "about like we did" accounting for different conditions. Oh, sure there are exceptions. There are rags to riches. They’re few and far between. (Though more common in the US than anyone else.) It is far from the common story. Variations of it, sure. Somewhat ragged to relatively rich is common. But the total change, what the arab horoscopes which -- in one of their few sane ideas compute place of birth, date of birth, status of parents, status of the area born in, and not planets – call "deep slingshot" which comes from the depths of misery to the uppermost riches are rare (No, don’t quote tax records at me. That’s not the same. That records the relative rags to relative riches. Not a meteoric rise, with sudden and permanent results. I.e the very fact people move between the brackets means it wasn’t instant and lasting.)
The boomers’ parents looked at their kids – and perhaps helped by the media hype and by their own traumas from WWII which they wished to overcome – saw something new. A great shining hope. Consciously or not, they raised them like that. "You will change the world" started before student protests.
Call this a story of how those whom the gods mean to destroy they first drive mad.
My guess – and remember I came ten years later, so my vision of it might be colored – is that the rebellion started before it became political. It would have started because these kids would hit late adolescence with sky high expectations and the world would meet them head on and defeat half of them. No one attains their goal every time. And when you’ve been raised to think you’re something special and all doors will open to you, rejection will hurt hardest. Whether what you want is a job or a college education after high school, about half of you are going to fall short of exactly what you want. Maybe more. And if you been raised on hype of how great you are, you’re going to rebel. It can’t be your fault. It’s that ossified older generation. They just don’t "get" you.
And then there was the Vietnam war. The catalyst. You were raised as something special and now they want you to go and die somewhere, for someone you’ve never known? Screw that. You’re special. You’re supposed to have everyone bow before you. You’re not a bullet stopper.
And across the world the third prong of what would drive the boomers to madness kicked in. The marching behemoth of the USSR saw their chance to defeat the US from within, using their own children to do it. This is documented. They sent over agitators. They bombarded Europe with propaganda experts, talking about the boomer revolt here, encouraging the same in the rest of the west.
Suddenly the boomers, raised to believe they were the swiftest, smartest, brightest – the generation everyone must cater to – discovered they were also altruistic, good, kind, the hope of the future. They discovered Aquarius was on the way. They were going to change the world. At first this had a hard edged communist feel, but judging by my brother it waned to hippy-dippy. Most American kids knew they didn’t really want to bring about the revolution. More than anything else, they didn’t want to go to war and they wanted to not grow up. A not uncommon aspiration between late teens and mid twenties. The zeitgeist and the massive doses of narcissism they’d been fed gave them an excuse not to.
They didn’t cut their hair, they didn’t get a job, they went into communes, they experimented with drugs and they joined a thousand different cults. The seventies – their last attempt at not actually trying to achieve anything – was littered with the-spaceship-will-come-tomorrow-and-rescue-us-all. No, I’m not joking, I got the back wash of this via older siblings. I think I lost any interest in the stuff around fourteen, because there was nothing there to hold onto.
This brings me to the final prong of the boomer madness – the one that’s still with us (Oh, very much with us.) – the image is substance thing. Part of this again came from their massive numbers and the hype surrounding them. They literally bent the culture around them. What they said was believed. When they took the colleges on relatively scant achievements – remember, they were protesting – the older generation bowed down or got out of the way. And the boomers, who knew they didn’t have that much substance, formed this idea that it had always been like this, that no one really knew anything, that it was all on how you presented it. They still feel that way – look at the fields they rule. Media, entertainment, education. Yeah. It’s the last prong of their madness.
Here we come to our own – birth dates of 57 or thereabouts to 70 or thereabouts – hostility towards the boomers. No use denying it started in "Jones" of course it did. I remember wishful envy to those ads in the back of mags and books, blooming to utter sneering resentment at the series Thirty Something when I was twenty something. But it went deeper than that. By the time I was twenty something it had become clear my generation wasn’t going to prolong the "boomer way", their modus vivendi, if you will. We went to school and expected to be taught. Worse, with few exceptions, we wanted to be taught what we’d come there to learn, not social consciousness or how to hold a mirror low and preen on the beauty of our sexual organs. And then we left college, cut our hair and went to work.
We followed boomer fashions, we might listen to – some – boomer music, but were not them. We were also the first time they got a wake up call: they were not the last and permanent "youth" generation. They too would pass away, and their works with them.
All I have for this is annedoctal – news reports describing how the "new kids" were evil. They didn’t care about others. They didn’t fight for social justice. They just wanted to make a buck. We were the material girls (and boys) that they sneered at. Personally I found myself at the receiving end of endless rants from siblings, from their friends, from teachers, about how "You don’t care" and about how "Your generation is just materialistic and empty."
This while we were going to school and college which had got filled with boomers as teachers and professors. I suspect most people in my generation have learned to foam at the mouth at two things: the "Call me Bob" teachers, always uttered with gracious condescension; and the "I’ll teach you less than you’ll teach me." Both of these were signs that you were about to spend math class listening to Woodstock tapes and being told how groovy and great and with it the boomers were and how our generation was ruining it all.
This did not make for kind feelings towards them, and I think started the long-corked hatred that erupted in poor neo’s comments. An this brings us to where we’re now, where this election is very much the boomers’ last huzzah and they know it, and they’re pushing with everything they have to get their golden boy in, because this will be their "legacy." They are blinkered by their own information means – lying to themselves has become a boomer thing – who never reported how bad the USSR was before it crashed. They’re blinded by their own self importance. Those that have an inkling they’re wrong are pushing it to the back of their minds. Socialism is what they’ve always pushed, and it’s become their brand new spaceship from Arturus, their new Age of Aquarius.
Pity them. Most of them don’t even realize if they get the golden boy in, what they’ll face instead is forced euthanasia at the hands of the State’s Health Care in another five to ten years, when they become "just a burden on the country." Worse, yet, I suspect most of them would acquiesce to it, happily, thinking they’re the most altruistic, the best, the brightest, the most peaceful.
And this brings me to the good things they did do – and the shining, never materialized shangrilla that might have been if their expectations hadn’t been set quite so high, if their illusions hadn’t been fed by merchants willing to cater to them, by parents who saw in them something new, and finally – and worst of all – by an enemy standing ready to delude them into turning against their own country.
It took me years – I was in my thirties – before I realized that the boomers had materially improved my life. Partly by the fact that they existed – a generation boom is useful and I have no idea if it’s a regularly occurring phenomenon in human societies. But when the young outweigh the old it is a time to break with some ossified rules. Equality for women – before it became the present "feminist" craziness was a good thing. So was equality for minorities. And – I’m libertarian leaning on this, sorry – the fact that gay people could come out of the closet. Same with examining traditions and loosening them some. (Not the complete untying was the result of the hubris described above.)
The fact is the boomers came of age at a time of rapid technological development and society needed to adapt to that. If that was all they did, it would have been great.
And then there is the boomer selfishness, which has made our generation FAR more comfortable. No, no, seriously. The other side of boomer "I want it now" is that they got products made and designed – and social spaces too – in a way that makes common, regular individuals (Call us Average Joe the Plumbers) far more comfortable. This wasn’t as strong in Europe who only got sort of an attenuated boom and if you ever go through the Frankfurt airport, with two toddlers, no water fountains, and few and far spaced bathrooms which have one stall, you should thank the boomer selfishness for what we have here.
I look at my friends who served in Vietnam and at the boomers who woke up after nine eleven and I see what might have been, without the pernicious foreign influence. Without a very ill-timed war to send their rebellion through the roof. They would have grown up. They would have tamed. Their being a little smarter and a little healthier than previous generations would have been a boon to our country and to the world.
That’s not what happened. Call it enemy action. Call it the fact that the previous generation was scarred by WWII and put misguided hopes on the boomers. Call it the fact that by then a good number of their educators were left-leaning. (My father always said one communist in any group is enough to make the whole group act communist. It’s been my observation this is true.) In a way they’re victims. They drank their own Koolaid. They fell through the cracks.
Of course this does not absolve them. At some point we all must raise ourselves, and no one comes from a perfect family or grows up at perfect times. At some point we all must look at ourselves and change what doesn’t work. The boomers chose to perpetuate it. It is clear by how loud they scream that they’re the best that at least most of the know, in their hearts of hearts that they’re not.
However, given the same temptation, how would I have behaved. I don’t know. I didn’t have it. And that makes me squirm in discomfort when I hear wholesale screeds against faceless "boomers." Are you going to be one of those who encourages the state to murder them in their millions through mandated euthanasia? Are you aware the same beast will devour you?
Don’t fight the boomers, fight their hubris. Attack it at every chance and in every place. The best generation? Really? The most altruistic? In what way? Show us the money. Make our blinkered marketers see that while the boomers are still a massive demographic, there are more of us than of them. And by the way, the ten years right behind the boomers are at our peak earning – if somewhat diminished by what boomer hubris did to market and industry ahead of us. As usual.
But most of all, if you are one of my people, keep working. Keep your head down. Make things work. Have fun. Raise your kids well. The time might come – if the boomers win this election for their messiah – that you need to fight and your kids by your side. This is the boomers’ last attempt to make sure they are special and have a special place in history. Don’t give it to them. They don’t know what place they’ll have, if they win. They’ve blinded themselves so they don’t see.
Vote McCain/Palin even if it all seems lost. Don’t give it to Obama. Make him STEAL it. And then fight him when he steals it.
Take a page from the boomer book. Tell your elders to shut up. Tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about. Speak truth to power. Question authority. Look behind the carefully tacked-up cloth of boomer rhetoric that hides the fact that they really are nothing special. Work for the tipping point. And if all else fails, start our own long march through the institutions.
It is not given to us to choose in which times we live, but how we live is ALWAYS our choice. We might be forgotten or never mentioned in history, that’s okay. We were never mentioned while alive. But religious or not, I’m sure most of us agree that we will be judged. Perhaps not by a supernatural entity at the end of time, but by how well our children and grandchildren live after we’re gone. And if even they don’t know our names and forget we existed, their future, and the future of humanity matters.
Don’t let the boomers destroy us. Make sure they go out of natural causes, quietly, in a free society that honors their real accomplishments and ignores the rest because it is no longer relevant. And that my friends is not only the best, but the only true revenge.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Freedom of the Press --
--As long as you report what I want you to report and only ask those questions I want to answer.
That seems to be message being sent out by the Obama/Biden camp these days. We've seen it in how they give their none-too-subtle approval for the way MSM has tried to pillory Sarah Palin and John McCain with falsehoods (Gov. Palin's supposed fake pregnancy), manipulation of facts to suit the dems' purposes (so-called troopergate), and misrepresentation of Senator McCain's voiting history. Oh, and let's not forget about the role Bill Clinton and the democrats played in setting up the current banking crisis, especially with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Now comes the latest and most blatant example of what the democratic candidates truly believe when it comes to freedom of the press.
This past Thursday, Joe Biden was interviewed via satellite by WFTV reporter Barbara West. (http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html). This wasn't the first time Biden had been interviewed by Ms. West. For that matter, she had also interviewed Obama as well. So, it wasn't as if they didn't know she was a reporter who asked questions her viewers wanted answers to.
Before getting to Thursday's interview, here's a quick overview of the questions she asked Biden on Sept. 26th, just before the presidential debate.
Fast forward to Thursday. Once again, Ms. West interviewed Biden via satellite. This time, her questions, with one exception, came directly from comments made either by Obama or Biden, himself. The one exception was when she asked Biden if he was "embarrassed" by the fact ACORN has been caught committed what amounts to voter fraud, especially since Obama has such a long history with ACORN. Biden immediately went on the defensive, pointing out that their campaign had never "paid" ACORN to do anything like that and going on to say that Obama has never been a benefactor for ACORN in the senate. In fact, he went so far as to say that John McCain had been more of a supporter of ACORN in the senate than had Obama. Excuse me?
Three of the next four questions dealt with Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around" and whether or not that smacks of Marxism. She even had the audacity (tongue firmly planted in cheek here) to say that there are some who are worried Obama wants to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden (does anyone remember his national police force comment?). Now, good ole Joe didn't like the tenor of these questions at all and even went so far as to say that the only ones who have done anything like that are Bush and McCain by "spreading the wealth upward". Huh?
The other question she asked came straight from a Biden quote. She wanted to know if, when he said foreign powers would test Obama within six months of becoming president, that mean he was warning that America's time as a world leader was over.
Hard questions? Yes. Questions that needed to be asked? Most definitely. The response from the Obama/Biden camp? Read it for yourself --
Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.
That seems to be message being sent out by the Obama/Biden camp these days. We've seen it in how they give their none-too-subtle approval for the way MSM has tried to pillory Sarah Palin and John McCain with falsehoods (Gov. Palin's supposed fake pregnancy), manipulation of facts to suit the dems' purposes (so-called troopergate), and misrepresentation of Senator McCain's voiting history. Oh, and let's not forget about the role Bill Clinton and the democrats played in setting up the current banking crisis, especially with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Now comes the latest and most blatant example of what the democratic candidates truly believe when it comes to freedom of the press.
This past Thursday, Joe Biden was interviewed via satellite by WFTV reporter Barbara West. (http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html). This wasn't the first time Biden had been interviewed by Ms. West. For that matter, she had also interviewed Obama as well. So, it wasn't as if they didn't know she was a reporter who asked questions her viewers wanted answers to.
Before getting to Thursday's interview, here's a quick overview of the questions she asked Biden on Sept. 26th, just before the presidential debate.
- did it help or hurt Senator McCain to suspend his campaign in order to return to Washington to work on the bailout bill?
- what would it take to climb out of the current financial crisis?
- people with accounts in WaMu are worried. How will WaMu's collapse effect them?
- how much more in taxes can the people stand? (asked with regard to the bail out plan)
- how did Biden respond to speculation that, after the vice-presidential debate, he'd bow out of the race for "health reasons" and Hilary Clinton would step in?
- (http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html)
Fast forward to Thursday. Once again, Ms. West interviewed Biden via satellite. This time, her questions, with one exception, came directly from comments made either by Obama or Biden, himself. The one exception was when she asked Biden if he was "embarrassed" by the fact ACORN has been caught committed what amounts to voter fraud, especially since Obama has such a long history with ACORN. Biden immediately went on the defensive, pointing out that their campaign had never "paid" ACORN to do anything like that and going on to say that Obama has never been a benefactor for ACORN in the senate. In fact, he went so far as to say that John McCain had been more of a supporter of ACORN in the senate than had Obama. Excuse me?
Three of the next four questions dealt with Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around" and whether or not that smacks of Marxism. She even had the audacity (tongue firmly planted in cheek here) to say that there are some who are worried Obama wants to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden (does anyone remember his national police force comment?). Now, good ole Joe didn't like the tenor of these questions at all and even went so far as to say that the only ones who have done anything like that are Bush and McCain by "spreading the wealth upward". Huh?
The other question she asked came straight from a Biden quote. She wanted to know if, when he said foreign powers would test Obama within six months of becoming president, that mean he was warning that America's time as a world leader was over.
Hard questions? Yes. Questions that needed to be asked? Most definitely. The response from the Obama/Biden camp? Read it for yourself --
Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.
"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.
McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was "a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West."
(http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/10/obama-campaign.html)
So, it's wrong for John McCain to cancel an appearance on David Letterman who, the last time I checked, wasn't a member of the media (although these days it's hard to tell the entertainers from the reporters) over the way Letterman treated Sarah Palin, but it's certainly all right to refuse to talk to reporters because you don't like the questions they ask. Hmm...sounds like a great way to encourage freedom of the press and an informed electorate to me -- NOT!
Read the response from the Obama camp again. They didn't just cancel Mrs. Biden's appearance. They stated that "further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election." (emphasis added) In other words, this station is to be punished because one reporter had the integrity to ask questions her viewers wanted answered. Good for her. Shame on the democrats for doing their best not only to silence her but to undermine the intent of the First Amendment to our Constitution.
Think about this: How can a man who wants to lead this, the greatest nation in the world, approve of actions that effectively silence the voice of dissent? Is this the sort of man we dare trust with the rest of our civil liberties as guaranteed under the Constitution?
For me, the answer is simple enough. No. If he is willing to silence the press because he doesn't like the questions they ask, I don't want to know what else he is willing to do to insure we think, act and say all the "right" things.
The Dogs Bark...
Ladies and Gentlemen, the day is upon us. Look around you. Look at the left, scratching at the bars of their cage like rabid dogs, ready to be loosed and tear apart what’s left of American civilization. I challenge you, now, to look upon the visage of the left and see upon it a single remnant of the ideals that they preach so loudly and practice so little. When will we pass the tolerable threshold? Find it within yourself and be firm. Find it within yourself and be prepared to see where society has gone to those dogs.
Do you have a child in the public educational system today, Ladies and Gentlemen? Your child has almost certainly been thrown to the dogs. Are you staying vigilant against the lies that they are going to try to put into their heads all the way through that long journey through education? Because not only will they try it, but they will try it in a thousand different, inventive, cloying ways. They will sidle up to their young prey in all friendliness, they will teach it not challenge their thoughts and beliefs, they will reward it for conforming, ladies and gentleman. And when your child is vulnerable, they will devour their mind and destroy them if you don’t stand guard. While your child may have to lie to make it through with a worthy GPA, watch carefully for the signs of rot, for it is difficult to be immersed in the pit of liberal acid without the tiniest puncture. Arm yourself, be firm, KNOW the facts. They await only your slip in vigilance.
Do you know how to find the facts, ladies and gentlemen? It’s all to easy to let yourself slip to the dogs. The left, like hell spawn, are endlessly inventive in their temptations and tricks. But if you DO look for the truth, you will find that, usually, you don’t have to look far. Half the arguments the left makes have a critical logical flaw you can yank to collapse them. Nine tenths of what remains is based on imaginary or fabricated evidence (Like Dan Rather’s typewriter produced document complete with impossible fonts, or Al Gore’s “Hockey Stick Graph” which didn’t pass Monte Carlo analysis). After that, of course, we get the arguments from the experts. But I encourage you to take heart. I’ve heard many, many incredibly convincing arguments from the left over the ages, and still the truth lies in wait. Look for the giveaways where the mask slips: the contradictions, the things they DON’T say. Look for the evidence based in communist doctrine, or equally atrocious fallacies. The dogs will bay loudly, and it’s easy to be distracted when they go for the throat.
But why do the dogs bay? They have found a master. Even now, a wolf enters the fold of America. He is like the dogs, but handsomer, more hypnotic, more deadly and unpredictable. A malignant force only now tamed by the democratic party… while it suits him. He let them collar him, give him a logo, emblazon his tag with a donkey and a stylized O. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, HOW tamed? Have you heard those speeches? Have you heard about the encouragements for violence at the polls, have you heard that the Straight-Talk Express (Where McCain and Palin are touring) was shot at? If you hadn’t, then now is the time to start thinking. Does THAT sound tamed to you? Or are we looking now at the wolf growling, preparing with its threat for the moment when it will unleash its wrath? We already know that he’s deeply embroiled in Acorn, which has the single largest amount of Registration fraud existent. How long, Ladies and Gentleman? How much will we be warned, and given time to react? Where is your limit, and when you reach it, will it be too late?
We are in an awkward position at this moment. We can start by voting for McCain and Palin. We can start by staying psychologically strong. No matter how they fabricate the polls, no matter how much the golden wolf shines, remember that they cannot get stronger unless they pull you in. That they depend on you, the same way a pack might surround a victim to keep them from believing they can fight back or escape. Because in the end, and here I speak to all, it will not matter which side you’re on. Those who argue for the institution of communism, for the restriction of rights, are abusing those selfsame rights to do so. When one possesses a great deal of freedom, it is in the spirit of flexibility for those times when adaptations must be made, and NOT for unrelenting opposition of the way things are generally accepted in society merely because you can. It is the alternative for the much promoted restriction of rights, and those who use freedom to advocate restriction forget that if their policy were true, then there would always be some action, somewhere, that they would pay for. Advocacy of something doesn’t mean you’re immune to the program, as many a Nazi or Communist found out as the policies of their own doctrine became more and more paranoid. And think about THAT when you’re in that poll booth… like a cloistered confessional, you alone with your thoughts and with your ethics and with the choice. And remember that the wolf is still only growling, and remember the cost we are already paying at the hands of one man’s deluded sense of grandeur. Remember the violence, threats, and vandalism we have ALREADY seen, and then think for a moment about what would happen if the wolf actually got REAL power.
Because an election is just a coin toss now. We all know that the shows that McCain and Palin have been on have had the highest ratings in their set so far. We’re all, I hope, by this time aware that trusting a poll from the MSM is on par with handing a demon a blank contract with your signature (which the democrats are trying even now, incidentally). But if you think you’ve seen cheating with JFK, if you think you saw it with Al Gore, then I can all but guarantee that what they will pull this time will make that look like having a four up your sleeve in penny-ante poker. The Dogs want their master. They foam at the mouth and they convulse and they spit and they beg to be given the country to mangle in their jaws. We have to resist. Vote against, speak against, stand against the left, and put down the rabid dog of the left before it harms another innocent. Because how many more children will it take, how many more lies must be told, how many more crimes must be advocated before there is no more time, no more space, no more victims?
I don’t ask that you be callous, or violent. Remember that the dog is infected, that it has picked up a disease from others. Feel free to block the source, as you would any illness, where it breeds in schools and agencies. But by the same token, give it no quarter. It is an illness, not a guarantee of innocence. The infection is too deep for a cure. Now, we must contain it, prevent its spread, and let it whither.
We must keep the wolf out of the Fold.
-Hannibal
Do you have a child in the public educational system today, Ladies and Gentlemen? Your child has almost certainly been thrown to the dogs. Are you staying vigilant against the lies that they are going to try to put into their heads all the way through that long journey through education? Because not only will they try it, but they will try it in a thousand different, inventive, cloying ways. They will sidle up to their young prey in all friendliness, they will teach it not challenge their thoughts and beliefs, they will reward it for conforming, ladies and gentleman. And when your child is vulnerable, they will devour their mind and destroy them if you don’t stand guard. While your child may have to lie to make it through with a worthy GPA, watch carefully for the signs of rot, for it is difficult to be immersed in the pit of liberal acid without the tiniest puncture. Arm yourself, be firm, KNOW the facts. They await only your slip in vigilance.
Do you know how to find the facts, ladies and gentlemen? It’s all to easy to let yourself slip to the dogs. The left, like hell spawn, are endlessly inventive in their temptations and tricks. But if you DO look for the truth, you will find that, usually, you don’t have to look far. Half the arguments the left makes have a critical logical flaw you can yank to collapse them. Nine tenths of what remains is based on imaginary or fabricated evidence (Like Dan Rather’s typewriter produced document complete with impossible fonts, or Al Gore’s “Hockey Stick Graph” which didn’t pass Monte Carlo analysis). After that, of course, we get the arguments from the experts. But I encourage you to take heart. I’ve heard many, many incredibly convincing arguments from the left over the ages, and still the truth lies in wait. Look for the giveaways where the mask slips: the contradictions, the things they DON’T say. Look for the evidence based in communist doctrine, or equally atrocious fallacies. The dogs will bay loudly, and it’s easy to be distracted when they go for the throat.
But why do the dogs bay? They have found a master. Even now, a wolf enters the fold of America. He is like the dogs, but handsomer, more hypnotic, more deadly and unpredictable. A malignant force only now tamed by the democratic party… while it suits him. He let them collar him, give him a logo, emblazon his tag with a donkey and a stylized O. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, HOW tamed? Have you heard those speeches? Have you heard about the encouragements for violence at the polls, have you heard that the Straight-Talk Express (Where McCain and Palin are touring) was shot at? If you hadn’t, then now is the time to start thinking. Does THAT sound tamed to you? Or are we looking now at the wolf growling, preparing with its threat for the moment when it will unleash its wrath? We already know that he’s deeply embroiled in Acorn, which has the single largest amount of Registration fraud existent. How long, Ladies and Gentleman? How much will we be warned, and given time to react? Where is your limit, and when you reach it, will it be too late?
We are in an awkward position at this moment. We can start by voting for McCain and Palin. We can start by staying psychologically strong. No matter how they fabricate the polls, no matter how much the golden wolf shines, remember that they cannot get stronger unless they pull you in. That they depend on you, the same way a pack might surround a victim to keep them from believing they can fight back or escape. Because in the end, and here I speak to all, it will not matter which side you’re on. Those who argue for the institution of communism, for the restriction of rights, are abusing those selfsame rights to do so. When one possesses a great deal of freedom, it is in the spirit of flexibility for those times when adaptations must be made, and NOT for unrelenting opposition of the way things are generally accepted in society merely because you can. It is the alternative for the much promoted restriction of rights, and those who use freedom to advocate restriction forget that if their policy were true, then there would always be some action, somewhere, that they would pay for. Advocacy of something doesn’t mean you’re immune to the program, as many a Nazi or Communist found out as the policies of their own doctrine became more and more paranoid. And think about THAT when you’re in that poll booth… like a cloistered confessional, you alone with your thoughts and with your ethics and with the choice. And remember that the wolf is still only growling, and remember the cost we are already paying at the hands of one man’s deluded sense of grandeur. Remember the violence, threats, and vandalism we have ALREADY seen, and then think for a moment about what would happen if the wolf actually got REAL power.
Because an election is just a coin toss now. We all know that the shows that McCain and Palin have been on have had the highest ratings in their set so far. We’re all, I hope, by this time aware that trusting a poll from the MSM is on par with handing a demon a blank contract with your signature (which the democrats are trying even now, incidentally). But if you think you’ve seen cheating with JFK, if you think you saw it with Al Gore, then I can all but guarantee that what they will pull this time will make that look like having a four up your sleeve in penny-ante poker. The Dogs want their master. They foam at the mouth and they convulse and they spit and they beg to be given the country to mangle in their jaws. We have to resist. Vote against, speak against, stand against the left, and put down the rabid dog of the left before it harms another innocent. Because how many more children will it take, how many more lies must be told, how many more crimes must be advocated before there is no more time, no more space, no more victims?
I don’t ask that you be callous, or violent. Remember that the dog is infected, that it has picked up a disease from others. Feel free to block the source, as you would any illness, where it breeds in schools and agencies. But by the same token, give it no quarter. It is an illness, not a guarantee of innocence. The infection is too deep for a cure. Now, we must contain it, prevent its spread, and let it whither.
We must keep the wolf out of the Fold.
-Hannibal
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