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« Opinion
Baby boomers: The worst?
The Jersey Journal, Jersey City, N.J.: While those who fought fascism in World War II are considered by many as the Greatest Generation, did they also give birth to the worst, the Baby Boomers?
This was the underlying question in an article in The Wall Street Journal about a number of prominent speakers at college commencement exercises.
These representatives of the Boomer generation were apologizing to the new graduates for failing to live up to their expectations and leaving behind a mess young people will have to clean up.
‘God is Dead’
Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. They have been ridiculed for failing to even come close to their parents, who developed a work ethic rooted in the Great Depression, and instead have learned to despise their past, embraced the “God is Dead” headline, and prefer being called “citizen of the world” rather than American.
Today, critics of Boomers can add economically irresponsible and politically demented.
It is OK to apologize for failings because every generation criticizes itself. Boomers can recall similar graduation speeches at high school and colleges urging them to do better.
There should be a balance.
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Comments
I think the boomers have alot to answer for. I do think they became so materialistic that they forgot the conservative values their parents had to have b/c of the harshness of the recession. I am glad to be Gen X...we are skeptical (too much so) but we have our parents work ethic (they were children of the depression).
My Boomer Generation parents are a constant source of disappointment. The selfishness and materialism is very frustrating. There is one good thing about being raised by parents from that generation: They taught me how to avoid becoming like them!
yikes! Younger baby-boomers like me have been warned for years we would not get the medicare, social security, and pension benefits we worked to provide for the "Greatest Generation" for a whole career.
"Greatest Generation" is right. Buy a house for $12,000. Sell it for $100,000. Get not only a pension after retiring but free health care. And some of them have been retired now for longer than they worked. What was great about most of them was their luck. They came of age just when the depression was ending and a new era of prosperity was beginning. The benefits they enjoyed lasted only for the period of their own lives.
Baby Boomers invented the technology you are using to read this, new music, new concern for the environment, and an acceptance of minority citizens who had to live in the shadows when I was a child during the reign of the "Greatest Generation."
WOW What a cry baby you are