“You wanna change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You ask me 'bout the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.” ---The Beatles “Revolution”
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You ask me 'bout the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.” ---The Beatles “Revolution”
David Brooks, writing yesterday in The
New York Times (1), posed the question: “What grade has a generation
earned?” It is an interesting, although
deeply flawed, analysis. Using several criteria,
Brooks concludes that the generation following the “greatest” of them all
deserves an overall B. Let’s examine the
record once again.
First, on the question of politics,
Brooks generously gives the Generation of Swine a C-, reasoning as
follows:
“The baby boomer political era
began in 1992, with the election of Bill Clinton” Brooks blithely assures
us. “In the five years before that, these leaders dominated world politics: Ronald
Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, John Paul II,
Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand”
“Baby Boomers have been unable
to match that level of talent.” (2) Brooks concludes with breathtaking
understatement.
But let’s stop right here. First, the Boomers didn’t emerge in 1992, but
rather in 1968 in the streets of Chicago as they drove Lyndon Johnson from the
White House and helped usher in Richard Shithouse Nixon. Coming into majority and voting in large
numbers for the first time, they voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1972,
despite the efforts of Hunter S. Thompson and “Rolling Stone” magazine
to affect a generational ‘revolution’.
In 1980 they disproportionately embraced Reagan and his reactionary
politics, setting the tone for the next three decades. Brooks has it quite wrong, exhibiting a peculiarly
narrow reading of the historical record.
Secondly, the Boomers can hardly
lay claim to the likes of Mandela, Kohl or Mitterand; and Reagan was, from the
standpoint of economics and the damage he did to the underlying safety net and
the social fabric of the country, an unmitigated disaster. Let’s not even mention the dealing with Iran
over the hostages, nor the Iran-Contra mess either of which should have had him
impeached and removed from office. No,
the Boomers have hardly been the judge of good character, well predating
Clinton, the Bushes and tRUMP. In fact,
with the single exception of Obama, every one of them should have been
impeached and several imprisoned.
Brooks notes that under the terror
of the “Boomers” nurtured as they were on the frauds of Ayn Rand and
Henry David Thoreau, “American political institutions have become dysfunctional,
civic debate has crumbled, debt has soared, and few major pieces of legislation
have passed”(3). After this damning
conclusion, Brooks betrays his Ivy League credentials by nevertheless generously
awarding the Swine a ‘gentleman’s’ C-.
The facts are that where once stood
Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, the Boomers, after having helped impose Nixon,
voted to elevate the likes of Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and now our Caesar
Disgustus into the national pantheon, forever soiling the American political
tradition. Where once stood Sam Rayburn
and John McCormick, the Swine inserted
Newt Gingrich, John Boner, and Paul Ryan.
Where once sat Louis Brandies, Arthur Goldberg, Thurgood Marshall and
William Douglas, the Swine have gagged up the likes of Clarence Thomas,
William Rhenquist, and Brett Kavanaugh. And, as Brooks rightly points out, the
generation—having no idea how we got here—have for nearly half a century waged
war upon the institutions of this country. Our Caesar Disgustus, it has been repeatedly
observed in these columns, is not an aberration but instead a consummation of a
half century of mischief. A vandalism directed at the institutions of this
country by the Generation of Swine, whose performance ranks narrowly above
the generation that led the nation to civil war and properly deserves a D-.
“An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh
and laugh”
Impeach and Imprison
________________
1.
Brooks, David “Baby Boomer Report Card” The
New York Times, Friday, August 9, 2019. Page A23.
2.
Ibid
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