In his essay appearing in The
New York Times (1), David Brooks next considers the record of the Baby
Boomers as it pertains to social movements, writing that although “Boomers
are bad at politics because they distrust institutions”, they nevertheless
have been “good at leading decentralized social movements: environmental,
feminist, civil rights, LGBTQ rights.”
I’ll give the Boomers credit for
the last of these movements, but Brooks otherwise stood history on its head. Let’s begin with the environmental
movement. This began with the publishing
of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” a full half a decade before the Generation
of Swine began to exert any political influence and a full decade before
the Boomers could vote in any large numbers. In any case, it was Nixon
and his generation that gave us the Environmental Protection agency as the Swine
contented itself with celebrating a newly established “Earth Day” and then
proceeded to consume mass quantities.
And let’s not even mention the current resistance by the Swine to
addressing in any meaningful way the environmental catastrophe looming on the
near horizon.
This is also true of the feminist movement and
especially true of the Civil Rights movement, both of which were led by men and
women of an older generation. And both
of which began to wane at precisely the time the Swine had come to exert
its stranglehold upon the body politic.
It is no mere coincidence that the Equal Rights Amendment died an ignominious
death precisely when the majority of Boomers could exercise the
franchise. And, it is worth noting, they
have done nothing to resurrect the cause.
Likewise, the Civil Rights movement.
Brooks, for some unfathomable reason,
award the Swine a grade of A.
This is laughable. The Swine fail
miserably. Grade: F.
This is what distrust of
institutions produces: Occupy Wall Street, the 99 Per Cent, the Women’s
March. Brooks cites the Tea Party
Movement, Gun Rights and the pro-life movement as notable examples of effective
decentralized political action. He is
wrong. All of them are the products of well-heeled
political organization funded by major contributors to achieve narrow and
self-serving interests, and all of them have severely damaged the social fabric
of this country. Brooks is peering
through a narrow ideological lens, clouding his judgment, not understanding
that the populism on the political wrong is a faux populism designed to erode governance;
a cancer upon the political body.
Indeed, the Swine, in their headlong effort to repeal the New Deal--if not the entire twentieth century--have done more damage to the institutions of this country than any other.
"An Br'er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh"
Impeach and Imprison
Again, Grade F.
_______________
1.
Ibid. See
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