CommonDreams: American Betrayal

[marmar]

Published on Saturday, February 17, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
American Betrayal
by David Michael Green

Some people are hopelessly foolish. Some can’t help it entirely (though a little less TV time would certainly go a long way), because they have been purposely trained to be so. They may be excused.

But too many others know better. That makes them cowardly and self-serving, and there is no excuse for that. Not when people are dying by the tens of thousands there. Not when the republic is being savaged here.

History will record this as America’s most shameful – most inexcusable – moment, and probably the beginning of the end of any further such significant American moments whatsoever, as the empire begins its slow descent. Generations of responsible statesmen and women handed over a largely healthy, sometimes pacific, broadly admired republic to the present administration, which has taken quantum leaps toward unraveling those centuries of painstaking work.

It would be easy to cast the blame for our present predicament on a single ideological movement, or even a single generation, and it would not be wholly inaccurate to do so. The contemporary regressive right is without question a vicious cancer that has invaded the body politic to devastating consequences. Its predations were immensely facilitated by the self-reverential concerns of the Baby Boomers, who not for nothing were once called the Me Generation (that’s capital M, capital G, if you don’t mind). Rest assured, there are no statesmen today because to be one requires consciousness of others, sacrifice of self, moral sensitivity and historical sagacity, all qualities notably absent from this generation.

It is not only the Boomers to blame, however, but their parents as well. Ironically, the so-called “Greatest Generation” – which was indeed great in many ways – was also responsible for at least two crucial mistakes that deeply haunt us today. One was to raise a bunch of self-serving, self-interested children, well-trained for the pursuit of happiness, but woefully unprepared for comprehending or sacrificing what is necessary to sustain and advance the greater good of the commonweal. ......(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0217-02.htm

[illinoisprogressive]

1. I'm a tailend Boomer and always thought my generation to be a shameful excuse.

[marmar]

2. I'm an Xer, and we're a shameful excuse in the making.....

:) :cry:

[Warpy]

3. David needs to get over hating his parents

who saw pension contributions robbed when they changed jobs, who saw double digit inflation caused by OPEC and blamed on them, who saw double digit unemployment followed by double digit home mortgage interest rates when they entered their home buying years, who got their FICA/OASDI contributions jacked up six times to be turned into a back door tax increase on the poorest, who saw the tax system put high taxes on the poorest into stone, thanks to Reagan and their parents, who saw wages keep falling in real terms since 1970, the year many of them entered the workforce, who saw one paycheck incapable of supporting a family so both parents had to work and leisure time to pursue politics disappeared, who saw the dismantling and dumbing down of the public schools, who saw college tuitions escalate beyond their ability to pay for their children, who saw the health care system be utterly destroyed by greed, who saw whole industries sent offshore by greedy corporations and their jobs go with them, who saw the dismantling of the New Deal and the Bill of Rights by their parents' generation, and who saw their parent's generation allow the consolidation of media into just 6 massive corporations so that none of them would ever know the truth of what was really happening to them.

Yeah, we sure were responsible for screwing your life up, David. May you see the same things we did so that you'll understand.

Punk.

Now let's see you stop your generation's war.

[jaysunb]

4. There were some powerful indictments made in Davids piece

but as a Boomer I have to agre w/ with you Warpy. Our contributions have been many and history will record it as such....

[stormymonday]

5. I am sick and tired of all this 'generation' shit

Read the history books and you will find that people like Bush and Company have been shafting the rest of the human race for thousands of years. It is CLASS WAR but most Americans wont even admit to its existence. They prefer to swallow the pathetic and infantile 'generational' buck passing peddled in articles like the above.

[POAS]

7. I'm with you Stormy

It is just plain wrong to blame an entire generation for the evil perpetrated by a few people with power.

That said, we also cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility. Speaking for myself, I often bemoan my own retreat into slumber after the end of the Viet Nam war. Like so many others I thought, "We Won, now we can relax and live happily ever after". Too late we found that life doesn't have "happily ever afters". We relaxed our guard and the "evil-doers" continued their march. Not all of us relaxed, but enough of us did that the country took a step back and now a new generation must undue want we let happen on our watch.

If politics and the fortunes of nations truly swing on a pendulum then hopefully the swing has started back to the left and it is not too late. If history is an example then, for a very long time, each swing has been further towards more freedoms and liberties and away from the rule of tyrants. I hope this swing continues that trend.

[fedsron2us]

6. This article is whining, negative and defeatist

It makes no positive suggestions for how things could be changed.

Such counsels of despair only aid the enemy.