By ACE ROBISON
Since it first came into common usage a few years ago I have been bemused by the term “The Greatest Generation”. Created by TV journalist Tom Brokaw who used it as the title for his popular book to describe the generation of men and women who came of age during the Great Depression, fought and won World War II, forged the American economic juggernaut that rebuilt a world that had been destroyed, then laid the foundation for unparalleled American and world economic growth during the 1950s and 1960s.
That generation is certainly deserving of credit for their accomplishments. The entire world is better off for what they did. But, as with all generalizations, there is danger in being too general. To be truly deserving of the title that has now become part of our national language, it seems we must look closely at the generation that followed.
Another term has, in recent decades also overwhelmed our national language. “Baby Boomer” describes those who were bred and born between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s.
In order to pronounce “The Greatest Generation” the greatest, it seems important to consider all aspects of their greatness; perhaps most significantly including, the contributions (or lack thereof) of the generation that followed.
A writer recently wrote: “Baby boomers grew up in and inherited the richest economy in world history. They had every advantage you could possibly ask for. Post World War II America was an economic powerhouse the likes of which the world had never seen. When they came of age more of them went to college than any generation before them, and it was so cheap their parents could afford to pay for it easily. They did drugs, engaged in unbounded sexual promiscuity, studied underwater basket weaving, and gave their parents a bigger middle finger than any generation before them ever had, and then went on to become yuppies with high-paying middle management jobs.”
And, I might add: they became professors and teachers at public and private universities and schools; became politicians in Washington, DC and state capitols; passed self-indulgent, debt-creating, sanctimonious attitudes and laws on to a rising generation that in accepting their phony premises will likely never be able to pay the bills of their profligacy.
And what evidence, you might ask, is there for such a harsh indictment of the offspring of the “Greatest Generation”? Let me offer just three examples.
President Bill Clinton arrogantly abused the sanctity of the White House as he made it his own Playboy playpen, then lied about it to America and the world. Upon leaving the White House Hillary Clinton avowed they were penniless. But Clinton used the office he had held to make his family fabulously wealthy through something called the “Clinton Global Initiative.” This Initiative has vacuumed money from corporations and countries around the world, some having dubious relations with the United States.
Compare this to President Harry Truman who also left the White House nearly penniless. Truman humbly returned to his home in Independence, Missouri where for some time he collected only his Army pension of just over $120 per month (he was a World War I veteran). Unlike Baby Boomer Clinton, Truman turned down several offers from private business that could have made him a very rich man had he chosen to capitalize on the office of the Presidency. He declined by saying, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”
But you see, those rules of decency and decorum apparently don’t apply to a later Baby Boomer generation of Presidents.
Perhaps the most prominent example of Baby Boomer character traits is exemplified in our current Commander in Chief. President Obama is so cock-sure of his rightness about everything that he feels no need to compromise about anything.
Candidate Barack Obama presented himself in 2008 as a constitutional scholar who could bring us together. Yet he does not comprehend the fact that compromise is a trait inherent in our Constitution and essential to the very fabric of our governmental system. And he has not brought us together.
The raw partisanship seen in the passage of Obamacare was a preview of things to come in the Obama presidency. Rather than seeking to work with the opposition to forge meaningful compromise he attacked, impugned motives and values, and made no effort to find resolution.
To this day, seven years into his presidency he spurns bipartisanship because, as he publicly told Congressman Paul Ryan, “You’ve got to understand, we won the election”. That is the essence of arrogance. That is the essence of the Baby Boomer leadership mentality.
Finally, let us consider another prominent Baby Boomer, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. If ever anyone considered themselves above the rules of decorum and decency it is Hillary. Mention has already been made of the Clintons appetite for other people’s money and their indifference to other people’s rules. Eyebrows have been raised because much of the “Clinton Global Initiative” fortune has been amassed from around the world while Hillary was U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. Or consider the nearly total lack of transparency associated with the tragedy in Benghazi, or the yet to be fully understood (it may never be) compromise of national security information associated with her private in-home server, or the weak half-truths offered for both.
But you see, the rules of decorum and decency don’t apply. Not to them. Only power is important.
I know, it’s dangerous to generalize but I could go on recounting Baby Boomer politicians, professors, school teachers, and business and professional people whose actions and words show that they believe themselves smarter than most people, are lacking in the wisdom of earlier generations, and spurn centuries-old rules of civility, decency and decorum.
Those rules are irrelevant to the children bred by, born to and raised by the “Greatest Generation”.
While we should not entirely blame the parent for the failing of the child—it was after all a perfect Father whose prodigal son squandered his inheritance—nevertheless, it is instructive to observe how wealth, leisure, profligacy, and inadequate moral teaching can fundamentally damage a child, a generation, and a society.
