Letters to the Editor
CeliaInSF
Published Letters: 639 Editor's Choice: 5
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Dear Joan Walsh and fellow pissed-off boomers,
[Read the article: The other 18 million]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I finally get it- it’s the generation gap stupid (me).
I keep breaking my promise to myself to stay away from this type of article and thread. But I have just realized something important and it is so plain and obvious I must get it out there!
Clearly a bunch of folks don’t want to turn the page- you want to keep on fighting the boomer generation battles and can not be more pissed that the game has been changed and for real this time.
All of the other arguments are papering over the fact that you want to fight the war on your terms even if we all are losing. Maybe you can’t even see the fight in any other terms.
Bill Clinton did the same thing Obama has- he changed the game fought by the previous generation and won because Bush senior was so far out of touch – especially with you boomers who were then really coming to power. Then we get Bush v. Gore, Bush v. Kerry, fighting the same things that your generation has been fighting about since high school. So convinced of the righteousness of your cause and so enamored of the marketing propaganda of the me generation you were steeped in you still can’t see anything wrong with the high school popularity mentality you have brought to politics (and business and culture and everything else for that matter.)
Sometimes it is hardest to see the most obvious thing in front of your face. I can’t believe it is this readily apparent. Relinquishing the terms of this game you have been fighting for years is a defeat so deep and so personal that when a next generation comes along and says I’m not playing your game anymore it insults you to the core. I imagine it feels like a total repudiation of everything you have done and hold dear. While in fact you’re not being thrown under the bus for the youth vote if feels that way. You’re actually being asked to make room and share the bus!
Now I understand why Obama is being portrayed as this upstart- someone who hasn’t paid his dues even though he has plenty of experience. (And everyone forgets there is such a thing as too much legislative experience to make a run for president – too many votes that can be distorted - think flip flopper …he voted for it before he voted against it…) You see his confidence as arrogance, his greatest crime getting in the way of a major victory of and by your generation. That is why people who voted for Clinton can say in all seriousness that they are going to vote for McCain. They’d rather have McCain put this whippersnapper in his place than have the kid take over and bring his new vision.
The only appeal I can make to you is the fact many of you boomers have kids my age - and you are - or would like to be grandparents. (If you don't have your own surely you know some gen x, gen y and millenials you love.) Give us a shot at a better life and a safer world. For all of us. You have many, many good years left! We know you are not spent and we don’t hate you. But we think the battles you are fighting among yourselves have proven to be un-winnable – or at the very least too dangerous and costly to keep carrying on.
Many of us would like to be citizens first and whatever identity we are second. We’re tired of being chopped into demographics and segments and being turned against each other. We see each other differently than you do. (Many of us carry multiple identities. We actually understand eachother more as age cohorts than anything else.) But remember – this is what you taught us. We’re not perfect (obviously) and were not better but when you see our ideals it is the manifestation of the best of what you gave us!
Let me repeat that - even though this post is way over long.
The best of us is what you gave us!!!
Also, when you look at this young upstart, please recognize that his victory is yours as well. We wouldn’t be who we are without you and we are getting more tolerant of each other – more color blind more equal, etc. every generation. Please don’t get mad when we take it for granted a little bit- that is a major accomplishment in of itself. But there is nothing wrong with reminding us how hard won your accomplishments were and how tenuous our rights can be…
Ask you’re friends who like this Obama kid- there are a lot who think the kids are alright and maybe were going somewhere. Maybe there is hope.
I know you’re pissed but aren’t you a little proud of our idealism?
Doesn’t it remind you of somebody?
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um rufus11
[Read the article: The other 18 million]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks but, uh, I've been for Obama for a long time. I was for Edwards first, and I really wanted to like Clinton but I can't stand the campaign she ran. I voted for Obama, contributed to his campaign and plan to volunteer in the very near future.
I fell into a deep funk after Nov. 2004 and I plan to do everything I can for my part to make sure Obama wins.
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KStone
[Read the article: The other 18 million]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's not the point KStone- I get what you're saying but each generation has overlap. He's at the tail end of boomer but really in temperment and philosophy seems more like gen x - or maybe something in-between. He is certainly not playing the same game, on the same turf. He's moved it over to another field.