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In reply to the discussion: At some point, young voters "broke bad" and turned on older voters. Maybe they didn't mean to hurt us. But, they did. [View all]I'm an old man who understands the proper role for elders in a healthy society. I don't think that I've ever told any young person that my generation "really did them wrong, because they're going through so much and we had it so easy." Or that my message is geared towards young people today. Quite the opposite: my primary focus is on my generation. My social group is all my age, with the exception of my young adult children and their friends. So you have a tortured interpretation of what I am saying from the giddy-up.
You are 100% wrong in your list of things you think I never experienced. You have no idea what you are talking about. But I like you. nevertheless. I am finding our conversation to be fun. See, I've had very rough times, but I am not bitter about them. My oldest sister is still bitter. Rubin loved Mark Twain's quote about the vessel that contains bitterness become contaminated. I see that in my sister, also of the Boomer Generation.
When I talk about the suffering of my childhood -- happy boys do not box, it is the sport of the poor -- I make light of it. Poverty? Ha! There was a period of about 18 months when we were dirt poor. We had lived in the largest low-income housing project just before this. The weather resulted in a failed garden. The cow got sick and died. Food-stuffs from the land hardly produced. So we ate pancakes every day for 18 months.
Pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Pancakes for snacks and desert. Our birthday and Christmas presents were left-over pancakes. Our father forced us to attend the Catholic church. Everyone else got a tasty stale wafer, we got mini-pan cakes. The younger generations howl with laughter when I teach the pancake history of the family at reunions. I suspect I could win them over if I was bitter and incapable of anything but hand-wringing and whining. But it is so unattractive.
I could point out the errors in everything else you've said ...... but I am laughing too hard right now. But I'll end with this -- I think our generation, based on education and experiences from growing up and surviving to this age, have the ability to turn this country around. We've made significant gains in the past, including when we young people. But that requires that we have people that understand the role of elders in a healthy society.
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