A favorite blogger: Media Lizzy wrote a compelling piece today:
Generation X. Born from approximately 1961 - 1980. The children of Baby Boomers and Beatniks. We saw the Berlin wall come down, the Marine barracks in Beirut blown up, glasnost and perestroika crest and fall, the first shuttle launch - the Challenger disaster - and now, we are watching the end of the Shuttle program. Our men were young, fresh from high school and college when they went to liberate Kuwait in late 1990 and early 1991. Now - they are commanding forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. We remember the hostage release in Iran and we were children when Black September was the violent islamist group everyone feared. We remember the Achille Lauro and when hijacked airplanes landed on the tarmac instead of crashing into buildings. We remember the famine in Ethiopia. The genocide in Rwanda. We remember the Mog because it was our men who died there, and at Khobar Towers.
We missed out on the 60's radicals movements, but we are also a bit bored with "status quo" and the old way of doing things. We've watched computers and Youtube, blogs and social media raise millions for causes, campaigns and issues. I don't disagree with the War on Terror as much as most of the Gen X'ers but frankly it is time we solve Iraq and put the hammer on Iran in my opinion.
We were deprived of knowing Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy and JFK. Because these great men were assassinated. We remember when Sadat died. We have watched as Baby Boomers ran in fear from every major challenge, shirked every responsibility, talked the talk about social justice but refused to let go of their youth. They fought in a botched war (Vietnam) and are determined to make Iraq just as awful - they don’t care how many die in my generation — they just want us to feel their pain.
Here’s my thought - and it’s shared by many, if not expressed outright - Screw Off. Take your obsession with your wasted youth and get the hell out of leadership. Baby Boomers in the federal bureaucracy - whether in Congress, the White House, or on K Street - are trapped in a nightmare of their own making. GROW UP.
Gen Xers are ready to lead. We gave the world YouTube, Google, and ONE - with the help of modern visionaries like Bono. Our people, like Pierre-Richard Prosper, are the War Crimes Prosecutors - for the genocide Baby Boomers did nothing to stop. Our people, like Barack Obama, are motivating people in amazing ways — look at the Iowa Caucus results. And he isn’t just scaring Hillary Clinton - according to The Washington Post, GOP Doubts, Fears ‘Post-Partisan’ Obama.
2 comments:
Interesting post and blog. Relevantly, many prominent experts and publications have pointed out that Obama is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and GenXers.
You may find this page interesting: it has, among other things, excerpts from publications like Newsweek and the New York Times, and videos with over 25 top pundits, all talking specifically about Obama’s identity as a GenJoneser:
http://www.generationjones.com/2008election.html
Wow, I have felt this way for about 5 years. Baby boomers, move on. You have left our generation with a mess, now please get out of the way so we can fix it. You're hyper-conservative and judgemental, but most gen xers grew up in broken families because you couldn't keep your marriages together. You lament the money we spend on our children saying we spoil them, but you have saved nothing for your own retirement in your relentless quest to keep up with the Joneses.
Of course, the above critisms do not apply to everyone. As a generation, though, they seem very selfish.
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