This
post is especially for all my fellow-Boomers so enduringly proud at
calling out the sins of our elders in the days of our youth. Payback
time for us is now here. It started to take shape in the wake of the
Parkland shooting when students at the Stoneman Douglas High School
roared, “Enough!” and started to organize for an actual state of sanity
where firearms are concerned. They are still organizing to that end and
this aging Boomer cannot shower enough cheers, blessings and other aid
on them rapidly enough.
Then Greta Thunberg came along and, while it’s a bit early to state this for certain, at least started to put the capstone on our time to stump up for our payback!
After being (let’s be honest here; we really didn’t do much of the heavy civil-rights lifting) a minor player in that mighty struggle for equal rights, some of us were more central players when the struggle expanded (or re-incorporated, depending on historical opinion) the fight to end discrimination based on sex and, for the first time, based on sexual orientation as well. And nearly all of us except the New Victorians (many thanks, Rene) and incels who mostly hid behind hollowly religious virtuous talk, were enthusiastic participants in the Sexual Quasi-Revolution.
And many of us were honestly opposed to the war in Indochina because some of us saw whence this had come and where it could lead. But I won’t give up on brutal honesty here, so let’s admit that many opponents of that war really only wanted to save their precious skins. I’m looking straight at you, P.J.!
And some of the war’s opponents also ‘greened’ into the Earth Day/Ecology movement, now needed more than ever by all of us. Then, three years later, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, came Energy Crisis I.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall that crisis giving the great push to the ‘Greens’ then that might have been expected. When I look back, I sort of wonder why not and I have to shake my head over what might be a large lost opportunity.
Mind y’all, I was only a high school senior then even if I was one of my school’s current events/political wonks. Apart from the fossil fuel companies already knowing what was going on and their part in it, I don’t know a whole lot about how much was scientifically known then that we know now. I remember Watergate was also in full swing and ol’ Milhous actually tried to take that ball and run with it! Anyone remember his speech on ‘energy independence by 1980’? Carter tried to push that program forward and was greeted mostly by Congressional snores, as I recall. At least until Energy Crisis II which came in the wake of the Iranian revolution. And there was much more ‘grab the oil!’ talk among those who would become the ‘neocons’. As a neocon and a Boomer I do blame Elliott Abrams for his part in this, not to mention a bloodthirsty trench-dodger. Bad back, Elliott? Yeah, right!
While I can’t blame the rest of us for that mess, what I can and do blame most of us for is: when, the next year, we were faced with a choice between 1) politics as usual, which Carter was not making look very good, 2) a truth-teller in the person of John Anderson who said honestly that this would be a long, possibly hard, slog but it would prove worth the effort and 3) a Grade B actor essentially selling us Dr. Feelgood’s narcotic, most of us chose the third choice. And with that choice the chance to catch climate change while it was still early on evaporated for the most part.
Then Greta Thunberg came along and, while it’s a bit early to state this for certain, at least started to put the capstone on our time to stump up for our payback!
After being (let’s be honest here; we really didn’t do much of the heavy civil-rights lifting) a minor player in that mighty struggle for equal rights, some of us were more central players when the struggle expanded (or re-incorporated, depending on historical opinion) the fight to end discrimination based on sex and, for the first time, based on sexual orientation as well. And nearly all of us except the New Victorians (many thanks, Rene) and incels who mostly hid behind hollowly religious virtuous talk, were enthusiastic participants in the Sexual Quasi-Revolution.
And many of us were honestly opposed to the war in Indochina because some of us saw whence this had come and where it could lead. But I won’t give up on brutal honesty here, so let’s admit that many opponents of that war really only wanted to save their precious skins. I’m looking straight at you, P.J.!
And some of the war’s opponents also ‘greened’ into the Earth Day/Ecology movement, now needed more than ever by all of us. Then, three years later, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, came Energy Crisis I.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall that crisis giving the great push to the ‘Greens’ then that might have been expected. When I look back, I sort of wonder why not and I have to shake my head over what might be a large lost opportunity.
Mind y’all, I was only a high school senior then even if I was one of my school’s current events/political wonks. Apart from the fossil fuel companies already knowing what was going on and their part in it, I don’t know a whole lot about how much was scientifically known then that we know now. I remember Watergate was also in full swing and ol’ Milhous actually tried to take that ball and run with it! Anyone remember his speech on ‘energy independence by 1980’? Carter tried to push that program forward and was greeted mostly by Congressional snores, as I recall. At least until Energy Crisis II which came in the wake of the Iranian revolution. And there was much more ‘grab the oil!’ talk among those who would become the ‘neocons’. As a neocon and a Boomer I do blame Elliott Abrams for his part in this, not to mention a bloodthirsty trench-dodger. Bad back, Elliott? Yeah, right!
While I can’t blame the rest of us for that mess, what I can and do blame most of us for is: when, the next year, we were faced with a choice between 1) politics as usual, which Carter was not making look very good, 2) a truth-teller in the person of John Anderson who said honestly that this would be a long, possibly hard, slog but it would prove worth the effort and 3) a Grade B actor essentially selling us Dr. Feelgood’s narcotic, most of us chose the third choice. And with that choice the chance to catch climate change while it was still early on evaporated for the most part.
I
will never forget my dismay when, on the night of November 4. 1980, I
saw which way the country was going. A TV had been set up in what was
then the main room of the Christian Association on Penn campus.
And so much for what I thought about how informed a citizenry we had. I had actually believed that we Boomers might have a longer-term view and choose a way other than the GOP’s lying promise to take us to, yea that we could all live in….Disneyland!
And so much for what I thought about how informed a citizenry we had. I had actually believed that we Boomers might have a longer-term view and choose a way other than the GOP’s lying promise to take us to, yea that we could all live in….Disneyland!
The
current usurper of the Oval Office is (I certainly hope so, anyhow) the
culmination of that lie with the added virtue (I’m serious here; bear
with me) of not lying about who will be allowed to live in that Disneyland. In the end, no one is welcome there aside from straight and propertied white males and all their slaves and helpers — but only as slaves and help! And we Boomers owe that to ourselves.
I admit that part of the climate change problem is the vastness of it and the difficulty of ‘getting a handle’ on it, but I can’t get away from that, when faced with the choice between something difficult and fruitful and something which allowed our adolescence to continue, most of us opted for the latter. And now our children and, in some cases, our grandchildren, are present and telling us where and how we’ve fallen short. So be prepared for it, and let us not be ‘wise in our own eyes’, to use a Scriptural admonition.
I admit that part of the climate change problem is the vastness of it and the difficulty of ‘getting a handle’ on it, but I can’t get away from that, when faced with the choice between something difficult and fruitful and something which allowed our adolescence to continue, most of us opted for the latter. And now our children and, in some cases, our grandchildren, are present and telling us where and how we’ve fallen short. So be prepared for it, and let us not be ‘wise in our own eyes’, to use a Scriptural admonition.
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