{"id":2668,"date":"2020-01-13T09:36:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T14:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2020-01-13T10:48:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T15:48:29","slug":"american-divisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2020\/01\/13\/american-divisions\/","title":{"rendered":"American Divisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apple Pie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We live in a age of divisions.  That\u2019s as American as \u201capple pie\u201d.  I grew up in such an age.  That was the time when our hard working parents who won World War II, what Tom Brokaw called \u201cThe Greatest Generation,\u201d ran right into their children unwilling to accept their life choices.  It was about Civil Rights and Vietnam, but it was also about the value of life over economic and social success.  The children wanted to satisfy the spirit rather than the wallet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure it was the \u201cAge of Aquarius\u201d (cue the\u00a0Fifth Dimension<\/a><\/em>) and we all remember the pictures of kids dancing in the mud at Woodstock.\u00a0\u00a0But it was also about the Greatest Generation\u2019s commitment.\u00a0\u00a0They first sacrificed in World War II, and then many changed that into sacrificing for the all-mighty dollar.\u00a0\u00a0Their children wanted more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Model Family<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in that family.  My parents were both veterans of the War.  They came back to the United States to start a life together.  Mom was from London; she came home with Dad to Cincinnati. They first went into business for themselves, bottling soda pop with an imperious name:  The United States Bottling Company.  It was just the two of them, Mom mixing syrup in giant vats for the bottling machine, Dad going from store to store marketing the product.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their hard work was ended by the Ohio River, flooding out the \u201cplant\u201d and ruining the pop.  All that was left was the paper shares of stock.  Dad decided to take his sales skills into a new industry, television. Mom decided to stay home and take care of what turned out to be three children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climbing the Ladder<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

They climbed \u201cthe ladder\u201d together.  Dad went from local salesman at WLW-T in Cincinnati to national salesman for Ziv Productions.  Then it was sales manager, and then station manager at WLW-D in Dayton.  By the 60\u2019s they were doing well; a house in suburban Kettering, kids in the play, sports, and music at the local school, two cars in the driveway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom and Dad were still involved in the world.  Mom was always finding ways to help people, volunteering for different community projects.  And Dad, a suit and tie businessman, allowed WLW-D to lead the way in discussing the controversial issues of the day in Dayton.  They were concerned about making the world a better place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any family we had our issues.  But in the end, that Greatest Generation couple produced a surgeon, an artist, and a teacher.  All three children went into professions serving the community in one way or another.  I guess that was rebellion, no one followed Dad in business. But it was rebelling with full support from our parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Next Generation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now we are those folks:  \u201cOK – Boomer\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Divisions in our society are nothing new.  But today, we face a different kind of generational division.  Our children look at us \u201cBoomers\u201d as failing.  We have brought them the age of \u201cTrump\u201d, of \u201cRed and Blue\u201d so divided that it shakes the very foundations of our country.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we have committed the ultimate sin.  We are literally leaving the world, the earth, in a perilous state and facing irrevocable change.  It only takes a look in the paper (which our children would never do) to see Australia burning, Venice drowning, Greenland melting, and drought in the jungles of Central America.  It\u2019s not what we\u2019ve done; it\u2019s what we have failed to do to stop this procession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old White Guys<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We \u201cBoomers\u201d have allowed truth itself to become a tennis ball bouncing back in forth in the game of political rhetoric, so much so that the evidence of our own eyes isn\u2019t enough.  Somehow, we allow the \u201cdeniers\u201d to stop every attempt to fix the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not that the next generations, the Millennials and Generation Z, don\u2019t understand money.  In fact, we have made then incredibly aware of costs and cash, letting them be strapped with the financial burdens of their education so they will spend their twenties in \u201cservitude\u201d to the debt.  It\u2019s not surprising that we don\u2019t hear a lot of thanks from them.  As one Millennial I know says:  \u201c\u2026we\u2019ll have to fix things after the \u2018old white guys\u2019 are dead\u201d.  While as an \u2018old white guy\u2019 myself I might resent it, that statement carries a lot of truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We who have let our political divisions threaten our world still have a last obligation to fix the problem.  Perhaps we will, though that makes 2020 the last, best chance for us.  But if we fail, our children will put down their cell phones, pull out their ear-buds, and get to work.  Their faith is that technology can lead us out of the crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to believe they’re right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple Pie We live in a age of divisions.  That\u2019s as American as \u201capple pie\u201d.  I grew up in such an age.  That was the time when our hard working parents who won World War II, what Tom Brokaw called \u201cThe Greatest Generation,\u201d ran right into their children unwilling to accept their life choices.  It was about Civil Rights … Continue reading “American Divisions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerican Divisions : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our age of division isn't just about poltiics. 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