I turn sixty-seven years old in September. The truth: I am a baby-boomer. My parents helped define the name. They both fought World War II, then came back to the United States and started a family. They had three kids, between 1949 and 1956 (I\u2019m number three). We are \u201cBoomers\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
American History looks back at time periods and generations. My parents, literally, saved the world from Fascism. As Tom Brokaw defines them, they were the \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d. But historians might dispute that. The generation that produced Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, the \u201cFounding Fathers\u201d, certainly could lay claim to being the \u201cGreatest\u201d. And so could their grandchildren, Lincoln, Grant, Sumner and the rest, who saved the Nation from divide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what will be the \u201cBaby-Boomer\u201d generation\u2019s lasting claim to \u201cfame\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is little question that we have \u201cpresided\u201d over an era of tremendous change. When I was born, the phone was wired to the wall, the TV\u2019s were huge (at least the box), took fifteen minutes to warmup, with tiny screens in black and white. Commercial passenger aircraft had propellers, and south of the Mason-Dixon line, signs denoted strict racial segregation. (In the North, there was segregation too, but it was a bit more \u201csubtle\u201d). Computers existed, but were huge in university basements with tubes and paper tape readers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today I carry one in my pocket. It can reach out to the entire world, and find any bit of factual information. As my Dad aged, he found holes in his memory. Mom was his answer. Today if there is a void, \u201cSiri\u201d can fill it. And if I get really bored, I can watch TV on it, black and white or color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But technological advances aren\u2019t enough to secure generational \u201csuccess\u201d. Here in the United States, I think the \u201cBoomers\u201d (now a Millennial insult) will be known as much for their failures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was the generation before Mom and Dad\u2019s \u201cGreatest\u201d, the \u201cLost\u201d Generation.\u00a0\u00a0They fought World War I, and thought they won \u201cthe War to End All Wars\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Instead, they set the stage for infinitely greater loss in World War II, and watched their Roaring Twenties economic boom fall to nothing in the Great Depression.\u00a0\u00a0They \u201cLost\u201d so much; first sacrificed in mass in the trenches of War, and then in meager\u00a0\u00a0economic returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am afraid the us \u201cBoomers\u201d might compare more to our Grandparents\u2019 \u201cLost\u201d generation then our parents \u201cGreatest\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It seems we have failed in three promises we made to the Nation, and the world.\u00a0\u00a0And those failures will loom large in how future generations evaluate our stewardship of American life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first is the issue of guns. No matter what \u201cside\u201d of the gun argument, it is undeniable that the current American trend of mass shootings is unacceptable. But we are somehow paralyzed by it. So many people die of gun deaths that we really stop listening to the reports. Twenty-five shot here, five shot dead there; in the city, in the country, North and South. It all just becomes background noise. We routinely now talk about what to do if we are caught in a gun barrage; on the Interstate highway downtown, or at the store, or school, or church. We are frozen in our political positions, unable to agree on any step to begin to end our carnage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What generation would allow such an ongoing personal threat to itself and its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation did.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second is the issue of climate change.\u00a0\u00a0This past week, the world \u2013 all of it \u2013 suffered the hottest days on record.\u00a0\u00a0We see pictures of kids swimming in 112 degree heat in the South, and hear warnings of vast clouds of Canadian smoke covering our cities.\u00a0\u00a0We knew that it was and still is our own actions accelerating the warming of our world.\u00a0\u00a0And while many cried out the dangers, our responses haven\u2019t been nearly good enough.\u00a0\u00a0Now we face a world of extremes:\u00a0\u00a0stronger hurricanes, hotter heat waves, deeper snow drifts.\u00a0\u00a0We had a fifty-year clock counting down the \u201cdeadline\u201d, 2040, where there is no turning back.\u00a0\u00a0But now that deadline is moving up, closer to 2030.\u00a0\u00a0That seemed so far in the future, back in the 1990\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Now it\u2019s less than seven years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What generation would allow such an ongoing personal threat to itself and its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the third is perhaps the most serious ( though it\u2019s hard to beat random death by gunshot or heat prostration).\u00a0\u00a0The Boomer Generation promised a \u201cnew\u201d society, one of acceptance, where personal differences were celebrated.\u00a0\u00a0Sure, sometimes that seemed a bit \u201cover-the-top\u201d, but the folks dancing in the rain at Woodstock couldn\u2019t tell the difference between black and white, gay or straight, Atheist, Jew, or Christian.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone was just covered in mud (and most high as Hell).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we aged, the promise grew more serious.\u00a0\u00a0There was huge progress in civil rights, and personal acceptance.\u00a0\u00a0Women fought their way towards an equal place in society, politics, and business.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cgay kid\u201d who was beat up in the locker room in the 1980\u2019s is now just another kid.\u00a0\u00a0And while we still have racial discrimination, some have broken through to lead our Nation.\u00a0\u00a0And it\u2019s not just Barack Obama, it\u2019s Kamala Harris, and a whole raft of women and men of all races and backgrounds and orientations.\u00a0\u00a0It was \u201cour\u201d greatest promise, and our greatest gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now we see those achievements starting to back-slide. From the Supreme Court decisions to the local School Boards, somehow \u201cDEI\u201d; diversity, equity and inclusion, has become an insult to be challenged, rather than a goal to be achieved. Who would have thought that the 2020\u2019s would be an era of regression, of going back to the \u201cbad old days\u201d of the 1950\u2019s. Sure we have all the tech, but without the social freedoms and justice, what\u2019s the value of being able to reach out to the world from your pocket? This regression threatens the very core of what our Nation stands for; our democratic ideals and becoming a \u201cMore Perfect Union\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What generation would allow such freedoms to slip away from its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation is doing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n