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Comment by dragoon | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn't generational. It's class warfare. Plenty of Baby Boomers have been fucked just as bad as our generation has.

The worst villains are mostly Baby Boomers, but just because that's the generation who is in power, and most people of any generation are out of power.

I don't like ripping on "the Baby Boomers" because it's similar to the "politicians are awful, but my Congressman is great" mentality that keeps incumbents in office despite dysfunction. People who rip on the Baby Boomers will except their parents, and this makes sense, because the villainy isn't generational but class-based. So let's frame this issue in proper terms. There's been a whole lot of chicanery going on, but it's not something that can be placed on one generation.

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Nope, it's pretty much generational, not class-based. Our grandparents built this country into the superpower that it is. They single-handedly built the Interstate highway infrastructure, fought and won WW2, built the manufacturing base of our country's economy, brought peace to Europe, and gave all of this infrastructure to their children.

Since then, their children have squandered national treasure and influence and their greed is dragging the entire economy down.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but "their children" who have looted and ruined the nation aren't just Baby Boomers, but mostly conservative, white, well-to-do Baby Boomers-- a small subset of them. I don't think they're any more or less repulsive than their Silent and G.I.-generation counterparts (Strom Thurmond, Robert Bork, Dick Cheney).

Also, the dismantling began in the 1980s when people who are generally considered pre-Boomer were in power. CEOs in that time generally had birthdates in the 1920s and '30s, not '40s and '50s. Reagan was one of the so-called "Greatest Generation".

This is largely a class issue. Baby Boomers did most of the villainy because most of the egregious opportunities presented themselves while they were in power. That's all. They're not any better or worse than the rest of us. (Born in 1983, I have no specific need to defend the Boomers, other than intellectual honesty.)

On the other hand, all generations of the American upper class and right wing have been fucking over all generations of the rest of us for about 30 years.

Well put. I agree with what you are saying. It's the subset of boomers that elected Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr, that have really screwed us all. Clinton would have never been elected if it hadn't been for Ross Perot. Essentially, we've had 30 years of "conservatism" and it's completely failed everyone but the top 1%. I use conservatism in air quotes because it's really anything but.

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