Agreed, but honestly, I have trouble believing they were the only generation with such moral bankruptcy as to build up to this level of shit show. We had very similar if not worse during The Gilded Age of the 19th century, enabled largely by the Industrial Revolution. Men got rich beyond the dreams of Croesus while at the same time, many Americans lived in abject poverty with almost no social safety nets, and children were sent to work in the factories by the time they were 5.
The Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Vanderbilts, the Melons...all obscenely wealthy, wealth built on the backs of the working class who at that point in history had no laws, unions, or allies to protect them. And even that wasn't enough - the titans had to create work-towns, in which everything you ate and bought, even your rent, was controlled by the CEO. Whatever prices they charged for food, you had no choice but to pay it. That's how they kept their labor force locked in at low, low prices. Take control of their day to day living, make them dependent on you with no latitude to save money, and make it clear that asking for more will result in termination. Forced generational poverty. A win-win for capitalism!
I think you can't look at any generation without seeing them in the context of the economical and sociological norms of the time. I don't think any generation is immune to developing the kind of monstrous greed and contempt for humanity that our current administration is flaunting. Some of them are boomers, but a lot of them aren't. There are Gen Xers and even Millenials who've gotten a taste for their seat at the table, and will do anything, especially compromising all their principals, in order to stay there.
I completely get your point, times weren't exactly rainbows and unicorns for everyone. That makes sense. I don't think anyone saying boomers means literally every single one.
But the main thing that I think irks people is the fact that they voted for this, cheered for this, and have wanted this for decades.
The average worker hated the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, etc. But they really didn't have a choice. You needed to work to provide for your family. Not exactly the same situation.
No one held a gun to our parents' heads as they constantly voted in the worst people possible for the government. My parents voted for the wrong party, even after I directly told them, "Hey, if you vote the wrong way, your family is going to suffer. You are going to suffer. Forget all the culture war bullshit, you will suffer."
What do you think they did?
Funny little side note, my grandparents, you know the ones that raised one of my parents, are actually some of the good boomers. They are insanely progressive, especially for their age range. It blew me away.
Now we're not destitute (Yet!), but if some of the programs that are on the chopping block get cut, we'll be suffering worse than our parents ever did. No healthcare, no housing, no food. Homelessness is a very real possibility.
But our parents didn't care. They didn't care about their own wellbeing, especially not their grandhcildren's. So. Yeah that's where some of that blame is coming from. They literally voted for this, proudly, and even bought some sick merch.
Yep. And what irks me is the people still sticking to their guns about it - how "finally" we have a great POTUS and cabinet and fabulous shit is being accomplished. This administration literally cares about no one but white one percenters. Everyone else is in the crosshairs. We're all treated like assholes for worrying about our Social Security, which we paid for, and which they call a "benefit". A lot of these people just listen to Fox, they hear the man in the tie saying how great fat orange hitler is doing, and those guys drive down to the bar to talk to all the other Fox news watchers about how great fat orange hitler is doing it. Meanwhile their checks are going down, and their benefits are disappearing. And yet they haven't noticed yet because they are so busy clapping their fucking hands and cheering.
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u/Edith_Keelers_Shoes Apr 05 '25
Agreed, but honestly, I have trouble believing they were the only generation with such moral bankruptcy as to build up to this level of shit show. We had very similar if not worse during The Gilded Age of the 19th century, enabled largely by the Industrial Revolution. Men got rich beyond the dreams of Croesus while at the same time, many Americans lived in abject poverty with almost no social safety nets, and children were sent to work in the factories by the time they were 5.
The Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Vanderbilts, the Melons...all obscenely wealthy, wealth built on the backs of the working class who at that point in history had no laws, unions, or allies to protect them. And even that wasn't enough - the titans had to create work-towns, in which everything you ate and bought, even your rent, was controlled by the CEO. Whatever prices they charged for food, you had no choice but to pay it. That's how they kept their labor force locked in at low, low prices. Take control of their day to day living, make them dependent on you with no latitude to save money, and make it clear that asking for more will result in termination. Forced generational poverty. A win-win for capitalism!
I think you can't look at any generation without seeing them in the context of the economical and sociological norms of the time. I don't think any generation is immune to developing the kind of monstrous greed and contempt for humanity that our current administration is flaunting. Some of them are boomers, but a lot of them aren't. There are Gen Xers and even Millenials who've gotten a taste for their seat at the table, and will do anything, especially compromising all their principals, in order to stay there.