Young and old live in different worlds
"I just wish Joe Biden would go away quietly. I haven't heard a single new idea out of him. I think his wife wants him to come home, too. I want someone young. I know what it's like to get old, and we aren't who we used to be. I support Pete Buttigieg."
Christy Day of Amherst, New Hampshire, age 70, College class of 1971
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| Harvard strike poster, 1969 |
Fifty years is a far-away world.
Fifty years ago, in college in 1969, I stared at the paintings on the wall of the main research library, saw the image of the happy doughboy--the American soldier in the Great War that had just ended, temporarily--and read these words carved into the wall:
They crossed the sea crusaders keen to help
The nations battling in a righteous cause.
Happy those who with that glowing faith
In one embrace clasped death or victory."
I remember being stunned at the unspeakable wrong-headedness of the image and sentiment. Righteous cause? Victory? Happy death? What were they thinking?
That war seemed so impossibly remote in time. Artillery pieces pulled by horses. Strange clothes. Suffragettes. And political sensibilities that would have the painter and the president of the university jointly write and inscribe those words, imagining--celebrating!-- Americans going off to a pointless war to die in a colossal blunder.
The modern world of 1969 was entirely different. No horses pulling artillery pieces. We had put a man on the moon. We had IBM Selectric typewriters. We had great music. We had tie dye.
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| Grasping Victory and Death |
Another fifty years have passed.
The era and consciousness of 1969 is still current in the minds of my college classmates, who I am seeing mixed in with observing presidential candidates. We carry the clear memory of the JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King assassinations. And Walter Cronkite. And the nomination of George McGovern and his blowout defeat. The establishment of the EPA ad the Clean Air Act under a Republican president, and then the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment.
It isn't baggage to my generation. It is vividly lived experience.
This blog receives a lot of criticism from voters younger than myself, people dismayed at the political inertia put up by the cohort of Baby Boomers. The group most frustrating to them is not the unpersuadable conservatives--they are lost causes. Heck with them. The frustration comes from people like myself who consider themselves to be lifelong liberals, people fighting the good fight over the past decades. To some of my generation, including Larry DiCara in yesterday's post, Biden looks pretty reasonable.
Progressives on the left see Biden as hopelessly out of date.
Is it possible that people who are twenty years old now consider the events and the political consciousness of people in 1969 as remote as I felt the consciousness of 1919?
Not only is it possible, it is inevitable.
Another Baby Boomer, Thad Guyer, who places comments and Guest Posts here frequently, observed about a post written about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that people in power will not give it up gracefully, and should not. They will turn over power to the next generation when that generation--Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke,, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, have the public support necessary to tear it from their clenched fists. Power is seized, not gifted.
Readers have asked me who I support. I support whoever has the power to grasp the leadership. The ability to do it is the validation that they should do it. I hope it is the next generation..I agree with Christy Day in her quote above, that it is time for a generational change, but it will happen when someone excites and inspires Americans, young and old, to pass the torch to the new generation.
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| Christy Day |
So far it hasn't happened for Kamala and Cory and Beto and Tulsi and Pete. Voters appear to still be supporting Biden, Sanders, and Warren.
And Republicans still support Trump.
3 comments:
I have a hard time thinking about 50 years; as a high-school senior in 1967, what did I think of the 1917 graduates? Do this year’s seniors see us with the same distance? I don’t think so. I mean, 1917 meant no TV; heck, no radio! No commercial air travel and, essentially, no cars or phonographs or movies. In contrast, I detect practically no difference between 1967 and 2017: The internet and cell phones are, of course, new (especially to me) but otherwise it’s still radio, TV, movies; a ’67 Mustang is just another cool car on today’s roads; blue jeans, tee-shirts and other clothes are not so different; we’re still listening to rock, including McCartney. In contrast, who knew from 1917 music?
Time is all so foreshortened….
At Our Revolution Southern Oregon (Sanders supporters) our age span runs from twenty-somethings to octogenarians...so it's not about age, it's about having a young mind which includes the ability of us baby boomers to listen respectfully to our children and grandchildren. Can we say mea culpa when they blame us for selling them down the river under the burden of neoliberal economics, including tuition extortion? Or do we simply revel in our past glories in protesting the Vietnam war and advocating for civil rights and women's suffrage? Would Bernie ever say or even think what Biden said to millennials? "The younger generation now tells me how tough things are. Give me a break. No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break. Because here’s the deal guys, we decided we were gonna change the world. And we did. We did." (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbpxx8/biden-trashes-millennials-in-his-quest-to-become-even-less-likable)
It's time for baby boomers to give IT (self-congratulations for their glory days) a break!
Andy Seles (72, going on 25)
The Democratic Party’s role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward. Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being “centrist,” the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is still evil, of course),
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