Friday, January 11, 2019

I Seem To Have Hit A Nerve...


God, how we miss this man. And this level of clarity about reality.



















We posted someone else's brilliant rejoinder to the usual Boomer bashing that suffices for rational thought around the 'net, and you would have thought that the bare naked facts of historical reality would be enough to quell the usual Slacker rants about Boomers pretty conclusively.

We even remonstrated at length to the commenter in question, hoping against hope that the metaphorical light of truth would somehow eventually dawn in the darkened recesses yet unlit by wisdom or knowledge.

But there is nothing so unquenchable as the exact whiny sense of entitlement of the generation(s) who were raised thinking they were Special Snowflakes, and had even their soiled baby diapers hung on the refrigerator as art, because everything they did was magnificent.

The children of Lake Wobegone , "all of them above average", described by Garrison Keillor live on, as in this magnificent example:
"Aesop:
"it's not my fault, I'm just taking the payments I'm owed from my childrens' taxes" has the same moral validity as "I was only following orders". You may recall how well that defense flew in a certain military tribunal. I know I'm just a dumb soft-headed millenial, but boomers went to school back when they taught math, and the problem of boomers not having enough kids to prop the system up should have been blindingly obvious all the way back when - even BEFORE Boomers decided to pillage the economy for their own benefit. Or was that back in the "greco-roman myth era" before YOU started paying attention?
When I held my firstborn for the first time I was overwhelmed with the gravitas of having complete responsibility for the future of my child. It was a gut punch like I've never had in my life before. I would willingly eat cat food - or go hungry - for the rest of my life to better the lives of my children. If you wouldn't that's a sad commentary on you as a human being. I'm making plans and investments right now to guarantee (as best as possible... the best laid plans and all that) a secure future for my children and the other children of my community, at the explicit cost of my "toy and luxury" fund. Meanwhile Boomers are reverse-mortgaging their houses to fund another lavish cruise or bigger RV so when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil there is nothing left for their kids. It makes me sick.

I know very well who built the transcontinental railway. Coolies from the west, Irish from the east. "For bad food, hard liquor, and a dollar a day" as the song goes. I've been to Promontory Point, seen the replica golden spike, and one of the live steam model locomotives I've built is a 4-4-0 in the style of the Jupiter although in the livery of my business.
None of that changes how manufacturing and tech jobs were shipped overseas starting in the 1990s, by Boomers. The resurgence of US manufacturing is due to guys like me and by God I will pass it to my children intact or die trying.

Those underwater basket weaving degrees? Taught by Boomers, to the children of Boomers, who were told (by Boomers) throughout their entire lives by everyone they trusted that not only was it a good investment, it was a requirement to have a decent life. Good work pulling a con job on your own naive children - very impressive. "Let them flip burgers" is the new "let them eat cake", and you may recall the events which followed. There will be no executions, unfortunately. We're too busy cleaning up your mess and plugging holes in the dyke to bother with retribution. You'll die, alone and unloved, in whatever nursing home you can afford while we keep the flame of Western Civilization lit so our children will be armed to start reversing the damage you've allowed to happen." - kill all boomers




















1) Why yes, I rub my hands in glee at seeing todays X-ers, Slackers, and Millenials skewered and twisting over the fire, as I contemplate all those Social Security payments which I'll never see a dime of either. But some of those at the early end of the generational pig-in-a-python who are the Boomers might actually collect a check or two. The nerve of those bastards!
And the fact that their average life expectancy for the first Boomers is about 71, so for their forty-plus years' contributions, they'll earn payments for a blazing six years, ought to give you pause.
The fact that the last Boomers turn 71 in 2036, two years after the whole Social Security Ponzi scheme explodes (if illegals who never paid anything into it don't suck it dry even faster!) should probably have been a major clue to slither off, and STFU with that sagging pantload of your economic brilliance. Did the Boomers hide math from you too? Were there no calculators in Slacker-land when you grew up? Did they burn all the books as well?

And while we're on it, I suppose you were also sick the day they covered that Social Security payments to you, even if the program was miraculously fiscally viable forever, would only cover a few hundred $$/month, but that you'd probably need 2-5X that amount just to live on by the time you retire, so that if you were expecting it to be much more than a supplement to your retirement income, exactly like it was always intended to be, you're already a World-Class Financial Fucktard, who should be laying in a supply of long-shelf-life dog food for your declining years, and saving one bullet to off yourself when you're too physically decrepit to pry open the cans any longer. What's that? You didn't get that memo either??

















But I've got it. By taking payments for a few years from a system they've paid into all their lives, Boomers are ACTUALLY NAZI DEATH CAMP GUARDS, because it inconveniences you.
Mike Godwin 1, kab 0.

2) Accepting those payments is "pillaging the economy for their own benefit." In Bizarro World.
I mean, it isn't like perhaps the Congress tapping the Social Security funds the minute they're contributed, like they've been doing since about ever has anything to do with the bulk of the problem.
Other than because it was a giant con from Day One in 1934, and could never work, no matter what.
So, you're now crying because
A) Socialism steals
B) Socialism lies
C) Socialism never works
If this is news to you just now, life for you is going to stay very hard and uncomfortable.
Did the Boomers hide the Soviet Union from you too?
East Germany?
North Korea?
Cuba?
Venezuela?
New York F###ing City?

3) Since you asked, I'm conversant in most of history back to about 4000 B.C. Before that, it runs to speculation, so unless it matters and I have to look up the details, I'm a little hazy on placing the geologic periods in the proper order without a refresher.
Curiously, in none of the times since 4000 B.C.,  accepting repayment of government's promised payments, made since decades before you were born, and guaranteed with the force of law, and which you forcibly paid into in good faith for upwards of 50 years, is cashing the promised checks seen as "pillaging the economy for your own benefit".
The fact that the whole thing was always a Ponzi scheme, and never going to last, however, has been well-known since at least the 1970s, if not actually the 1930s. Not having read all the financial pages from the era of its origin, I'm spitballing it was probably clearly identified as such from the get-go. Yet again, sorry this wasn't stapled to your forehead facing you back around high school, when you first started getting paychecks with withholding pre-removed.

















4) What you'll do for your children when they're helpless and you're not is commendable, on a doing-your-fucking-parenting-job level.
What you'll do when you're helpless and they're not, not so much.
Imagining that your elders should willingly be turned into Soylent Green protein crackers to fill your belly long after you hit adulthood is the rankest flight of delusional dystopian fantasy.

And what people who are not you chose to do with their money, including not leaving you any inheritance, is frankly none of your damned business, regardless of how sick it makes you. But it does couple the whininess and sense of entitlement to other people's money rather conveniently for the stereotype of your generation. Maybe you should make some bare attempt not to live up to the caricature so faithfully. Just saying.














Also, a short primer on how the estate belongs to the owners, who actually earned it, and not to their children, might be in order, as this has been common law everywhere since, o, sh*t!, about 4000 B.C. There's that whole history-before-you-started-paying-attention thing, kicking your ass. Again. Like it does.

But please, turn the story on its head and tell us the parable of The Prodigal Parent, rather than learning the actual one about the Prodigal Son.

5) Then explain to the class how Boomers, then ranging from age 25 to 45, "shipped manufacturing and tech jobs overseas" in the 1990s. Which 25-45 year olds were those CEOs and executive board members who made those decisions? Not generalities, but actual names. Name the companies, and tell me the Boomers responsible, for which fantasy you're cheerfully tarring 76,000,000(!) others, the vast overwhelmingly huge majority of them just making a living.

But I'm sporting about this: I'll give you $1 for every one who fits the Boomer demographic, if you'll give me $1 for every one of them who doesn't. Do we have a deal, or will you welch out on that bullshit statement when reality dawns on your poorly-constructed scapegoating fantasies? I could get odds on how that'll go, but in case you beat the odds, I'll happily take your money.

6) Those underwater basketweaving degrees? Taught by con-artists, to gullible morons, who never paid attention to anything worthwhile, were of legal age, and sold the family cow for Magic Beans. (Look, if you never figured out your high school guidance counselor, making about $35k/yr. with a degree in Underwater Basketweaving, was full of more shit than a Christmas Goose about college solving everything long before you got out of 10th grade, that's frankly your problem, not all of society's.) I don't know about you, but I heard the tale of Jack and The Beanstalk in grade school, and probably grasped the moral significance before 5th grade. Buddha On A Pogo Stick, Walt Disney even made a cartoon about it - in 1947. When Boomers were at most 2 years old. It was also an episode of Gilligan's Island, broadcast in the late 1960s, and in syndication continuously worldwide for the last 50 years. Sorry if Sesame Street didn't fill in the cavernous gaps in your education, and you never got that memo, because it wasn't in a video game. Noted.
Boo frickin' hoo.
























And hey, great work infantilizing your entire generation as "children" past the age of moral and legal responsibility. You've made all my arguments for repealing the XXVIth Amendment without any further help from me. And when the college tuition bubble doesn't just pop, but rather, explodes, like it will, that'll be Boomer's fault too, in your fever-swamp delusions. You just couldn't help yourselves, because that worm looked so inviting, you couldn't see the hook, line, or sinker, and multiple generations couldn't figure it out until you were all landed in the net.

Another cartoon tip-off you obviously didn't see, nor grasp.
























7) Let them flip burgers isn't "Let them eat cake", it's called "let Reality slap you in the back of the head, real hard." Religion is quite out of vogue in your generation, looking at actual demographics on the topic, but read the The Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verses 11 through 32, and then tell the class how Jesus was really the same as Marie Antoinette. I'll wait while you formulate that rejoinder. This will be exegesis on the level of economic wisdom from Evita Guevara-Castro.



















8) Your powerless threat is worthless to me, because seeing who and what your generation (and mine, and every other one before and since) was decades ago, I made my own provisions, and can rely on the love of family, rather than the reliability of slacker strangers spending twice the work to shift blame onto everyone but themselves for falling flat on their faces, as it would've taken to just suck up that life is life for everybody, and moving on. I stopped believing government was going to do anything good for me before high school, about the time I learned to do higher math.

But please, do tell me where those born from 1965 to (anytime you can name) have miraculously turned the country around, ended Social Security, and choked off the entire monstrous Leviathan that is the U.S. Welfare State. Wait, you mean that hasn't happened? How unfortunate for your mythos.

I've seen no such evidence of any such thing here in real life, but it sounds like a fascinating work of fiction, and I'm a sucker for a good novel about imaginary worlds.

The Welfare State will die off all right, but neither you nor anyone else will have Jack and Shit to do with doing it, or fixing it. You will "fix" it the same way flotsam "fixes" a tsunami.

It's going to crash because of mathematics applied to economics, and sheer demographic gravity: that which cannot continue, won't. And once again, just as you weren't responsible for your predicament, you won't be responsible for your salvation.

But the 2x4 Of Knowledge upside the back of your heads at that point is absolutely going to be a cast-iron bitch. And your misplaced misanthropy towards your elders won't help you out, feed you, or keep you warm. But it will amuse the hell out of me and everyone who watches your impotent tantrums until the end of our days, and yours. Well-played.



















So congratulations, you got a post.
Because you're special.

And for the benefit of those who never got them, here are a salient few of Life's Basic Realities in case your parents didn't pass them along to you by writing them backwards on your foreheads with a woodburning stylus, as they clearly should have in some cases:

Life is hard.
Life isn’t fair.
Nothing is free.
Nothing worthwhile is easy.
No one cares if your pussy hurts.
You don't have to like it, you just have to do it.
 
Addendum - To All Hands on the 1MC:
 
Word to your mother:
 
Maybe I was too soft, and tender, and gentle above.
Maybe some of you have never had someone, anyone, raise their voices at you, or point out your malfunctions in depth and detail, and you couldn't hear me through the wet feeling in your underpants when your bladder spontaneously evacuated, and not having mommy here to change your wet pampers, you don't know what to do next but lay there and cry. For some of you, for your entire wasted life.
 
So hug your teddy bear, and take this to heart.
 
If all you've got to come back with is another butt-hurt rant about how Boomers got to the trough before you could get your snouts in, and Wah! Waah! Waaaaahhhhh! It's all their fault you're cold and wet, expect your anonymous shitposting BMW (Bitch, Moan, and Whine) comment to experience the life expectancy of a fruit fly in a terrarium full of insecticide.
 
Take that sorry sh*t over to Oprah. Or Ellen. Or The View Spew. Where it belongs.

No. One. Cares. If. Your. Pussy. Hurts.

For all possible values of "no one".

Suck it up, buttercup.
If you think a prior generation - any prior generation - that you don't like, has or ever had some magical ability you don't have yourselves, you're too stupid to be posting on anyone's blog. Ditto if you think it's anyone else's job to wipe your nose and ass for your entire life.
If you're over 18, the shit's on you. Act accordingly, and if necessary, unf##k yourselves. 
If this is news to you, "Welcome to life. Since ever."
You have agency, and responsibility.
Save the drama for your momma, and stop suckin' on her teat and hiding in her apron.
Or wishing you could.

When I hear anyone say "I'm going to stop bellyaching, which accomplishes nothing except showing the world what a whiny little crybaby bitch I am, and fix this all by myself, for myself, because it's no one else's JOB to save me" you've arrived at Step One of the solution.

This evolution is a Go/No Go station.

Pink pussyhats will be issued to the No-Gos as you leave.
Some of you should probably staple them to your heads for life.
Maybe you think they're bulletproof or something.
Good luck, and keep working that plan.

In the meantime, Life put you here, now. In the landing craft. Headed for a really shitty day.

 
What you do after that is your problem. I'll see the rest of you on the beach.

 
And btw, I just saved you spending days over on websites like Dave Ramsey or The Motley Fool (special bonus: go to their sites, and search for their pages on Why Everything In Your Life Is Boomers' Fault. They're both fantastic reads!), let alone squandering a whole $11.49 on Personal Finance For Dummies or even, God forbid, paying $250K for an MBA from Harvard Business School.
You're welcome.
 
And remember, blaming everyone else for what happens to you is like the Lottery: it's a tax on stupid people. 


22 comments:

MachtNichts said...

That boomer-basher, conceding he is only a dumb, soft-headed millenial is also a basket case without common sense. He will clean up 'our' mess while keeping the flame of Western Civilization lit. Before he can do that he needs to dispose of a lot of hate. Because no-one needs that kind of candle.

I'm wondering like some other people what have his parents done to him? Or did he just escape out of Plato's cave, trying to get his bearings in a foreign world? You never know.

"Maybe saddling them with some debt will help these future generations work off some of their damn obesity (William Hamilton).

As for the Social Security scam one need look no further as to "Greenspan's Fraud" - how two decades of his policies have undermined the global economy by Ravi Batra.

I am a boomer and I am offended. Lol

Sssssnowflake

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeK8p0CBwv8

for a real boomer



Glen Filthie said...

Well again, you are 100% right, Aesop. But so is the snowflake on a lot of things too.

I am a leading edge Gen X or a tail end boomer, depending on who defines the terms. My parents were leading edge boomers, and my militant lesbian SJW daughter is a leading edge millennial. All of us seemed to be smack dab between the changing generations.

My dad dropped out of school, and got a trade in grade 10. By the time he was 23 he had his first house and two kids. Mom had her high school. Both got high paying jobs as snivel servants, complete with golden Fridays, flex days, 7.3 hour work days and early retirement. They sailed off into the sunset at Freedom 55, and currently live in a 2000 sq.ft. home, they have a motor home, and it’s a safe bet to say “they aren’t hurting for money.” They’ve benefited mightily from all the free shit they voted for themselves back in the 70’s. To hear them tell it, they worked hard and deserve far more. Like most seniors they are selfish and self absorbed. They’ve lived in that bubble of opportunity and entitlement and take it for granted.

I was born in ‘64. I barely was able to make the echo of the boom times my parents inherited and bought my first house at the age of 33. I came on the job market in the early 80’s during a deep recession. Permanent jobs and careers were never in my grasp because, even back then, the corporate globalists were tightening their grip on the economy. “Everyone is expendable and replaceable,” my parents lectured. Except them, of course. With a college education, when our economy recovered I got the short end again: the job market was flooding with liberated females and imported vibrants. I literally found myself working for men that couldn’t speak English and/or menstrual power girls with maturity and emotional problems. My retirement party will likely involve a bottle of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes and a Ruger .45, HAR HAR HAR! My parents told me I was a lazy whiner too. It used to make me bitter, but fuck them. I may not be rich, but I have no debts, a small savings, and I’m free. I am thankful and content... or I try to be!

My daughter was born in 85. She got participation trophies for showing up, her teachers were far more concerned with her self esteem than her education, and she hit the job market being told to follow her dreams, and the money would follow that. I went nuts trying to tell her the world didn’t work like that but got shouted down by my boomer parents and in laws. So off she went to school, and got a degree in fine arts from a no-name college. When I grumbled about the education scam, I was scolded by my idiot boomer in-laws that all education was good education. Of course, when my daughter failed to launch that was all my fault too. But, even had she gotten a good education and possessed a mature work ethic... a one bedroom apartment goes for $1500.00/month in Hongcouver, and a small decent home will easily run 400K. How are the kids supposed to afford homes and families with bills like that? AND save for rainy days and retirement? She is pissed right off with the world too because all the pretty lies she was told never caught on in the real world. She got to where she is by listening to boomer idiots and heeding their advice.

I’ll just wrap this up with one final thought: one of the boys at church said his school offered a basic robotics class for the girls. When he and a few of the other guys wanted to take part, the vinegar drinking cat lady they had for a principal said no - “the boys had their video games”. If you are disgusted with millennials... just wait a bit. When Gen Z grows up they will probably kill us old farts off and grind us up into food paste. More than a few of us will deserve it.

Aesop said...

First of all Glen, just to be clear, we're talking about the Canadian wexperience now, and not the U.S., right?
I clarify, because we're neighboring countries, with a lot in common, but we are not interchangeable societies. There's overlap, certainly, but it's not anything like close to all things, and I wouldn't begin to tell somebody in another country, even a neighboring member of the Anglosphere, "the way it is" there, or was, since I have as much experience with that as former president Obozo has with being an actual American in America.

Second of all, your daughter listened not to Boomer idiots, but simply idiots. Being Boomers had as much to do with them being idiots as being right- or left-handed does. Nothing about merely being born in the given 20-year span predisposes anyone to being brilliant or stupid, since it would have to apply to the whole generation, or mot of it, to make the generalization anything like accurate, and if I can find one (let alone 75M) counter-examples, it undoes that whole argument.

Are there idiot Boomers? Hell yes! We've even elected some of them president here, fer cripes sake.
Are there industrious X-ers, Slackers, Millenials? Hell yes! I work with craptons of them. It's one of the few things that gives me any hope for the future at all.

But trying to make broad generalizations fails when you try and tar 76M Americans for the sole sin of being born after WWII, and before LBJ was elected president.
it simply demonstrates nothing objectively true, except their ages.

That's why the very idea is so much codswallop.

You want to talk anecdotals and case-by-case stories?
Have at it.

Stupid, selfish, lazy, idiots have existed in every generation.
Some generations get gifted with more of them than sheer demographics might suggest, mainly because society foolishly does things to lessen how much stupid actually hurts.

Stupid in 1700 Kentucky or 1850 Texas was a lot more final than stupid in 2018 Kentucky or Texas, for an obvious pair of examples.

But trying to blame all the ills of the world on one generation is the rankest lunacy and psychosis, and I won't mollycoddle anyone's delusions that way.

Doing exactly that has made most of those psychotics the problem children they are, and until they stop it, they won't get any better, and they won't even know they should try.

They wanna be nutbags, that's their problem; but they don't get to force me to agree to their nutbaggery just because it makes them feel better about being losers.

Baldrick said...

It's not entirely generational though. My parents were born as leading edge Boomers. My husband's parents were (and are) Silent Generation, but too young to vote for FDR of course. My Grandfather, the Marine who fought on Guadalcanal, was no fan of FDR and thought SS was a crock (if only others had listened). He had other choice things to say about FDR (court stacking, etc.) but he left us in '80. If anyone says that my Grandfather caused any of this crap though - know that he was NOT alone in HIS generation in NOT loving FDR. He'll also kick your ass on the other side, because being in the Marines for 20 years as an NCO, he would have NO qualms kicking a few snowflake asses in the hereafter.

Anyhow, my parents. One was a doctor, the other a PhD at Stanford in A.I. They both earned that. They worked their ASSES off for that. My father was a National Merit Scholar, then ENLISTED in the Marines while on a full-ride scholarship to the Cornell School of Engineering. He served two tours in Vietnam, mostly as a door gunner with SLF Bravo. When he got out it was right back to school while working and getting married and having a kid (me). Essentially my parents didn't do whatever Golden Fridays were (I have no idea what those are) and they didn't do 7.3 hour days. My Dad started his own company (and no he didn't offshore) - that ate up most of his waking hours. 14-15 hour days were the norm. Mum was seeing patients and saving their eyesight. She was also exhausted - Aesop can tell you how exhausting it is to deal with patients, even just in in a clinical setting, let alone in an ER. It is absolutely draining.

My father THEN told me, when I was young and was thinking of law school, "If you don't go into STEM don't waste your time going to college, and I'm sure as hell not paying for some degree for you to become just another f.....g lawyer. Pay your own way then." Because my father was not an idiot.

My husband's parents told him to learn machining like his father did. He did that because he loved growing up around machines, drafting, all of it, then went on to become a Senior R&D Engineer. I raised my kids to also love learning and home schooled them long before it was "in". A lot of my generation (Gen X) also looked at me funny and gave me some guff for staying home with my kids. I didn't care - my first job was as a parent once the kids appeared.

My daughter is doing extremely well - married and operating a small business with her husband. They're both mid 20's and already looking at buying their first home themselves - in California. Not a cheap place. She also graduated high school early and her passion was classical music theory - another thing that is nearly impossible to make money at. She did play with some major city orchestras but her passion is theory, not playing. She falls into the "Millennial" category barely, but she's much more "Z". She's now also an adoring mother of my beautiful grandchild, who is amazing. (Grandma brag had to make it in there! HA!) My son is straight-up "Z". He doesn't hate previous generations (he doesn't pay attention to any of it), he's keeping his nose to the grindstone and learning robotics AND culinary school - yes both. Two passions - both profitable, thank goodness.

If we followed the generational patterns, we'd be fairly messed up, but my family has never followed those patterns people are talking about. Making smart decisions is not generational, it's INDIVIDUAL.

DTG said...

Simply a 1,000 yard, iron sight "X" ring shot.

Well done, Aesop!

MMinWA said...

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

Delusion-as you are soaring high above it all with your wings stretched out & feel the wind coursing across your face, it might be time to roll up that car window and concentrate on where you're heading.

Everyone's trip is different. Me, I had it with school after 2 terms at a small engineering college, quit, loaded up my Buick and headed out for unexplored territory. I made my first million before I turned 50 and that's not assets v liabilities, that was doughrame in the bank.

When I put the medal to the metal that March day in 1970, I had just turned 18 and am truly amazed at a few of my friends' children who are still living at home in their early 20s. It's a sea to shining sea of opportunity out there.

Lord, born with the biggest winning lottery ticket in history and people are complaining?

Another great rant my friend.

Anonymous said...

Fleming v. Nestor 1960 Supreme Court ruling should be a must read for anyone thinking that they will get a S.S. Check in the future.

ADS said...

I'm right on the border between gen x and millenial, born in 1986. It's kind of a cool spot to be in, I remember pre internet times as well as the wild west early internet days. I'm not a frother like this other guy but I get mad when baby boomers dump on millenials too.

If a dog isn't housebroken, is it his fault or his owners? If a child is spoiled, is it his fault or his parents? If Millenials are so terrible, look at our parents.

My parents did a great job raising me, and accordingly I'm much better equipped than most of my fellow millennials to handle the rough spots in life. I don't understand how boomers can dump on millennials for being snowflakes with participation trophies. You did that! Have some compassion.

Millenials are fighting against headwinds our parents didn't have: worse schools, the tuition bubble, a vastly devalued dollar, the loss of many good jobs, and domestic competition from imported H1b workers. None of those are strictly new phenomena, but all of them are much much worse in our day than our parents'. Boomers should remember they had many more opportunities and much easier going than us.

I get it, life isn't fair. But the vitriol against millenials by boomers makes me seriously irritated. We're doing the best we can with what we've been given to work with and how we were raised.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

One of two things. KAB was dropped on his head or raised under Dr. Spocks book which he doesn't know what that is. Aesop I miss gunny also. I remember when I first saw him on China Beach. Never missed an episode or movie of anything he was in. Thought of him often especially when attending my nephews graduation in San Diego a few years ago. The only thing negative that day was reading news sitting in the bleachers on the parade grounds about the Marine aviation segments low availability of working aircraft. I was so pissed I posted on Facebook that if my nephew is KIA due to lack of air cover I would be headed to washington myself. No longer on Facebook

Anonymous said...

I graduated HS in '65, which was an exciting time to be that age. After growing up in "Leave it to Beaver Land" I wanted to see some weird. Somehow, the Yamaha 250 my Dad financed in my 18th Summer had morphed into a Knucklehead chopper by my 21st Summer and I got my wish to see weird. I spent a lot of time in community college while we participated in the alternative social milieu of American V-Twin enthusiasts. In '79 I went to gunsmithing school, and that degree was my in to a career as a Manufacturing Engineering Planner in aerospace. I worked until retirement was a medical necessity. During my (our: my wife of 49 years being my soul mate) working life we had lean times, and learned to cope. We practiced frugality, and when I did get a job that paid well and lead to a career we saved as much as we could. Now we have what we need and no debt other than mortgage.

Our son was born right after I graduated from gunsmithing school, and we decided that being our son's mother was my wife's salient pursuit. This resulted in some lean times, but well worth it. When he got old enough she reentered the workforce. Now, in his mid-30s he is a kind and honorable man with a useful trade, no debt, and substantial savings. Community college is where to go for entry into a useful field.

My wife's sister got a "studies" degree financed by student loans, expecting to waltz in to a position @ 60-70K/yr. She was disappointed. So was the Master of Fine Arts who worked in the cafeteria @ Boeing.

Community college is an affordable path to success. Maybe the MAs working in fast food should get an associate degree and pay off their student loans.

_revjen45



Aesop said...

@ADS

I feel ya, man, truly I do.
But at a certain point in life, you have to wake up one day, decide you're a grown up, and bloody well act like it.

Because nothing else cuts it, and you can't walk around the rest of your life blaming everything on mommy and daddy.

Nearly everybody, from every generation, gets a crap hand at some point, or in some way.
No one else cares about the excuses.
Do the best you can, and leave off the sniveling.

And please, understand this cosmic truth:
Boomers didn't do that; some fucktwit's parents did.
I wasn't raised by the Greatest Generation, I was raised by my parents.
Period. Full stop.
Your own parents' load is heavy enough without anyone else trying to pile all their malfunctions on 76M other people who had fuck all to do with anybody else's kids.

Pretending otherwise is madness, raised in a deep bed of festering horseshit.

Anonymous said...

Hey Brother,
Had to come down here before reaching the conclusion of yet more brilliance. If the flake is all proud of himself for putting money for his child into the ponzi that is the current "market" he demonstrated stupid right there.
Buy books and tools if you want a legacy and education for your children
Boat Guy

Lee Van Queef II said...

I am so stealing that captioned doll picture.

Is there 25% unemployment? You making beer in a bathtub? Picking cotton in the Texas heat? Then shut the fuck up, stick an ice bag on your weeping pussy and go to work. Because I grew up with people that did exactly that. Wisdom to Snotflakes of All Generations:

All honest labor is sacred.
You are special, snowflake. Just like everyone else.
Turn off the social media. It is not wise.
Trust wisdom: the application of knowledge and experience to novel situations. <----you don't have this yet, in fact you don't know shit so shut the fuck up around your elders and listen.
Your peers are idiots.
Don't quit. Ever. Ever. Ever.
Don't be a communist.



Glen Filthie said...

Yep, we are different countries, Aesop. We are far more (hork, spit) liberal than you Yanks - and to me it would seem the result of that on generational politics is that they are much more bitter and acute up here as a result. Being more liberal - we are probably half a swirl ahead of America down the same crapper. If American kids think they were sold out by their elders (and they were, no doubt about it) - you should see it up here. The seniors don't give a hoot about anyone but themselves, the kids hate them and are hated right back in return. Outside of the wife's church I haven't seen one single healthy functional family in my circle.

Disrespecting your elders is contemptable, but so is being derisive of your kids. And I say that, knowing full well that I should probably shut the hell up and practice what I preach. The alternative is for everyone to reject each other, nobody gets what they want.

Baldrick said...

I want to add... it was fantastic growing up as an Xer. Ok? I loved it. Watch "Stranger Things" to get a idea of my childhood (yes I was a geek). Freedom, early responsibility, GREAT music from every genre, the beginning of computers (we ALL learned BASIC in schools), and as this tiny generation wedged between two huge ones, we made one hell of a noise. No whining, no bullcrap - we have thicker skins than Millennials in general (all of this is general), and we learned growing up that Reagan made things better no matter how much older people around us whined. Nothing like watching the fall of the Berlin wall when you're young - it makes an impression.

Things were starting to go sideways in terms of the economy and offshoring and all of that, but we were all too excited to care. To BE THERE at the start of the revolution in computing was something amazing.

The 80's were great times for us. Sci-fi heaven, fantasy movie heaven, computing, geekery of all sorts, and like I said, all SORTS of great music. I think I can blame half the troubles nowadays on Skrillex and the like alone. If I want to hear that, I'll just boot up an old modem O.o Then WE entered the music scene and stamped our mark on it. I haven't seen that from either of the next two generations EXCEPT for stuff like Skrillex and rap (which is past its heydey also). We took risks and a lot of us became wealthy because of that - in a time when we were told it was not possible to become wealthy because of this or that economically. The world was our oyster and WE knew it, even if people were complaining about the economy.

This country is STILL an oyster, it's that that lot of these younger kids have bought into the doom and gloom and "oh poor me" stuff that we didn't, generally. That's why we have so many people trying to get to America - THEY know there's a pearl in this oyster if they work for it, even if the natives have forgotten that fact. Essentially the natives have gone soft. Let's see.. how'd that work for Rome? Z, luckily, from what I'm seeing, is aware of this fact and are acting accordingly. Red-pilled to the gills. I'm still waiting for them to make some decent music though.

https://youtu.be/uOqP3wj2x14

Roy said...


Aesop, In the last comment thread, I read that post by "Kill the boomers" and thought: "What a douchcanoe." I even thought I should post a rant in reply but then decided it would be best to wait a while. I'm glad I did.

Nothing I could say came anywhere near to that righteous rejoinder that you posted.

I am a boomer, born 1954, right in the middle. I came of age in the early 70's.

My parents, (Dad born in the 20's and a WWII veteran, mom born in 1930), were not well off. My dad didn't finish high school and was a truck driver his entire working career.

When I got out of high school, my mom wanted me to go to a nearby "Liberal Arts" college which had free tuition if you qualified. (Berea college, in eastern KY if you're interested.) I qualified, but by the end of high school I had had it with school, classrooms, teachers, all of it. So, much to my mothers chagrin, I instead, joined the Navy and subsequently, the submarine service. I then spent the next two years in school; classrooms, teachers - all of it - with the caveat that If I ever cut class, I could - literally - go to jail.

I wouldn't trade it for the world. It was one of the finest educations I could have received. I just didn't grok it at the time. I went back to school later in life and got a business degree, but it wasn't anywhere near the education I got in the Navy.

And about SS. Let me just say that, like most, I have been paying into that ponzi scheme my entire working career - going on 49 years now. However, I have also been aware since, oh, about 1977 or so, that its days are numbered. It is *not* my entire retirement plan like that goof KTB would like to claim. Frankly, I'm surprised it's lasted this long. But... At the end of this coming May, I am going to retire. I have a pension - which I earned, I have a 401K, I have IRA's and investments, and, son-of-a-gun, I still have SS. And guess what, I intend to collect on it as long as it (or I) last. And if "Kill the boomers" doesn't like it, well, he can just kiss my ass. (...and if he's in earnest about "killing the boomers", then all I can say to that is: "Bring it, asshole!")

I'll just end with a repeat of an earlier post - and it goes for everyone, boomers, X's, Y's Z's and, of course, millennials too.

Generations don't **DO** anything. Individuals do.

Benji40 said...

Little long for me to read in one sitting. It went well with the Weller 12 year old bourbon I was drinking. 9.2/10 rant. Thanks.

Eskyman said...

What a wonderful & righteous rant! This old '46 boomer thanks you for it.

I don't indulge in the generational crap, as others above have said it's the individual, not the generation, that matters.

Still, it grates on me that so many supposedly intelligent people- some of whom have passed a lot of pixels in proclaiming their tremendous intelligence, far superior to yours or mine, or so they say- have to blame boomers for all the ills of society. Even those galactic intellects should be able to tell that's BS, just from the smell!

Anonymous said...

[ncgreg231Lc2]
Yes, I am (fearfully) curious to know what a “golden Friday” might be? Is it similar to a “golden shower”? (i know what those are...) since we are talking about generations, i identify as X’er (1973)

Anonymous said...

[ncgreg231Lc2]
Hmm, who to blame for the ills of society? i.m.h.o.-there are a great many ills in society and thus, plenty of blame to go around. But one factor that i believe to be present in all of them is *selfishness * (in multiple shapes and forms) from the meth junky that needs cash for the next hit, to the ambitious politician desiring ever greater power. I wish i had better info, but i am expecting a big correction of some kind within 20 years... but probably life will continue pretty much as it has since 4000 BC?

The Freeholder said...

Having worked in higher ed for a few years recently, kab's attitude isn't a new thing to me. Thank God he is simply a part of what I'm calling "Generation Outrage". The funny thing is that there are far more kids in that same age cohort that are what us old codgers would like them to be-enterprising and industrious, with a side of responsibility. I just hope the outrage burns out before we can't keep the little geniuses in hand.

lol no said...

Born in '67 and I gotta say, boomers seem.... inordinately defensive over being called out on some of their shit. Makes no difference to me, I'm equally amused when all generations "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". Wont change how I live my life.