Dear Gen Xers and Millenials,
As a professor and dean for the last 30 years, I have sought, with varying degrees of success, to prepare some of you for the world into which you were to graduate. My generation has been curating that world for a couple of decades now and, as we are about to pass the metaphorical torch, maybe it’s time to take stock of the job we did.
...
The previous generation, the so-called Greatest Generation, saved the world by sending Orwell’s rough men into the crucible of war in the interest of peace. My generation, the baby boomers, was to live the life purchased for us by the boys of Normandy, the Ardennes, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other killing fields. White marble crosses and Stars of David in these places testify to the enormous price of that purchase. And live we did. What a party we threw ourselves. So, as I reflect on the goodness of the job my generation has done, I apologize. I apologize for it all.
I apologize that we boomers bankrupted this great nation. We made all manner of promises to ourselves while leaving you the bill.
...
I apologize that the Trumpists’ and, on the world stage, their fellow travelers’ nationalist fervor threatens to morph into xenophobia, race baiting and thinly disguised Jew-hatred. Charlottesville, the Yellow Vests Movement, as well as the Labor Party and its grand cyclops, er, leader, Jeremy Corbyn raise questions as to whether humans are really the highly evolved life form we like to think we are.
...
One would have hoped that the history of race relations in this country would have required placing the evil, if pathetic, Charlottesville Nazis on an ice floe, not presaged presidential weaseling...in the U.K., the nation that voted the heroic Winston Churchill out of office mere months after he helped save civilization is apparently no wiser.
As Margaret Thatcher once reminded us, democracy is a fragile thing. At its shaky foundation is the requirement of an informed electorate. Well … that didn’t work. Only 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. can name the three branches of government; 1 in 3 can’t name a single branch. Not one. Zero! Zilch!
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-baby-boomer-apology-to-gen-x-millennials-20190313-story.html
As a professor and dean for the last 30 years, I have sought, with varying degrees of success, to prepare some of you for the world into which you were to graduate. My generation has been curating that world for a couple of decades now and, as we are about to pass the metaphorical torch, maybe it’s time to take stock of the job we did.
...
The previous generation, the so-called Greatest Generation, saved the world by sending Orwell’s rough men into the crucible of war in the interest of peace. My generation, the baby boomers, was to live the life purchased for us by the boys of Normandy, the Ardennes, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other killing fields. White marble crosses and Stars of David in these places testify to the enormous price of that purchase. And live we did. What a party we threw ourselves. So, as I reflect on the goodness of the job my generation has done, I apologize. I apologize for it all.
I apologize that we boomers bankrupted this great nation. We made all manner of promises to ourselves while leaving you the bill.
...
I apologize that the Trumpists’ and, on the world stage, their fellow travelers’ nationalist fervor threatens to morph into xenophobia, race baiting and thinly disguised Jew-hatred. Charlottesville, the Yellow Vests Movement, as well as the Labor Party and its grand cyclops, er, leader, Jeremy Corbyn raise questions as to whether humans are really the highly evolved life form we like to think we are.
...
One would have hoped that the history of race relations in this country would have required placing the evil, if pathetic, Charlottesville Nazis on an ice floe, not presaged presidential weaseling...in the U.K., the nation that voted the heroic Winston Churchill out of office mere months after he helped save civilization is apparently no wiser.
As Margaret Thatcher once reminded us, democracy is a fragile thing. At its shaky foundation is the requirement of an informed electorate. Well … that didn’t work. Only 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. can name the three branches of government; 1 in 3 can’t name a single branch. Not one. Zero! Zilch!
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-baby-boomer-apology-to-gen-x-millennials-20190313-story.html