16 October 2011
Long Ago and Still to Come
I cried today after watching a film of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963. My emotions were a mixture of sadness, frustration and anger as tears welled up. So much of his dreams came true, yet there are so many parts still unfulfilled. In the 48 years since that speech, our generation spawned two more. We inherited the institutions and culture of the so-called "Greatest Generation" who, following World War 11 and during the Cold War, created The Great Society. Ironically, it was this "Greatest" Generation who legislated the federal and local programs that the Tea Baggers and other ultra-conservatives want to get rid of today. Programs supporting anti-discrimination in public education, housing, health care, short-term income loss due to unemployment, ending and correcting the effects of pollution, and regulatory systems of financial transactions and currency reflect the perils of American living before 1965.
The "Greatest Generation" had experienced two world wars, the totalitarianism of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, the Great Depression, and the Berlin Blockade with the subsequent Cold War of fifty years. Why else would they have voted for local, state and federal representatives who advocated and produced programs intended to help Americans have lives that were better than theirs had been? The "Greatest Generation" set up these programs for their children (the Boomers) and their children's children's benefit.
Those in the Tea Party mind-set must think their parents did not know the realities of life! Certainly there was vehement opposition to the New Deal, but one has to wonder where the bitterness and disgust of government comes from today. With a few exceptions, the voices of Retro-Conservatives and its Tea Party are Boomers and their children who grew up with the social programs, with the absence of conscripted military service, and with institutional safeguards against poverty and starvation. What disasters have they experienced that are comparable to those Americans born before 1946?
Perhaps the "Greatest Generation" went too far in its attempts to create an America that would never have to suffer the pains of their and prior generations' lives. Or, perhaps, the "Greatest Generation" did not understand how fundamentally different social norms grew out of the 1960s.
Did the Boomers who approved the rules and regulations hold different ethical norms because they rejected those of their parent generation in the domestic civil war of 1967-1973? Have Boomer efforts become tantamount to a rejection of a radical change in the domestic perception of the American Dream from Equal Opportunity to Equal Outcomes for All? Does change in the contemporary, perceived purpose of government mean that only personal success through greed [no longer a negative norm?] can free the individual to achieve one's best life possible?
Have the children of Boomers, after seeing effects of the social revolution of Question Authority,-Don't Trust Anyone Over 30-Hell No, We Won't Go! [disintegration of nuclear families, recreational drugs and alcohol for stress, and abuse of program privilege], as kids of the 1970s and 1980s, grown to view personal privilege as better than community well-being?
In 1963, I had a dream, too. My tears today reflect my sadness, frustration and anger that my parts of a dream, articulated so well by Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago, remain a dream.
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The "Greatest Generation" had experienced two world wars, the totalitarianism of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, the Great Depression, and the Berlin Blockade with the subsequent Cold War of fifty years. Why else would they have voted for local, state and federal representatives who advocated and produced programs intended to help Americans have lives that were better than theirs had been? The "Greatest Generation" set up these programs for their children (the Boomers) and their children's children's benefit.
Those in the Tea Party mind-set must think their parents did not know the realities of life! Certainly there was vehement opposition to the New Deal, but one has to wonder where the bitterness and disgust of government comes from today. With a few exceptions, the voices of Retro-Conservatives and its Tea Party are Boomers and their children who grew up with the social programs, with the absence of conscripted military service, and with institutional safeguards against poverty and starvation. What disasters have they experienced that are comparable to those Americans born before 1946?
Perhaps the "Greatest Generation" went too far in its attempts to create an America that would never have to suffer the pains of their and prior generations' lives. Or, perhaps, the "Greatest Generation" did not understand how fundamentally different social norms grew out of the 1960s.
Did the Boomers who approved the rules and regulations hold different ethical norms because they rejected those of their parent generation in the domestic civil war of 1967-1973? Have Boomer efforts become tantamount to a rejection of a radical change in the domestic perception of the American Dream from Equal Opportunity to Equal Outcomes for All? Does change in the contemporary, perceived purpose of government mean that only personal success through greed [no longer a negative norm?] can free the individual to achieve one's best life possible?
Have the children of Boomers, after seeing effects of the social revolution of Question Authority,-Don't Trust Anyone Over 30-Hell No, We Won't Go! [disintegration of nuclear families, recreational drugs and alcohol for stress, and abuse of program privilege], as kids of the 1970s and 1980s, grown to view personal privilege as better than community well-being?
In 1963, I had a dream, too. My tears today reflect my sadness, frustration and anger that my parts of a dream, articulated so well by Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago, remain a dream.
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