Posted 06/12/2009 - 12:48:19pm by David Bank
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. photo by Alan Petersime/The Indianapolis Star.
Commencement speeches by leading boomers were heavy on generational mea culpas, the Wall Street Journal reports in, "Boomers to This Year's Grads: We Are Really, Really Sorry."
Encore Question: Have boomers changed the world for the better, or the worse?
Among the graduation-day quotes:
- Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, 60, said at Butler University that boomers have been "self-absorbed, self-indulgent and all too often just plain selfish."
- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, 55, at Grinnell College, said boomers were "the grasshopper generation, eating through just about everything like hungry locusts."
- Sen. Michael Bennett of Colorado, 44, said at Colorado College, "We have limited the potential of future generations by burdening them with our poor choices and our unwillingness to make tough ones."
- CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley, 51, at Texas Tech University, said, "I know you're looking up here at my generation and you're thinking, 'Great, thanks, just when it was our turn, you broke it."
- Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, who spoke at Boston College said in an interview that boomers' tragedy was to "squander the legacy handed to them by the generation from World War II."
Encore Question: Have boomers changed the world for the better, or the worse?
- David Bank's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
Boomer Status
I read the WJS column and some of the comments and I strongly hold that the first writer on the list (William Junga ) was right on the money. Not all boomers are guilty as charged. Public apologies like the one by Mitch Daniels come across more as one's personal need to appease ones own guilt than have anything of real substance. Granted many of that generation sold out to the money crowd and allowed greed to motivate all their work. All one needs to do is look at the previous administration where greed and power hunger controlled the entire agenda for eight years. ON THE OTHER HAND, many many of us chose a path geared to making the land a better place and after all these some forty years ( since I left the Rutgers campus ) many many of us are still trying. One cannot, in all honesty, loose sight of so much good that has been done and so many serious contributions to community. Domestic violence shelters, schools for the children of poverty, medical advances, Head Start and like programs, Habitat for Humanity and the like, Food Banks and do not forget those advocates who continue to badger legislative bodies for a quality of life for those who cannot fend for themselves. Yes, there are those who don't care and those who's only agenda is their bank account BUT PLEASE do not denigrate, dilute or short change the efforts of the so many who really did, really do and continue to really care.
We've done both - but there is still time
Look, there is no question the boomers are a self-indulgent lot. But guess what, so are the folks born between 1964 and 1984 who are now between 25 and 45. They they are part of the PTA, they vote and they were living beyond their means just as the boomers did. The problem isn't just with the boomers it is with our narcissistic society. As a society haven't had a common cause to rally together about.
However, the game isn't over and there is still time. I am confident, that Americans are good and honorable people and we will do what is right for our sons and daughters and their children. We know this country is a mess and it is time to fix it.
So, lets get on with it, lets make our forefathers proud.