General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This, my friends, is far too typical for my generation. [View all]thucythucy
(7,948 posts)and I certainly sympathize with anyone today who finds it hard in these bone-crushing soul-destroying economic times. Personally, I'd be scared shitless if I was just starting out today, fresh out of college.
You should understand though that a lot of Boomers are also up against the wall. Many of them are taking care of their kids--trying to put them through college, trying to give them as much economic and personal support as they can as they start out in life--AND caring for their frail and aging parents in an era where elder services are being threatened all the time. AND trying--for those who are politically progressive--to make some impact politically. AND worrying about the time when they'll no longer be able to work--what with all this talk about "reforming" Social Security and Medicare. For folks like that, these last years have been a frustrating, exhausting, truly frightening time through which to live.
So for progressive Boomers, I don't know if it's lack of empathy so much as lack of resources, time, and energy.
Another factor in the backlash I sense you getting here is that, since the 1970s, Boomers have been blamed by conservatives for all the ills of the world. George Will has been I think the most active spreader of this media virus. This has been used as a way to denigrate, and undo, the various advances that have been made in terms of voting rights, reproductive rights, civil rights for people of color, GLBTs, people with disabilities. If we dismiss Boomers as trivial, self-absorbed, pie-in-the-sky hippies, it becomes easier to whittle away at all the progress made since 1960, progress many younger people seem often to take for granted.
So I think your attempt to elicit some empathy here might be seen by some as another one of these "the Boomers are to blame for everything" threads. I don't think, reading your OP, that that's at all what you intended, but it appears as though some folks at least are reading it like that.
The only way we'll change things now is to pull together for 2014. Sorry, but that's the only, and thus the best, advice I can offer. I wish I could be more helpful.
Anyway, gotta run!
Best wishes to you and yours.