Can I kick it? No, you can't.

Every time I begin to think that a generational shift may be occurring, I am bombarded with reminders from the Baby Boomer generation that they aren't quite done destroying the country, or making everything about them.

The 40th anniversary of the Woodstock concert?

No. The health care debate.

I couldn't help but notice that the same generation which took drugs in the mud of Bethel, New York in 1969, is now flinging mud at the best opportunity to give access to health care to all citizens of this country.

The grandma whose death-by-unplugging is so feared by multitudes of dimwits at town halls and online? She was at Woodstock, undoubtedly laying the groundwork for becoming a grandma, and probably any unwashed scumbag with a tab of acid in his pocket.

This greedy generation, which was all about peace and love when it was their turn to go to war, was all about rape and pillage in the 80s, when easy millions beckoned you from a different locale in New York.

But just selling out for money wasn't enough, you wanted power, too. That's natural. Your bloated generation, in numbers and size, thought nothing of sending other people's children off to war in 2003. Of course, in keeping with your "principles" the war wasn't about ideology, it was about another chance to make money with no risk to your own skins.

Have you achieved anything since 1969?

"Oh, sure," you say, "pick on George W. Bush. He's an easy target."

Yep, and you elected him. Twice.

"Can we at least get credit for Bill Clinton?"

I laugh, because you think that his presidency somehow validates your alleged principles. And I suppose it does.

The Baby Boomer's first president: A real triumph.

The Glass-Steagal Act of 1933, which established the FDIC and prohibited bank holding companies from owning other financial companies? Repealed by Clinton's signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999.

Any of you addled fatasses recall anything bad happening recently as a result of that?

Welfare reform in 1996: Threw millions of people off of the rolls, and actually increased poverty in the next decade.

Oh, and the Baby Boomer pièce de résistance: Health Care Reform in 1993.

Like so many other things you've failed at as a generation, you had good intentions. But once you realized that it would be hard, and might cost you a second term, you put your hands behind your back, started whistling, and shuffled off to have a one-sided chat with some intern.

You have achieved NOTHING since 1969.

And now you're feeling your oats again, storming town hall meetings where people might actually get to ask questions and learn something about the health care proposals, and instead drowning them out as you scream about fears that some bureaucrat might pull your plug when you end up in the hospital for your inevitable gastric bypass surgery.

I can't help but marvel at how much better off this country would be if Roe v. Wade had been passed in 1953 instead of 1973.

I am of the generation which follows you. The one that will be the first in American history to do less well than the previous generation, which is no coincidence. I am asking you for a favor, which would actually give you the opportunity to do something for someone besides yourselves.

Can you stop, just this one time, trying to keep everything for yourselves? You have Medicare, can you let the rest of us have something to keep us from dying when our appendixes go bad?

But since it isn't in your nature to do for others, will you at least consider dropping dead?

Monday, August 17, 2009