Aging Populations Drive Social, Legal Changes

The entrepeneurs of the world have been getting rich on the backs of "Boomers" (I hate the word because it produces images of aging babies, but it is succinct) since we were born. We have been used as cash cows. There has managed to be an energy crises as we entered each new phase of our lives, beginning w/ the embargo in the early seventies when we were just starting our families, then in the late eighties when were were trying to figure out how to send them to college and now when we are trying to retire. It was fine for us to pay social security and medicare to support the older generation during our youth. We didn't complain and besides we knew that money would be safe for us when we would need it. But noooo! Nobody said anything when Reagan raided it in the eighty's to help balance the overbloated budget deficit he created w/ his tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. If not for that, there would be plenty of money today. But nooooo, he had to get re-elected as a fiscally conservative tax-cutting Republican dog. They enjoyed their building boom, their expanding economy, all the while union busting and milking the "Boomer" generation. We have worked at least as hard as our parents, seen our brother and friends sacrificed in the bloody jungles of Vietnam for the benefit of Michelin Rubber Co. Yeah, we know the real truth about that. Now we are resented because we expect what was promised to us? I hope we can recapture just a little of the rebelliousness, the bravery, the morality we showed as a generation in the sixties. I hope we can create an earthquake of anxiety across this nation as we tell our own children and grandchildren "Don't screw with us! But I don't think so. While you insist on still calling us "Boomers" We are getting old. We have arthritis, MS, Crohn's Disease and a litany of other maladies probably created by our workplaces, artificially enhanced diets and polluted environment. We failed in raising the global consciousness to a higher level of thinking on life and love. Were we weak or was the deck stacked too strongly against us? Probably both. Life for Boomers - It's been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun.

Laurie Smith of TX 1:26PM May 05, 2010