Boomers - Part Two

Boomers: Part 2 (two)

2.2 million men were drafted during the Viet Name war.  57,939 names of killed or missing in action are inscribed on the Viet Nam War Memorial on the Washington D.C. Mall.  Which comes out to around 25% +/-.  

As opposed to 10 million during World War II.  420,000 American men were killed in that war.  Which appears to be +/- 50%.

Now the more in depth question(s) would be how many enlisted v. how many drafted?

All in all, the country as a whole seemed to understand that Hitler and the Nazis had to go.  And, that Japanese control of basically the entire eastern hemisphere could not be allowed to happen.  So there was a national support for the war effort of WW II.  Even though men of color were segregated into separate units.  Very, very few men of color were in the officer corp of any of the Armed Forces. 

Pretty much everybody, except for a few heavy-duty War Hawks opposed our combat efforts in Viet Nam.  The military by that time was fairly integrated, but the officer corp was still pretty whitey-white. In short as a generation boomers were forced, by one means or another, to fight in a war that most people knew was not only morally unsupportable but just really stupid. 

The front lines in Viet Nam were primarily poor, dark of hue and, it could be said generally, the least educated (since college deferments were in place for much of the conflict).  And, upon returning from service to our country we were spit on, denigrated as baby-killers and the probably dumb.  

At the same time, the female boomers were fighting very hard for Equal Rights, burning their bras (yeah?  As though the bra was a symbol of male oppression? … I never quite understood that one.)  But, anyway a good number of men chose prison over being drafted into a war they opposed.  A good number took off for Canada and were vilified for that.  

A very large per centage of Boomers marched to end the war.  Marched to end segregation.  Marched for Women’s’ Rights.  We fought bigotry in all forms, including Gay Rights.  The overall social awareness that Boomers pushed for, fought for and were even shot right on American soil for seems to pass unrecognized by later generations.  Our bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic and religiously tight-assed parents were still called “The Great Generation”?  

What we refer to these days as “woke” is due almost entirely to the Boomer generation efforts to not continue and/or repeat the sins of our fathers.  And, many many of us suffered for that.  Suffered greatly.  Now in our old age we are still held responsible for the many continuing ills in our country.  

I simply cannot understand why this is.  

Maybe, there will be a “Boomers – Part Three”.

Boomers Should Just Die, Okay … [Part 1]

Boomers Should Just Die, Okay … [Part 1]

Doesn’t matter who, but somebody’s got to hang. 

Maybe that’s too strong.  “Somebody has to pay.” And, that is the American Way.  

For just about 250 years, the USA has been a country where John Wayne and Ronnie Reagan, the “good guys” were taught to be the epitome of the “traditional values” of Americer  - yes, I misspelled that. A large majority of the “Boomers” believed it.

As it turns out, John Wayne never actually did anything for his country but make money as a hack movie star, including during WW II.  He dodged the “Draft” and Ronnie spent his time in Hollywood making propaganda movies for the government.  Ronnie never stepped foot on any foreign soil during the same war, when every other fully abled American male either enlisted or were compelled to fight.  

So, to me, a genuine real article Baby Boomer, most of those held up to us as heroes were very emblematic of the “Greatest etc…”.  When it finally came to light that many of those heroes were actually really deep bigots and much of what our parent generation foisted on us as children, the hypocrisy (the stone cold hypocrisy of our parents) was really deeply hurtful.

Also, that the American History we had rammed down our throats for years and years in our  schools was mostly white-washed bullshit.  

But we had to have some heroes and the real ones were … well, either not tall enough or just didn’t look good on camera.  I dunno, as Americans we have always gone with either the tall guy, the one with the best hair OR the quick talking bully.  Our culture assumed, up and until recently that they were all white guys.

So, of course, all our heroes had to also be white.

The “Greatest Generation” -?- .  I must say that my own father served in WW II and was awarded the Silver Star and several other medals for “Valour in Combat”.  His three younger brothers also served with valour.  My father was a wonderful father and grandfather and I loved him very much.  But both he and my mother were, basically, bigots and homophobic. Actually my mother was the worst of the two as a bigot and homophobic.  

And, my uncles and my whole family going back generations were completely inconspicuous about it.  You’d never know by looking at them. They were always respectful and kind towards everybody.  But deeper into conversation and you would find that they were honestly straight evangelical white supremacists.  

Them and the majority of these members of the “Greatest etc..”. did beat back a couple of the worst dictators and most evil humans and their brain-washed mobs.  Millions died. More millions were horribly wounded; had their lives devastated forever and yet they did win. The non-white, female and indigenous Americans were pretty much ignored even though it was often their sacrifices that were the most significant and profound.  

The children of that generation, those born between 1946 and 1956 have been labeled “Boomers”.   I have heard much denigration against “us” - I was born in 1946.

I have raised six children who are all successful adults.  I have been a school teacher for over 30 years. I am very, very qualified to say that most children learn by what they see.  Children learn by example, almost exclusively.  Most children learn very little by precept.  You can talk (or yell) at them forever about not smoking or the dangers of alcohol or being lazy, and if you, as their parent smoke, drink and spend most of your time watching TV, you are a fool if you think your children are going to abstain from any of those things.  Especially the lazy part.

So how did I, myself, and my brother become card carrying Liberal Progressives.  The answer, like most answers, is hidden in the lead-up text.  All of the adults within our Parent Generation tended to be civil to everybody.  They showed respect for everybody they came into contact with.  So that civility and respect is what my brother and I saw.  That is the manner in which we, as a family, acted towards the greater community.  We did not learn to become bigots because we never saw bigotry.  Even though, in hushed conversation between the adults we lived with (the white Boomers, anyway) did hear a lot of it.

I will break this down further in [Part 2] of “Boomers Should Just Die, Okay …”

Dale C. Peterson

http://dalepeterson.us

Search Dale Clarence Peterson on Kindle for more of my writing.

Tweeting Is A Loaded Gun

When you grow up in a small town, your entire childhood is public knowledge and will remain on a billboard, somewhere in that town, for the rest of your life _ in that town.

Because everybody does stupid, or shameful things.  In particular when we are unaware that certain things are stupid, or shameful.  (Things that our communities, our social orders, believe are shameful.)

As kids, what do any of us know about just about anything _ especially things that are shameful.  We used to joke about our “Permanent Records” when I was in school in the 50’s and 60’s.  It was a Joke.  We kind of believed the teachers and adults were keeping an actual written record of all our misdeeds, etc..  But, most of us (the brighter kids, maybe) drew the conclusion that that would be impossible.  It would be just too much stuff.  Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.

A written permanent record of all children’s “bad behavior”?  I screwed up 20 times a day!  I knew it!  Half those times, I knew I got away with it.  Plus being in an American Armed Forces Family, I changed schools every year _ quite literally.  Somehow I wound up in a new school every single year.  It would have been a semi-trailer truck full of “stupid behaviour” following me around.

Today, and for the last ten years or so, if you (everyone) isn’t posting a dozen or more pictures of yourself doing stuff, some CCT camera has got you.  Or, if you’re a child, your parents, or some family member, is posting pictures of you. Somebody you know, friend or foe, is commenting on something you did (or maybe didn’t, or maybe just a rumor) on some Social Media website.

Now, there is a “Permanent Record” of your life!  And, it’s out there forever AND anyone with a little tech savvy  can pull it up and will know every fuckin’ thing you have ever done!  It will never go away!  It is not written on paper, stuffed in hundreds of boxes; it is a speck of sand on the beach of the World Wide Web available and open to the world.  Using a simple algorithm  that single speck of sand can be sifted out in a nano-second.

There is no longer any real freedom.  “Time will not heal all wounds.”  Time means nothing today.  We are all chained to our pasts with chains that are massive, unbreakable and connected to anchor after anchor like Marley’s sins.   And, we continue to believe we are free. That those massive chains are invisible. “Let he who is without sin cast the first Tweet.”  

You Can’t Return from Crazy.

The Return from Crazy Is Impossible

I don’t know anything about heroin or hard street drugs.  I do know about crazy. I have cursory research knowledge and general exposure to social media, so I sort of know that people do return from self-ascribed trips.  It is possible to overcome or learn to deal with addiction.  

Crazy is not an addiction or a street drug and once you’ve gone on a crazy trip, you don’t ever get to come back.  My father got malaria serving in the Philippines in WW II.  He would get chills even in merely chilly weather. He hated it.  As soon as he could, he retired to Phoenix, Arizona. He loved the heat.  He absolutely loved the searing head-pounding heat of that desert.  The only real cure he found for a condition that, it would seem, for which he could not find a cure, was to force expose himself to a condition as extreme in the reverse as the symptoms he despised.

The chills from the malaria would come in unpredictable waves.  The chills from the malaria were physical and my father found physical  means of living with them. Crazy, in my experience, can also occur in waves unpredictably.  And, means can be found to live with crazy.

(I hate snow and I hate winter.  Trees all naked like old people in the fitness center locker room.  Just looks unnatural to me. Conifers at least have the good sense to leave their clothes on.)

(Grey sky.  Dirty lint laden blanket overhead.  Squashing all sense of emotional flight.  Can’t get my spirit to lift off the ground to discover, to play along the wind currents.  Find the warm updrafts and soar a hundred feet straight up and glisté in sweeping curves to giddiness.  Giggly baby giddiness. Squirming away from the tickle monster. That’s all gone under dirty skies. No sense of morning, of noon time.  It’s 7 p.m. all day. Until after sunset when the sun rises somewhere else.)

(January through March, a tunnel.  A long mold covered tunnel. With the smell of mold soaking into every pore.  Skin feeling like it’s covered in algae. It’s wet underwear. No matter how many dry clothes you try to put over it, it stays damp and clingy, massively uncomfortable.)

(But right now, it’s February.  Nearly the end of February. Which isn’t so bad because it’s a very short month.  And then, it’s March; which is my very least favorite, and March is the longest month.  March just goes on forever, but March slams shut. March is not a gentle month. March hates you coming in the door, it sits like a pile of wet dirty laundry in the middle of the living room and glowers at you from breakfast to dinner.  Then one morning you come downstairs and March is gone. It’s just gone like it was never there.)

(April is the time of questions.  April is very strong and blots out most memory of March.  April is a liar, however. One morning there is a warm breeze and a faint smell of green and yellow and pink and that afternoon it turns to ice and snows.  The first cup of tea the next morning and it’s winter again until noon. At noon it’s Spring again and the day feels as long as a rope, a very long rope. The day after that May pulls in the long gravel road like the FedEx truck and delivers a gift of Spring daffodils everywhere.)

(But, in April, don’t step off the gravel in the road or you’ll sink to your knees in mud.)

(I have decided to move to a country on the Equator where everyday is the same length.  No Solstices. No short days and long days. Every day is just the same amount of daylight and nighttime.  The only difference between January and July is that it rains everyday in January. Only every other day in July.  And it’s windy in January. With fewer spiders.)

Today, Tomorow; There Is No Yesterday

Today, tomorrow; There Is No Yesterday

It is snowing quite heavily.  Visibility is maybe twenty feet.  And, I find myself going into full-on panic mode.  

I attempt to override, damp down this heavily rising anxiety.

I find I can think about tomorrow and stay pretty much stable and on-task with what I am doing today.  I make a valiant effort not to think, or plan, beyond tomorrow.  And, I find I have to limit any ambitions beyond what I must do today and I what I might do tomorrow.  “Might do tomorrow” is the best I can tolerate today.

This method, or maybe “concept” (philosophy) seems to bring my heart rate down and ease my panicky breathing.  When the mind starts to deteriorate, or succumb to a previous trauma occurring to the brain, for me, at least, I must take over.  Consciously, I must take steps to bring the whole thing under control.

And, that means within what is happening, or going on, right now, today, is NOT a forever thing.  Just because something triggers my panic anxiety mode right now, does not mean it will not go away.  I find there are two things that affect my life quality in the moment.  The first, and most damning and damaging, is to dwell on the past.  To allow all of my many big life mistakes to start looping through my mind; big big big mistake.  I have to force my thinking to just put a block on that.  The past is a ghost. It is gone.  It is fable. There is no yesterday.

There is only today and a vagueness on the horizon that might become tomorrow.  This not to say that goals for good, better or improvement, which will possibly require some work, some hard focused effort, are not possible.  They just have to be set and worked toward incrementally.  

“I need to get to a place (whatever achievement).  And, first I need to get this thing done.  Then, that thing done.  And so on, until I get my desired goal accomplished.”

“I can move any obstacle in my path.  First I find a fulcrum, then I find a lever and with concentrated effort, I can move that obstacle out of my path.”

The many things that have been said by many great and mindful minds, are mostly true and good.  “Day by day.” “One foot in front of the other.” “Love yourself.” They just need to put into practice, become a mantra and held like a beloved child.

So here is some other stuff.
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