Am I disappointed in Barack Obama? Yes. Am I disappointed in the Democratic Party? Yes.
But I'm disappointed in them in the way that I am often disappointed in myself. They took too much for granted. I often do the same.
Obama is not a king. We have to carry our end of the load, even when it seems like Obama isn't carrying his.
I still maintain, I still believe, that he has a longer-term project in mind: moving us past the baby-boom political cleavage that has dominated my life and yours since nineteen-bleepin'-sixty-eight.
It is time for Generation X to stand up and be counted.... We Gen-Xers, of which Obama is an early model, have to drop our cool, alienated stance, a stance that served us so well as we came of age in the blasted American landscape of the early 1990s, and we must take charge.
We must sweep away the narcissistic Baby Boomers who came before us, and lead the idealistic Millennials who come after us into battle against the forces of ignorance, hatred, fear, anti-science, and division.
We cannot afford to be cool and detached any longer, fellow Gen-Xers. We're entering our 40s. It's time, in the words of Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith, to "kick ass."
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1 comment:
Interesting blog. Only very few actual experts anywhere have said that Obama is part of Generation X or the Baby Boom Generation. By contrast, a long list of prominent experts have said that Obama is part of Generation Jones. Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention; in fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) specifically refer to Obama as part of Generation Jones. Here is a 5 minute YouTube video with over 20 influential pundits talking about Obama as a GenJoneser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta_Du5K0jk
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Here is an op-ed in USA TODAY about Obama as the first GenJones President:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/colu...
Here's a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones, with many media references to Obama as a GenJoneser:
http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
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