The Greatest

The generation that gave birth to the baby-boomers is often touted as "The Greatest" ever born on Earth. If you look at what The Greatest Generation (TGG) accomplished, one would almost immediately agree with the moniker. Born in the 20's and early 30’s, TGG learned to work on family farms, shops, and factories during the Great Depression. Then they made the sacrifices, including their lives, to save the world from tyranny. TGG became educated and worked hard after WW II, creating the greatest economic boom ever known. Through their efforts, science and technology took off, eventually landing them on the moon. Born after 1945, no baby-boomer ever went to the moon. All those footprints were left in the moon dust by TGG.

It took another decade or two for them to finally defeat Stalinist and Maoist tyranny, but they won the cold war without firing a shot (unless you count Viet Nam, Korea, Afghanistan...) They not only made the world safe for capitalism, but converted much of the world to it. TGG gave birth to most of the technology that pervades modern civilization, including the computer chip and the Internet.

If we stack up the meager achievements of the baby boomers, it looks like a field of termite mounds against the alabaster cities the TGG created. Indeed, the boomers and their children reversed some of the good done by their parents. TGG created antibiotics, boomers feed antibiotics by the ton to cattle and pigs, reducing their effectiveness against human disease. TGG created automobiles and the interstate highway system, boomers use these to kill and maim each other, waste precious resources, and carbonize the atmosphere. TGG invented the birth control pill, boomers use it to support lives of promiscuity. TGG = greatest generation,
boomers = greatest degeneration.

Our first three baby-boomer presidents seem to have worked together with boomer legislators and bureaucrats to get blindsided by terrorists, spend a trillion dollars and precious young lives to invade the wrong country in retaliation. Then they quintupled the national debt to an amount we can never repay, even if the Chinese foreclose on our real estate.

It could very well be that no other generation will ever walk on the moon. But for a moment, let’s look at where TGG fell short. First of all, TGG parented/reared the baby boom generation: a qualified failure, at best. No success in life can compensate for failure in the home.
Second, TGG left a lot unfinished when it came to providing equal opportunity and justice for all, as Leonard Steinhorn explains in his book about the boomer generation.