To finish my little FBG (those born 1955-65) rant…I think these mutts were like our younger brothers and sisters…old enough to see and understand some of the things we were experiencing, but not old enough to participate in them. And when their time came, what was left for them? By my recollection, not much. Leisure suits…18% interest rates, jobs were scarce…if you recall, those were the beginning years of the great Southwest S&L debacle. By the way, we had to deal with that stuff ourselves.
There’s no doubt in my mind that we drew a good hand, just as there is little doubt that the FBG’s drew one that was not as good. However, any generation must deal with the hand they're dealt; the FBG group shouldn’t expect anything different. So, why do they continue to whine and blame their troubles on others, especially us? Who knows? One thing is true…it’s their’s now…business, government, education. How are they doing?
Of course, not all of them are reprobates…Santorum (b.1958); J.C. Watts (b.1958) are good guys. There are more, I’m sure. But then there is Osama (b.1957) and Emanuel (b.1959). What do you think of them?
What am I bitching about? When you identify a particularly vile bastard, take time to look up his or her birth year. Chances are it will fall within the range 1955 - 1965. Today they are 45 – 55 years old and they are taking leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. How are they doing? Both sectors are in shambles and this group of cry babies are either whining that they inherited their problems, or going to the basement to hang themselves, setting the autopilot south to the Gulf of Mexico, bailing out and trying to fake their demise. I didn’t say they aren’t creative.
The FBG’s have grown up in some kind of delusional world of their making that I really don’t understand. They have bastardized our language to form a code of their own: functionality; send a message; teachable moment; take a deep breath; enhance; online experience; solutions, solutions, solutions—pizza solution, toilet paper solution, global, scalable…a lot of it came from the Silicon Valley techies.
In the early 1990’s I noticed what seemed to be a gathering surge of something odd in the atmosphere around us. As it considered the obvious lack of professionalism in the adolescent Clinton administration, a 1993 WSJ editorial asked, “Are There Any Adults in Charge”? The decade wrapped up with America’s second Impeachment of a president and the rupture of the “dot com” bubble taking a lot of our retirement money with it. Nearly a decade of Executive Branch negligence almost certainly contributed to the successful 911 attack.
Wasn’t it bizzare when they lavishly celebrated themselves as returning Desert Storm warriors with that 1991 NYC ticker-tape parade? The so-called war was a 100-hour event that left more to be done—that, of course, wasn’t their doing. Losses: 493 KIA – 467 WIA, or about one week’s Vietnam losses in 1968.
In the ensuing 20-years I’ve noticed that everything these prima-donnas touch has to be promoted as some kind of superlative…the greatest, worst, biggest, best ever, etc. Yet, in their hands entire airlines shut down in clear weather, power grids fail their customers by the millions, gas mains explode entire neighborhoods, and Interstate Highway bridges collapse as a result of neglected upkeep.
Well, as some of us have been known to say, "F**k 'em, if they can't take a joke."
Adios
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