The Three Card Monte of Generational Warfare

[Sam1]

Stock speculator Jay Gould remarked, “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” That, sports fans, is the real foundation of the generational warfare propaganda effort.

It’s being openly pushed on college campuses by billionaire and long term heavyweight Republican donor Stan Druckemiller, and is apparently being worked hard through media channels. I was surprised to see a website that has often featured cogent, articulate political analysis serve up a boomer-blaming piece that was all broad stereotypes, and a couple of tidbits presented as evidence when they were at most decoration (I’m not about to dignify it by linking to it). If anyone had tried running a similarly hate-mongering piece about blacks or gays, they would have been called out. At least this post got some pushback in comments.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/three-card-monte-generational-warfare.html

[LiberalEsto]

1. Good article, for the most part

Thanks

[GeorgeGist]

2. No mention of Clinton?

Boom!

[kimbutgar]

3. I heard a guy yesterday on the Ed Schultz show blaming the baby boomers for the problems in

This country saying they only care about themselves and are the me me me generation. Ed disagreed with him. Now I know where he got his meme. A new right wing troll talking point.

[seabeckind]

4. The boomer blame is the latest divider

There have been a couple of threads on here that put forth the argument against boomers.

My response was that it was a mistake to try to correlate the severe problems we've had in the last 35 years to a "generational" group. There were young people who swallowed the Reagan swill as well as boomers. The stupidity transcended age.

A better exerpt from the article to dispute the boomer blame is:

"We have two events happening that may simply be coincident in time in their genesis, but they are working synchronistically in a nasty way. And the driver of one is unquestionably class, not generational. I can’t get over the way young people are falling hook, line and sinker for the efforts to divert attention from the real perps, which are overwhelmingly the top wealthy and their allies and operatives, such as CEOs and C-level executives at large companies, and the large cohort of neoliberal pundits. (Not all are on board; for instance, I know a private equity firm head who loves annoying people in his industry by telling them they need to pay a ton more in taxes and donates generously to “progressive” candidates, but people like him are few in number).

The first is that a small group of audacious, visionary, committed, radical conservatives set in motion a plan in 1971 to undo the New Deal and cut social safety nets back. They did this via a concerted effort to change values and deeply inculcate pro-business thinking, to give economic “freedom” primacy over democracy, and to train lawyers to think like economists (which is at odds with foundational legal concepts like equity) and over time, pack the courts with corporate-friendly judges. The key figures of this movement and its intellectual leaders were all born well before or during the Depression..."

[struggle4progress]

5. Blame the angels! Blame the fates! Blame the Jews or your sister Kate!

Teach your children how to hate! And the big wheels turn around and around!