SITTING DOWN AND SHUTTING UP? OK BOOMER

As we’ve seen over the years, sitting down and shutting up is not a baby boomer characteristic.

Never has been.

No one has ever called us the Silent Generation, the Quiet Generation, or the Compliant Generation.

We’ve been called a lot of things, just not those.

It started with the Me Generation, which led to this list from reddit:

 

• The “Help your neighbor unless you have to kill him” generation

• The “Shut up and do it” generation

• The “Anti-War until I’m too old to draft” generation

• The “You don’t know how little we give a shit” generation

• The “His grandfather said ni–er in 1927 so burn him” generation

• The “I identify as a rhododendron this week” generation

 

The View From The Top

A major advantage of living longer is being old enough to see some of the same behavior and problems repeat.

After the run in the early 50’s of a loudmouthed, sweaty, senator, who would have guessed that ghost would show up again?

From Google AI:

 

Americans were scared of McCarthyism due to a pervasive climate of fear, suspicion, and paranoia fueled by Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s unsubstantiated claims of widespread communist infiltration in the U.S. government and society, leading to public accusations, job losses, blacklisting, and suppression of free speech for those deemed disloyal or “un-American”.

This fear extended into daily life, affecting Hollywood, education, and government, making people afraid to speak out lest they be targeted. 

 

Either we’ve come a long way since then, or not.

I read a book by William Goldman called Marathon Man. It became a movie with Dustin Hoffman and an old English actor asking the famous question:

 

 

Among other themes, it’s about the aftermath of McCarthyism in one family.

It’s the story of growing past troubling memories and onto troubling times that create more troubling memories.

The lesson I took from it was beware of fat jackasses who use their lack of acting skill to make people fear them, if not trust them.

The difference between then and now?

Social media and twenty-four hour, world wide, television broadcasting a 24/7 alarm.

Back in the day, way back, TV actually ended with a test pattern.

 

 

Today you could stay up a month on meth and never run out of programming, which is what network schedulers seem to do based on their content.

 

Shutting Up Is A Good Idea?

With so many outlets beyond network news, streaming news, podcasts, and some elderly man jacked up on meds with noticeable side effects, we hear it all.

More correctly, we hear what we choose to listen to, to watch, since there’s too much of everything all of the time.

In many married households the habit is either watching what the wife wants to watch, or watching TV separately.

If you watch with the wife you may find yourself answering questions you thought were settled business.

Why is this guy still talking about the 2020 election?

Why is the head of the FBI acting like a fan-boy?

Why do people in his circle put up with his act?

And those are just the questions you ask yourself.

The bigger picture is one that will hang longer than expected.

 

A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging the rescinding of a scientific finding that has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

The case was brought by groups including the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment and Physicians for Social Responsibility, along with environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.

 

PS:

Where do you land on clean air? The same as clean water?

As breathing and hydrating organisms, I think air and water are more beneficial the cleaner they are.

Besides opening the window and taking a good sniff, who do you want making decisions on cleanliness, the science community or an administration packed with suck-ups and butt-kissers?

 

PSS:

Now and then we get a vile discharge in civic life. Most of the time it passes, but parts do linger. It takes time to wash stains out.

Somewhere along the line I heard that weak enforcement of one law weakens all laws, which I take to mean vigilance in a good way, not vigilante.

If we stand up for each other against common problems like cleaner air and clean water, we might get what we ask for.

What if we shut up and sit down? Then what?