The Generation that just needs to shut up.

       Spoil the rod and spoil the child, and by god the boomers were spoiled. Their parents and grandparents generations were the greatest generations, and gave us FDR, MLK, JFK and a slew of other great people that changed america for the better. Before them we had Theodore Roosevelt, consistently ranked in the top 5 presidents by historians, and whose contributions, while not widely known, are as important as the new deal ever was.

       1960, that was the last major presidential election that the boomers could not vote in, and it gave us John F kennedy. Following that, in 1968 They and the previous generations elected, arguably, the most corrupt president to ever hold the office, Richard Nixon. This was the start of the downward or should I say the Rightward spiral that culminated in a republican being elected as a democrat in 1992.

       For all the vitrol the boomers spew at millennials for being shiftless and lazy, they are not the ones that showed up for occupy, they are not the ones working to get money out of politics. They did however lay in bed in the 1970's while democracy was being undermined by the justices, and the president they voted for gutted american democracy. 

       They like to complain a lot about millennials who have it so easy, you know dealing with a shrinking pool of unskilled jobs and skyrocketing student loan debts. They like to forget they were given the world on a silver platter, and like to pretend that their tours in vietnam somehow mean that the explosive economy that created and molded them meant that their great success was all their doing Because hey they had to go through some tough shit. And to their credit it was tough shit. But that doesn't mean that the economy was bad back home. When the boomers got back from Vietnam they found a welcoming economy ready to embrace them and expand. 

      And here's the point, that's all they've known. That's why the older half of the boomers are so highly conservative, in their formative years a little elbow grease was all it took to do well and rise up the ranks because the economy was booming and all they had to deal with was a small recession in the 70's. In large, boomers could get what is now a dead end job, keep their nose clean and end up somewhere nice and retire in their 50's. Overall they saw a few battles but they never knew real economic hardship during their formative years because the systems that were put in place worked. Minimum wage was so high it actually functioned as a living wage. 

      But as all spoiled children do, they cried when it came time for them to pay their dues. They were spoiled and didn't understand that for that great prosperity, you have to give something back. So we saw the top marginal income tax decrease slowly from 90% all the way down to 38%, and effectively even lower than lowest tax bracket. Because hey, boomers felt "I earned it why should i have to pay for someone?" And thus was St. Ronnie was elected supreme ruler. Reagan though, was more than just a president, he was a prototype of what was to come, what politicians had to be like to get the boomer vote.

        Well Boomers, remember those GI bills? Those had to get paid for by something. And we had a lot of veterans coming home to that. Remember the 80's? How long does it take to get  a doctorate again? about 8 years right? 4 for a bachelors? Vietnam ended in 1975. It is not a coincidence that the great technological advancements we saw in the 80's coincided with that. But now we have fewer veterans coming back, and even fewer going to college, on top of a shrinking unskilled job market. That spells disaster for the younger generations and a flooded job market. At it's high after the 2008 financial collapse, unemployment for millennials was close to 30%, great depression era level unemployment. 

       Speaking of the great depression, that greatest generation, and the one before it, that gave us the likes of JFK, and MLK, they were shaped by the great depression. They knew economic hardship even more than then millennials, and they did great things. So what have the boomers presided over? a collapse of the economy or two, a rightward shift in american politics, and the dismatling of the same programs that gave them everything they had. 

So, yeah, it's time for the boomers to just Shut up. 

Victims of American Imperialism and "Religious Fundamentalism"

"Religious Fundamentalism" in quotes of course because that's a sick joke.

"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."

— Osama bin Laden, 2004

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Keep in mind these counts are ONLY for iraq as far as i can tell.

US coalition Civilian casualties

Unknown actors

Anti-government/Occupation forces

These are civilian deaths alone. In Iraq alone. At minimum 15,000 of which were killed by the US and coalition forces. I'm working on finding all the casualties but keep in mind this is all going back to the genocide taking place in palestine. From Osama to Saddam, all of it, because of western favoritism of the Israeli's both in turning a blind eye to the genocide and helping with it.

So collateral damage, worth it right?  Or maybe it's just counter productive and sparks other wars. Perhaps the answer is not to be a dick, perhaps we should consider working together with the world instead of trying to bend it to our will, to our culture, to our way of thinking.

Or perhaps you shouldn't listen to every politician that says we're in danger. Perhaps we should stay the fuck out of other peoples business. And perhaps it's time to admit that the formation of Israel was a mistake.