Polemic Against Geezers: Hokey, Bigoted, Stingy, and Boring

TorgoX on 2006-02-19T02:17:06

Or: The Regeneration of Swine

Dear Log,

«There isn't a big difference between taking away a woman's right to emergency contraception, and taking away a gay person's right to be a gay person. A lot of young people regard a threat against one person's sexual freedom as a threat against all of them, and that's absolutely how they should regard it. But it's heartening to look at the polls on young people on gay people, gay marriage, and sexual-freedom issues. They're terrific, and that's why the religious right is so desperately trying to lock in their current bare majority for prejudice: because their constituents are dying. They're losing votes every time the ambulance pulls up to the old folks' home. Let's hope it pulls up a little more frequently.»

--The AV Club interview: Dan Savage

I think the idea that the US's ever-promising youth won't end up just as bigoted as the previous generations of goons, is tempting, but is basically an act of breathtaking optimism.

Everyone starts out edgy and (r)evolutionary, but fast-forward a few years and they have two kids going to the church-school 'round the corner (because, you know, the public schools around here are, uh, you know...); and passing around a petition to have Ronald Reagan canonized; and "legalize it!" stops being about marijuana for AIDS and cancer patients, and starts being about government vouchers to pay for little Skeetmore's tuition at Jesus Obedience Academy. Folks, "middle-age spread" starts early, and begins by depositing dense fatty tissue in the brain. Case in point:

«The Greatest Generation -- The Sham: The baby boomers felt shitty about themselves for throwing a decade long hissy-fit at their parents in the 60s, and for bringing on America's first loss ever in a war. So they did what all idiots do: in the 90s, just before their parents died, they flip-flopped their original idiocy by naming their hokey, bigoted, stingy, boring parents the "Greatest Generation," allegedly for all the quiet sacrifice in WW2. Sacrifice? Right. They sacrificed 20 million Russians against the Nazis before invading a resort beach, then they wine-tasted their way to Potsdam while the Russians literally redefined the German gene pool. Oh, and the Greatest Generation sacrificed a few thumb-calluses when they firebombed and nuked every single German and Jap city once their air forces were wiped out. They had a hokey sense of humor, no taste in books, in movies, in drugs, in hairdos, in every single thing imaginable. And the only reason they're around to tell the tale is because of Russia's sacrifice. The Greatest Shameration.»

--That 90s Sham: 90 Reasons to Hate the 90s

Ya know, arrested development ain't just the name of a show.