This was an interesting chapter for me. After I did the math last week and realized that most of my grandparents were from the Silent generation and not the GI generation I had more revelations this week. I realized that the majority of the Baby Boomers were children of the Silent generation as well. I had often wondered how they could have been born in the American High and things turned so quickly. I now realize that opposing generations are bound to strife making the GI’s and the boomers opposing.

This was the era that I was born into and I spent the first nine years. Like many young children, it was all that I knew and seemed completely normal to me. I had an uncle that was a self proclaimed hippie. My mom was born again from the Billie Graham youth crusades of the late 1960s. Another uncle was a Vietnam vet. My mom excluded, all of my aunts and uncles were all divorced.

As we were transitioning out of the Awakening, the boomers were termed the ‘me generation’. I always thought it had as much to do with their size and age of the generation but it also seems like it probably had as much to do with the saeculum as anything. Generation X became the abandoned, latch key kids ignored by their self absorbed parents.

My parents were more traditional, as a I didn’t experience any of the typical abandonment of my generation. But, I would say that my wife did. I have heard the stories over and over again so I feel like I can relate a little bit. These were things like leaving a blank, signed check so that the kids could go to the store or buy dinner from a restaurant while they were out or at work late.

The generation that interest me the most in this era is the Silent Generation. What exactly were they doing in this period if the GIs were in charge and the Boomers were making the most noise? From what I read, they were the bridge between the two generations. They continued the post war high policies that ultimately went up in smoke under Boomer retaliation.

Though it took until Biden to actually have a Silent generation president, apparently they controlled the majority of the state legislatures and governorships during the Awakening. As a result, it was business as usual for the Silents. This was the generation that actually stood for civil rights but because the GIs controlled the federal level, it wasn’t realized. It took the Boomer’s rejection of the GIs to move these policies forward.

One very interesting phenomenon happened in this saeculum. For the first time ever, the elder generation maintained their wealth as they transitioned. Across human history, elderhood meant loosing financial freedom. As a result of post war entitlements and a rocking economy, they did very well. In fact, the title of ‘poor’ shifted from the elder generation to the first time ever the child generation. That would be Gen-X in this context.

You can almost track our socialism downfall right here. Because the economy problem was solved, now it was time to turn on parity with LBJ’s war on poverty in 1966 i.e. welfare. He was quoted as saying that poverty will be gone by the early 1970s. That level of hubris, a signature of the GI generation lacked the forethought that instead of freeing people, it actually created a class of people destined to never leave the housing projects.

There has been plenty of government bloat since Abraham Lincoln, the first strong arm president. The GI generation was the first generation to fully utilize Social Security while the giant Silents and Boomers were pumping money into the system. Meanwhile all the excess money was drained to fund things like Vietnam and Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, Section Eight and the like.

Reading this book has been a breath of fresh air. I have often wondered how this country got so screwed up from a Jeffersonian republic to an f’d up socialist mess and why people feel so passionately that freedom is not worth the risk of security. I now see that people were wanting to do the right thing the wrong way. I would have to say that while I respect the gumption of the GI generation, I really don’t think that they have earned the title of Greatest Generation.

In my book, the greatest generation would make this country infinitesimally better. While I see a lot of things that they did with the idea of what is better for me will be better for you. In practicality, every domino that is set up has a corresponding complexity and downside to it being part of the system. I think that there is a fatal error in the belief of solve one problem (WWII) does not mean that all problems can be solved, especially with the same tools.

I would go as far as to say that the GI generation did tremendous damage to this country. Who started USAID in the first place? The GIs of course under JFK. The Silent perpetuated it, the Boomers took it and added more individual elements (meaning race and division). I hear people wonder out load how politics got so divisive. It is pretty clear to me that the ‘me generation’ put their stamp on the process. If they didn’t take care of their own kids, what makes you think that they are going to take care of your feelings (or interests for that matter)?

Don’t look to Gen-X to fix it. This is our time, but it doesn’t look like it will be our turn. This latter section has more to do with the forthcoming chapters, but it all stemmed from this period. I actually think our best hope is for Trump to break it so thoroughly that it cannot be repaired. The timing is right for Winter to hit. Just remember that the Awakening is the summer.

End Your Programming Routine: Next week is going to be a doozy at over 70 pages. Just remember that it was written in 1997 and that the third saeculum had not ended at that point. This means that there is likely going to be some conjecture in the text. I have not yet read it either so we won’t have as nice of a road map of history to results as we did this week. I don’t know why the Boomers are destined to rebel but maybe they actually had a point with all of the entitlements the GIs created.