They shoot Boomers, don't they?

One of my Grandfathers rode out of Colac to collected three Gallipoli Stars. His father drove the Cobb & Co Mail coach right up till a new fangled motor-lorry forgot to drive itself home when the 90-year-old bushie fell asleep at the "reigns". The other Gramps was the son of an immigrant Welsh Chemist who settled in Narrabri. An educated 16-year old in 1914, Pop took one look at situation in Europe and promptly became a cabinet maker at the Enfield Rail Yards in Sydney - an activist, atheist and socialist preacher, a Cabinet Maker to the Cockies.

These two didn't know each other, and never had that great debate that formed and polarized both branches of my family. I listened to both sides, agreeing with each in turn, but never together. The twin mirrors merged into an extended dialogue that a hapless and naive adolescent stitched into a world view that is, at once, immensely tolerant of others and totally at odds with the shallowness of human perception.

Now I bin grey'd and confused for so long - it ain't news . . . somewhere, out in the dreaming, there's a mob of post- boomer generations who mumble, unhelpfully, about grey nomads, Jews, wogs, etc. (If you thank us for the toys, kiddies, you can blame us for all the crap.) It was our parents who had the bejesus scared out of them by WW II, it was me (a boomer) who took advantage of the folks who swore "never again", again. In that great public push after the war - in a profound desire to ensure the world didn't repeat the mistakes - the UN flag was raised as an alternative to the misery.

(The UN is dead now. It gave up its soul when it couldn't stop the Coalition of the Willing from eating Iraqi kids, live to air, for material gain. The UN died defending its powerful patrons, the UN allowed itself to take sides and this just isn't survivable for a global umpire.)

The generation I exploited in the 60s was the same generation that fought over and destroyed a fair part of the civilized world in WW II. After getting the blame for 60 million deaths there was no way they were gonna profit from it unmolested. (I was only nineteen.) They had clearly, demonstrably failed their civilian populations and they got booted up the arse by their own kids - us hippy boomers. Then, reality sets in . . . they'd let us win.

Mum and Dad somehow didn't trust what their folks had taught them, after two world wars, the "blind obedience to authority" trampoline was pushed aside because it was dangerous to kids. The boomers are those protected kids, the 60s student hippies were outraged by authority when conscription meant the jungle nightmare. The revolution was as inevitable then as it is now. The boomers are a lousy demographic to pick on if you rely only on big brother sound bites.

The boomers, in my mirrors, became evenly divided - those who cherished their children directly, no matter what came along, and those who never really met their kids - they were busy making the bucks and giving their kids every advantage possible, way into the future. Both were compelling arguments until theMarket chose sides. Suddenly half the population had money and theMarket covering its bum, those who chose their kids over consumerism were, and are, vilified as "hippies, layabouts, welfare cheats, etc". Hippies are anti consumerist and hostile to economic fundamentalists. As a consequence, half the population thinks it's their sacred duty to imagine hippies and all the socialist/social democrat pinkos as the enemy.

In theMarket's ken, you are simply
a.) Profiting from it
b.) Working for it
c.) Contributing to it
or
c.) Hell spawn, witch, hippy, commie, etc.
The entire industrial revolution is based on this work ethic.

Most Boomers remember that for every drug-encrusted radical out there there was a straight dealer working the crowd. We grew out of the drugs and got on with it, but the profiteers followed along like hags until they finally regained the power and completed the revolution, The wheel is coming around again - theMarket is at "top-dead-centre". Shit! Do you need a degree in Tantric Activism to know it's time to start banging on the bars. Some things need to be repeated, ad nauseum, in this case it's both the message and the music - "Freedom is a constant, eternal struggle". Were genXers watching T.V.? Why did they stay so quiet for so long? Feel free to abuse me, please, it would be a sign of life, at least - I'm nowhere near as scary as the bloke paying your wages.

So where did things go wrong? "All the way with LBJ" had been soundly routed, so the second wave of teenagers chilled out and switched on a MacTelevision. By the end of the seventies the 12-14 year old GenXers were firmly understood by theMarket and bracketed with the "greed is good", "buy now, pay later" and "Ronny McD is your best friend" advertising and, fuck me, it's "life's too hard" and home to mum and dad to bitch about the boomers - this is not my story, it's yours. As I keep telling my four 20-somethinks.

The only truth I heard from Keating was when he called Australia the "arsehole of the world" and the "banana republic" jibe. He didn't mention that there is no difference between a banana republic, an oil republic or a democratic republic - If you're a one-trick pony and that trick isn't sustainable then the market can and will dictate your social outcomes. Australia has many crocodiles and just a few trick holes in its geography - these holes are protected as places of worship, a source of eternal wealth for the theMarket believers, in 20 years they will be old bones, a smile on the dial of the crocodile.

If boomers are to be dealt with as a group, then they are no different than any other group of humans, across time from America to Rome. Greed is life's minimum requirement, whether animal or insect, the ability to curb greed is the mark of true civilization (at least in my treehouse), hence my disdain for capitalism - it legitimizes and rewards larceny.

Australia is just another street walker, pimped hard by the market till she's so old and ugly her own kids will be ashamed of her. If you're serious about the future, take yer dick out of your wallet and give the old girl a break.