OK BOOMER
When I first heard this “OK Boomer” I liked it. I’m a Boomer. The way I took it was that a younger generation was telling my generation to get the fuck out of the way. I’m OK with that. Just so long as ya’all don’t expect me to move real fast. My move real fast days are pretty much behind me as various parts of my anatomy are getting worn out and some parts flat out just don’t work anymore. HMMM. I might have to do some editing on that last sentence.
I also am addicted to DKOS. It’s like the only place that I can read thoughtful diary’s, keep up with APR and smile with GNOOze’s, and any utterance of Meteor Blades gets re-whatevered to my life long friends called The Peace Boyz. DKOS gives me hope and makes me feel I’m not the only one who sees a country they love drifting into Fascism and wants to put it to a stop. But dang! I am a boomer (1948), and I’m proud of my generation. My partner pointed out the Heir Trumpenheimer is also part of “my generation”. EEE GADS! Well, I’m proud of what some of us did in the 60’s and 70’s. We were flat ass’ed out to change the world, and really thought we could.
Not all of us Boomers are in lock step with the status quo. Not at all. So before grouping all us Boomers into a lump of obstructionist who blindly parrot the incoherent babbling of the bobble headed grovelers that have waste bands just below their moobs, let me share some of the life my brothers and sisters (the Peace Boyz) shared in what is commonly referred to as The 60’s.
It was much much more than protesting the Vietnam War. The 60’s were Selma and the rise of the civil rights movement. Caesar Chavez was organizing Farmworkers (UFWOC) for better pay and humane treatment. Students for Democratic Society were drafting the Point Hurron Statement, and the Women’s Movement wrote a Treatise about : (Ourselves).
Our leaders were beaten and some were gunned down in the street. First it was Malcolm X, then MLK, RFK, and Freddie Hampton. In our deepest grief we responded with Woodstock in 69. And Joni “Came upon a child of God.”
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm *
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning
Then in 1970 they shot the kids at Jackson State and Kent State University. And Neil Young again cried our anguish with:
OHIO
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Colleges across the country went on strike from Berkeley to Boulder to Beaker Street. We burned our draft cards and some went to jail. Others who were already in the military outright resisted the evils of this war. Mai Lai happened in 1968, and my parent’s WWII (The Greatest Generation) had also had enough. They came out against the war and stood with us on the streets and in front of the capital. Winter Soldier’s who were back from that terrible war threw their war medals on to the White House lawn. VVAW (Vietnam Veteran’s Against the War) gave support to those that were still inside the military machine, and so many of us that were, actively resisted. We stood up and were counted. It’s damn hard to conduct an imperialistic war when the soldiers are telling the CO to F-Off ya know?
But it wasn’t only the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement. In November of 1969 my dear friend Buckskin and band of renegades took over Alcatraz Island in the San
Francisco Bay. They took back the land that had been taken from them and held it for almost 2 years. Buckskin and Haney were the last on the Island. When the howitzer’s and tanks were off loaded on the island, they had a 22 with 5 bullets and a pellet gun. “It was a good day to die”.
But they didn’t die. They went to Wounded Knee in 73 with D. Banks and Russell Means and the poetry of John Trudell and so many others that stood up to the man in the only way the man understood. They RESISTED. Fuck yeh they got shot and Leonard Peltier got framed and sent the jail for LIFE! But we stood up for the land and Quicksilver Messenger Service again cried out our anguish with:
You poisoned my sweet water.
You cut down my green trees.
The food you fed my children
Was the cause of their disease.
My world is slowly fallin' down
And the airs not good to breathe.
And those of us who care enough,
We have to do something.......
[Chorus]
Oh... oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh... oh What you gonna do about me?
Your newspapers,
They just put you on.
They never tell you
The whole story.
They just put your
Young ideas down.
I was wonderin' could this be the end
Of your pride and glory?
[Chorus]
I work in your factory.
I study in your schools.
I fill your penitentiaries.
And your military too!
And I feel the future trembling,
As the word is passed around.
"If you stand up for what you do believe,
Be prepared to be shot down."
[Chorus]
And I feel like a stranger
In the land where I was born
And I live like an outlaw.
An' I'm always on the run...
An I'm always getting busted
And I got to take a stand....
I believe the revolution
Must be mighty close at hand...
And oh yes we did believe. We believed the revolution was close at hand. And we saw Harvey Milk elected, and Jimmy Carter, and laws were passed to protect us from the FBI and their surveillance of The Young Lords, The Black Panther Party, and peace demonstrators.
And you know what? We thought things had changed. And you know what? We were wrong. We were so wrong. We thought we had this. We had that moment, then it was gone. But we remember. And we pray. And we wait.
Cause as our old friend Daneil Ellsberg is prone to saying “we’re old, but we ain’t dead yet”, and we so much want to see this younger generation rise up. We will be there for you. Our time is over, it’s your time. OK BOOMER?