Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

I've heard stories from my parents. My dad was born in 1951, my mom in 1960. Both of them were old enough to see this kind of thing going on.

Personally, I would find it next to impossible to have a roommate, even a decent one. I keep very odd hours and that would mean I'd probably wake them up at some point. As for your stories about the dorms... I guarantee it wouldn't surprise me. I've seen and heard quite a bit.

Reading these stories about college in the 1980s, I realize how
sheltered my childhood was.

I was in college in the 1960s. There were people who slept with their
girlfriends, but they exercised a lot of discretion. All girls had to
be out of the dorms by 1 am, and seeing someone sneaking out of the
building with his girlfriend at 10 am in the morning was always
exciting, because it didn't happen very often.

My friends and I always got into debates about the morality of
sex before marriage. I have a somewhat libertarian philosophy
of life, so I thought it was OK (though for me it was all
theoretical). However, there were others among my friends who
thought it was immoral. Articles in the press also debated the
morality of sex before marriage, and the common wisdom seemed
to be that it was OK, provided that you were in a "meaningful
relationship," a phrase that I've always considered amusing.

Judging from what you guys are writing, things had changed quite
a bit by the 1980s.

I find what you're saying comparable to a quote that appears in my
book from Michael Lewis, discussing the reaction to his book "Liar's
Poker" from 1980s college students:

Michael Lewis wrote: > I had no great agenda, apart from telling what I took to be a
> remarkable tale, but if you got a few drinks in me and then asked
> what effect I thought my book would have on the world, I might
> have said something like, “I hope that college students trying to
> figure out what to do with their lives will read it and decide
> that it’s silly to phony it up and abandon their passions to
> become financiers.” I hoped that some bright kid at, say, Ohio
> State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would
> read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley, and set out to
> sea.

> Somehow that message failed to come across. Six months after
> Liar’s Poker was published, I was knee-deep in letters from
> students at Ohio State who wanted to know if I had any other
> secrets to share about Wall Street. They’d read my book as a
> how-to manual.

Lewis's quote about 1980s Gen-X college attitudes towards finance
seems to be exactly like their attitude toward sex.

The Boomers that I knew would never have approved of committing fraud,
or of the sexual debauchery that you were describing. You might call
it hypocrisy, since Boomers did sleep with their girlfriends, and
some of them did commit fraud. But the difference is that Boomers
publicly frowned on these activities, while these activities were
adopted by Gen-Xers as a way of getting revenge against Boomers.

John

There's a school I know that over the past 15-20 years has been doing everything they can to eliminate their reputation at a party school. I believe they were once considered the number one party school in America. I just looked it up and they won this dubious award in 1987, when the students heading there were mostly members of generation X. Things aren't as bad now, but once you have that kind of reputation, it's very difficult to get rid of it. It attracts the kind of students you don't want.

*** BigPeace comments: Jewish Persecution article

The following article from this web site:

** Proposed explanation for repeated Jewish persecution throughout history
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... b#e120205b

was cross-posted in BigPeace.com at:
http://bigpeace.com/jxenakis/2012/02/07 ... t-history/



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%%% tadsgirl

Gen-Xers hate Boomers because Boomers hated their parents.
Did you forget the 60's?
(I'm a boomer)

13 replies


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%%%% Kerouac451

>> As a "Gen-Yer" who loves his baby-boomer parents, I can tell you
>> that the perception amongst my generation is that the baby boomers
>> stacked the cards in their favor with their social programs and
>> bureaucracy. My parents would agree. Now their exorbitant pension
>> and benefit plans (based on a population model that rose
>> indefinitely which doesn't exist) is bankrupting the country at
>> the expense of the younger generation. Individual baby-boomers
>> aren't to blame, but the culture that they propagated is. Free
>> love and whatnot. So you'll have to forgive those in their 30s and
>> 40s if they lay the blame at the feet of the people that were on
>> watch when we abdicated away so many of our freedoms.



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%%%% kristensuzanne1

>> But isn't it the 'baby boomers' of which Paul Begala is one
>> actually promoting and reinforcing this attitude and behavior?
>> Does this mean they hate themselves? Sure does sound like
>> it...while Hillary Clinton and other Democrats are attempting to
>> play everyone against each other, I find it interesting how much
>> hatred is being spread around and excuses offered for that hatred
>> especially by the boomers who have created this problem in the
>> first place...haven't we had enough of this crapola for the last
>> fifty odd years? I guess the term baby boomer is appropriate then
>> because they sure do demonstrate their pathetically childish
>> adolescent behavior even though they're chronological adults..



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> Currently yes, but they're carrying the water for a tradition of
>> statism that predates them. The Clintons of the world, with the
>> full support of Hollywood, help create this fantastical vision of
>> the 60's and early 70's where everyone was "with it" and their
>> entire generation rose up and created some utopian society, albeit
>> for a breif time that we should all be striving to reacquire. The
>> fact is, all of that is a pack of lies. However, not enough
>> baby-boomers are interested in correcting the historical
>> record. All of them with any sort of influence are propagating and
>> pushing this 60's mythos via public education, Hollywood and more
>> and more frequently via corporate influence. I'm not blaming the
>> entire generation, though I am concerned that not enough of them
>> have challenged their current standard bearers.



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%%%% BklynDodger

>> Kerouac 451 said "The Clintons of the world, with the full
>> support of Hollywood, help create this fantastical vision of the
>> 60's and early 70's where everyone was "with it" and their entire
>> generation rose up and created some utopian society, albeit for a
>> breif time that we should all be striving to reacquire." This
>> bring up a purely personal crotchet of mine. Ad agencies pitching
>> their products to the boomer demo often are done by execs who are
>> too young to know the societal currents the boomers swam in. I
>> cannot buy a Honda ... their ads pitched to boomers focused on
>> Woodstock in one commercial, and anti-war marchers with "peace"
>> symbols in another. The execs did not know that while these were
>> "with it" images of their day, the majority of boomers did not
>> participate in either, and in fact may have despised both. I will
>> not buy a car from a company that thinks I am either a maggot
>> infested hippy living in filth, or a communist.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> That's exactly my point. My father, a career military man, was
>> spit on by the Woodstock participants of the day. But most of the
>> cinematic and textbook retellings of the story have every single
>> person of the generation as part of the "struggle" (apart from a
>> few privileged Christian white men that avoided the draft). The
>> more gullible of my generation believe it and want to continue
>> it. My point was, there should be more voices from your generation
>> telling YOUR point of view which is vastly under-represented in
>> modern popular culture.



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%%%% BklynDodger

>> Kerouac451, your father's experience is absolutely no surprise
>> to me. Changing the perception that younger generations have is
>> not possible. That's because the people who created, told and
>> retold the (highly inaccurate) story of what was going on in the
>> 1960s and 1970s were part of the left, and many either
>> participated or were cheering them on. I can't tell you how many
>> women who think it's just fine to wear the "peace symbol" as a
>> decoration rather than the symbol of communism it was. Or wear Che
>> t-shirts as a sign of rebellion, rather than psychotic mass
>> murder. Because of my age, I often get "Oh, you must LOVE the
>> Beatles!" No, I despised them and the horse they rode in on. But
>> the image generators always win in the end.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> "Changing the perception that younger generations have is not
>> possible."

>> I don't believe that. If I did, I would have given up as soon as
>> I left my parent's house. The fact is, most of my generation is as
>> malleable as clay. They just get more exposure to the left then
>> they do the right. It's only once they experience the hardships of
>> life on their own do they start to recognize the fallacies. The
>> image generators can't beat real life, which is why every
>> communist nation will always eventually fail.



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%%%% BklynDodger

>> You are an optimist. I am a pessimist. While I hope you turn out
>> to be right, I know this: the image generators sell wholesale. You
>> and I sell retail.



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%%%% tadsgirl

>> What do you want us to do to correct the MSM? Seriously, give me
>> a hint, because I'm just as disgusted as you are by it.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> And I disagree with the premise that Obama and his cohorts don't
>> carry the baby-boomers water. Obama is playing out what every
>> radical leftist in the 60's was wishing for (see: his father),
>> DESPITE whatever personal issues he and his ilk have with that
>> generation. I agree. It's time to give the Paul Ryan's and Marco
>> Rubio's of the world their shot.



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%%%% tadsgirl

>> It was actually the generation before the boomers that started
>> stacking. The boomers weren't voting during FDR's
>> administration. Take a good look at the Roaring 20's. It's the
>> 60's on steroids.

>> The boomers just took a page out of the "greatest generation's"
>> playbook and ran with it. In fact, I would dare say that when LBJ
>> implemented his "great society" disaster, a good half of the
>> "Boomers" weren't even voting age. I was eight.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> The Roosevelt/Wilson generation actually started the progressive
>> era. While I understand your point, it's lost on me because all of
>> those people are dead.

>> If you were born in 1957 then I'm not talking about you, simply
>> put. Though you were a party to the creation of Carter's now
>> immovable departments of Energy and Education. But give me a break
>> on the blame shifting, because it's MY generation that's going to
>> have to finally put it's foot down, rip off the band-aid and
>> finally return the country to Constitutional governance. Or else
>> America fails. You'll be dead and gone when that happens and will
>> have received the full federal government pillow to rest on that
>> you're generation is so loathe to acquiese. We can't even TALK
>> about Medicare and SS reform. And then WE are castigated for
>> "living with our parents". That's because our parents are sucking
>> all of the wealth out of the country.



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%%%% Tweety58

>> I loved mine.I was also pro-victory in Viet Nam.Instead MY
>> generation blackmailed (like OWS) my Father's generation into
>> abandoning Nam to the horrors of Communist Totalitarianism.MY
>> GENERATION also destroyed our Moral Compass-now my and subsequent
>> idiot amoral generations are reaping the whirlwind and there is a
>> bitter America hating communist POS in the Presidency.

>> TEA



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%%% Bill_Lumbergh

This vengeful fury is the attitude that prevailed as Gen-Xers
reached middle management positions in financial institutions in the
early 2000s. They had poured out of Masters programs in financial
engineering in the 1990s, and they saw how they could use these new
tools to get revenge on the hated Boomers — by creating these
fraudulent synthetic securities and selling them to the Boomer
investors.

What a load of tripe! I see that the author is trying to sell a
self-help book to Boomers, with a message absolving them of any
responsibility for the disastrous condition of this country. Boomers
are never to blame for anything, are they? - Does this sound familiar,
my fellow Gen-Xers?

7 replies


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%%%% Noelle Campbell

>> This is modern psychology at it's finest. Maybe we should just
>> blame Freud.



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%%%% LibertyWriter

>> I agree. Generations don't hate generations until some A-hole
>> writes about it. People hate people because some people are
>> natural haters. Get over it!

>> -1

>> Tweety58's avatar - Go to profile

>> Tweety58 105p :: 1 day ago

>> Proved his point you bitter little twerp.Substitute the word Jew
>> for Boomer.



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%%%% Bill_Lumbergh

>> I was merely pointing out the absurdity and paranoid thinking
>> that X'ers created financial tools as a weapon of revenge against
>> boomers. I didn't even mention Jews, you did. This all clearly
>> sailed right over your head. YOU are the one who sounds bitter,
>> and dare I say it, OLD. AMF!

>> -1

>> Tweety58's avatar - Go to profile

>> Tweety58 105p :: 1 day ago

>> Sorry nitwit you missed the allegory and the point of the
>> article.You sound like a middle-aged droop dicked as shole.M'kay?

>> TEA MF'er



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%%%% Bill_Lumbergh

>> Allegory?! You're not only illogical, you sound like you're off
>> your meds...

>> -1

>> Tweety58's avatar - Go to profile

>> Tweety58 105p :: 1 day ago

>> You going to bark all day little doggie ?-look it up
>> dimwit.Sorry I forgot that your generation can't read very
>> well.Especially polysyllabic words.Sound it out and get a
>> dictionary.There are a bunch accessible on the internet.Are you
>> taking non prescription meds?Careful sonny.



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%%% hrayspitz

Jews are hated and persecuted because they have done their best to
remain apart and keep their own culture and values. They are hated
because they respect learning and use it to get ahead in the
world. Despicable people see their prosperity and covet it, not
realizing the effort and sacrifice that went into achieving it. And
when the chains of civil society are loosed...

This is why the Israelis want their own country. They need a place
where Jews will never again be at the mercy of Gentile government.

6 replies


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%%%% Kerouac451

>> Your post is kind of a back hand slap to the melting pot of
>> America. Plenty of Jews are successful and safe here. One of them
>> owns a team that was just featured prominently in the Super Bowl,
>> currently America's pinnacle cultural moment. Jewish culture is
>> integral to American culture as are various other groups that
>> worship and live freely here. Israelis don't NEED their own
>> country to protect them from "gentiles". That's just a little
>> ridiculous. The country of Israel has a right to exist because of
>> the long and documented cultural association with the land. That's
>> it.



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%%%% hrayspitz

>> And how long will that last?

>> Yes, Jews are safe in this country - for now. But we have a
>> regime right now that is trying to break down civil society for
>> its own ends. How long would Jews be safe under those
>> circumstances?

>> From a cost / benefit viewpoint, the Israelis would probably be
>> better off packing up and moving here. They'd disappear - we have
>> cities bigger than Israel. But they wouldn't have to maintain
>> their own, powerful military to defend themselves, nor would they
>> be subject to constant threats and attacks. But then they would be
>> dependent on the good will of a gentile government. And, in the
>> past, that good will has NOT lasted...



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> Cost/benefit analysis isn't appropriate in the individual
>> determination of association, because it's meaningless. You sound
>> like a social engineer. If certain Jewish people want to go to
>> Israel and associate themselves with that nation-state, more power
>> to them if Israel accepts their citizenship. If practicing Jews
>> that were born and raised in America and consider themselves
>> Americans want to stay here then that also is their right.

>> I've lost what your point is other then slyly suggesting that
>> Israelis should move to America or American Jews move to Israel. I
>> don't think either is appropriate.



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%%%% hrayspitz

>> I'm not suggesting they should move here. I merely suggested
>> that they would face less immediate threat as Americans and have
>> fewer demands on their income. But then they would become
>> dependent on the goodwill of a non-Jewish government -
>> historically a very dangerous thing for Jews.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> "But then they would become dependent on the goodwill of a
>> non-Jewish government - historically a very dangerous thing for
>> Jews."

>> Being dependent on the goodwill of ANY government is a dangerous
>> thing for ANYONE. The Israeli government could be more dangerous
>> for them then any other if Israeli citizens forfeit their rights
>> away. American Jews have lived peacefully here for a couple
>> hundred years now and apart from some generic non-institutional
>> anti-semitism, have thrived. I'd say that that is a "historically"
>> good track record. If I accepted your argument, I would have to
>> say that Christians are only safe with a Christian government and
>> Muslims with a Muslim one, etc. And that's simply not true. It's
>> the protection of liberty, not the official religious denomination
>> that's important.



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%%%% Kerouac451

>> Just to add one more point. CHRISTIANITY is being attacked in
>> this country left and right. And that is the MAJORITY religion. In
>> fact it is BECAUSE it is the majority religion. So are you
>> suggesting that Christians find some home country seperate from
>> the secularists? The Constitution, if followed correctly, protects
>> Christians, Jews, Muslims, Shintoists, Wiccans and
>> Zoroastrians. If Jews, Christians, or any of the others are
>> unfairly prosecuted that is a failure of Americans to uphold the
>> Constitution, not a failure in the Constitution itself. Those
>> failures are what should be highlighted and corrected. The
>> individuals in question and where they happen to live is NOT what
>> needs to be corrected.



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%%% Rob_Crawford

"Gen-Xers adamantly refuse to investigate and blame each other, even
for serious crimes."

That is the single dumbest thing I've read in the last twelve
months.

Is Breitbart seriously this desperate for writers?

2 replies


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%%%% Noelle Campbell

>> We haven't had the time to investigate each other, we were too
>> busy with Madoff and Soros, et al. Gen Xer's barely got in the
>> Whitehouse and if we can't investigate them, it isn't from lack of
>> trying -- it is due to the direct intervention of Baby Boomers
>> like Pelosi and Reid. You can't blame us for not doing anything
>> just because we haven't had the results you desire.

>> I am perfectly willing to blame myself for getting into too much
>> debt to go to school. But I haven't defaulted.

>> Gen X'ers have known since High School they would never get the
>> benefits of social security and medicare that they started paying
>> into with their first job. You can't expect teenagers to know how
>> to fix that. Now that we've come of age, there is a whole
>> generation unwilling to LET us change it. They have more
>> votes. They have more money - and that's just the reality of
>> it. We don't BLAME them for wanting our money. They KNOW it isn't
>> their money. We are just irate they won't let us have any of our
>> own money.



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%%%% Tweety58

>> You can have half of my 13 year old car,my savings
>> account-$1,200 and my FKN mortgage that I've had to re-open four
>> times to send m gen X and Y kids to college with. Where they took
>> y'know......ARTS DEGREES.Half of the two middle aged babies who
>> returned home 10 years ago.And half of the time I spend caring for
>> my very old ,very sick,very loved Mother.Oh yeah....and half of
>> the pain in my ass from reading your drivel.



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%%% owleyes

The world system has always hated God's people, Jews and Christians
alike. Those Christians who will, as hrayspitz pointed out above,
attempt to remain apart and retain their own values, and who align
themselves with the Jews (God's chosen people, whether the world likes
it or not) will suffer increasing persecution worldwide as well as in
this country. We see the acceleration of this through the spread of
islam. You can, like the author, make all kinds of analyses and
allegories, but the fact is that prophecy is being fulfilled.

Are the Boomers the "...the most self-centered, self-seeking,
self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing
generation in American history”? To varying degrees they were all of
those things. But it appears to this Boomer that they have managed to
produce a generation that fits that not only that description but also
2 Timothy 3:2-7.

1 reply


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%%%% Walter90

>> You have it right. It comes down to this. Satan once had
>> authority openly on this world. Jesus, a Jew, was given that
>> authority when it was taken away from Satan. Satan hates the Jews,
>> therefore will never stop until the last Jew is dead, thinking
>> somehow he will eventually win back his authority. He corrupts as
>> many humans as he can to help him accomplish this. He could care
>> less if they do it for the same reasons as he, as long as it gets
>> done.

>> To reduce the suffering of the Jews to generational dynamics is
>> another, perhaps well-meaning, attempt to side-step what's really
>> going on here.



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%%% SchumpeterRules

It is an interesting but not compelling hypothesis...not sure it
merits an entire book!

1 reply


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%%%% Rob_Crawford

>> It's a horrible "hypothesis".



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%%% madpractice04

The author ignores the poisonous political philosophy of
collectivism which led to racism, feminism, and the belief that
individuals are subject to, and sacrificed to, the group or state. It
is collectivism that made children the property of the state to be
raised in by strangers in daycare and public school. It is
collectivism that destroyed the family and under the deceitful term of
female empowerment transformed respected wives and mothers into
chattel to service the local men. It is collectivism that uses fraud,
force, and confiscatory taxation to create a nomenklatura to rule over
a population of uneducated, dependent, nearly feral individuals. Any
religion or philosophy that opposes collectivism and defends
individual rights will be confronted with murderous
brutality. Christianity, while having doctrines of individual rights,
has until recently been unscathed because of the willingness of church
leaders to seek secular power by co-opting collectivist ideas such as
self-sacrifice and social justice.



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%%% CasualMeyhem

Wait, Wait. I have PERMISSION to not like boomers?

4 replies


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%%%% Tweety58

>> Sure....and you can hate Jews too....be all you can be.Divide
>> and conquer-works every time.



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%%%% CasualMeyhem

>> I don't know...It's not as fun with permission.....



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%%%% Hillbilly_Back

>> Watch it. Don't make us put you in Time Out.



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%%%% Tweety58

>> But the uniforms are so butch ! Black with silver a Death's head
>> and SS runes.Not to mention all that LEATHER !!!Anyone got a
>> popper ?



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%%% emmaliza

This is an interesting perspective that differs from most
explanations of the thousands of years that the Jewish people found
themselves at odds with their neighbors....Most of those I've read all
basically proposed that the reason was due to tribalism within the
Jewish community which held itself apart from the society in which it
resided. Tribalism (identifying with one ethnic or racial group rather
than the bonds of community with others) has always been a factor in
Africa and the Middle East. Only in the western hemisphere have so
many people of so many different cultures learned to identify across
their traditional tribal groups.....Everyone seems to have a different
perspective on this issue. If you try to correlate the Jewish history
to what is happening here, you have to stretch logic and statistics to
make your case.....Had your title been collectivist thought, rather
than persecution, you would probably have had a firmer basis.

2 replies


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%%%% JohnJXenakis

>> Although I understand your point, I'm not talking here about
>> collectivist thought, which is certainly a mushy concept, nor
>> about simply being "at odds" with their neighbors. I'm talking
>> about very hard-core specific things -- violent targeting of Jews
>> throughout history, with the Holocaust only being the most recent
>> example. We're sometimes at odds with the Canadians, but that's
>> not what I'm talking about. The Jews have uniquely been violently
>> targeted throughout history, and this article proposes an
>> explanation.



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%%%% Rob_Crawford

>> This article is a sad joke. Case in point: "Gen-Xers adamantly
>> refuse to investigate and blame each other, even for serious
>> crimes."



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%%% PArocks123

This is the saddest, most depressing article I have read on this
site.



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%%% Indioviejo

The Muslims are the principal protagonist in the coming war.

Did Jews ever attempted to suppress free speech?
Did The Jews ever try to intimidate the host society?
Did the Jews EVER try to convert anyone to Judaism?

So, why to you equate the murder of innocent Jews during the
Holocaust, with a hypothetical mass killing of Muslims in Europe?
Although it may happen during the coming war, you must agree that
Islam is pushing the world to this event by "prophetic" design. Apples
and Oranges, sir.

1 reply


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%%%% Tweety58

>> Because everybody hates da
>> Jooooooooooooooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzz.Hate is becoming
>> fashionable again.Now America hates Christians too.We live in
>> Bizzarro America.



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%%% Bennett_Marco

"Germany fought the war half-heartedly." Absolute nonsense.

Contrary to the Nazi "stabbed in the back" myth, the Germany army
was defeated on the battlefield. After the failure of its spring
offensive, the German army was a spent force. Look up August 8, 1918,
for starters.

5 replies


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%%%% JohnJXenakis

>> I've researched and written a great deal on this subject. Just
>> one example: When Germany capitulated on November 11, 1918, German
>> troops were still deep within Belgian and French
>> territory. Writing in 1931, Winston Churchill said that if Germany
>> had continued to fight, they would have been capable of inflicting
>> two million more casualties upon the enemy. Churchill added that
>> the Allies would not have put Germany to the test: simply by
>> fighting on a little longer, the Allies would have negotiated a
>> peace with no reparations, on terms far more favorable to Germany
>> than actually occurred in the peace dictated by the Allies. One
>> more example: The 1914 Christmas truce.



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%%%% Bennett_Marco

>> Churchill's forecast was probably accurate in the event that the
>> Germans had continued to resist, but the German army no longer had
>> the means -- or (more importantly) the will -- to do so. During
>> the last three months of the war, they were surrendering in
>> droves. The outcome of the war was decided at the front.



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%%%% Bennett_Marco

>> Also, the Christmas truce was a completely spontaneous, ad hoc,
>> "grassroots" affair involving Allied and German frontline
>> troops. The high commands of both sides denounced it and strongly
>> warned their soldiers against further acts of fraternization.



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%%%% hrayspitz

>> Problem is, that Germany behind them would have crumbled into
>> civil disorder. German civilians were starving! Not to mention
>> that the Germans had their own problem with communist
>> "Spartacists."

>> Yes the German Army was still relatively intact, but the rest of
>> Germany was in a hand basket wondering why it was getting so darn
>> hot.



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%%%% Rob_Crawford

>> "I've researched and written a great deal on this subject."

>> And settled on the Nazi propaganda line, somehow.



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%%% JohnJXenakis

Responding to several comments: You're right that the standard
definition of Generation-X starts them in birth year 1963 or 1964.

But from the point of view of generational theory, what matters is
when a child is old enough to know what's going on, and is able to
adopt generational attitudes and behaviors, usually around five years
old. So in generational theory, the Boomers start from birth year
1942, and the Gen-Xers start from birth year 1959.

In the case of Obama and Begala, they are clearly Gen-Xers, and based
on their writings, I'm sure they wouldn't be caught dead calling
themselves Boomers.

4 replies


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%%%% szysgt

>> Dear Mr. Xenakis:

>> Fascinating article! I was just curious about the 'Me
>> Generation' - you know, that small generation in between the
>> boomers and the x-ers. The ones who grew up on disco music (ugh),
>> Son of Sam, etc. For a point of reference, I was born in 1963.

>> Where do we fit into this?



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%%%% JohnJXenakis

>> I can tell you this: History shows that the people in what you
>> call the "Me Generation" or "Early Gen-Xers," and what I would
>> call "early Nomads", are in many ways the most powerful age group
>> in history -- for good or ill -- containing some of the greatest
>> monsters (Hitler, Stalin) and the greatest heroes (Lincoln,
>> FDR). Obama is also in that age group, and it remains to be seen
>> what kind of role he'll fulfill.



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%%%% szysgt

>> Wow. Interesting.

>> Kudos again on the article. So original and thought provoking.



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%%%% Rob_Crawford

>> Are you for real?!

>> All of the following were dead by the beginning of the "Gen X"
>> period: Hitler, Stalin, Lincoln, FDR.



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%%% BklynDodger

An interesting perspective, though the theory runs into problems
when considering Jews of the boomer generation who are mainly aligned
with Gen X politics. That is, the Democrats and the left. And this
goes beyond whether or not they are practicing Jews or not. Also not
mentioned is the degree of animosity caused when the Soviets captured
territory during World War Two in Eastern Europe, and staffed
concentration camps with Jewish guards and officials, all loyal
communists. For that reason, Jews there were reviled as associated
with communism, and were singled out for retribution as the captive
populations rebelled.

5 replies


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%%%% szysgt

>> Good points. I think that when the overall term "Jews" is used,
>> people mean secular, non-practicing. At least that's the way I see
>> it.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> To the pinheads who persecute(d) the Jew-there is ONLY Da
>> Jooooooooooooooooooooo !!!! I'm Catholic.1.2 billion people
>> "claim" to be Catholic.I estimate ten per cent of that number are
>> devout practicing REAL Catholics- non-CINOs,non-Christmas and
>> Easter Catholics,non-Cafeteria Catholics,non-Ethnic Catholics,etc.

>> For Protestant Christians I'd put that number significantly
>> lower.I'd estimate the number of 10 per cent is equivalent for
>> devout REAL Jews.



---------------------------------------

%%%% szysgt

>> I'm going to have to go look that up now...... You got me
>> curious.



---------------------------------------

%%%% szysgt

>> OK. Just looked it up. If you want to believe Wikipedia,
>> approximately 13 percent of American Jews and 25 percent of
>> Israeli Jews are Orthodox. Among American synagogue members, 27
>> percent attend Orthodox synagogues.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> How often?We have plenty of Catholics who are Catholic on
>> Sundays but pagans or worse 6 days a week.THAT is what I was
>> referring to-non-heterodox Catholics and Jews.Ones who TRY to see
>> the world through (hopefully)the eyes of Our Lord.Ones who wear
>> the "suit" 24-7.We are ALL sinners but those who do NOT deny
>> sinfulness and strive for contrition and correction..

>> "The worst thing is not sin but the DENIAL of sin."Servant of
>> God,the late Archbishop Fulton J.Sheen



---------------------------------------

%%% Okfalls

LOL...Feminists are going to love this guy, their
reason-for-existence boiled down to racism and hatred. Watch your back
John.



---------------------------------------

%%% FreedomFan

The Tea Party wants to restore fiscal sanity, reign in the cancerous
growth of big government, reduce debt, reduce taxes and restore the
integrity of our currency. The Tea Party also is comprised mainly of
the Boomer generation.

The younger folks are largely Democrats, Obama supporters, Occupier
supporters. The young folks want to to the opposite of the Tea Party:
Punish the most productive folks and continue with the unsustainable
big government status quo, which will soon cause the collapse of the
whole system.

If the young liberals want someone to blame for their joblessness
and economic misery, they just need to look in the mirror.

1 reply


---------------------------------------

%%% JohnJXenakis

The target audience for my book is what I call "Tea Party Boomers."





---------------------------------------

%%% ZMB792

boo hoooooooo pass the tissues........

perfectly ok to advocate a moslem genocide on though...... only way
to "win" the WAR on "terror"......right?

4 replies


---------------------------------------

%%%% Indioviejo

>> Muslim terrorism is a tactic. Muslims are an existential threat
>> because of their ideology: Islam. The Muslims have a mandate to
>> dominate the world in the name of Allah (Satan). Unless you learn
>> the Koran, read the Hadiths and Mo's bio, you can't begin to
>> understand what Western Civilization is up against. Until you do
>> your homework don't buy the TAQUIYAH.

---------------------------------------

%%%% ZMB792

>> LOL

>> your fear is embarrassing to me as an American.

>> shame on you.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Indioviejo

>> Remember zombie, in WWII we feared heavier casualties in the
>> invasion of Japan's home Islands, so we dropped two babies on
>> Japan. I'm not ashamed to say the Japanese at the tome, earned
>> Hiroshima and Nagasaki the hard way. So don't be ashamed, this
>> kind of fear is healthy and will keep you alive.



---------------------------------------

%%%% ZMB792

>> the odds are far higher of dying from bee stings than of
>> terrorism.

>> Terrorism is the tool of oppression in this country. I am not
>> afraid of any boogey man.

>> If you want to surrender the american way of life and hand
>> victory to the terrorist you can but don't expect the real
>> patriots do do anything like that. We won't trade liberty for
>> perceived freedom.



---------------------------------------

%%% Kroyww1

BALONEY!



---------------------------------------

%%% Libertyship46

"Right now, we see Europe’s economy disintegrating right before our
eyes, with no hope in sight. How will the the generational split
manifest itself when total meltdown occurs?"

I think both Europe AND the United States will resemble what
happened in the Russian Revolution of 1917. This will be especially
true in Europe. Obama and people on the far left are already stoking
the flames of class warfare. And people, unfortunately, are buying
into it. What will happen if we have a major global depression? People
will be looking for scapegoats, and fast. The could lead to major
attacks on banks, stock markets, and other financial
institutions. People like Obama are already making them look like the
"bad guys," the people to blame for just about everything, along with
those "evil rich people." It won't take much of a spark in a major
depression for people to start running out and harming other people,
especially when you have presidents encouraging them. This will be
worse in Europe, because the London riots of last summer already
showed that people are willing to destroy property and kill people if
they think they can get something through violence. This could get
real bad real fast and nobody on either side of the Atlantic is
prepared for it.

1 reply


---------------------------------------

%%%% JohnJXenakis

>> I agree. You mention the 2011 London street riots. Young people
>> destroyed and looted numerous stores, stealing large screen tv's
>> and other items. Although looting was widespread, that wasn't the
>> only motive. There were several BBC interviews of the looters who
>> said something to the effect, "I did it because the police
>> couldn't do anything about it. I just wanted to prove that we
>> could do anything we wanted, and the police couldn't stop us."
>> This is exactly the kind of "revenge on Boomers" attitude that I'm
>> talking about.



---------------------------------------

%%% zebechidna

There's something in that theory. Firstly, Gen-X is the first
generation in Amerirican history that will live, at least, materially
worse than their parents.

Secondly, their parents have borrowed and wasted money that Gen-X
have to return with interest.

It should create a sense of deceit and unfairness among Gen-X.

4 replies


---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> Hey dick head-as a boomer we barely had a roof over our
>> heads-post war y'know.My MOTHER worked in the fifties so we could
>> survive.You little s hits had everything and you're middle aged
>> and STILL whining.I got news for you-YOUR commie kids HATE your
>> DEMOCRAT guts!

>> Still the Slacker Generation-now you rely on the government and
>> have poisoned your kids with your amorality.Middle aged babies.The
>> WORST GENERATION.Your children are going to EAT you.



---------------------------------------

%%%% zebechidna

>> <DIV>From a "dickhead": How do you know my age? I suspect that
>> I'm much older than you are.</DIV> <DIV>I only expressed my
>> opinion about the suggested theory. I'm not a commy and not a
>> democrat. I hope, it should teach you to develop slower and more
>> methodical approachfor forming an opinion about people.</DIV> <DIV
>> style="FONT: 10pt arial">



---------------------------------------

%%%% MaryTN

>> "will live...materially worse than their parents".

>> Is that written in stone?

>> You have been programmed to believe something that has not come
>> to pass.



---------------------------------------

%%%% zebechidna

>> <DIV>In a normal, democratic society each generation should
>> live better. It's a norm.</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">



---------------------------------------

%%% SithMystery

So, your entire theory for the financial crash boils down to "I hate
my parents, so I'm going to crash the whole financial system just to
get back at them." Wow! I think you need to get out of that cube or
office of yours once in a while and see what life is really like.

A better theory for the both the Holocaust and, indeed, the
financial crash (if there could be any parallel drawn between these
two events) can be summed up in two words - "Mob Rule". It comes down
to participants in the act saying to themselves, "Well, everyone else
is doing it, so it must be okay."

1 reply



---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> Yep of course.... for a whole 3,000 years....yep,you've nailed
>> it.Show's over folks....the Oracle of Delphi has spoken.



---------------------------------------

%%% SithMystery

In the case of the financial crash, it comes down to the fact that
banks were forced to sell these bad mortgages by the Community
Reinvestment Act of 1977 (thank you, Jimmah, for getting THAT ball
rolling <rolls eyes>), and some unscrupulous and greedy financiers
found a way to make some money off of them. Unfortunately for these
dimwits, the financial sector is full of greedy dimwits who were all
too willing to either go along with the scheme or propagate it to the
point where it became a systemic issue. Then, when the bottom fell out
in 2008, the same greedy dimwits who were profiting off of these
schemes were put in charge of fixing it, leading to more issues and
stagnating any potential recovery.



---------------------------------------

%%% gb8898

Boomers essentially rigged the system in their favor. They looted
the place and left younger generations to sift through the smoldering
remains of a once great country. You want to know why younger
generations are so mad at the Boomers? It's because we won't have
nearly as good — or easy — a life as they enjoyed, and the reason is
because they basically bought their extravagant lifestyles on credit
and stuck their kids and their kids' kids with the bill.

That's why we're mad at the Boomers. It has nothing to do with
fatherless homes or any of the other Freudian excuses conjured up in
this article to absolve Boomers of their responsibility for the
current fiasco of epic proportions that threatens to destroy this
country. It has to do with our loathing of such outright selfishness.

And if you truly believe the financial mess is a Gen-X thing, you
might just be delusional. This goes back decades, and it has Boomer
fingerprints all over it. There might even be saliva, blood, and semen
stains. Who do you think came up with the idea of "financial
engineering" and taught it at universities? Do you really think it was
a bunch of 30-year-old professors?

3 replies


---------------------------------------

%%%% BklynDodger

>> So it doesn't matter that many, perhaps most boomers tried to
>> STOP the excesses of politicians who bought votes with our money?
>> And who is on the side of the looters? Gen-Xers, that's who,
>> populating the Democrat Party and the whole left. Boomers who
>> tried to stop the insanity have lost until now. There is slight
>> hope through the Tea Party, but another term for Obama, thanks to
>> Gen-Xers, and it's all over. America ... it was a wonderful idea.



---------------------------------------

%%%% gb8898

>> Gen-Xers were born between (roughly) 1965 and 1980. Maybe you
>> think all of those people lean to the Left and are part of the
>> problem, but you'd be wrong. Boomers have held the reins of power
>> in this country for almost half a century, and look at what's
>> happened in that time.

>> I don't mean to disparage an entire group of people, but far too
>> many Boomers — regardless of their political affiliation — sat
>> back and did nothing to stop the madness for too long. Most of
>> this country's current problems can be laid directly at their
>> feet. If you look at what's getting Boomers the most agitated
>> right now, it's not stopping government excess: it's their
>> government-funded retirements.

>> Seeing the "Hands off my Medicare and Social Security!" signs at
>> Tea Party rallies should have clued you in to that sad fact.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> Grow up you middle aged whining slacker.WE PLANNED YOUR
>> DEMISE.Every boomer is in cahoots,rich and wearing Top Hats
>> instead of men living lives of quiet desperation.

>> Were you drafted?Did you fight in a swamp,jungle,s hit filled
>> rice paddy?Were you SHOT AT?DID SOMEONE TRY TO KILL YOU EVERYDAY
>> IN-COUNTRY????Did you try to stuff your buddy's steaming
>> intestines back into his belly?Did you Huey into a hot LZ with
>> your balls in your throat????Did you WALK POINT?????

>> Were you spit on if you wore your Class "A"s.SHADDAP!!! You
>> whining little bitches.Go occupy ADULTHOOD.BE A MAN instead of a
>> snivelling blame it on daddy little pu ssy.



---------------------------------------

%%% fiddlesticks277

I really get tired of this guy Xenakis forever pushing that nutty
"generational dynamics" theory. He comes back time and again with
it. For him, it explains everything. He's a one-trick pony.

I still remember the analysis by Xenakis on this website of the
causes of WWI a few months back. As a historian, I said at the time
that it was so riddled with errors, falsehoods, and misconceptions
that the author could never be taken seriously on any subject. And now
with this article he proves it again.

If Breitbart were truly aware of this ignorance of this author, he
would not be allowed to post on this site.

6 replies


---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> "As a historian, I said at the time that it was so riddled with
>> errors, falsehoods, and misconceptions that the author could never
>> be taken seriously on any subject." Case Closed.Albeit with not
>> one whit of evidence but self-referencing OPINION.



---------------------------------------

%%%% fiddlesticks277

>> I gave a ton of evidence to refute that article. Go look it up
>> in his archive. He titled it "Causes of WWI or some such
>> thing. Pure baloney from start to finish, just like this one.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Tweety58

>> Fcuk you-YOU PROVIDE IT FOR THIS ARTICLE..I don't have to look
>> up dick,Cheesedick-You provided none for this article.Stop
>> smelling your own farts and mistaking them for Chanel No. 5.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Rob_Crawford

>> Charming.



---------------------------------------

%%%% fiddlesticks277

>> Classy guy, eh? Back to mama's basement and the video games,
>> kid.



---------------------------------------

%%%% Indioviejo

>> You may be right, but Breitbart does well by keeping an open
>> site with diverse opinions. Do unto others...



---------------------------------------

%%% amanuensis

The reason for Jewish (actually Hebrew) persecution is delineated in
the Holy Bible.

The Edomites, Amalekites and other groups work with Satan to defeat
God's plan of redemption for humanity.

This has been going on since Satan tempted Eve.

*** BigPeace comments: Jewish Persecution article - Continued


---------------------------------------

%%% Ruler4You

I can't believe it. All the haughty talk about being so good and the
first chance to lead poof! vapor.

While, I'll conceded you are a product of your "environment" it "IS"
also true humans have the capability to rise above petty self
indulgence of hate. And as the top animal, it would seem we would have
come to some understanding about life and the arbitrary taking of it,
by now. Yet, that doesn't seem to be the case, does it?

All the talk about 'respect' for life and 'human rights' and 'can't
we all just get along' and 'have a coke and a smile (that'll be .25$)
it's all control hyperbole. Used by the elite to control the
masses. Once the masses listen one time to a person in a situation
like that, they automatically are handed the reigns in the
future. Doesn't mean they'll keep 'em, but they will be handed back to
them.

The search for "why" the Jews" can be identified in only one
location: The Holy Bible. There have been some 'bad' cultures over the
years. They come and they go. But the Jews have been universally hated
for centuries. As I can see from some of the posts, hate is a very
difficult thing to live without. And so, we must live with it.

I don't want empty rhetoric about 'peace', it's a simple
choice. Period. You either are controlled by your emotions or your
mind controls your actions. One "IS" the product of being an
animal. The other "IS" the product of evolution.



---------------------------------------

%%% Doyouwantmore

Israel is God's way of showing us, on a global societal scale, how
his grace works. Israel is essentially a picture of Jesus. Israel and
the Jews are persecuted because spiritually they represent God's grace
(His unmerited, undeserved favor).

God set Israel apart so the world would have a picture of people who
are blessed through no justification of their own. Jesus, who was a
Jew, is the culmination of God's blessing to the world through no
justification of our own. Because He is good and because it was His
plan He gave us a way to be close to Him, not because we deserved it.

The Jews are blessed and fruitful like no other group in history
because God set them apart, not because they deserve it. Jews
outlasted Egyptian Pharoahs and are now doing the most ground-breaking
research on Earth with the world's deadliest air-force and the world's
toughest soldiers. Israel, against all odds, is blessed! He had every
right to do so because He is sovereign. He saves them whether they
behave good or bad. This is the true reason the world hates Israel. A
legalistic world can't understand how God can have total authority to
be good to someone for no reason other than His own pleasure. Israel
spits in the fact of the idea that God is accountable to us. God
blesses Israel, and Israel is blessed, just because God wanted to. God
says Israel will survive. Israel survives. Legalistic, demanding Islam
is the opposite of Jesus' grace. No wonder they are the Jews chief
enemies. Islam is literally anti-Christianity. Islam takes the burden
of relieving sin off of God (Jesus) and puts it onto sinful broken
people...who are then easily manipulated into acting against God's
grace, in the name of god.

The world says our sin is too great to be forgiven. The world says
we should not thrive surrounded by enemies and evil. Yet, because of
what Jesus did and through NO actions or justification of our own we
are blessed and fruitful. Israel, like Jesus, is an offense to the
secular mind (marxism, liberalism, progressivism) and an offense to
religious legalism (Islam, Westboro Baptist, etc.).



---------------------------------------

%%% icrozier

This is one of the most stupid articles I have read for a long time.

1 reply


---------------------------------------

%%%% Doyouwantmore

>> Why



---------------------------------------

%%% Lepantzeus
Gentle Readers,

Dear Mr. Xenakis,

Your thesis is very interesting, but your contention that the
Germans didn't lose the Great War militarily simply isn't correct.

Germany lost that War when the U.S. entered the conflict. The
U.S. Navy in 1917 was the worlds largest and had the most powerful
battleship fleet. Up to that point, the German Navy was effective, but
with the U.S. Navy convoys became effective against U-Boats and the
German surface fleet was outnumbered and outmatched.

U.S. materials were critical. Shortages of everything were common in
the Allied armies. After the U.S. entered the conflict, the Allies had
ample supplies of ammunition, uniforms, aircraft, fuel, etc.

Moreover, the naval blockage of Germany strangled both the military
supply system and destroyed the German economy, leading to the
anti-war movement you described. Again, the U.S. intervention was
critical. The German military was outnumbered, outgunned and lacked
supplies, and thus faced inevitable defeat.



---------------------------------------

%%% Lepantzeus

The Armistice was harsh, but compared to the destruction of Germany
by Allied Armed Forces in the 2nd World War, it was comparatively
mild. The Armistice allowed Germany to avoid a war on it's own soil,
which they would have lost.

The real horror is that even after the Armistice the economic
blockage was maintained by the Allies ( over U.S. objections ) until
1920, and much of it remained until 1926. The Allies wanted vengeance,
and got it.

But that is my only point of disagreement with your article.

Sincerely,

John Lepant Brighton CO



---------------------------------------

%%% MaryTN
Is this his senior thesis?
If so, he needs to take history 201 over again.

So many errors that if I try to list them all the readers' eyes will
glaze over.



---------------------------------------

%%% DouglasBender

A simpler explanation: God is real. The Jewish people are God's
chosen people. Satan is real. Satan hates God. Satan rules this
corrupt world system. Satan hates the Jewish people. Ergo, the world
hates the Jewish people.



---------------------------------------

%%% MuseofHell

Um, are all these comments from people who are taking this guy
seriously? Either he is serious about what he says, in which case he
is a moron, or he is pointing out how ridiculous hatred of one
generation for another is, using sarcasm and irony. Let's see:

"Because of feminist and government POLICIES THAT PAID MOTHERS TO
DUMP FATHERS, most Generation-X children were raised without the
essential influence and protection of their biological fathers. These
children don’t ...see for themselves that their mothers lied to courts
and welfare officials to DRIVE THE FATHERS AWAY. Instead, they were
raised by depressed single mothers, and had no male influences except
a STEADY STREAM OF MEN IN THEIR MOTHERS' BEDS, some of whom physically
or sexually abused them. THESE CHILDREN... GREW UP DESPISING THEIR
PARENTS' GENERATION."

I'm pretty sure there are no statistics anywhere in any study that
back up this farcical statement.

"Feminist policies particularly TARGETED BLACK CHILDREN, destroying
black families so thoroughly that 72% OF GEN-X BLACK CHILDREN were
born out of wedlock."

REALLY??! 72%? Um, U.S. Census anyone?

"t was not lost on these children that far more serious charges
of VIOLENT SERIAL RAPE that were brought against another public
figure, Bill Clinton, WERE IGNORED BY FEMINISTS BECAUSE HE WAS A WHITE
MAN."

I wasn't aware that being accused of getting a blow job in the oval
office equated to "Violent serial rape" charges being brought and then
"ignored by Feminists because he was a white man" when it was old,
white, Republican males who brought the charges, most of whom were
actively engaged in adulterous affairs at the same time.

In a case where there is no factual content in an article, it is
impossible to argue the salient points of the article because there
are none. Please, please tell me the people commenting on this article
are aware this is satire.

1 reply


---------------------------------------

%%%% The_Wanderer

>> The 72% figure is from the census. Bill clinton was charged with
>> rape by juanita Broaddrick. She was in a lengthy interview on 60
>> minutes and i thought she was telling the truth. I don't agree
>> with all of john's theory, but he keeps his facts straight from
>> what i have seen.


---------------------------------------

%%% MuseofHell

THIS WILL BE A THREE-PART RESPONSE:

I suggest that the innuendo regarding the causes of some of these
"facts" blaming "Feminist policies particularly TARGETED BLACK
CHILDREN, destroying black families so thoroughly..." are absurd. Is
this still 1978? When "Feminism" was first getting a foothold in the
American consciousness and the only representatives were white women?
Real "Feminism" is not racially biased and includes women from all
races and creeds.

The definition of "Violent Serial Rape" could be seriously debated,
especially when you have to factor in the number of women who had some
tangential association with Clinton in the past and decided to jump on
the bandwagon. I'm not saying Clinton was a choir boy, obviously he
was not - but the characterization of "Violent Serial Rape" when most
complaints against him consisted of sexual harassment or improper
contact seems exaggerated. Of course, if there had actually been that
many women accusing him of rape, the feminists would have been
screaming for his head, not actively protecting him from the old white
male Republicans trying to get him impeached. That statement is
completely nonsensical.

The charge that a large number of Gen-Xers were raised by "depressed
single women" seems at odds with the claim that the mothers supposedly
lied to judges to drive the fathers away - if driving the fathers away
made them depressed they would not have done so. The most egregious
statement is a blanket accusation that all single mothers are no more
than whores with a "steady stream of men in their mothers' beds" - the
statement used to explain how and why the Gen-Xers hate the Boomer
generation. Children raised in that type of environment have a
tendency to focus blame on the mother or absent father, not some other
generation with no direct connection to the child or their
lifestyles. But the idea that this type of reaction to being a single
mother is common or describes a large percentage of single mothers is
offensive and absurd. Most single mothers, of whatever color, work
from one to three jobs to make sure their kids are fed, clothed and
educated so they will be able to have a better life than the one in
which they were raised. The incidence of the "revolving bedroom door"
is quite small and usually is accompanied by drug abuse and/or
alcoholism.


---------------------------------------

%%% MuseofHell

In actuality, a condensed answer to that main question goes like
this: Throughout the history of Judaism, the Jewish people were an
insular people. They had businesses in which they employed immediate
and extended family members, because they understood the principle
that if everyone works toward a common goal it will be more likely to
be accomplished. It was also difficult to employ someone who did not
practice the same religion because of certain daily practices of
Jewish people a gentile employee would not be allowed to participate
in. Because of Hebrew teachings, they were frugal people, saving
rather than spending their earnings in order to make sure their
families were taken care of, and obeying the teachings that said not
to flaunt their wealth or belongings before others. This earned them
the epithet "secretive" when it was a result of being faithful to
their religion.

Practicing Judaism also set them apart from the majority of people
around them due to various restrictions they practiced, like what kind
of cloth was proper to wear, how food could be handled from the moment
an animal died, how and when they worshiped and how they prepared
their food. They celebrated different religious holidays than the rest
of their neighbors and did not celebrate the holidays their neighbors
did celebrate.

When bad times, economic problems, droughts, wars, and other
disturbances to the status quo occur, humans look for someone to
blame. The most common target of their frustration and fear is the
"Other" - any group that is significantly "different" from the
majority that can be singled out or identified very easily so an Us
versus Them attitude can be easily fostered. The majority easily comes
to the conclusion that the "Other" (i.e., "Not like us") must be to
blame in some way for the disaster or major change the majority is
facing (especially if the smaller group does not seem to be affected
as strongly as the majority), regardless of the fact that they can
only rationalize how this group of Others has caused the drought,
economic depression, war, failed crops to occur (since the target
group is, in fact, not connected to the issues frightening the
majority of the populace). As more and more of the majority discuss
and agree on the "cause" of whatever is going on, a mob mentality
begins to form and escalates until the majority are worked up enough
to act on their fear and anger by actually attacking (whether
physically or using other forms of power) the group of the "Other." If
given the chance, any group being persecuted by a much larger number
of people who are obviously being encouraged (by the leaders of the
mob) to work themselves up to a state where they will resort to
violence, will gather their possessions and flee, rather than be
destroyed.

In a nutshell, that is the history of the Jewish people. When you
experience the same treatment over and over, you learn to see the
early indications that you are being gradually ostracized from normal
society. They learned not to wait until someone with a torch and a mob
behind them was actually beating down their door - they moved on
before that happened. Naturally, that was just another practice people
could point to and say "It must have been them, they left before the
really bad things happened."

t

---------------------------------------

%%% MuseofHell

It becomes more complex after the early centuries of
Judaism. Because of the persecution they endured, the Jewish people
became even more insular. They applied themselves to business and
became very skilled in handling money. This, of course, was their
cardinal sin. When the majority of the population had no money, the
Jewish people still did. Generally, this is when the practice of
money-lending started, wherein the Jews only lent money to people they
felt would be able to use it wisely and pay it back, so there were
people who resented them for declining to extend credit to those who
were not considered likely to repay the loan. No one likes to owe
money regardless of the reason for which they borrowed. Even those who
were responsible about paying back the loans (with interest) still
developed a resentment toward those who had the resources to lend
money, especially if those people were mostly concentrated within a
single group. So add jealousy to the tendency to blame the "Other" for
disasters.

Of course, as the centuries went on, the Catholic church became more
and more powerful and persecuted any group who did not subscribe to
their religious beliefs and the Jews were one of those groups. This
was just another step in the evolution of the persecution of the
Jews. Basically, in every land or society where they tried to live and
work in peace, at some point, some reason would be found to blame the
Jews for SOMETHING and the persecution would start all over
again. This finally just became a phenomenon that was so widespread in
the worlds different societies, the Jews could not find anywhere they
would be left in peace to practice their own religion and lives their
lives without persecution.

Obviously, this is a severely condensed and truncated explanation of
an extremely complex, centuries-long situation. But it is the
bare-bones of the history of the persecution of the Jews.

How and why the author of the article is trying to connect
persecution of the Jews with some form of generational hatred (that
really seems like complete nonsense) is a mystery. I guess everybody
has their own opinions and some of those opinions turn into obsessions
that cause them to be irrational in looking for ways to support their
off-the-wall ideas. This is a prime example.

---------------------

I have to admit, I didn't initially believe the claim that all members of Generation X loathed Boomers when I first saw the claim. However, all the responses I've seen from them attacking boomers has probably done more to prove the point than anything you've said. Fascinating logic; "He claims we hate boomers; let's prove him wrong by screaming about how worthless boomers are."

Some of them do miss the point about what happened to Germany in the first world war. Yes, they were going to lose and the high command realized. However, when they learned that victory was no longer possible, they sued for peace. Germany did nothing of the sort in WWII and fought to the very end.

According to TFT theory, Lincoln was a member of the Prophet Generation; what about his attitude led to a different conclusion?

Trevor wrote:According to TFT theory, Lincoln was a member of the Prophet Generation

The Revolutionary War climaxed with the surrender of Cornwallis in October, 1781.

Lincoln was born in 1809, making him a Nomad.

John

All right, I was just wondering about that. Course, not everyone considers him a hero. A lot of southerners hate him even today.

*** Jewish persecution and insularity

One of the commenters quoted above gave a lengthy history of the
insularity of Jews, and blamed the frequent persecution of the Jews on
that insularity. This is an appealing argument, and one that used
myself in the past.

However, there's no historical evidence that I'm aware of that
"insularity" is correlated to "genocide." There have been many
insular groups that haven't been genocide targets, and there
have been many genocides where insularity wasn't involved.
Blaming Jewish persecution on insularity is like blaming hurricanes
on the gods or the rain. It may be emotionally satisfying, but
there's no evidence to support the claim.

Every hurricane might appear to be unique to the people whose lives
and property are destroyed, but the science of meteorology provides a
theory that unifies our understanding of all hurricanes, making
non-intuitive comparisons to things like "El Niño."

Similarly, Generational Dynamics provides a theory that unifies our
understanding of all genocides, sometimes in non-intuitive ways. To
the people involved, each of the following appears to be unique, and
each can be explained by reasons unique to that event. But
generational theory provides a unifying explanation for all of
them:

• The Reign of Terror that followed the bankruptcy of the French
  Monarchy in 1789, leading to the French Revolution. Any person who
  was an Aristocrat, a relative of an Aristocrat, a friend of an
  Aristocrat, a servant of an Aristocrat, or even had a resemblance to
  an Aristocrat, would be tried and quickly convicted and sentenced to
  the guillotine. This was a generational crisis era, with an aging
  Prophet generation (like our Boomers), and a younger Nomad generation
  (like our Gen-Xers). The generational hatred morphed into political
  hatred, with the Aristocrats representing the Prophet generation, and
  the killing was completely irrational. The financial crisis that
  triggered the Reign of Terror is very similar to the Nasdaq crash in
  2000.
• The "Killing Fields" of Cambodia, 1975-79, killing some 8 million
  people. This was a generational crisis war. Sihanouk was viewed as
  leading the pro-American élite Khmer, while left-wing Pol Pot lead the
  insurgent Khmer Rouge. The generational split morphed into a
  political split along the Khmer vs Khmer Rouge lines. It also became
  a geographical split, with the Khmer Rouge controlling the
  countryside. In the genocide, The Khmer Rouge forced evacuation of
  the cities, moving the population to the countryside.
• Here's how author Amy Chua describes the Bosnian war: "In the
  Serbian concentration camps of the early 1990s, the women prisoners
  were raped over and over, many times a day, often with broken bottles,
  often together with their daughters. The men, if they were lucky,
  were beaten to death as their Serbian guards sang national anthems; if
  they were not so fortunate, they were castrated or, at gunpoint,
  forced to castrate their fellow prisoners, sometimes with their own
  teeth. In all, thousands were tortured and executed."
• In 1994, there were two ethnic groups in Rwanda -- the Hutus and
  the Tutsis. They had lived together for decades, had intermarried,
  had their kids play games with each other and so forth. Then one day,
  a Hutu leader announced over the radio, "Cut down the tall trees."
  The radio announcement, which was heard all over the country was some
  sort of visceral signal. On cue, each Hutu did something like the
  following: Picked up a machete, went to the Tutsi home next door, or
  down the street, murdered and dismembered the man and children, raped
  the wife and then murdered and dismembered her. Close to a million
  Tutsis were tortured, raped and murdered in a three month period.
  This was a generational crisis era, and we can assume that the
  generational split morphed into a political split between Hutus (the
  Nomads, like our Gen-Xers) and the Tutsis (the Prophets, like our
  Boomers).
• I remember distinctly how shocked I was at what I'd heard after
  the Enron scandal in the fall of 2000. People were saying that ALL
  corporate CEOs should be put into jail, irrespective of whether they
  had committed fraud or not. What shocked me was the enormous fury I
  heard, directed at ALL CEOs, even perfectly honest ones. I remember
  thinking at the time that people were going crazy. If there had been
  a guillotine available, all CEOs would have been beheaded. This was
  completely irrational hatred that I now understand to be Gen-Xers,
  having lost their savings in the Nasdaq crash, were hungry for revenge
  against the Boomers, with whom they identified the CEOs, the
  "Aristocrats" of the current crisis. Of course, the Gen-Xers got
  their revenge a different way -- by knowingly creating trillions of
  dollars of fraudulent synthethic, highly complex securities, lying to
  their Boomer CEO bosses about them, and then selling them to the
  "Boomer investors," in order to get revenge.
• The 1930s Holocaust in Nazi Germany is completely consistent with
  all of the above examples. The Jews were the Aristocrats, and the gas
  chambers performed exactly the same function as the guillotine.

Each of the above examples is unique, each can be explained by unique
reasons, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics theory,
they're all very similar. The Nomad generation grows up in the shadow
of the Prophet generation and develops enormous generational hatred.
People in all generations are forced to pick sides in the generational
dispute, and so the (horizontal) generational dispute morphs into a
(vertical) political dispute along some demographic, religious or
political fault line. The entire society becomes lawless, as the
Nomads exact revenge against the Prophets through murder, mayhem,
fraud, or genocide.

So being "insular" has not been the cause of persecution of
Jews, but it's one of the reasons why Jews are identified with
the Prophet generation (like the Boomers) during generational
crisis eras. Words like "insular," "élite," "Aristocrat,"
and "money changer" are rhetorical tools that the Nomad generation
uses to justify the mayhem directed at the Prophet generation.

Let's dwell a little longer on the Nazi Holocaust.

According to Martin Gilbert, in his 2006 book "Kristallnacht, Prelude
to Destruction," there was little or no insularity of the Jews
in Germany:

"Jewish communities in Germany dated back a thousand
years. For the fifty years before Hitler came to power, German
Jews had integrated fully into German life and culture. They were
proud Germans, bewildered to be singled out as an evil influence,
and trusting that the excesses of Nazism must, in the normal
evolution of things, moderate and decline."

Things changed very rapidly when Hitler came to power:

"From the first days of Hitler's regime in Germany,
anti-Jewish measures followed with disturbing frequency. The half
million Jews of Germany, who constituted a mere 0.76 percent of
the country's population, were singled out by the Nazi propaganda
machine as the enemy within, the cause of Germany's defeat in 1918
and of her subsequent economic difficulties. As a scapegoat, the
Jews were vulnerable. Their prominence in many aspects of Germany
scientific and professional life made them, despite their small
numbers, the objects of a jealousy that the Nazis skilfully and
explosively inflamed. Despite the intense patriotism of the
German Jews during the First World War -- when 12,000 were killed
in action -- they were presented in the Nazi ideology as disloyal
shirkers, and parasites on the German body politic."

Not only were the Jews blamed for being shirkers during the war, they
were blamed for causing the war, they were blamed for benefiting from
the settlement that humiliated the rest of Germany.

However, I would point out that the sudden anti-Semitic change came
about 3-4 years after the 1929 stock market crash -- something that
was disastrous for Germany's economy. France's Reign of Terror began
about 3-4 years after the bankruptcy of the French Monarchy, and
Gen-Xers started creating fraudulent securities in earnest 3-4 years
after they lost their savings in the Nasdaq crash. The American
Civil War began 3-4 years after the disastrous Panic of 1857.

This seems to be a pattern in all these genocides. The Nomad
generation grows up hating the Prophet generation, but the hatred
doesn't turn into genocide until there's a devastating financial
crisis.

Gilbert tells another interesting anecdote:

"The pressure against the Jews of Germany was continuous.
During 1934 the German government enacted a further nineteen
discriminatory laws. In protest, several Jewish and non-Jewish
groups outside Germany instituted an economic boycott on German
goods. That may, Goebbels accused the Jews of Germany of
responsibility for the boycott."

This corresponds to the experience with Gen-Xers. They purposely
created tens of trillions of dollars in toxic securities, lied to
their Boomer bosses about them, and sold them, creating the ongoing
fiscal crisis. But they simply blame their own criminal acts on their
Boomer bosses. Even worse, the Obama Justice Department and Gen-X
prosecutors refused to investigate the financial crisis, because they
refuse to investigate their Gen-X pals. These are the Goebbels's of
the modern day.

John

I'm also seeing the X-er-Boomer relationship play out on the political stage. Obama sets a trap for the House, which is overwhelmingly Boomer, and like idiots, they fall for it again and again, humiliating themselves. He's got to be laughing himself sick, since screwing people over, especially Boomers, is considered fun.

Let's not forget how this is playing out within the Republican Party as well. You've got a struggle between the "Establishment" Republicans, who are mostly Boomers, and the so-called "Tea Party Republicans" who mostly belong to Generation X. In 2010, most of the Republicans who were elected to the House belonged to generation X. Mostly, the Boomers are screaming their heads and arguing, though are still hoping to get some kind of compromise, while the X-ers are taking action, essentially saying: "Screw arguing about this and actually get something done". I've noticed they have just as much anger towards their fellow Boomer Congressmen than they do towards Obama.