The greatest generation?

This is June's "Hairy Eyeball" rant:

I, like many of you hear the phrase, "The Greatest American Generation" in reference to our parents' era, or anyone who lived from WWI to the turn of the last century- and we pass it off, accepting it as some sort of household word. But to be emotionless and objective, that phrase was not coined by a historian of the 21st century, but by a journalist of that same generation! That in itself is something akin to self-congratulation, isn't it?

Now do NOT get me wrong. I am not bitter about this generation in question. I marvel at what my parents went through. To be honest, if you lived through the Dust Bowl/Great Depression (as my parents did) and the experience made you live with 2 extra refrigerators in your basement (as my parents did), you have a right to self-congratulate. You even have the perfect right to be anal-retentive about housecleaning. Who likes breathing topsoil, after all? Bravo! Mazel Tov!

But...are they THE greatest generation of folks that EVER came to live in the United States? Hmmm. As King Julius XIII in the movie "Madagascar" Put it, "I am having this brain thing going on in my head right now!" OK Friends, put on your little lemur thinking cap thingys for a minute, and reason this through with me.

The GREATEST GENERATIONNN...

• Made the country the superpower it is today- Indeed, Ronald Wilson Reagan, one of the last great leaders of that era, cemented that status.

But- that generation also made the country what it is today! As George F. Will Said in his book, "Restoration," we now are saddled with a government that continues to think that a reduction in the increase of gov't. spending qualifies as a spending cut! Until a few short years ago, we were spending beaucoup bucks on mohair rancher subsidies for Navy topcoats that haven't been made in half a century. And let's not even go anywhere near the philosophy that will have the Social Security Administration assume room temperature the instant the last member of the Greatest Generation passes away! And this is the attitude of the greatest generation?

But c'mon. Let's be fair:

• The "Greatest Generation" got us involved in three major global conflicts and the cold war. It used nuclear weapons on a civilian population twice and had the wisdom to perform test blasts on our own soil. That's gotta count for something!
• The "Greatest Generation" gave us DDT, Chlordane and a host of other products that make our current pesticides look like soap suds by comparison. And lest we forget, we also got Dioxin, Thalidomide, and LSD from this generation. Did you know that the American pesticide industry got its start when the US nerve gas experts confiscated all that wonderful German concentration camp poison and couldn't figure out what to do with it? Like it or not, it's true.
• Do you remember that "The Greatest Generation" followed Kennedy to the moon (using former German rocket science we couldn't reconstruct now if we tried), beat the USSR there for several manned missions... and promptly ran home and hid for thirty years. Why? We got every hi-tech advancement from computers to solid-state radios and velcro from the space program. Much of what the Great Generation did in aerospace to create our global R&D laurels seems to me to have been shelved once that generation lurched into retirement. Besides, let's look at our motives for a minute. We have spent billions on needless conflicts and even more billions on foreign aid to countries that can't stand us, and our "Greatest Generation" has never even had the vision to take a tenth of that wasted money to plant a human colony on Mars. As my kids would say, "whatever".... But it's true.

The passing (and somewhat noble) generation is a good and decent generation. But let's be honest; it has had its faults too.

My nomination for "Greatest Generation" is either

1. Those who lived here between 1850 and 1900- They settled the west, endured the Civil War, rebuilt themselves and did all that without benefit of modern medicine and CNN! Or,
2. The generation just growing up! They have to deal with all the stupid things we're currently devising, and they haven't even rioted yet.
3. My wife, who has a good head on her shoulders, has suggested that the colonists who rebelled against "taxation without representation" are another good choice. As she points out, they would have to wrap their heads in duct tape if they saw what a monster their revolutionary brainchild has become. Hmmm... That taxation without representation thing... sounds like good reading. Civil Liberty... hmmm....

Well, what do you think?

-The Big Fisch

(Swimming off...)