Re: “Baby boomers: ‘We earned it’ ” and “Baby boomers: ‘Dismayed and saddened’ ” (Sept. 7, Northwest Voices):
Collective accountability hardly ever is sensible, and generational generalizations are too broad to carry a lot water. However as a child boomer, I really feel obliged to proper the size a bit in response to latest letters.
Sure, we earned a few of what we’ve received; a lot of “us” did work actually arduous. However we inherited the most effective social and financial circumstances of any era within the historical past of our nation … after which squandered an excessive amount of of what we had. We selected — personally or by way of our elected leaders — to endorse insurance policies which have put the generations after us behind from the beginning. Scholar debt, for example, which now equals total bank card debt. Housing insurance policies which have made first rate houses inaccessible for a lot extra of them than for us. A well being care system that’s very good on the high, but massively ineffective in case you are nearer the underside.
Far too usually, we selected problematic establishment practices over actual change. Earlier than we pat ourselves on the again too heartily, let’s attempt to keep watch over the entire image … and, maybe, strive even now to treatment a few of what we didn’t do all that effectively.
Gary Handwerk, Seattle
