What Happened to Citizenship and the Common Good?

Recently I was told by an individual who disagreed with my feeling that it is not only acceptable, but expected that we help take care of those in our society who are unable to care for or help themselves that his only responsibility was to himself and his family and no one else.  Needless to say he identified himself as belonging to the Tea Party.  However, his philosophy seems to have permeated not just the crazed right wing political activists who have been led by Billionaires to stand in opposition to their own economic and political interest, but to society as a whole.

In the most recent political drama coming out of Washington, the Democrats, yes the Democrats, have adopted this philosophy in agreeing to and even championing cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other benefits to the aged, the poor and children.  Democrats have even adopted their opponents language in referring to these as entitlements, an unnecessarily pejorative word.

It used to be that taking care of those that were less fortunate than ourselves was not only encouraged, but expected.  It was a badge of honor that we would not let our sick, our children, or our elderly suffer through their misfortune.  Taxes were seen not as something forcibly extracted from the government against one's will, but as the price that one paid for the privilege of taking part in this great nation of ours.

So what the hell changed?  When did we go from a great society that offered a hand up to a nation of greedy misers taking everything we can get our hands on and hanging on with all our might to every last cent?

We shouldn't really be that surprised when we look at who it is that is running this country now.  Just as the generation that survived economic calamity in the depression and suffered even more deprivation as they banded together under government imposed rationing to win World War II has become known as "The Greatest Generation," the baby boomers that came after should go down as "The Worst Generation." 

The Worst Generation in some ways couldn't help it.  They were raised enjoying all of the benefits that came from their parents' and grandparents' sacrifices without ever having to sacrifice themselves.  They gained a self-proclaimed  soul during the 1960s when they marched against Vietnam and joined the "counter-culture."  But really for most of them, it was just a way to get laid and not have to fight a war that they were all to happy to let their poorer uneducated brethren battle.  As soon as the war ended, they continued their excess through the 70s fueled now by cocaine instead of pot and LSD.  Then in the 80s, they cashed in, championing deregulation and irrational and excessive wealth.

In the 1990s they came into power and we have been on a downward slope ever since.  Bill Clinton offered the hope of a new generation of leadership and many of us, including me, bought into it.  While cloaking himself in the idealistic language of the Age of Aquarius (and Fleetwood Mac), in reality he was much more comfortable in the company of bankers than he was in the company of beggars.  Claiming faulty liberal credentials, he foisted possibly the greatest long con ever executed on the largest collection of marks ever gathered -- the entire American public.

Assisted by a period of unequaled economic growth and prosperity, instead of using this as an opportunity to enact legislation to shore-up the nation's safety net and insure equality and shared prosperity, Clinton instead enacted legislation which benefited the wealthiest of his donors while setting in motion the machinery that would lead to the immense economic inequality we see today.  Without much attention, Clinton not only signed but championed two pieces of legislation -- the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.  GLB did away with the Glass Steagall Act which had prevented financial companies from becoming Too Big to Fail and CFMA insured that the destructively complex instruments collectively known as derivatives would remain completely unregulated.  These two acts together have combined to lead both to the huge bubbles in both tech stocks and real estate during the 2000s and the inevitable collapse and subsequent bailout of 2008-present.

Oh, and he signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.  Some liberal.

Clinton signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall

In 2000, the second President of the Worst Generation was elected.  In some ways at least George W. Bush was more honest than Bill Clinton.  He had all of the same anti-equality, pro-bankster policies as Clinton with none of the pseudo-Liberal pretext.  Bush was a different part of the Worst Generation.  Just as Clinton before him, Bush managed to avoid having to serve in Vietnam (Bush by using his high-powered political connections through Daddy and Granddaddy to join the National Guard), he just didn't feel guilty about it.  I picture Bill Clinton putting daisies in GWB's M-16 during an anti-war protest at Harvard.

What Clinton started in his pro-banker legislation and deregulation of financial weapons of mass destruction (Warren Buffet's words, not mine), Bush put into overdrive.  Bush one upped Clinton much to the delight of his wealthy donors.  Not only did he continue the rash of deregulatory policies and threw trillions upon trillions of government money into the pockets of corporate backers in order to fight two wars (at least one of which was completely unnecessary) but he enacted the largest tax cut in history to boot.  This was the epitome in a way of the entire Baby Boomer philosophy: take everything you can get, as quickly as you can get it, and have everyone else pay for it.

Corporate irresponsibility was not only allowed, but it was encouraged, even endorsed with a government seal of approval.  Economic irresponsibility quickly spread throughout the nation.  Why should we live within our means?  Nobody else is.  Suddenly, migrant workers making $10,000 a year were buying $750,000 mansions.  Cocktail waitresses were purchasing three homes, each with no money down.  Consumers were encouraged to buy more than they could ever hope to afford, lured in by complex mortgage products such as interst-only loans and mortgages with low introductory teaser rates which blew up into  huge adjustible rates.

And who could blame those entering into these deals (except the blow-hards on CNBC)?  They were acting the same way as the traders on Wall Street who were, thanks to deregulatory legislation, leveraging themselves 10, 20, even 40 times their reserves in buying up securities based on these worthless loans.  Of course when it all came crashing down, the bankers got bailed out by the government they paid for, while the marks got foreclosed.

The financial bailout was the inevitable and ultimate conclusion of the philosophy of the Worst Generation.  Referred to during the 1970s as the "Me Generation," this collection of spoiled brats never allowed to suffer or know real failure, always bailed out by their parents was simply acting in the exact same way they have been taught.  The Worst Generation believes that there are no consequences for their irresponsible behavior, that what is good for them is the only measure of what is good, that the benefits conveyed by the previous generation are theirs to consume without any responsibility to provide benefits for the next generation.

This of course brings us to today.  As the Congress and the President debate, as The Onion so adeptly put it, whether or not they should destroy the nation's economy, all of the proposals being floated in one way or another take this philosphy even one step further.  Cutting Social Security benefits, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, slashing discretionary spending, all with no tax increases, a corporate tax holiday for corporations who have been stashing their money overseas to avoid taxes, and new measures of inflation which guarantee to continue to pound the lower class over and over and over again (more on this later), are all just the latest version of the "me first" philosophy which has permeated the baby boom generation for decades.  Is there any wonder why Paul Ryan's budget proposed phasing out Social Security and Medicare only for those under the age of 55?

The "Me Generation" has become the "Me and Only Me The Rest of You Be Damned" generation.  There is no more concern for the common good.  There is no expectation that we will take care of the weakest and most vulnerable among us.  It is a take what you can get, no holds barred race to oblivion and the one with the most toys wins.