Reply to post #33 (show post):
I'd argue we're still in it from the 60's MR - the age where it was ALL about discovering what felt good and what turned you on as an individual. There were certainly good people who did good things (Peace Corps), but the overall culture of individualism, I'd argue, started there. And in terms of losing all semblance of higher standards for our leaders, I have no problem pointing the finger at Clinton, the first of the baby boomer presidents (guess who the other two are? GW Bush and, yep, Trump - coincidence?). All accomplishments of statecraft aside, his presidency was the moment, in my opinion, when we said as a nation "it doesn't matter what kind of person he is, as long as he gets the job done and gives us what we want". And then he lied under oath with no consequences. So it's not much of a stretch to the orange lunatic fringe we have soiling the oval office carpet at the moment. Whatever anybody thought of Reagan, or Carter, or LBJ. The world respected those leaders, not laughed at them. And none of them abused the oval office and what it stood for. (I'm not touching jfk)

I'll go further and offer as a rebuttal that while the 80's were certainly the pinnacle decade of crass commercialism and self-absorption, we still had a highly developed ideal of our obligations on the world stage, and who was going to represent us on it. Yep, we ended up with a B movie star, but think about all the also-rans that were tossed aside because we refused to countenance scandal in our leaders. Monkey Business anyone? Candidates used to be DOA if they had anything less than a squeaky clean image and spotless closets. Now, we revel in the bad boy on both sides of the aisle. In the 20th century, jfk was the outlier, with his playboy ways; in the 21st Century, it's Obama that's the outlier with his education, class, and strong ethics.

Both parties need to clean house and remember what dignity and diplomacy and statecraft mean and why they're important. Oh, and the concept of learned debate too. And voters need to start demanding candidates that qualify as role models instead of cautionary tales. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to make that happen and it depresses me.

It is healthy and good to be that self-reflective to think what this really big nation with lot of communities really stand for.

The idea that a person can do whatever they want to do is a very American thing.

For the news of anti-quarantine protest in US hit the news. It is still a bit shocking. Either these people are quite unaware of the seriousness of this pandemic, or they are truly selfish and lack compassion for the people in their community. The US has the one of the highest infection rate. Their sense of self has trumped their sense of civic duty.

I hope they would come to their senses when they read about the current infection rate. Flatten the curve save lives.

A good leader is important. But all these actions are not from the US president. It is from the people themselves and their sense of entitlement.

I mean no offence. And I'm aware that he international news is selective and do not represent the larger population in America who are like me, doing whatever they can to stop the spread and reduce the pressure for their health care workers.

I only hope this is yet another wake up call and Trump would not get a second term. Only if more people in America would vote, and maybe reform the election system as Electoral College make the person with less vote count to become president.

I judge people on their individual actions, not their generation.

Reagan was as dishonest as he was affable. There's a reason so many from his administration were convicted of crimes.

Reply to post #38 (show post):
I made no reference in my post about Reagan's culpability or lack thereof, only that he wasn't an international joke, and that he was generally respected as a world leader.

And in spite of some of my favorite people, and those I respect most, being baby boomers, perhaps I do judge the generation harshly as a whole; I admit to having a chip on my shoulder about the state of the world, both before the pandemic and now. Statistically, most of the men running the world right now, and all those white capitalists everybody is eviscerating, qualify as baby boomers. It's hard for me to maintain my objectivity, though I do try.

Reply to post #40 (show post):
Thanks Char.

"Let's face it, there is no one in all of America who sense of entitlement is bigger than Trump's." -- complete agreement here.

It is just hard for me to imagine that so many Americans has so low resistance to Trump's tweets. It is also hard to understand why a leader could be that irresponsible in the middle of a pandemic.

Reply to post #42 (show post):
Coming clean. I'm a crier. It didn't take much for me to burst out in tears.

Seeing such high dead rate in such a resourceful country make me want to cry. It make no sense. New York has the highest infection rate. And maybe people realized the safety rule too late. So many good people in one of the richest country in the world are dying and the leader seems to be as self-absolved as ever.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/

People are not just statistic to me. They are someone's mother, father, uncle and aunt and they are very real. That's why it is so heartbreaking to read such news.

With that said, please stay safe. It is very scary to know that there are hidden carriers still spreading the virus without developing any symptom.

@MBD & Linda:

I actually think you can judge generations, while understanding that the generational judgment shouldn't be applied to the individuals within it. The Baby Boomers are a disappointment They took the greatest economic expansion that the world has ever known and collectively, they squandered it by adopting policies that led us to where we are today.

Does that mean that I fault every individual boomer equally? Of course not. Nor do I hold individuals responsible - especially when I know that the individual in question doesn't support, doesn't agree, didn't benefit personally, and has lived their life in a way that is consistent with a higher purpose.

I fault my own generation - Generation X - as well. We were so steeped in our nihlism and ironic detachment that we just sat around, in our ineffable coolness, and let all of this happen. Does that mean that there aren't individuals of my generation who've done better? Of course there are. But we've failed, too.

I don't know if the Millennials or the Zoomers or whatever comes next will do any better. I doubt they can do worse.

Reply to post #44 (show post):
I'm at the tail end of the boomers ( I was born in 1957) and I think of myself as one of Attlee's children.

Clem Attlee was UK Prime Minister from 1945 - 1951. He gave us the NHS, Sick Pay, Unemployment Benefit, Pensions, free access to education, full employment in a mixed economy, a massive investment in social housing and a move from Empire to Commonwealth. He was committed to removing the extremes of poverty and wealth.

Because of the changes he introduced. I received all my health care and dental care for free as a child, I became the first person in my family ever to go to University, which I did with no fees and with a grant to cover my living expenses, which meant I left with no debt. On the occasions when I couldn't work, I could claim unemployment benefit.

In other words, he provided a ladder for me to climb, a safety net if I fell and he funded it by tax the wealthiest via inheritance tax, progressive taxation and a contribution from workers and employers to a National Insurance scheme that funded state pensions.

I am ashamed to say that, instead of passing this benefit forward, my generation pulled up the ladder, shredded the safety net and progressively transferred wealth from the poor to the rich and embraced Margaret Thatcher's dictum that there was no such thing as society.

Part of this seems to have come about because people in my generation who had prospered thought they had done so on their own merits. This is like boats rising on the tide thinking they had lifted themselves up.

Many of those who had not prospered blamed that on supporting 'the scroungers' who lived off the state and become sure that they would thrive if only everyone 'got on their bike' and worked harder. This seems like self-serving blindness to me. Those who did not prosper mostly didn't do so because our government abandoned whole industries - steel, coal, shipping - and did nothing to help the regions that the death of these industries devastated.

Attlee's generation - who had been through two world wars, had seen the hollowness of the promise of 'a land fit for heroes' at the end of WWI and had seen the British aristocracy cosy up to Fascism in the thirties, had a passion for politics, a hunger for change and a vision of a better future.

My generation had a passion for Italian suits, German cars, Swedish furniture and owning their own home. Their politics was the politics of greed and distrust and envy wrapped up as individual freedom and entrepreneurship.

With the clarity of hindsight, Attlees biggest failure was that he made things better without explaining what was needed to keep them better.

Mike, you've identified a huge part of the problem - the people who benefited most from the expansion of wealth and equality have told themselves that they did it on their own merits.

I had a conversation with a police officer not that long ago that went something like this:

Me: says something innocuous because I never talk politics with police officers
Him: well, I'm a libertarian and I think that taxation is theft.
Me: stares at him in bafflement, while thinking to myself "well, if that's the case, then you've been committing aggravated theft for 25 years, because your salary is paid through taxes, and you are retiring in three months, and then your pension will be paid with taxes, so what the fuck? Where do you think your paycheck comes from, the money fairy?"
Me: continues to stare in bafflement, wonders if I should say the above out loud and get into an argument with a guy who will 1) not take any responsibility for the vast cognitive dissonance that he has rigged up in his brain to deal with the reality that policing is socialism, and therefore, he's full of shit and 2) who is retiring in three months, which means that the fight will be utterly pointless and I'll likely never see him again.
Me: continues to stare in bafflement, sighs, changes subject back to work.

How do you even begin to talk to people if that's what they believe?

@Portable Magic Update today: Harris County (Houston) just got a 30 day order that all must wear masks when out in public. Why do we always wait so long ? Why couldn't we have done this a month ago and saved some lives and time ? I will gladly wear one to protect others and myself as much as possible.

Reply to post #47 (show post):
MR: to your previous post re: the baby boomers, thank you for putting what I was thinking much more eloquently and concisely than I did. I'm disappointed in our generation too (X'ers): I imagined us doing much better things, being a moderate voice of reason that would bring a balance. Don't know where that fantasy came from - I can't even blame drugs in high school. To the point about the police officer, you're much better disciplined than I - no way I could have curbed the impulse to at least point out that he's paid with taxpayer money.

@Char: Poor Obama, I'd give anything to have him back as president right now, but he did often have a way of phrasing things that would inadvertently piss off republicans. My mother started and owned her own business for 40+ years, and I can just imagine her hair all standing on end hearing that. My father literally built the building the shop was in - twice (a cash register caught fire and burned the building down in the 80's), and she worked 6 days a week building that business, working unbelievable hours.

BUT Obama is right - AND she's right. It takes both government support and infrastructure, and individual ingenuity and hard work to build a business; one cannot exist without the other. But Americans take for granted that roads and bridges just exist, that tax benefits for small business are their inalienable right, that when your building catches fire, the firemen will show up (though in my mom's case, that's a bad example: our fire department in entirely volunteer), that the police will be there when they need them. Most americans long ago disconnected those services with the taxes they pay. That disconnect is somewhat understandable in Florida, where there is no state income tax. We pay federal taxes and all our services are state funded; on one level you know the money comes back, but any transparency that might have been there is lost. (Plus Florida has a history of crooked scavengers running government, but that's a different argument.)

Hello fellow Booklikers, and Happy Monday. I hope you are all well. I got out of the house for the first time in a couple of weeks. My BFF's birthday was Friday, so all our friends got some Fogo de Chão to go and picnicked in the back yard, with 6 foot distancing of course, and had wine and birthday cake and caught up.

Otherwise, I got some reading done. I got new cushions for my patio chairs to make my patio reading more comfortable, and am studiously ignoring my unfolded laundry. Also, my icemaker is working again, so I'm enjoying my iced teas again.

How are y'all today?

@Portable Magic, it sounds like you had a wonderful day. Laundry folding ? why ? It will just get wrinkled again when you wear it. LOL
I'm gardening, re-planting some veggies, weeding, and crossing my fingers for some rain. I need/want to go to the garden center I had plans to plant a lemon tree, lime tree and a red grapefruit this spring but it's not looking good for this year :( before the summer heat comes. Finally we are under a mask order here i'm so happy hopefully most will wear them.

Well, the governor of Texas just announced a very aggressive timeline for lifting pandemic restrictions. It cancels all local county requirements and (apparently) only requires special accommodation for seniors, not for other vulnerable populations. Very limited enforcement - max individual penalty of $1000 or 180 days in jail.

Hello all :)
I'm going to dig out the art stuff and start painting again tomorrow, I think. It's been about 15 years so it's probably overdue. In other news my Morrisons food box that was supposed to be delivered today was destroyed by DPD as they said t was damaged. Spoke to Morrisons and another one is coming for delivery tomorrow so fingers are crossed but I was a bit ragey earlier :/ Hope you're all well and finding time to read a bit here and there.