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Our parents passed on to us one of the most progressive and economically affluent periods of history and we failed, horribly, to carry the torch of progress forward.

The one inescapable, and, increasingly irreversible reality that fellow boomers refuse, as of yet, to face is the fact that our parents passed on to us one of the most progressive and economically affluent periods of history and we failed, horribly, to carry the torch of progress forward. Futilely, we preach the same old progressive stuff ad nauseam, never really believing our collective society will seriously strive to do what we wish it to do.

So isn’t our resentment of millennials and their attitude really a profound jealousy? You know, the type of jealousy you feel when someone is actually accomplishing something you wanted to accomplish but did not have the guts to follow through on?

And whose reality are the millennials so out of touch with, if they are simply making for themselves the world we have been preaching? It seems all they are out of touch with is our boomer two-facedness. Good for them.

And just how much of a guarantee can we give to the millennials that they will not have to deal with the detritus of the broken society we left them? What kind of hard choices will millennials have to face when the ugly economic and political face of increasing social in-equality, economic mismanagement, budget deficit, corporate greed, ongoing war and global warming rear their ugly faces in years to come?

As they will inevitably have to clean up our mess, it may be in boomers’ best interests, as we enter our twilight years and will require more public assistance and care, that millennials continue to hold on to all the progressive ideals we fumbled.

Robert Smol is a retired teacher and veteran. He is currently studying law in Toronto. rmsmol@gmail.com

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