Originally published at: The "Greatest" Generation… and ours | Boing Boing
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… and then the kids bring the enemy back home with them.
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There were right-wing America Firsters with degraded sensibilities making category errors about the real threat in 1939-1941 and then sacrificing their kids as well. Just not as many as there are now.
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yep, and potential right-side panel four: …and mean-whle i’ll wear nazi themed t-shirts and join fascist on-line groups
-sigh-
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we really should spend more time declaring how anti-American and unpatriotic these MAGAs are.
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Kind of glosses over just how deeply pro-fascist America was right up until the day Hitler declared war of the US.
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I get the joke, but it plays into the myth that the “Greatest Generation” were enthusiastic about getting into WWII. Most weren’t. My own grandfather eventually went, but only after he was drafted. Having his own dad serve in the first one made him understandably skeptical that this was a great thing.
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A’in’t my generation, yo.
Everyone always seems to forget about jaded Gen X.
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Although it’s weird that our spokesmen, Douglas Coupland and Billy Idol, are technically Boomers.
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I am chagrined to say that I had forgotten about that one; still accurate.
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I was referring to the phrase we use for ourselves, “Generation X”, which was the name of Billy Idol’s band and a novel by Coupland, both Boomers. I’m not sure if you did it intentionally, but most of the actors you show are also Boomers, even if they played characters that would be GenX if they really were the high schoolers they were supposed to be. Michael J. Fox is as old as Obama, being born in 1961. Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez were in 1962. I’ll give you Molly Ringwald (1968) and Winona Ryder (1970), though.
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The “greatest” generation also made good and sure to keep down all the Blacks, gays, and women. They didn’t know what a “trans” was yet but they’d be sure and beat them to death as soon as they found out.
They were good at punching Nazis, yet they agreed way more with them then they cared to admit.
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Well… about that…
I’m not going to belittle the effort and sacrifice the allies made, but I often wish they had done a more thorough punching of some Nazis.
The ‘Persilschein’ was - possibly out of real necessity - issued far to easily in many, many cases. OTH, I don’t know what would have happened if they had done denazification with sprichwörtlicher Deutscher Gründlichkeit…
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I listen to a lot of old time radio from around the time of WWII and what strikes me the most is all the talk of the rationing, victory gardens, and ads about buying war bonds. The US might not have been enthusiastic about joining the fray, but when they did, it was something every “regular” American was affected by so much more so than today.
@Melizmatic - nailed it on who I think of as my generational spokespeople! Would possibly add Kurt Cobain and Christian Slater for their influence at an influential time of life.
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The US Nazi party was also quite large and nearly became a viable political party before and during the war. They held rallies as big as any MAGA clown show. Those people were the same “greatest” generation.
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Uh, that I didn’t know. I pinned them down as popular among certain people for a short time, but not having many people following them, or even showing up at their rallies.
At some point, I will have to look into how much support Nazi ideology had in several countries, and how the people in those countries got rid of them.
Not today or in the near future, though. I feel this would not be good for my general well-being. I don’t have the stomach for chewing this.
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You’ll find this interesting.
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Thanks. I wasn’t saying that the actors are literal “spokesmen,” but that the characters they played fill that role.
Good call on both Cobain and Slater.
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