Who's in Control?

By all appearances, the normal are not in control. 

The talkers, the takers, the enabled, the fringe element act as if they are, but who is really keeping things afloat in our land?  Who is keeping the families together? Who is keeping our society and economy together—our businesses, the military, our legal system, our churches, educational institutions at all levels, health care, our scientific community, our government—community, state, and national?  

Some people—the noise makers—do not want to hear it; it is so ‘politically incorrect. ’ But the facts are, folks, that the discredited Baby Boomer generation of predominately white men and women are keeping this battered ship afloat. It is they who hold the keys, or in today’s world, the passwords. 

No, I did not miss the last election.  President Obama was elected, but as he found in the last four years, he was certainly not in charge.  Neither was even President Lincoln, as good a man as he was, truly in charge in his fractious administration. 

Who should be? How about those of whom President Lincoln spoke: a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” of, as we of my generation subscribed to, “one nation under God.”  

We ‘boomers’ are not perfect—far from it, but it is we who hold the great majority of political offices, who are on the boards, the councils, in positions of leadership in industry, education, service clubs and organizations, the military and law enforcement, and in all the constructions and institutions that provide the backbone of this country. It is the boomers who are the producers and the providers the populace falls back on. 

The Boomer generation is the safety net, the resource base, the ocean if you will, that keeps afloat all who ride on its ample bosom.  It is they who are the middle-aged and the grandparents (no longer the great-grandparents who are the so-called ‘Greatest Generation’) who try to hold ungrounded, irresponsible, dysfunctional extended families together, who own and direct the businesses that supply the jobs, the farms that supply the food, who own the homes that provide the shelter, who are the fire and police chiefs and captains, the military officers, the experienced teachers and college professors, the investors, the men and women who provide the brainpower and willpower and stability that keep the whole thing afloat and on course. 

Of course the chronically unemployed and uneducated, the chronic recipients of governmental welfare or parental support, the lawbreakers, the anti-establishment misfits and radicals, the fringe elements would have us believe otherwise,  but I would ask you, what, really, have they contributed besides a leak in the cistern?

I contend that there still is a vast silent majority of middle-aged Americans, the body of water, so to speak, that has had so much waste dumped into it, that supports all the great ships and little boats that float upon it.   We should be grateful that it hasn’t dried up or that some greater power has not yet pulled the drain plug.  That Power may yet. It is not an inexhaustible resource and He does not have inexhaustible patience. 

  

In saying all this I am not disparaging the younger generation or peoples of color or ethnic or religious groups or anybody who is here in this country legally and who believe and act in accordance with the duties and privileges of citizenship. Their day is coming and I hope they are prepared to lift the load.  I am just saying to them, to mix the metaphor, what I remember being told as a boy: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.    
The mood of our country is unanchored; the fleet has come loose from its moorings.  It needs to get the strong hands on deck to drop a more substantial anchor into its traditional bedrock of in faith in God, respect for the law, knowledge of and fidelity to our founding principles and necessary institutions. Being loose, our various-sized-and-aged and many-colored vessels are being buffeted by contrary winds that threaten to sink them.  Every vessel needs to have a compass, a rudder, a sail, an anchor. 

And then it needs to use them.

It should also be glad to have a safe harborage and a body of water to sail upon.