Stop Blaming Boomers. It’s the Greatest Generation That Ruined America.

Michael Evans/ZUMAPRESS

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I’m running out of things to say this year, so how about this: We should stop blaming boomers for “ruining America.” Everyone is picking on the wrong generation.

  • Start in the 60s and 70s. Boomers were in college then, and they played significant roles in the rise of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, the sexual revolution, and the antiwar movement. Those are all good things, right?
  • In the late 70s and 80s, the economic policies that would define the next several decades were put in place. But at this point, boomers were junior analysts and low-level aides. This stuff was put in place by Reagan conservatives, members in good standing of the Greatest Generation.
  • In the 90s, Bill Clinton tried to reverse some of this stuff. It was only half-heartedly, true, but then again, Clinton was only barely a boomer. And he never had a chance anyway. The conservative take on the economy was set in stone by then.

There’s no question that boomers have benefited from all this stuff, but they’re not the ones who ruined the economy for millennials. You can chalk that up to the Greatest Generation. Maybe we should come up with a new name for these folks?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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