This isn’t mundane, nor is it pointless. But I couldn’t think where else to put it.
June 6, 1944. D-Day.Operation Overlord is initiated and the Allies storm the beaches.
72 years ago, and we have sunk so far as a society that we now have to have “safe spaces”. They truly were the Greatest Generation.
I would have put this in the Pit, it sounds like a rant.
What is wrong about “safe spaces” that is upsetting you? Some context would be helpful.
I’m sure veterans of the M.E. fighting will enjoy your characterization of them.
Coopting D-Day for a piss-poor jab at the current generation is classy as fuck.
This just might be what has upset the OP.
I haven’t read it yet, maybe after my nap.
That “Greatest Generation” was also, on the whole, sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and encrusted with outdated beliefs that would take decades to outgrow. Not so great, after all.
Ironically, that’s the price they paid for having the highest aspiration any generation can have: to make the world a better place for the next generation. So rather than condemn them, we should thank them for making it possible for us to hold better beliefs than they held themselves. And we should do the the same thing they did; try to make the world a better place so future generations can look back in appalled shock at the way we lived.
And the Nazis weren’t?
I have no doubt that faced with similar circumstances, the current generation would act just as heroically. Remember, some have greatness thrust upon them.
OK, OK, they were better than the Nazis.
“Safe spaces” comment aside, I imagine the OP is trying to thank a previous generation for selflessly running headlong into a meat grinder to defeat one of the biggest evils of the 20th century. It was my sincere honour to stand straight and solemn as the bagpipes past by my house on Sunday. Let’s say thanks in comfort knowing we’ll never have to do the same.
Instead of the phrase “the greatest generation”, there is a better way to describe all those millions of people.
A phrase that is accurate, but not emotionally loaded:
Call them the generation who lived through the greatest events…
And for us younger folks: let us all hope that we will never be called to do the same.
(and yeah…let’s begin by denouncing safe spaces and trigger warnings. I propose that every crybaby student who whines about these concepts, should be paired up with another student on the same campus who has proudly worn a uniform and served in Iraq. Let the poor little snowflake share a dorm room with the veteran, meet a few of the vets’ friends,…and grow up.)
To the OP,
Given your history here I will submit that you chose the safe route to put this in this forum. Too bad you didn’t have the courage to place this in a forum that would allow a more adult debate.
Let’s not. The OP hasn’t given any reasons for whatever his problem with safe spaces is.
And what makes you think veterans don’t need safe spaces? I have never been in the military, but I have heard that many vets suffer from PTDS, Brain injury, mental heath issues and many other need a place to talk about their experiences in a safe, non-judgement place.
Also, if the OP’s intent was to thank those who took part in D-Day, he blew it. A simple reminder what today is and a thank you to those who served & gave their all.
Yes, “outdated beliefs” like “unionization is necessary to maintain a mass middle-class society” and “the New Deal needs to be expanded to embrace the Second Bill of Rights outlined by FDR”. For all their faults, the Greatest Generation in both their accomplishments and subsequent behaviour were vastly superior to the Boomers who first through the co-option of the left by identitarian politics and then mass embrace of the New Right of Reagan and Gingrich destroyed the New Deal coalition and bequeathed onto their own children a society that pretty much erased the vast gains that the Greatest Generation had accomplished. Give me Scoop Jackson or Robert Byrd any day over Gavin Newsome or Joe Lieberman.
Once again, I wish you’d stop putting words in people’s mouths and attributing to them ideas they have not expressed. I will call you on this whenever you continue to do it.
At no time did I include unionization and the New Deal in those outdated beliefs. And even if I did, they would hardly outweigh rampant institutional sexism, racism and homophobia that destroyed countless millions of lives.
But you’re right about Gavin Newsome and Joe Lieberman.
What about the Great Generation in the 1960s, who risked their liberty to bravely stand up and protest the vicious cycle of endless mindless war, and refused to take part? (We just lost one of those heroes this week.) Did that not take courage? Those who did go to war, many lost their lives, all lost the war, some lost their personal sense of honor and humanity, and their nation lost global credibility and respect. We lost the war, but the world unfolded the same as if we had won it, and there was nothing there to be gained.
