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I was 10 years old, my older siblings very much a part of the counter-culture. They earned their PHD's on one quarter of the tuition and expenses it took me to barely scrape by through technical school certificate. They climbed the heights of Mount Vesuvius, disowned and severed all connections to my generation. I often asked them what happened to those ideals, they reply with stunned silence.
I remember seeing how the older relatives reacted to the notions of peaceful coexistence and ecology and I was ashamed of them. All long passed on now.
And at 59 years old I'm shocked. Mind-numbingly shocked how, especially the rethuglicans have kept alive the oily-garchy that through my teen years I thought we had a shot at collectively taking down. This song remained a theme of hope in my mind.

Oh, how niave I was. To think we'd be powered by clean solar energy, riding super fast trains everywhere. What a clean, social future we had before us, sharing the abundance in equanimity, working on repairing the damage of the dirty energy magnates.

A decade passed. Mesmerized "greatest generation" America voted in an actor hero, the total puppet of the oily-garchy, the military-industrial complex, determined to impoverish and enslave, imprison and establish absolote power, and I was ashamed of them. I attempted, with futility, to warn them of a potential dystopian future, especially for me, the youngest of my line.

Now nearly half a century later, billions pull oversized, overpowered gas guzzler pickem'up'trucks to pour hundreds of dollars into environment-wrecking symbols of that coup, hauling one or two fat asses at a time to the all you can eat buffet. Only glimmers of that cleaner, more peaceful world came with each time the republicans were put in their rightful place. Fox news and other RW hate-media debut saw to the destruction of all that could heal divisiveness and rampant pollution.

Last November I watched every last glimmer of that hopeful future crumble into dust. We had our chance to make history with either candidate. We had our chance, and was defeated by the installation of a rigged system, and unfair and unbalanced information media system, destroying the ecosystem at an unprecendented rate... and all so the "greatest generation" could rot in gold plated caskets.

And I'm ashamed. At the notion that enough of this nation got fooled again.

I apologize for the tone of this note. But it's honestly how I see it now. I'll get to retire on dollar store rations at my off-grid retreat. And all because I was disowned by being different, gay, and hoping for a better future than that of my racist, pseudo-christian, ignorant and PROUD of that self-centered ignorance, self-centered forebears.

I'm paying the price now for their gold-plated retirements.

I can't disagree with anything you said lambchopp59. I'm 53...not too far behind you and it is clear that I, like you, and many others are paying the price for the gold-plated retirements of the few. The fix was in with Reagan and has gained steam ever since.

By all counts, a very powerful man, trying his best to look very powerful indeed. There are people close to him, however, who paint a very different picture. They say that the man is actually sitting on a gold toilet, his serious look is actually that of a man in very serious need, trying hard to finish his one most urgent job. Tonight, we go behind that desk and enter a world of dark and light, of needs of patience and paper towels. It exists in another dimension known as, "The Twilight Zone."

Well written