Political junkie that I am, I always enjoy watching films by Michael Moore and Dave Bossie and am grateful that I live in a country where robust political dialogue is not just tolerated but encouraged.
Citizens United's founder and president, Dave Bossie, came to Hollywood last night to give us a sneak peak at his latest film, Generation Zero. After watching it, two thoughts come to mind:
First, if you are a left-of-center baby boomer, this movie will infuriate you. For although Bossie and writer/director Stephen K. Bannon spread the blame around to many parties (and not just liberals) they take particular aim at baby boomers for creating a culture of indulgence and facilitating the idea that people who don't actually produce anything can nonetheless reap rewards as though they did.
Second, I will never look at an episode of Leave It To Beaver in quite the same way again, especially the June Cleaver character. Bossie and Bannon make the important but heretofore overlooked point that the American mom of the '50s, represented by Cleaver, had grown up in the Depression among great hardship. She had lost family members to war, watched parents lose their jobs, and when the war ended, she yearned for a sense of normalcy, serenity, and all that a white picket fence lifestyle offered.
But, according to the producers, that desire caused those moms to overindulge their children in the '50s culture of plenty, which in turn led to the culture of excess of the 60's generation -- and the throwing off of all societal norms, limits and prohibitions.
Personally, I think films like this do well when there is a narrator as with Moore in his movies or Ben Stein in Expelled, because people do access ideas through personalities. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film much as I do Moore's for giving me new perspectives and ways to look at the world.
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As far as the movie. Sounds like it is right on the money. My generation is the worst to ever inhabit this country. We have taken all the sacrifices that were made by previous generations especially my parents and flushed them down the toilet. We are a spoiled whiney narcissistic bunch of useless human meat. I just hope we don't destroy this country so much our children can't repair our damage,