Boomers: a lifetime of being marketed to

The term "baby boomer" seems overly broad in order to apply really meaningful analysis. Definitions can be vague and confusing. In a strict sense these people (including me) were born between 1946 and 1964.
Nebulous though the definition might be, the term has gained widespread usage. We must have recognizable spots, those of us born during that rather wide swath of time.
I have mentioned previously here that U.S. Senator James Webb has no time for the term. This politician who benefited from a Republican opponent's racial comment gaffe, would shrug and say the term is essentially meaningless. Sen. Webb says the boomers are bonded only by the coincidence of when they were born. That seems like irresistible logic.
But the boomers were subjected to stimuli that brought out distinctive, and in some limited ways counterproductive, behavior and attitudes. Having done some reading on the topic, I found a passage that jumped out at me - something that was somewhat buried in the item I was reading.
This quote was attributed to someone named Steve Gillon (no credentials cited) and it reads: "From the time they were conceived, boomers were dissected, analyzed and pitched to by modern marketers, who reinforced a sense of generational distinctiveness."
Television really bloomed in the mid-1950s and it was an aggressive tool for marketing. Saturday morning cartoons were not immune (hardly). Many boomers, even when very young, were fully aware of what was going on. In other words, they knew what all the marketing was about and how it manifested itself in otherwise innocuous entertainment.
This is what led to the popularity of Mad Magazine. The title of the magazine is short for "Madison Avenue" (the advertising/marketing hotbed of that time).
The mass entertainment so vigorously parodied in the magazine was revealed as a sort of lowest-common-denominator opiate that would attract eyeballs for marketers. Why do you think the satires were so funny? (I remember "The Virginia Ham" as a takeoff on the NBC western "The Virginian.")
Another item that struck me in my reading was the liberation brought by the transistor radio. With this tool the boomers could make their own music choices free of parental influence or censorship. What a difference this made! The Beatles and the Motown sound could be appreciated unfiltered.
I remember that in my neighborhood, the radio station of choice was KDWB, "Channel 63," with deejay "Tac" Hammer spinning the vinyl 45s of groups like The Association (with their "Windy," "Cherish" and "Along Comes Mary").
The sound was so alien to any musical fare that our parents might have appreciated. The difference was so profound, it's almost disturbing to reflect on it. The new music was raw.
Boomers have been allowed to define themselves. They grew up during a time of relative affluence which gave them the luxury of evaluating the world around them in broad and altruistic terms, as in their push with the environmental movement. "Iron Eyes" Cody was iconic with his crying face in that "Keep America Beautiful" public service announcement, remember?
"Iron Eyes," who was actually Italian and not Native American, surfaced in my memory last week as I was following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. "Iron Eyes" is no longer with us but his tears would never be more appropriate than now, what with the oil spill reaching such tragic proportions. His original tears were brought about by some mere litter tossed from a passing motor vehicle.
Litter can be cleaned up pretty routinely. The oil spill? Boomers were supposed to lead the way preventing this sort of thing. We are associated with idealism. We surely grew up trumpeting grand causes and inclusiveness. But I wonder if we're really so vigilant now.
Once associated with left wing politics (as in "the new left"), the boomers have decidedly drifted away from that posture so that politically at least, we seem not really different from other generations. The Wikipedia entry for "baby boomers" suggests that these people "are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values." But then is added: "But this is disputed."
I would suggest that boomers didn't so much throw off the yoke of authority or orthodoxy, rather they tweaked it so open discussion and dissent were more palatable or even encouraged. I remember Bill Walton on an ESPN talk show going on at length about this. The basketball great who went through a "hippie" phase said the young people of today don't realize how unpalatable the idea once was, of basically questioning authority.
While the same authority channels are well established today, there is a prevailing understanding that it is not tyrannical and that we can discuss different opinions or interpretations without being tossed aside.
The "hippies" (a loose term that applies to a lot of superficial traits many of which were hardly more than silly) were an in-your-face gesture to an older population that didn't want to discuss nuances in our societal institutions or issues of the day. Older people felt that if the U.S. deemed it necessary to have a Selective Service system and to conscript boys to fight abroad, we had to respect it. This was the most contentious issue of the formative years of many boomers.
By sheer force of numbers, the boomers were able to move some mountains with those societal institutions. Cultural and racial boundaries evaporated as we sought to move forward as a harmonious, enlightened society.
Today the demographic bulge known as the boomers has retreated from any new battles and is dealing with simple issues of age and survival. We are not immune to the inroads of age and the simple survival challenges it brings.
Our commitment to diet and exercise, so far beyond what our predecessors would have embraced, do not make us immortal. We will grow old and die.
We have long resisted the image of nursing home care, choosing instead to think in terms of "assisted care" if we need it.
It's just a case of the boomers being smart-alecks again (smarter than our elders, but not really). Because: we need to realize that when the time comes for us to seriously consider "assisted care," we will have some very serious problems, likely beyond what "assisted care" can address. A book on the new non-fiction rack at our Morris Public Library informed me that "assisted care is more a philosophy than an established body of practice." It seems less foreboding but it may not be as practical or within reach as we think.
The spectre of old age unpleasantness is out there. We need to approach it with the same courage as our elders, for whom we seem to feel more affection as time goes on (as in "The Greatest Generation" moniker).
We can only hope that the kind of social safety nets we were famous for promoting when young (when flirting with the "new left") are strong enough for us and that the young folks like us enough to make sure we can age with minimal adversity.
Let's see, we were always nice to you youngsters, weren't we?
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com