Our Disastrous Decade

The cover of Time magazine this week sums it up pretty well.
“The Decade From Hell.”
The magazine’s editors are detailing the years 2000 to 2009, the first decade of the 21st century that will mercifully come to an end when this month closes out.
They are calling it one of the worst decades in our nation’s history. And with good reason.
It began with the bitterly fought 2000 presidential election that split the country in two… a gap that doesn’t appear to have closed much.
It was quickly followed by the terrorists’ murderous assaults on Sept. 11, 2001.
That led to the Afghanistan invasion and then the Iraq war, two conflicts that continue to drag on.
In between, we suffered through the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the bankruptcies of Enron, General Motors and other large companies, the fatal fall-to-Earth of the space shuttle Columbia, the collapse of the housing market, the meltdown of our economy, the Bernie Madoff scandal.
Need I go on?
This disastrous decade unfolded while Baby Boomers were at the helm. Our generation entered 2000 between the ages of 36 and 54. We exit between the ages of 46 and 64.
Those are prime years. Those are the years a generation usually has control of industry, government and society.
We did. And, frankly, we made a mess.
This is going to take years to clean up. The two generations right behind us are the ones that will probably do most of the sweeping and repair work.
Baby Boomers, we need to atone for this debacle.
First, we can admit we blew it. We drove the nation into a ditch. We should apologize.
Then, we can look forward. As I said in my book, we have 30 productive years ahead of us. We have 10,000 days to make things better.
What we didn’t do when we were middle-aged, we can make up for when we are older.
It’s time to become senior statesmen of our society. To set a good example for the younger generations. To volunteer. To help fix things like Social Security and the health-care system. To be good grandparents.
We can’t undo this past decade. But we can make the next decade a much better one.