Earlier today I replied to a post by actress and former journalist Stephanie Woerhmann, who was writing about the generalized lack of inertia in Generation X and how this resulted, in some ways, from the duplicitousness of the Baby Boomer generation. Here is what I offered in my response, followed by some additional commentary.

As a tail-end Baby Boomer (I’m 52), I can definitely see my reflection in your work. It’s quite true, in my opinion, that the Boomer generation started out with high ideals but ended up consumed by a passion for consumption. It’s an addiction, really, and the cartel for it is legitimate business. Capitalism. The epidemic has washed over us so completely that we feel we have devolved at some basic level, in our DNA perhaps, so that we need this to survive. But it’s our own creation and as complicated as it looks, we can change it. That I think is the mindset of those of us who still believe in humanity.

Now, I am sure there are some who feel that our present form of capitalism was created and established by the Founding Fathers through some Divine Inspiration. Sadly, they’re wrong.  The earliest American economic system was a mixture of old-world ocean-based trading, new world colonization and expansionism, and good ol’ fashion plantation farming, which existed primarily through the labors of slaves.

In fact, up until the 1920s or so, the vast majority of Americans lived on farms, and the primary economy of this country was based on farming.

How far we have come.

In the past 100 years, this nation has catapulted itself not just out of its farming base, but off the planet as well.  This great launch didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen, surprise surprise, because of the Baby Boomers.

It was the creation of those whom Canadian television journalist Tom Brokaw lovingly refers to as “The Greatest Generation,” aka the leaders, veterans, scientists and captains of industry who rose out of the Great Depression and World War II.

It was this generation that was responsible for the military industrial complex, the housing boom, the revitalization of higher education and the development of atomic energy, to name just a few.

But this generation also put its stamp on the American psyche, creating the “Hell or high water” mindset of goal orientation without regard to consequences.

Today, we haphazardly note that the Baby Boomers were the kids of this group, without taking serious note of what this means, e.g., most of us were Army brats.

There are a few points to be made about this.

First of all, Baby Boomers didn’t grow up in a vacuum. We were greatly influenced by our parents. This meant we had a core set of values that included Faith, Loyalty, Discipline, Focus, Bravery, Respect, and Duty.

It’s often said that each generation is the product of a rebellion from the last, and that was true of the Baby Boomers as well. Kids who were born in the Boom had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to life, and they were right. This became the genesis of the Beatniks, the Flower Children and so on, which to many observers blossomed in 1968, the Summer of Love. This generation valued relationships, culture, science, art, music and theater to an unprecedented degree. It was a generation of dreamers, born with a mindset that anything you could envision, you could do.

Of course, because the Boomer Generation hadn’t yet taken the wheel of industry and government, the Greatest Generation was still in control, resulting in the Viet Nam War, which shook the Boomer generation to its core and divided it along several lines that still exist today in the platforms of the two major political parties: gun control, drug policy, womens’ rights, gay rights, immigration, and the military industrial complex itself.

This resulted in a stunning conflict within the Boomer generation itself, which may in fact be its defining characteristic.

At the same time, this confusion enabled the military industrial complex to persist, lazily following behind the technology industry, undermining civil liberties through better surveillance.

Almost every major company in Silicon Valley in the 1960s, 70s and 80s had its roots in some military project of the time, mostly basic research into the computing technology necessary to create and test military hardware. As this technology came online, it spread quickly into university applications, corporations and finally to the general public in the form of personal computing.

But at each step along the way, it fell short.

Raised on values like discipline and focus, the Boomer generation rebelled, looked inward, and then it produced a modern progressive movement that is removed from the military industrial complex and yet still feeds it.

It is a generation that values freedom and liberty and yet still has the desire for castles and fences.

It’s a generation that intrinsically understands that every human being should be able to do as he or she pleases, and yet can’t overcome the tendency to see women as sex objects and homosexuality as sin.

It’s the generation that put a man on the moon, but still can’t figure out how to resolve conflicts peacefully.

The Boomer generation grew up playing with GI Joes and toy guns, Barbies and pink bicycles, and when it was old enough and mature enough to enter the workforce, it reshaped American industries into modern giants of computing, entertainment, transportation, applied science and pharmaceuticals, to name a few.

But it didn’t get very far. Certainly, it didn’t achieve its dreams.

The Boomer generation did produce dramatic social change, but fundamentally, it has sabotaged itself by surrendering that energy and replacing it with a selfish desire for personal gain.

Today, the Boomer generation is mostly disheartened. Cynicism is rampant. Our politicians still bow to the military industrial complex and our business leaders hire and fire their own friends with a casual coldness born of a desire to simply disconnect and protect their own interests.

Cognizant that the old system is broken, we’ve become content to hole up in our homes and market little things to each other. Things that produce complacency or mildly entertain rather than inspiring or moving the next generation to a new level of greatness.

In short, we’ve produced a system that rewards Generation X (a term coined by marketers, of course), to pitch war game apps and Nikki Minaj videos to the planet. We’re not even offering a candle of hope to them.

It’s no wonder there’s restlessness in the crowds.

Why has it taken Facebook so long to make its IPO filing?

Simply, it was doing just fine without one.

Back in the day, if you had a good idea, a good roadmap, good staff and good management, you could take a company public and expect to see a strong return…as long as you continued to innovate.

If you couldn’t innovate, you couldn’t expect to go public.  Investors wanted to see a plan with discernible milestones and anticipated growth curves.

That’s  the traditional model of business in America.

Well, the tech age we live in today is fundamentally different.

Right now, it’s possible to have a good idea and move it so far by yourself that it changes what a half billion people do on daily basis.

No money has to change hands. Customers never have to spend a dime.

You simply create a platform that they can’t do without…intuitive, transparent, shareable, open…and then open the door for commerce.

That’s what Facebook has done, and the company has taken this model just about as far as it will go on a PC platform.

If you’ve noticed the recent changes to Facebook, they almost always involve the PC version first and then maybe move on to mobile platforms. That’s because the one place Facebook doesn’t understand as well as it would like to, is the mobile environment.

In fact it didn’t even have a real mobile environment to speak of for years.

The more Facebook technologists look into this market, the more they realize that it’s not just about the smart phone or the tablet, although these alone are already greatly increasing Facebook’s market reach.

It’s also about a wireless communications infrastructure that will soon deliver content seamlessly around the home or office, like a ping-pong ball bouncing from one device to another, in HD and with no discernible latency.

This opens up a whole new world of possibilities, and most of these revolve around HD-quality entertainment properties…aka, licensed properties. There is immense opportunity to serve as the social media platform for this new world.

Ironically, this means dealing with the same big boys who have been pushing entertainment industry the brick down the road for years. Entertainment giants. Cable companies. Satellite and infrastructure providers. Governments. And of course, black markets.

And that’s the reason for the IPO.

Facebook cannot continue to innovate without a deep dive into technologies and ecosystems that it doesn’t understand or influence, yet.

Whereas in the past, the company was astute at cannibalizing third party app makers, borrowing from their offerings and kicking them to the curb, it’s now at a place where it is outpacing its ecosystem, and there’s a big chasm between it and the next big market.

Nobody is making apps for some of the things it wants to do.

And nobody in-house has the technical expertise or business associations necessary to move forward.

That means acquisitions are in order. Big ones.

The company could easily do this with cash on hand, but it’s likely to benefit from involving the markets as well. After all, why spend your own money when you can spend someone else’s, make a killing and then pay them back from the profits?

It’s just good business.

This is a compilation of my posts from Facebook this morning… Lest anyone mistake any of what I’m posting here, it’s my rendition of a lampoon of conservative politics.

1. Save the economy. That’s easy enough. Just hint at an extreme conservative agenda. Works better than taxes, the powerful will turn the money pipe in your direction.

2. Save our schools. Easy cheesy. Privatize, jack up the tuition and market to the elite in China.

3. Jobs. Another piece of cake. Go to Bangkok and Manila and buy up all the little food carts and tricycle taxis, then franchise them to all the poor lazy folk sitting around doing nothing all day.

4. Health care. Just a tad harder due to all the poor folk sitting around doing nothing all day. The trick, of course, is to cut the rising cost of health care. Much of this comes from treating increasingly older peeps, like me! Let’s just stop doing that. Time to wake up, smell the coffee and die.

5. Family values. Lets adopt the Newt Gingrich model: There are no rules. This way, everyone gets to learn just how important it is to blindly follow dear old narcissist dad to the end, no matter how dark and twisted it may be.

6. The environment. I’ve always wondered why anyone would want to live in Canada or Russia or Alaska. Turn up the thermo! Then everything will be nice and warm, and we’ll get the added benefit of sinking New York, Miami, Washington D C and much of San Francisco too.

7. Energy. Put all the GOP front runners and their supporters on treadmills and hook them up to the power grid. ‘Nuff said.

8. Religion. Gingrich model again. Follow the church that kicks down the most money to your campaign. Dope the wife so she doesn’t notice the hypocrisy.

9. Foreign policy. Romney model. Tell your investment managers to squeeze their companies to outsource labor to all those bad countries so their working class won’t have a reason to be angry at us anymore. Ignore effects on our working class, that’s a different issue.

10. Your sexuality. I have lots of gay lesbian bisexual transgender abortion proponent friends. They just can’t work for me any of my straight friends. Maybe they can start a circus or something.

11. Military. Yes, we have one. Yes, it costs a gazillion dollars. But no, we’re not gonna change that because it’s the only way to run a government-sponsored education/health care/social security/job security system that doesn’t look socialist.

12. Taxes. Yes, you need to pay them. We don’t, but you do.

13. The state of capitalism. There is one, and it’s outside the territorial US. If you try to reel it in, that’s class warfare and were just a really tiny little island nation. Only 0.01 percent the size of the US.

14. Foreigners. This is one of those pay-to-play things, which is very Capitalist, which makes it right. If you’re rich and able to drop a few thousand for a Congressional sponsor, you can come in.

15. Domestic policy. Hire them, because they are cheap and will do anything, but make it look like someone else was responsible.

16. Jobs. Do we have to talk about this? OK well then everyone else is responsible for the lack of jobs. But I will change all that. All we need to do is innovate! Stop taxing my friends so they will drop a few mil on a few companies. Not that they can’t do it now, but if we can squeeze this thing long and hard enough, and put enough of you out of work till your eyeballs tweak, sooner or later you’ll come around and give us the break we want. Because we want it. Do we need any other reason? Umm did I answer the question?

17. Divisive politics. Nobody likes this. It’s ugly. It’s hurtful. So, here’s my three-step plan for converting everyone to conservatism and away from that nasty liberal way of thinking. A) Let your greed be your guide. It’s simpler than being ‘fair.’ (B) Acknowledge that you’re an asshole. Once you own that, they can’t hurt you. (C) If they continue to criticize, tell them everyone makes mistakes and then laugh like a crazy fuck. This always confuses them.

18. Getting the votes. This is the secret stuff. First, act like an insane xenophobe warrior for God to get through the primaries, and then just talk about socialism.

19. Racism. Let’s be clear, we didn’t make the rules. The country club management did.

20. Oil and alternative energy. Well, right now, it’s still cheaper to bring the planet to the brink of nuclear disaster for a gallon of oil than it is to set up a wind turbine.

21. Other peoples’ religions. You have the right to your religion as long as it’s about Jesus. After all this is a Christian country. And while you are converting, learn the language too.

22. Wall Street. This is like Amway, everybody kicks them around but in truth, profits are the God-given right of the investment class and – what? My money manager took them? WTF?? Isn’t there a regula– ah, shit.

23. Social security. There’s that word again. Social…ist. Nevermind that you paid into it all your life. It’s still socialist. Better to just give it to the defense contractors and write it off as a bad investment.

24. Drug policy. This is why you should never learn Spanish or step off the cruise ship. If you did, then you might find out that everything south of Texas isn’t full of smugglers and rapists. Trust us, we need a wall.

25. Guns. Look, if everybody has a gun, nobody will ever invade the US. That’s the plan. Nevermind they kill more of our own citizens in a decade than we have in all the wars combined. Guns make America safe!

BONUS: Building a constituency. Getting conservative followers is easy. The trick is keeping them. This requires building the illusion that they are in a special place, an exclusive club that will provide them with everything they ever desired if they just follow you to the end. Between you and me, we borrowed this idea from Osama bin Laden.

OK that’s it, I’m done. I could go on but I’m actually scaring myself with this shit.

That is all, you may go now. Hey! Off my lawn…