PERRY: 2023 grads — Sorry, but we ruined nearly everything, and now it’s all yours

To everyone getting fitted now for graduation caps and gowns: You’re welcome, and I’m sorry.

When I was leaving high school for college, President Jimmy Carter was trying to clean up a mess in the country that left Americans struggling with huge unemployment, ludicrous interest rates, a Middle East that was about to implode, and an oil crisis that threatened to doom the economy, the planet and maybe even our own species.

Those were dark days.

So many of us checked out of engaging in a world that had spun out of control and was ripe for rebellion. Instead, we checked into a wild ride of drugs, self-indulgent debauchery and embarrassing fashion.

Well, not all of us. For the record, I rarely wore tube socks.

There were a few of us who saw what was happening to the country at the hands of the oil companies, at the hands of corporate religions, at the hands of a “Moral Majority” that pushed hard to suppress the rights of women, minorities and gays.

Sound familiar?

We fought back. When the rumors that California’s kooky actor-turned-governor would run for president turned out to be true, we took to the streets and campuses to push back against him and his fellow madmen. We pushed back against a wave of political bullies who couldn’t fathom anything but a black-and-white world where one class of Americans ruled over another. Women like Congresswoman Pat Schroeder were scorned and humiliated. Blacks were accepted only as entertainers and religious martyrs. As hard as we pushed to allow the middle and underclass to get ahead, the ruling class pushed back harder.

So we made small, steady strides instead. Women crept into the boardrooms instead of barging in. Gays simply became part of the American lexicon, then marched in parades, then led them for the military.

The lies and the stereotypes began to fade away like ancient Greek myths.

Rather than bully our way into American history, my generation sneaked in, and a Black man became president.

In Colorado, an openly gay man became governor, and was recently elected to a second term.

An openly transgender state lawmaker here recently led the charge for saving farmers money by letting them fix their own tractors.

In Aurora, thousands of protesters have prompted change to a police department that wrongly killed, maimed and abused people of color.

You’re welcome.

However, no one had Donald Trump on their post-Obama Bingo Card, or anticipated that the moral majority would morph into the MAGA minority and wreak havoc across the nation.

Who would have dreamed that a place as stoic as the Western Slope would elect a rabid disinformationist like GOP Congressperson Lauren Boebert?

I’m sorry.

Now, here you are sliding into high school graduation, and your turn to rule the world.

Rather than hand you the reins of a community and a society on course for victory and greatness, we turn over a nation and planet wrought with trouble.

We didn’t learn our lesson with oil and the Middle East. We started wars there we couldn’t afford and couldn’t possibly finish. Nutcases everywhere are arming themselves with nukes, nerve gas, assault rifles and a never-ending supply of IEDs and suicide bombers.

I’m sorry.

We’ve made a massive mess out of our nation’s gun affliction. Rather than acting on the lessons learned from the Aurora theater shooting, we’ve allowed the NRA, the gun industry and their unwitting toadies to make death by gunfire the leading cause of death among children in the United States. I’m so sorry.

We didn’t learn our lesson with the environment. In fact, we may well have destroyed the planet with a global warming problem that Club Money denies exists and Club Ineffective can’t change.

I’m sorry.

We created a health-care system that has extended the life of Americans, but we can no longer afford it. It’s a greedy monstrosity that will soon cost more than anything else in the country.

I’m sorry.

My parent’s generation saw entire communities of elderly people starving to death, too old to work, too voiceless to make a difference. Congress enacted the Social Security system, allowing for all Americans to age safely and with dignity. But we stole most of my Social Security and probably all of yours. Now you must plan how you’ll survive when you’re too old to work and too powerless to do anything about it.

I’m sorry.

In our zeal to buy more stuff cheaper that we just throw away to buy more, we’ve lost an army of jobs and created cruel slave colonies across the globe so we can buy dress shirts for $6 and remarkable smart TVs for the price of a set of sheets.

I’m sorry.

I’m not giving up yet, but it’s exhausting to fight a tidal wave of resistance that does not value education, believes creationism is science, that Black and brown people are trying to “replace” white people, and that drag queens are a threat to their own lives.

I’m sorry, and now it’s your turn.

Follow @EditorDavePerry on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com