Did Woodstock hippies lead to US financial collapse?By Mark Guarino Staff writer / February 25, 2010 A conservative activist says hippies-turned-boomers are responsible for excessive spending,
the mortgage crisis, and recklessness on Wall Street.
He tells the story in his film,
'Generation Zero.'
“Generation Zero,” a film set to premiere in March, examines what producer David Bossie says
is a “historic perspective on a generational change” that led to the September 2008 bank collapse.
Mr. Bossie says generational narcissism, as represented by the 1969 Woodstock Festival, is responsible
for the excessive spending, mortgage crisis, and recklessness on Wall Street.
“The people who were at Woodstock turned into the yuppies of the '80s and the junk bond traders
of the '90s and the Wall Street executives of the 2000s,” he says.
“They went from Woodstock to driving a Jaguar.”
click spoiler to load more bio info on Bossie
- Spoiler:
Citizens United, Bossie’s company, is no stranger to controversial topics
that take aim at liberals or their causes.
The company was at the center of a recent US Supreme Court case involving
“Hillary: The Movie,” a documentary it produced that showed then-presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton in an unfavorable light.
The high court overturned a provision of the McCain-Feingold law that barred the use of
political advertisements created or paid for by independent parties.
Before his tenure at Citizens United, Bossie was a chief investigator in the
Whitewater hearings and he also led investigations into alleged finance abuses
in Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.
Defending baby boomersQuantifying baby boomers as yuppies is a familiar position taken by conservative groups,
says Leonard Steinhorn, author of
“The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy.”
Mr. Steinhorn says it is common for boomers to become a target, because their generation helped
“reverse the social order of the '50s” by creating civil rights for blacks, women, and gays,
and by helping address issues such as environmental pollution.
"Not every boomer was a hippie, but the normative structure of the baby-boom generation
has been for a more inclusive, equal, and free society, and so if you have problem with that,
you’re going to have problem with boomers,” he says.
Tea partiers' love the movieEarly this month, a screening of the film was warmly received at both the
National Tea Party Convention and the Conservative Political Action Conference.
From there, it was the subject of an hour-long special on FOX News hosted by Sean Hannity.
LINK to full articleThen: (sorta)Now: