"You Know Billy, We Blew It"

At the end of 1969’s Easy Rider, just before the ridiculously contrived happy ending the studio tacked onto the film to salvage its prospects at the box office, Peter Fonda tells Dennis Hopper, for no particular reason, “You know Billy, we blew it”.

Dennis Prager agrees. He writes, “We live in the age of group apologies. I would like to add one. The baby boomer generation needs to apologize to America, especially its young generation, for many sins”:

So we really blew it, and what’s really amazing is that few of us have changed our minds. Most people get wiser as they get older. But not those of us baby boomers who still believe these things. Of course, many of us never bought into these awful ideas that have so hurt you and our country, and some of us have grown up. But many of us still talk, think, dress and curse the same as we did in the ’60s and ’70s. And we’re still fighting what we consider the real Axis of Evil: American racism, sexism and imperialism.

But for those of us who know the damage baby boomers as a whole did to you, a heartfelt apology.

Related thoughts here.