How Mr. Bush Ruined the Twenties

Okay, when I had to write up the Inauguration of President Obama I decided to take a rosy attitude. I didn't tear down Mr. Bush, didn't bring up the manifold injustices of his reign. Nor did I talk about how - on a personal level - he ruined my twenties. I was approaching twenty-two when he got elected. My roommate and I watched in horror as he won, well...took the election. My roommate was less optimistic than I was, he went to bed irritated, as I patiently hoped for a coup d'etat on TV. We thought this was our "Where were you when JFK got shot," moment. We walked around depressed students that had hoped the Clintons would be followed by another Democratic powerhouse. The city stood still, in a way liberal New York didn't know that they were practicing for a greater tragedy to come.
Matt woke me that morning in September. At first when he said, "Wake-up there's a plane in the World Trade Center," I went back to sleep. I thought it was a dream or a ruse to get me out of bed. Then, when, he put my glasses on my face, lit cigarettes with a match and told me to watch the TV I knew he wasn't joking. He wasn't watching a movie either. The second plane hit. I was still seeking hope, thought it was a rescue plane, a preposterous idea in retrospect. Where would they have landed?
Of course that was the moment, the "Where were you when JFK was shot moment?" In a sobering conversation with an Israeli visitor to the dorms where I lived that day he asked us what could we really expect? Pressure was mounting. People from Europe to China were tired of us, hated Bush and Americans weren't getting it.
The wars that came, the collapse of the housing market, Wall Street and the like have not been - in comparison - as shocking as Bush and Towers. Granted I was stuck in a subway a year or two later when the power gave out in the city. Yet, even this I cannot attribute to Bush. Had he been behind it something far greater, more devastating, would have coincided with it. Perhaps all gay bars and art galleries would have become army recruiting stations or headquarters for Republican Party watchdog groups. Although the power outage experience was symbolic, foreboding, yet at the same time a testament to New Yorkers who had already been put through so much. We all gathered in Times Square, with flashlights and candles to see the brightest corner of the world as dark as night. Our candles glittered. Hope against the blackness that had descended...
But back to my twenties, and those in my generation, we have all had to struggle. Work for less pay, or more hours and the same pay. Made to take positions that won't, can't offer advancement due to the economy. Jobs have been sent overseas, which makes me wonder at comfortable individuals who fail to realize that those building blocks of our economy do indeed affect their positions. Salary, hours, bonuses, benefits, etc. As a job seeker now it is hard to find something that doesn't blatantly say their wages are terrible or is a total scam. Corporate jobs seem the scariest, as it is an exciting time for them, big companies. They know they can easily lock you into a low-paying contract position now, more so than ever, and keep you there until the economy picks-up. I remember an article in the New York Times, the Sunday Magazine and this was about seven or eight years ago. It showed a robber baron, complete with top hat, tuxedo, pocketwatch, maybe a monocle over one eye, you get it. He was an evil Vaudevillian, a rich, cigar-smoking tycoon. He was busy harassing a factory-working, tramp type of character, a tenement dweller most likely. I cant remember the full article but it basically said the rich seemed to be getting richer. Unchecked salaries, bonuses and the like, the very things that banking houses are now being scrutinized about, would keep getting higher while what Benjamin Franklin described as the "Middling Classes" might someday face being wiped out entirely.
And we all have Mr. Bush to thank. Thanks for ruining my (and maybe your) twenties. Thanks for the wars that drove the country's finances out of control. Thanks for taking contract positions and professional positions that imposed more work that salary. Thanks for my republican boss that did barely any work, often shoveling it onto us to go on vacation, who was blatantly ant-gay, in a state without workplace protection against such behavior. Thanks Mr. Bush, Bushy to be sweet, for the lives lost, the fortunes and spindly savings ruined, people worrying about their homes, and anything else I am forgetting. On that note I am going to press my black suits, learn how to make a perfect martini and shred documents. Because if you do know of any robber barons or tycoons please tell them all about me. Tell them I would make a perfect butler, valet, or gentleman's gentleman.