I guess the only way I can answer this is to say I'm happy you feel there is hope for the future.
I'm a baby boomer too tho at the end of it......and find people my parent's age fall into more what you're talking about then people I am friends with.
I think a lot of it is the environment you have to work and live in that changes how we see what is going on around us, good or bad.
I think you're right here @snook. It really is about our social environment. It just seems to me that the most conservative people I meet these days are baby boomers (and yes, I'm 1960s!) who are always complaining about what they've lost and yet it's people of they're own age who have taken it away from them (because they voted them in). We really do live in VERY strange times.