Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley is a modern master of political satire.  I'm not sure he has the brilliance of his father, William F. Buckley of National Review fame, but he channels what brilliance he did receive into highly entertaining political fiction.  Boomsday tells the story of a 20-something activist who foments a rebellion against baby boomers.  What starts as a blog calling on young people to raid gated communities and tear up golf courses grows into a full-fledged political movement promoting legislation which offers tax incentives to people over 70 to commit suicide.  This "voluntary transitioning" would solve the social security solvency crisis, freeing up resources for the younger generations.

The unlikely romp has plenty of twists and turns and random connections between characters, but Buckley makes it work.  He holds nothing back with his Dickensian character names and his skewering of just about everyone.  An equal-opportunity offender, he spares no one the barbs of his humor.  The Christian Right and the pro-life movement get special treatment in Gideon Payne, founder of SPERM, Society for the Protection of Every Ribonucleic Molecule.  He is a Baptist, from the South, of course, but the Catholics have the smooth-talking Vatican emissary who, living on a not-so-sacrificial budget in a Georgetown mansion, preys on the grieving widows of rich lay people, convincing them that the Lord would be pleased with their generous gifts to the Church.  The pompous press, with their thinly disguised Sunday talk shows, and especially the den of Washington lobbyists, are roundly ridiculed as well.

Boomsday is full of some great one-liners and riffs on the ridiculous nature of our political culture.  Buckley mocks pointless political junkets: Preparing for Congressman Jepperson's visit to Camp Turdje (the d is silent) in Bosnia, Cass's captain muses, "Fact finding. . . . The fact is we don't have any more facts left.  We ran out of them about a year ago.  Still they come in search of them."  He skewers the practice of "presidential commissions" where ideas go to die while the commissioners issue self-important statements and the administration can claim that they diligently pursued a solution or resolution to whatever the commission was convened for.  His portrait of Washington culture and processes may be skewed, but it sure is funny.

The biggest target, of course, is boomers, self-indulgent, pampered, and retiring too early.  Through their lobbying group, they seek tax breaks on Segways and botox, tax breaks for their ever-grander mausoleums, and other privileges.  Many of Buckley's criticisms ring true, but he fails to adequately address similar faults in the selfish, self-indulgent attitudes of what he calls the Whatever generation.  They certainly could use some good skewering as well.

Buckley raises the question of the future of social security in mocking, hilarious way, but he has clearly done his homework.  Like all good satire, once you stop laughing at how ridiculous the story is, you think, "Wait a minute, this is a real problem, and I don't think anyone in government has a solution for it!"  What are we going to do?  I hope for all of our sakes that someone comes up with a better solution than voluntary transitioning.  In the meantime, for a good laugh, pick up Boomsday.