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Better days ahead
Jan. 1st, 2010 12:45 amI believe that the notional decade from 2000-2009 was only the second worst such in USonian history--the 1850s really have to win that contest. (Yes, 600,000 people died in the American Civil War in the 1860s, but by the time the decade was done, de jure slavery was abolished. The 1850s ended with Dred Scott as the law of the land and James Buchanan declaring, "I am the last president of the United States.")
There were bright points of progress, especially towards the increased recognition of the fundamental human rights of GLBT humans, which is great. [ETA: And holy crap, we have a black president. Did anyone see that coming in 1999?] But on almost every other score, this has been a lost decade. Economically, America hopped and popped bubbles and ended up in a pit. Ten years of environmental damage were allowed to accumulate and reinforce. And on the deepest level, morally and politically this decade was worse than lost--America regressed. The embrace of war and war crimes, the race toward the least rational responses to the terror war directed at America, and the increasing anti-intellectualism and eliminationism--and, behind it all, the fundamentally broken news media which makes it impossible to have a serious national discussion of any of the other issues--can drive one to despair.
We can't get that decade back. But It's a new year. It's a new number. It's the future, now.
It's possible to see how many of the changes which roiled across the landscape can become the tools to a better future. Most of those tools existed a decade ago, too, and we didn't use them then. To quote myself, a better future isn't going to happen by itself. Get working.
There were bright points of progress, especially towards the increased recognition of the fundamental human rights of GLBT humans, which is great. [ETA: And holy crap, we have a black president. Did anyone see that coming in 1999?] But on almost every other score, this has been a lost decade. Economically, America hopped and popped bubbles and ended up in a pit. Ten years of environmental damage were allowed to accumulate and reinforce. And on the deepest level, morally and politically this decade was worse than lost--America regressed. The embrace of war and war crimes, the race toward the least rational responses to the terror war directed at America, and the increasing anti-intellectualism and eliminationism--and, behind it all, the fundamentally broken news media which makes it impossible to have a serious national discussion of any of the other issues--can drive one to despair.
We can't get that decade back. But It's a new year. It's a new number. It's the future, now.
It's possible to see how many of the changes which roiled across the landscape can become the tools to a better future. Most of those tools existed a decade ago, too, and we didn't use them then. To quote myself, a better future isn't going to happen by itself. Get working.
