Sitting here, feeling melancholy. Thinking about how things seemed to change for the worse in some areas. Is it me or does it seem like reactionary & authoritarian types are all over the place with a vengeance on this planet.
Growing up in the 80s & 90s, I knew the world wasn't perfect but somehow, in a way, it seemed simpler & freer. It seemed that America was waking up and learning from the past. All that stuff I learned about in school....The Civil Rights Act, Roe vs. Wade, the Labor Movement, etc. seemed to be "done deals" and irreversible. The Cold War ended, the Iron Curtain fell, the Berlin Wall fell, two Germanies united, Glastnost & Peristroika, the end of Apartheid.....I seemed that the bad stuff was on a smaller scale and that things were changing for the better. We were waking up, we were looking upon events like Vietnam with an attitude of "never again".
Then 911 happened.
People got weirded out and just let the powers that be conjure up restrictive laws, the U.S, military became torture-happy and all these fascist & religious fanatic groups are all over the place.
It's crazy!
Perhaps the insanity was already there and 911 just uncovered it. Perhaps that progress was an illusion.
Am I alone in this?
I know the craziness of far-right politics in my country was 30+ years in the making and that the effects of today's Robber Barons, Koch Kreeps, etc. was going on for years before 911.
But somehow, I feel something was lost after 911.
On the upside, LGBTA rights have been greatly progressing in my country and there is a Progressive movement emerging. People are realizing that something is wrong & speaking out. There's an emerging anti-police brutality movement and a number of mass strikes involving minimum wage workers. The Occupy protests may have been squashed but the movement still exists to some degree in other ways.
Maybe I shouldn't despair. Perhaps people are slowly waking up. Perhaps someday we can turn back to that pre-911 sense of "progress". It'll take some work, though.
The trick is for us to learn not to be so ruled by hate & fear. We need to keep our amygdalas in check.