So, it's gonna be 2020, and people are doing decade in review instead of year in review. Let's do a 20 years in review, since we've advanced some way into a new century by now.
It's been a good 20 years for the empire, and a bad 20 years for the rest of us.
It's been a good 20 years for the empire, and a bad 20 years for the rest of us.
The NATO bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia wasn't technically in the past 20 years (being in 1999), but it was a big step for the US and served as the first big declaration of the "unipolar" world.
The Second Intifada kicked off in fall of 2000, mounting a bit challenge to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and therefore to the world order that upheld the apartheid system. Israel, with help from the whole world, managed to ride it out.
After 9/11/2001, the US invaded and occupied Afghanistan, which had been destroyed by about 20 years of war (and a particularly devastating 10 years from 1992). Afghanistan's been frozen in a partitioned and de-developed state since.
The US used mostly Colombian money (along with some US money) to kick off Plan Colombia in 2000, greatly expanding aerial fumigation and military aid. Two decades of greater infiltration of narco-traffickers and death squads have followed.
Chavez had been relatively recently elected in Venezuela at that time, and was trying to create a more equal society using constitutional and electoral means, benefiting from oil wealth and military support to reduce the usual fears of coups...
When the first coup attempt inevitably happened in 2002, it was unsuccessful. Chavez kept up reform efforts, including building regional alliances with other elected left governments (notably Brazil under Worker's Party rule, another miracle).
But Chavez died in 2013, Worker's Party rule was overthrown in Brazil in 2016 in a coup, Ecuador's left government is gone, Bolivia's was just overthrown in a coup - the "pink tide" challenge to the Empire was also beaten back.
In 2003, an over a decade long campaign of bombing and siege against Iraq culminated in a US invasion and occupation. Iraq was de facto partitioned, became the site of the rise of ISIS and the great expansion of al-Qaeda. Iraq remains under US control.
In 2004, the elected government in Haiti was overthrown in a coup and the country was occupied by the UN, including many of the "pink tide" left Latin American governments, shamefully. Haiti's democracy has not recovered...
Aristide's main crime was to try to get France to pay back the money they stole from Haiti upon independence in 1804, which would be tens of billions today (and is still owed, by the way - no statute of limitations and the receipts exist).
Israel "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005 and maintained an aerial occupation and a genocidal blockade. It bombed Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza again that year, and again in 2008/9, 2012, 2014, and periodically since more or less on whim.
A potential challenge to the Empire at the beginning of the last decade was the "Arab Spring": Bahrain, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Egypt, all participated. The monarchy in Bahrain survived. Syria and Libya were destroyed. Egypt is back as a dictatorship.
The elected government of Honduras was overthrown in 2009. Paraguay 2012. Brazil (mentioned already) 2016. Bolivia 2019. The coup weapon was wielded to great effect.
Ultra right-wing governments have won majorities in countries with elections and are transforming their countries as they go. Modi in India, Trump in the US, and others elsewhere, are rewriting laws and breaking with consensus democratic, liberal, and scientific doctrines...
... while liberals in these countries are either going right-wing or focusing on battling weak and beleaguered and mostly online lefts rather than fighting for what are supposed to be their own liberal principles (free speech, science, equality before the law, etc.)
About science: 20 years ago (and for a while before that) there was an absolutely rock-solid scientific consensus about the need to take action to stop climate change. Two decades have been wasted. More decades stand to be wasted.
I don't have data at my fingertips on extinctions of species, pollution of water bodies, depletion of soils, declines of ecologically and agriculturally important populations -- but the past 20 years has been bad for all of these, and not just climate change.
In terms of the media, we started 20 years ago with the most sophisticated propaganda system the world had ever seen.
Today the propaganda system is several times more sophisticated and pervasive, hacking our very minds with devices we carry around with us.
Today the propaganda system is several times more sophisticated and pervasive, hacking our very minds with devices we carry around with us.
Social democratic metrics? How expensive it is to get an education now compared to then? How expensive it is to get around on transit, and how difficult? How hard it is to get health care? The possibility of getting a good job and live where you work? Declines on all counts.
Left parties in Europe have been beaten down when elected (Greece) and successfully shut out of power (UK).
The usual conundrum applies: solutions to all of these problems will have to come from those who value equality, solidarity, and liberty for all -- that is, they'll have to come from leftists. So, we might have had a bad 20 years, but we've got to slog on.
Hang on, and, um, happy new year.
