Yeah, I remember pretty much 1992 on really well, and they were prosperous, carefree years. Everything was good (save some snags, nothing is 100%). We even turned the corner into the millennium and things were just great. I go into high school and we’re just chugging along, the biggest problems we have are which cable internet provider to choose to download viruses on limewire.
Then, boom, 9/11. And the world just hasn’t seemed to have gotten its footing since then. And perhaps that was naivety and my 14-year-old perspective, but that seemed to be the turning point for me, where the unprecedented became precedented.
For sure, I think the patriot act was a turning point in trust of government in the US. It filtered though to our government in Australia during the Howard years. Similar to the US, around the GFC we had a hopeful change of government, but that hope for progressive values (Obama for you guys, Rudd for us) turned out to be misguided. I tend to think of those “centre left” governments as representing managed societal decline as opposed to the accelerated decline of the right wing parties.
I had (and have) some crazy Evangelical family in the South. Climate denial, anti vax, Democrats burning in hell, unspeakable acts from their pastors they worship, the whole nine yards. Simplifying drama, I’d wince, then chuckle, and dismiss them as relics the US (and maybe Christianity?) would move past.
Yeah, I remember pretty much 1992 on really well, and they were prosperous, carefree years. Everything was good (save some snags, nothing is 100%). We even turned the corner into the millennium and things were just great. I go into high school and we’re just chugging along, the biggest problems we have are which cable internet provider to choose to download viruses on limewire.
Then, boom, 9/11. And the world just hasn’t seemed to have gotten its footing since then. And perhaps that was naivety and my 14-year-old perspective, but that seemed to be the turning point for me, where the unprecedented became precedented.
For sure, I think the patriot act was a turning point in trust of government in the US. It filtered though to our government in Australia during the Howard years. Similar to the US, around the GFC we had a hopeful change of government, but that hope for progressive values (Obama for you guys, Rudd for us) turned out to be misguided. I tend to think of those “centre left” governments as representing managed societal decline as opposed to the accelerated decline of the right wing parties.
+1, with an addendum.
I had (and have) some crazy Evangelical family in the South. Climate denial, anti vax, Democrats burning in hell, unspeakable acts from their pastors they worship, the whole nine yards. Simplifying drama, I’d wince, then chuckle, and dismiss them as relics the US (and maybe Christianity?) would move past.
I’m not laughing anymore.