Hope, part 3: Don Hazen of AlterNet.org offers us his list of “the good, the bad, the worst” in a year heavily weighted toward the worst of the worst. Each of us might have his or her own list for 2002, but what’s impressive is Hazen’s urge to put this year together, to make sense of it, an urge remarkably lacking in the mainstream press, where, for instance, I have yet to see a single series on the Bush agenda (or even the Bush environmental agenda).
Hope in bleak times has to spring from acts, and domestically, as Hazen indicates, a major reason for hope is the speedy and unexpected growth of a movement against a war that is still to be. Tom
2002: The Good, The Bad, The Worst
By Don Hazen
AlterNet
December 19, 2002As years go, they don’t get much worse than 2002. The year’s main saving grace – that we haven’t yet invaded Iraq – suggests that, believe it or not, 2003 could be even worse.
A year that came on the heels of 9/11 was probably doomed from the start. Yet the ongoing War on Terrorism that most characterizes our times has cast a muddy shadow on public life that hints of the paranoia and knee-jerk nationalism of the 1950s.
Although we have experienced no acts of domestic terrorism in the 15 months since the Sept. 11 attacks, our country is becoming increasingly unrecognizable – constricted by fear, hysteria, xenophobic intolerance and a whole new set of laws and government intrusions that most of us couldn’t have imagined in the relatively rosy days of pre-9/11.
By Don Hazen
AlterNet
December 19, 2002
As years go, they don’t get much worse than 2002. The year’s main saving grace – that we haven’t yet invaded Iraq – suggests that, believe it or not, 2003 could be even worse.
A year that came on the heels of 9/11 was probably doomed from the start. Yet the ongoing War on Terrorism that most characterizes our times has cast a muddy shadow on public life that hints of the paranoia and knee-jerk nationalism of the 1950s.
Although we have experienced no acts of domestic terrorism in the 15 months since the Sept. 11 attacks, our country is becoming increasingly unrecognizable – constricted by fear, hysteria, xenophobic intolerance and a whole new set of laws and government intrusions that most of us couldn’t have imagined in the relatively rosy days of pre-9/11.