The Lost Decade

HuffPost is calling the '00s "The Lost Decade" and that is as appropriate as anything to describe the decade dominated by George Bush Jr. Perhaps most telling is that rightwing blogs are just ignoring the whole change of decade thing and pretending the past ten years never happened at all.

According to Cracked.com, as decades go the '00s were worse than most but not the worst ever. They are right that the 1930's (the decade-long Great Depression, rise of Adolf Hitler) and the 1910's (World War I, rise of Communism, and the Spanish Flu that killed 100 million world wide) were worse. They may even be right that the 1960's (Vietnam War, assassinations galore) was a worse decade than the '00s but I believe the good of that decade (the successes of the Civil Rights struggle, a fairly good economy, and the music) counterbalances the bad and made the 1960's tolerable.

The trouble with the '00s is that there is almost nothing good you say about the decade. I mean, the best part was the communications revolution (cell phones, iPods, and the blossoming of the Internet) and in no way outweighs the horrible parts (the Lesser Depression, the Great Tsunami, Katrina, radical Islam, radical Republicanism, George Bush Jr.).

The 2010's may turn out well, I hope so. Or it may be the decade when global climate change becomes irreversible. If so, then the 2010's may be remembered by our posterity as the worst decade in the history of mankind.