Time Magazine Names the 2000s "The Decade From Hell"
2009 is rapidly winding down, and with the end of this year comes the end of the first decade of the new millenium. Reflecting back on the decade, Time Magazine has named the 00's "The Decade from Hell", at least for those of us living in the United States
Why were the 00's so bad for us Americans? Picture this: it started with 9/11 in the early part of the decade, and now is ending with one of the worst financial crises in decades. Sandwiched in between all that we've got the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing war against terrorism, major political controversy ala the 2000 elections, crackdowns on personal freedoms, Hurricane Katrina, various Wall Street scandals involving Enron and WorldCom, anthrax letter scares, and snipers on the loose in our nation's capital.
Once a happy-go-lucky nation that truly believed we had it better than the rest of the world, the United States as a whole could now use a dose of anti-depressants to lift the population out of the collective deep depression and a scrip for Xanax to ease the anxiety and paranoia that has now become so deeply engrained in our way of life. As decades go, this last one has been a rough one, and heading into the next one, it doesn't look so good either.
The decade began with everyone eagerly and nervously awaiting the arrival of the new millennium and the oh-so-scary potential havoc that the infamous Y2K Bug could cause. Some feared the end of the world, or at the very least, mass global chaos. Our hearts skipped a beat when an alarm at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan sounded, but it was merely a glitch.
The next majorly depressive event of the decade occurred on Septemeber 11, 2001 when hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers in NYC and into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. We were under attack. Many died, and our once rosy-colored view of life was shattered. After Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks, our troops went into Afghanistan to find him. We searched cave after cave trying to find him, but today he's still on the run, supposedly. Not content with a war in one country, the U.S. decided to go into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction and took out the country's leader - Saddam Hussein - while we were there. That war is still raging and grows more deadly and dangerous by the year, and the volunteer army grows more weary after each tour and extended term of duty. And we're still fighting against radical Islam.
We've endured not just one, but two market crashes this decade. The first came in the very beginning, and we're in the middle of the second one. The first was characterized by tech stocks that tanked the market from 2000 to 2001. The Nasdaq hit an all-time high in March 2000, and has since been on the downslide, especially over the last few years. Officially we are in a recession, but many suggest that it's actually a depression. The legions of the jobless, homeless and hungry grow exponentially.
The decade was also marked by snipers on the loose in the nation's capital, and envelopes filled with the deadly white anthrax powder being mailed to the country's elite and powerful. And let's not forget the Enron and WorldCom scandals of the early part of the decade.
In 2005, right smack in the middle of the decade, the largest natural disaster in U.S. history occurred. On Aug. 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisana, killing more than 1,500 and causing $100 billion in damages. That area will never be the same again.
A housing bubble in the latter part of the decade put us where we are now, in the midst of an economic meltdown. Fueled by excessive borrowing, spending, and out-of-control loans, this is the kind of mess that will take years to resolve, if ever.
Seriously, did we break one too many mirrors or walk under one too many ladders? Did too many black cats cross our paths? Whatever it was, the 00's have indeed been some troubling times for those of us living in the U.S.
It doesn't look like this next decade will be off to such a great start either. We're still struggling economically, and now we have word that the United Arab Emirates threatens to spark a second financial crisis as they teeter on the edge of defaulting on billions of dollars in loans. Such a catastrophe would have a ripple effect around the world. And let's not forget the omninous warnings of the ancient Mayans and Nostradamus which suggest that the world as we know it will end in 2012.
If the next decade looked any better we could say goodbye to the "Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade". As it looks now, however, we may just end up adding an "s" and making it the "Decades from Hell." So cross your fingers and toes, say a prayer, and wish on a star that 2010 will be the start of better days.
Comments
"The Decade From Hell"
"The Decade From Hell" Happened because George W Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore.
The Breach of the Leveees
Although 2005 was a particularly hellish year for those living on the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina did not decimate New Orleans. Rather, the shoddily-constructed levees that the Army Corps of Engineers destroyed the city. We escaped the storm; yet, we did not escape this man-made disaster.
MLSmith
New Orleans, LA
Hurricane Katrina and the Decade from Hell
Yes, the disaster following Hurricane Katrina definitely belongs in the Top 10 of the "Decade from Hell", but please remember that the horrific destruction in New Orleans was a manmade disaster. After 4 years of investigation, experts now agree that the devastation of our city was wrought by the collapse of the federally controlled levees, which were improperly designed and built by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and THIS was the direct cause of all of the destruction and loss of life. Our city withstood the "natural disaster", i.e., the hurricane, quite well. The nightmare was the UN-natural disaster.
C.J. D'Aquin
New Orleans, Louisiana
The Decade from Hell: Hurricane Katrina
The 2005 hurricane season became part of the decade from hell due to the collapse of the federally-funded man-made levee system, built by the US Army Corps of Engineers' contractors. These levees were not built properly, and their construction used substandard methods and materials. It is well past time to quit blaming the victims, and for the Corps to admit that these levees were not built to the design specs outlined for their construction.
Regarding the Hurricane
Regarding the Hurricane Katrina comments... if the levees were not there, New Orleans would have been destroyed years ago. The coast line would wash away and continue to move inward. They simply staved off the inevitable. Be happy they worked as long as they did.
Let's just call it what it is
The baby boom generation sucks, pure and simple. They represent the worst plague ever visited upon the earth.
Natural Disaster my Foot
Re: "... the largest natural disaster in U.S. history occurred. On Aug. 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana..."
She did indeed make landfall in SE La and then quickly set her course for the Gulf coast of Miss leaving merely a few broken trees behind in the New Orleans area. I walked my neighborhood for a couple hours after the storm had passed assessing the damage and calling friends to assure them that all was good before the federal levees failed. If by "natural" you mean that it is natural for the US Army Corps of Engineers to poorly design, construct and maintain a flood control system - okie dokie. It has become abundantly clear that that is their "natural" MO.
We can handle the hurricanes, thank you
Decade from hell indeed. But if we don't look at what happened honestly, we won't learn a thing from it. And, the honest truth is that no weather event could ever have matched the destruction unleashed on New Orleans by negligence and incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps cut corners constructing levees that were poorly designed to begin with. The flooding of New Orleans was an engineering failure, much like the I-35 bridge collapse two years later. We'll only learn the right lessons if we understand the flood resulted from Corps negligence and incompetence.
Please understand context in our current times
The "Decade from Hell" concept presents an opportunity for waking up. Sounds like a good idea, right? - Everyone is saying "Wake Up, America" - the left, the right, the religious, the objective...
If you feel we're awake already, this article shows we have to wake up some more.
Break a mirror or walk under a ladder?
On the right track, but you hardly hit the target.
It's not up to me to name our off-mark actions, because different ones apply to different people
It is up to me to remind you every action has an equal and opposite reaction, except the kinds of actions that can be observed as "grace" - and grace is very specific.
Therefore, for the most part, if your survival is based on robbing life force from others without regenerating it, you have karma coming to you rob our life force (also known as, hellish events).
Are you eating food that robs the earth of nutrients, hordes grains and water, with fertilizer made from oil stolen at gunpoint, processed beyond any nutritional value, leaving hundreds of millions diabetic and otherwise desperate? Then due to the war-wracked foreign lands, pharmaceutically dependent depressed people barely holding on, depleted soils and suffering animals, you have higher karmic debt than someone who eats local plants grown biodynamically or foraged from edible forests. And since 98% of us do the former, we've got it coming to us collectively.
We can turn it around. Search local farms, organic produce, wholistic wellness. It will bring us real fortune again, and attract our real sustenance, grace to move through this.
Real reason for levees' failure
Dear Editor,
Contrary to what many believe, the fury of Huricane Katrina was not the real reason for the devastation of New Orleans. That reason lies with the US Army Corps of Engineers. They built floodwalls that were too low, and they were set in soil that was the consistancy of jello. Furthermore, the Corps knew this and did nothing to rectify the problem. We need a federal investigation into the political intrigue that has surrounded the Corps, the politicians, and the corporate oil and gas interests, and has made such a tragedy possible. We have waited too long for this, and the people of New Orleans deserve much more.
Dionne Viosca
Metairie, LA 70003
Katrina was a man-made disater
Yes, it was the decade from hell. My world was destroyed by Katrina. My city New Orleans, though, was destroyed by the US Corps of Engineers. Don't let America forget that their country destroyed an American city and left it to rot for years. To this day their efforts to build the ""best protection" is what they promised it was before Katrina and forensics proved it was not. I lost a lot in Katrina. I lost a belief in a country I adored my whole life. I don't believe in anything anymore.
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