The Good Old Days

The other day I heard "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones on the radio. I think I like it better now than I did when it came out 15 years ago, although I always liked the chorus:

I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history

That was how I felt in 1991, the year the song came out. Indeed, all the years of the Bush 41 Administration felt like that to me, despite recession, deficits, and Rodney King. The Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. The international "threat" (if it ever was that) of communism was defeated. Also, the U.S. -led United Nations thwarted Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, seeminlgy setting a precedent that the international community would protect the sovereignty and independence of each nation from aggression. I really thought that, if we don't blow it, we would see peace, increasing freedom, and greater prosperity all across the world. That my lifetime would be a Golden Age.

Looks like we blew it. Or, more accurately, it looks like peace, freedom, and prosperity for everyone is not in the interests of the the Ruling Class.