/b/ - Siberia

Bush stole the election.

The '90s weren't actually that great.
The economy was good, but also crime was higher iirc, if you were a wee kid teachers could get away with a bit more, social attitudes were in kind of a transitional stage, and a lot of the reforms then were just for the worse in 'Merica - welfare got scrapped, institutions got shut down, there was a big crackdown on raves, industrial jobs were shipped overseas, Clinton's healthcare reform ended up being an employer-based half-measure which only covered some people… and, you know, looking back this era kind of set the stage in a lot of ways for how bad things would get. Tech was exciting, the economy was doing nicely if you didn't work at a factory, and monopolies were maybe not quite as bad yet (tho they'd been poorly checked), but the changes made in this time showed serious contempt for workers, and their promise would eventually be realized.

Enter Bush. Firstly, guy didn't win the popular vote by any metric - whether he even won Florida is pretty doubtful, so a judge came in and told them to stop counting Florida. This already sucks, then you have 9/11 - and although the Bush White House did ignore reports on the attackers it received prior to the attacks, it also seems (if the recently declassified Canestraro declaration is to be trusted) that the CIA had been obstructing the FBI wrt to the attackers for at least a year prior to Bush even getting into office. America goes nuts after 9/11, and Bush uses it as cover to go ham. They don't put any checks on corporate or rentier power, because that's not what they're there to do, and so the economy collapses as these 2 wars are going on.

By the time 'nice guy' Obama gets in, shit is seriously fucked - Obama, being a part of this machine, would never have done much to fix its corruption, and the things he manages to do are ultimately inadequate… he doesn't do as much new bad stuff as Bush, but he barely manages to fix any of the Bush stuff, and healthcare reform, probably his biggest lasting contribution, ultimately ends up being a severely weakened shadow of the reforms proposed in the 1990s. The state is still up to be raided, with the "security" state still bloated & still the only part not vulnerable to liquidation. All the while, a few corporations consolidate more power, and the political establishment has erased all precedent for keeping the corporate state in check.

The 1990s was a repeat of the 1980s.
And it was the time of when our current year political mode was in formation

>>147407
>The 1990s was a repeat of the 1980s.

That's not really true. The '90s began with the fall of the USSR and the launch of the world wide web. 'Western' economic policies were an extension of those adopted in the late '70s & '80s, but a lot of the conditions of the '90s were still different.

>>147310
>he doesn't do as much new bad stuff as Bush
You sure about that? Five more new wars to Bush's two, repealing habeas corpus, going after whistleblowers with the Espionage Act, Romney's fascist mandatory-private-health-insurance bill, etc. Bush used 9/11 to greatly accelerate the construction of a repressive national security apparatus, but it was Obama who normalized it under a cloud of respectability after Bush.

>>147421
>five more new wars

Didn't happen. The US didn't invade any more countries on that scale during Obama. If you're just counting any time the US underhandedly backed some dissidents somewhere as the US entering a country in war, the number would probably be higher than "five" during both Bush & Obama's respective presidencies. The only full-on wars the US military had going on during Obama were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

>repealing habeas corpus,

The attacks on habeas corpus were Bush era. If you recall, the indefinite-detention-without-due-process thing was something Obama campaigned against in 2008 - he was straight up talking about closing Gitmo. Fwiw he didn't do this, it was bullshit, though he issued an executive order declaring that the Gitmo prisoners "have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus," though how effective that was is extremely questionable. He also didn't "repeal habeas corpus." Habeas corpus was merc'd during the war on terror, although it's never technically been repealed, all the legwork was done circa Bush.

>going after whistleblowers with the Espionage Act

Over videos of mass murder filmed in 2007. Fwiw, Bush went after anti-war protestors with Patriot Act surveillance powers and also used the Espionage Act against journalists. Anything you can say about Obama on this front was Bush-lite.

>Romney's fascist mandatory-private-health-insurance bill, etc

Unironically an improvement over what we had before. Wildly inadequate, a shitty "compromise," but it extended healthcare coverage to tons of people who didn't have it before. It's ludicrous to even include it in this list, because of that reform I was able to go to the doctor for years longer than I would have been able to otherwise.

>but it was Obama who normalized it under a cloud of respectability after Bush.

It was already "normalized." The country during Bush was near completely insane. All of the meaningful strides were made in that time, Obama just inherited it and barely walked any of it back. I think it's funny to say a president "normalized" something which the previous president, the state, had already done - it's like when people talked about "platforming" Trump, "normalizing" Trump… like he'd been in the country's highest office for years, he was a millionaire TV host before that, that ship's sailed by that point. The backlash to Bush finally metabolizing during the last couple years of his presidency didn't un-normalize stuff the state had been doing that entire time.

>>147422
It was, in fact, Obama who finally formally revoked the right to habeas corpus. The provision was included in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that he signed, which stays that the US state is allowed to declare someone a terrorist or enemy belligerent and then detain them indefinitely without trial. Chris Hedges and others sued the Obama administration over it, and in the process were able to infer that the bill itself was just a justification for activity the government was already engaged in.

>>147424

Actually, it was the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and they were already putting this into practice by the time Obama ran in 2008 - it was a campaign issue by that time. The 2012 NDAA, which is also very bad!, fwiw is citing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was pre-Obama and was cited by the Bush admin (in defense of the flagrant denials of due process which they, again, were already doing in 2006) when this stuff came up in court. It's literally a reassertion of tricks Bush had already pulled.

>>147310
This. All this talk about "1990s was a golden age" is just obnoxious rose-tinting not unlike how boomers romanticise the 1960s.


>>147407
The modern culture has remained roughly similar since the mid-1980s.

Every other decade after the 1980s has been a rehash.

>>150866
>This. All this talk about "1990s was a golden age" is just obnoxious rose-tinting not unlike how boomers romanticise the 1960s.
I'd have to disagree. While the 50's were an objectively turbulent time (Korea War, Moaist Uprising) the 90's were actually a period of tranquility and wealth for the west at least.
Boomers are cringe and think the 50's was like "Leave It To Beaver" but that doesn't mean golden ages don't exist.

>>150867
Actually thats kimda a fair point.
But still, the 1990s wasnt a golden age.

In fact, theres no such thing as a golden age.