As incredible as it seems, we’ve survived another year. Sure, 2011 was filled with disasters, like the Casey Anthony trial, the Winehouse death and the occupy movement, but we feel there were other events that had a more meaningful and lasting impact on the human race.
In January the people in Tunisia drove our their dictator marking the beginning of the ‘Arab Spring.’ With the aid of social media the people of Tunisia spoke up, one by one, and realized they weren’t alone in wanting freedom.
Then, in March, came the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunami. The initial damage, as well as the consequential nuclear meltdown, made this story a literal ‘calamity.’ As you read this, they’re still battling radiation leaks in the Fukushima plant, but we aren’t getting the full story, as most of the international reporters left in late April to cover the Royal Wedding.
The blue bloods time in the limey-light was cut short when two days later the press rushed off to cover the assassination of Osama (bin Laden). As a creepy death celebration swept through America, we moved to Egypt, where protestors finally won over the military and threw Mubarak in a cage.
Finally, in October, Libya finally tasted freedom as the rebels found and killed Gadhafi, ending forty plus years of brutal repression. Countless thousands of Libyans have fought and died just to have the chance to attain freedoms we go out of our way to, at best: ignore, and at worst; destroy. How? With the unspoken calamities of 2011.
America’s August budget crisis was an important story; it was a scathing condemnation of current party politics and how our political system has degraded into tattle-telling and schoolyard bickering. A politician’s job isn’t just to constantly campaign, a politician’s job is to help manage the country. It doesn’t matter if past politicians have been successful by doing the bare minimum, we need leaders and thinkers to help us out of this recession: do your job.
The Occupy Movement was formed from a general frustration in the inequity of justice between classes. The officers of failing banks were given millions as they knowingly disguised and resold bad loans, fragmenting the world’s economic cornerstone and obliterating the only true fiscal commodity: confidence. The US economy sputters, the EU falters and no one is held accountable for this mega-disaster. The Occupiers had a great idea, shine the light on these scoundrels, but couldn’t execute a plan, attracting an army of idealistic dropouts, unemployable artists and fringe extremists. With childlike enthusiasm, they shouted themselves hoarse demanding the world be rebuilt to fit their needs, only to bump up against the harsh reality that the only way to enact change is to do, not complain. Also, that cops will beat your ass if you don’t do what they say. A shame they didn’t take Thomas Carlyle’s words to heart: “Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.”
Celebrity deaths do make headlines. Calling every storm “the storm of the century” will grab people’s attention, but the important stories, the stories that will bore our great-grandchildren in a floating school somewhere in low moon orbit, are the ones with hope, not death. They’re the ones with struggle and triumph, not greed or unfocused discontent. 2011 was the opening to a future of possibilities, and that’s all we can ask for.
From all of us at Calamity News, have a safe and Happy New Year!
