The Iranian Revolution
Tiananmen Square
Battle for Seattle
The Twitter Revolution
The rhythm? 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009. Also each represents a major political or power shift. Around 1979, the rise to power of Thatcher and Reagan, the consolidation of the neoliberal agenda, and Soviets enter Afghanistan. In 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela and the initiation of democratic reforms in South Africa, and the Soviets end the war in Afghanistan, the beginning of the end of Japanese economic expansion. In 1999, the initiation of a sequence of anti-globalist activisism that ends with 9-11. 2009, the collapse of neoliberalism and its zombification, the election of a black president, the speech in Cairo, and, presently, the popular and violent rejection of an election that handed a more than dubious landslide victory to Ahmadinejad.
Conclusion? The last year of the past four decades has been the point at which the pressures of the decade explode. (1969 almost fits this scheme, but most of the major political events happened in the year before, 1968: the assassination of MLK and Robert Kennedy, and the student and worker uprising in France.)
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