If the movie Wall Street, with its lead character Gordon Gecko's proclamation that "Greed is good," typified the 1980s, many commentators suggested that the end of the decade might signify a new spirit of generosity among Americans. But while the election of Bill Clinton indicated a move leftward, the political bar never really strayed far from the center during his eight years in office. The GOP takeover of Congress in 1993, following the rejection of Clinton's moderate proposals to reform healthcare and allow gays to serve openly in the military, all but put an end to any high hopes that liberals had for the Clinton Administration.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Senior
But perhaps following Gecko's lead, Congressional leaders moved far beyond a standoff with the President over his politics to an ill-fated attempt to remove him from office over charges that he lied about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. The President had lied, but most Americans didn't feel it warranted his impeachment, and when the Senate trial ended without a conviction, Clinton finished out his term and left office on his own accord with his personal popularity fully intact. His numbers were undoubtedly boosted by the soaring economy and stock market.
By all accounts, 1990 was a remarkable year for news. Early in February, the Central Committee of the Communist Party agreed to cede power in the Kremlin, paving the way for Boris Yeltsin's election as president. Yeltsin would soon be presiding over a much smaller nation, as one by one Russia's satellite states declared their independence. By the end of 1991, the name Soviet Union was a near complete misnomer. When Chechnya declared its independence, however, Yeltsin refused to recognize it. Since then, Russia's war with Chechnyan rebels has been costly.
There were other changes in the former Soviet bloc. In 1992, Czechoslovakia split peacefully into two nations, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with Vaclav Havel assuming the presidency of the latter. Yugoslavia split into several independent republics, but this time the results were bloody. The Clinton Administration brought about a settlement of the Bosnian conflict with an agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995. Four years later, with assistance from NATO, the United States Air Force began bombing the forces of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic until he agreed to pull his troops from Kosovo.
The Clinton Administration was less successful in African affairs. After American soldiers were killed in Somalia, the Administration and the United Nations were hesitant to become involved when conflict erupted in Rwanda. As a result, some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribe members were killed in genocidal attacks.
Almost as astonishing as the changes in Eastern Europe were events in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in February 1990; with his release and the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress, apartheid collapsed. In 1994, Mandela became the country's first black president.
Operation Desert Storm, America's war against Iraq, was touched off in January 1991 after Saddam Hussein's troops occupied Kuwait. The war was over quickly, but the environmental damage caused by Hussein's decision to set fire to Kuwaiti oil wells lasted for years. The war marked the height of George Bush's popularity. Thought to be unbeatable at the war's end, he Bush was trounced by Bill Clinton in 1992, the victim of his own economy and a feeling among the electorate that the President was simply out of touch. Although he left office after only one term, Bush managed to have a lasting impact on the Supreme Court: He nominated arch-conservative Clarence Thomas, who was appointed despite the sexual harassment claims of Anita Hill, a charge that divided the country and no doubt contributed to Bush's defeat.
Although the Clinton-Gore team won handily in 1992, the Administration was dealt two swift setbacks over its plans (led by Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton) to reform healthcare and allow gays to serve openly in the military. The backlash led to a GOP takeover of both the House and the Senate. The country was also victimized by its first major terrorist attacks. On February 26, 1993, bombs planted in the garage of the World Trade Center killed six people and wounded more than 1,000. Then, on April 15, 1995, two right-wing militia supporters blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and wounding 800. The bombing was a response to two deadly government raids on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and on white separatists in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Nearly as shocking were the race riots that broke out in Los Angeles after four police officers were found not guilty of criminal charges despite a videotaped beating of Rodney King. Nor were the 1996 Atlanta Olympics immune to violence. One person was killed when a bomb was set off in the city's Centennial Olympic Park during the competition. A right-wing extremist, Eric Rudolph, later pleaded guilty to setting off the explosion.
If the '90s did bring about a change in people's attitudes, the best evidence of it was on display in Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999. Thousands of protesters opposing anti-environmental policies and neoliberal free-trade agreements clogged the streets and clashed with police in demonstrations that were reminiscent of many of the mass-protests of the 1960s. The protests would be repeated elsewhere around the world, making it clear that this was a growing and powerful movement with its own response to the Gordon Geckos of world: "Greed is not good."
The 1980s
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