unfurling worldline

1946-Present

Background context:

Each Presidential Administration from Eisenhower to Obama is assigned a number. Throughout the map, you will see each intervention tagged with a number that corresponds to the presidential administration that the intervention occurred under:

It starts with The School of the Americas:

And then the interventions begin.

“Some common themes can be seen in many of these U.S. military interventions:

First, they were explained to the U.S. public as defending the lives and rights of civilian populations. Yet the military tactics employed often left behind massive civilian ‘collateral damage.’ War planners made little distinction between rebels and the civilians who lived in rebel zones of control, or between military assets and civilian infrastructure … The U.S. public always believe that in the next war, new military technologies will avoid civilian casualties on the other side. Yet when the inevitable civilian deaths occur, they are always explained away as ‘accidental’ or ‘unavoidable’.

Second, although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy,’ nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites … The U.S. was not defending ‘freedom’ but an ideological agenda (such as defending capitalism) or an economic agenda (such as protecting oil company investments). In the few cases when U.S. military forces toppled a dictatorship–such as in Grenada or Panama–they did so in a way that prevented the country’s people from overthrowing their own dictator first, and installing a new democratic government more to their liking. Third, the U.S. always attacked violence by its opponents as ‘terrorism,’ ‘atrocities against civilians,’ or ‘ethnic cleansing,’ but minimized or defended the same actions by the U.S. or its allies. If a country has the right to ‘end’ a state that trains or harbors terrorists, would Cuba or Nicaragua have had the right to launch defensive bombing raids on U.S. targets to take out exile terrorists? Washington’s double standard maintains that an U.S. ally’s action by definition ‘defensive,’ but that an enemy’s retaliation is by definition ‘offensive.’

Fourth, the U.S. often portrays itself as a neutral peacekeeper, with nothing but the purest humanitarian motives. After deploying forces in a country, however, it quickly divides the country or region into ‘friends’ and ‘foes,’ and takes one side against another. Fifth, U.S. military intervention is often counterproductive even if one accepts U.S. goals and rationales. Rather than solving the root political or economic roots of the conflict, it tends to polarize factions and further destabilize the country. The same countries tend to reappear again and again on the list of 20th century interventions. Sixth, U.S. demonization of an enemy leader, or military action against him, tends to strengthen rather than weaken his hold on power.”

Sources:

Info Graphic

Words (Zoltán Grossman, Faculty of Geography & Native Studies, Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington)

More resources about U.S. Intervention (worldwide):

“Histoy of U.S. Intervention” by NNOMY

“America’s Third World War” by John Stockwell/NNOMY

“U.S. Interventions in the Middle East” by Information Clearing House

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

You're right that the internet is smaller than it used to be, but there's still some cool stuff left in the corners. I'd recommend checking checking out Neocities if you haven't--it's an independent web hosting platform like Geocities of the old web, and there are hundreds of interesting and active pages discoverable both through their search function and through web buttons (links attached to small pictures with the title of a website) within the websites themselves. Here are three examples of web buttons you may find in link pages:

Most Neocities websites have link pages or button collections with anywhere from tens to hundreds of these. Don't be afraid to explore!

If you're looking for something more like a search engine, I can point you towards Marginalia. It's not a particularly smart engine, but it's perfectly usable if you've ever been taught to use search engines back when they were mostly run through keywords instead of full sentence comprehension. There's also an "about" and "tips" section on the front page with more information. The algorithm of Marginalia can be filtered by the user to allow, disallow, or require JavaScript depending on your needs, plus there are filters designed specifically to prioritize web 1.0 sites or mostly text-based ones. It is possible to search for modern websites with it, but it can return websites from just about any decade (since the invention of the web, obviously) so long as they contain the information you're looking for. For example, here are some random interesting sites I've found using Marginalia:

Native Languages of the Americas: Native American Cultures

BASIC HTML COMPETENCY IS THE NEW PUNK FOLK EXPLOSION!

Earthbound Text Labs by Bill Eager

The possibilities for discovery are truly endless.

Now you might want to know about directories. These make browsing for websites easier, but require you to read through and judge which ones to visit, as there aren't algorithms ranking the sites besides the whim of whoever coded the directory. Some of them have themes, others don't. Here are two that I've used:

Yesterlinks Directory

Ichigo Directory

Directories can be harder to come by just by surfing the net, but they aren't impossible to find. Many personal websites have their own directories of interesting sites hidden within them.

Webrings are similar to directories, but are actually more community-based. You have to register your website to be a part of a webring, usually by sending an email to whoever runs it and meeting some kind of entry criteria. For example, my personal website used to be a part of a webring called Sweet Dreams, which was for websites that heavily utilize color palettes and images of cute things, particularly sweets. Webrings will give you access to a widget upon entry that allow visitors and other members to browse between the registered websites in a massive ring, ergo, where the term gets its name. Webrings can have any theme or criteria for entry. If you can make a website about it, you can find a webring for it.

Now, you might be wondering about social media alternatives. I can't offer much, but I can nudge you towards the idea of forums. Here's one I found that could really use some traffic. I also browse a bit on MelonLand forum, which is actually closed right now--it's currently closed on Mondays--but on any other day of the week, you can find a fun community there dedicated to web revival. You can find it through MelonLand's main page. I'd also recommend checking out SpaceHey, which is a MySpace clone that's customizable and easy to use.

Are you a word nerd like me, and my father before me?

Then may I introduce you to...

Ownership meant a physical copy. Now you own nothing and can't find what you want across multiple streaming platforms.

The Borgund Stave Church in Norway. Constructed between 1180 and 1250 AD, it is a remarkable relic of medieval craftsmanship, uniquely built entirely of wood and assembled without any nails through a method known as timber framing. This method of construction is characteristic of a rare group of medieval churches found predominantly in Scandinavia.

Now preserved as a museum, the church has been carefully restored and is managed by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments. It features a distinctive triple nave layout and is recognized as a Sogn-type stave church.

I was reading one story where the apocalypse was impossibly-rising oceans. Like, water is appearing from *waves hand* the Earth's crust or something, and literally all dry surface land on Earth is going to become underwater in X years. Part of the story was about a giant research project to invent FTL to send a few hundred humans to a nearby star which might have a habitable planet. You know what they were hoping to find? A planet with liquid water. Their plan was to descend from their starship and restart civilization using just the tools they brought with them, on a world with no life and no breathable air and the wrong gravity and the wrong temperate and the wrong sunlight and the wrong day-night cycle, just because it had liquid water. You know where else has liquid water? The flooded Earth you just abandoned. Instead of researching starship technology, you could have spent that time loading up all the same civilization-restarter tools into boats.

In the meantime, you can tell none of these oligarchs have ever read even one short story of science fiction and heeded the warnings inside them with any measure of merit. Elon Musk sure as hell hasn’t read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and understood the urgent warnings about colonialism.

[image 2: the periodic table of the elements, except that hydrogen and helium are in their own box labeled "Real elements", and elements 3 (lithium) through 118 (oganesson) are labeled "Mental illness".]

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