October 24, 2004
We remember the fall.....of The Wall
The very interesting new blog Patum Piperium thinks Mr Kerry is stuck in the past, not just stuck before 9/11, but before 1991. Before the fall of the Soviet Union...
...I remember listening on the radio a year later. There was a report about a university in the former Soviet Union where students had just been told that literature would no longer be taught to them through the barbaric, distorting prism of Marxist-Leninist "theory". I remember the shout that went up from those students. It hit me like a blow, even through a car radio. It was deep and resonant and triumphant and heart-stopping. It sounded as if it expressed the pent-up longing of an entire people which, of course, it did.There's a sort of person, we see them often here in SF, who was not thrilled by the fall of Comunism. And the same people were mostly not thrilled by the fall of Saddam Hussein.I remember that Mr. Kerry and his friends told us none of that would ever happen. That if we tried we'd just rock the boat and end up in a nuclear holocaust. (Besides, who knew? Perhaps we were just as bad as the Soviets!) And now they're trying to tell us all that all over again. Except that this time our enemy is even more dangerous.
Don't despair. If Kerry starts getting to you in the next two weeks, just open a modern atlas and try to find Leningrad on a Russian map.
I could forgive them if they were, like, you know, Communists...or Ba'athists....But they aren't. They just think it's sort of tacky for all those ordinary little people to take matters in their own hands, without it being arranged by large international institutions. And anyway, it might help Bush!!! (Senior or Junior) Ugh!
Those Soviet students make me think of the many pieces I've quoted that were written by Iraqis. Writing about the astonishing joys of freedom. Bliss of things we take for granted, like a soldier now having comfortable boots. Try this one or this one. Lotsa people aren't thrilled by these. Don't want to know about it. I think their hearts are cold and dead.
Posted by John Weidner at October 24, 2004 09:29 PM | TrackBackJohn,
Thanks for the link, I loved it and left a rather lengthy comment on the author's blog. It is meant for you as well, hope you enjoy it. Thanks again.
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at October 25, 2004 06:31 PMThanks, Mike. I had forgotten that scene!
Posted by: John Weidner at October 26, 2004 10:27 AMIn the January 1990 Issue of Playboy, a letter to the editor was published. I kept that letter because in 3 short paragraphs, the writer justified all the time I had spent in the Army and especially all the time I spent sitting in the dark watching the Czech and E. German Borders.
The Letter was titled "Letter from Glasnost" and was preceded by an intro from Playboy.
Letter from Glasnost
For more than 30 years, Playboy has been bannd in Communist Countries in eastern Eurpoe, but since Mikhail Gorbachov initiated his policy of glasnost, a few copies have trickled behind the Iron Curtain, with the result that, for the first time, we're hearing from eastern Eurpoean readers such as the one below. Welcome to the World of Playboy.
I read your magazine (a present from Holland) last week and got extremely pleased and surprised. I would never expect to be a proud owner of an orginal copy of Playboy in English. Now I can make a coparison between the propganda of the former ruling crew of professional liars and the naked truth. The former ideological machine decribed Playboy as a secret imperialistic weapon of the West to maybe threaten the marvelous future of our wealthy and foreverlasting Communistic society.
To my surprise, it turned out to be sophisiticated, attractive and pleasant magazine! Besides the pretty girls, there is plenty to read. My God, how I have missed such articles and topics! We have had free lections here, for the first time in my life, but not much has changed until now.
I am keen on English, but my only sources have been the Voice of America (depending on weather conditions), some back issues of Time and a dictionary from 1968. There is nothing on the shelves of our bookshops, so Playboy is a precious source of expressions and news. Nice to hear Ray Bradbury is still Alive!
Bruno Schwarzbach
Ostrava, Czechosolvakia.
That's a great story!
Posted by: John Weidner at October 27, 2004 09:29 AM
