"MULTI-BLOOOOOOOGGG!"

Sorry, had to make a Futurama joke.

A while back I asked if the current squatters in the White House were as scary or more than the Reagan crew - as trick question as many of them are one and the same people! Still, Paul wrote me back and gave me permission to post it. So, with some editing (That's right, Paul! I'm editing you! Nyah nyah nyah!) here is his response, in order to illuminate the terror and frustration that was the 1980s for those of us too young to remember clearly.
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I was first hooked on international politics by listening to a live radio broadcast of the seizing of the American embassy in Tehran, and sorting the Saturday edition of the Star, containing news of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Let me assure you Reagan was a terrifying motherfucker. And yes we all knew he was murdering people in many places around the world.

Well, okay, let's be clearer by saying that (as now) the faction of power represented by this particular figurehead was/is scary as hell.

As a teenager, I watched wide-eyed as possibility after possibility (for peace, health, well being, education, developement etc - name the virtue) was outright squandered, over fucking crap (factional politics and ignorance), I felt scandalized, and profoundly ripped off.

Yes we fucking knew twenty five years ago that electric cars were necessary to avoid absolute disaster. We absolutely fucking knew it, and anyone who tells you otherwise,wasn't paying attention, didn't give a fuck, or is an idiot-boomer; part of that special elite class who will maintain infantile denial of their cost to the world, until long after their desires have consumed it. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Here's what screws me up - We have before us credible evidence of excellent reasons to be very afraid of what is being done in our names and with our money (I use the royal us here). I am just exactly this hardcore - I believe in the principles of Nurenburg - and I believe in the spirit of the statute against profiting off the avails of prostitution. I know, I have ranted on the subject innumerable times, so let me just say - Yes, that does sound a lot like 'original sin'. In fact it may point out the reason why such a concept should confer a positive survival benefit. My idea is offensive to the grand North American unstated doctrine that whim is right. Really it is simply that we arrive with an obligation.

[snip]

Now - was it any less scary for my dad, reading about psychotic Curtis Lemay in charge of Strategic Air Command, in the underground I.F. Stone weekly? (And Nixon and Liddy and Rumsfeld and Negroponte in his then incarnation as Vietnam Death-Brain - see 'Phoenix').
Was it less scary for Orwell? - Have you read "coming up for air", and "keep the aspidistra flying" yet? They are rare treats, and will hopefully never go out of print. But when you feel like understanding the time-dimension of this problem - check them out. They fucked me up badly - to realize my grandfather had precisely the same grounds for fear that "everything that he knew" was being simultaneously insidiously corrupted and blown to smithereens. I mean WTF mate?

[snip]

I do not miss the cold war. I do not miss the cold war. I do not miss the cold war. I do not miss the cold war.
They were, after all, planning to blow the whole fucking thing up, all at once, deliberately. On that scale, Iraq (a horrendous, despotic depravity) is barely evil. As incredibly bad as our nouveau-chaos is. There is no longer a 'good' strategic rationale for killing every single human, and letting their respective deities sort it out. This is a good thing.
But I have to remind myself of this regularly.

Here is perhaps the only optimistic thing I can say, from a quarter-century of politicization.
There was always opposition, the torch of reason, the voice of the underdog, and the social critic, have been around, in one form or another, for centuries of direct descent and flowering. (John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky differ in fewer ways than they agree, despite their seperation in time.)

What is different now, is that we are approaching McLuhan's global village, in the sense of popular awareness of the 'political games' becoming more and more widespread. Yes the internet is very good at spreading disinformation, as are all of the mass media, there has always been pablum for idiots. That should not be our focus, so much as the fact that well-meaning people can communicate internationally like never before. And even under the tightest security - some information gets out, and some gets in. Much more than many (all?) governments would like.

So the distribution channel awaits. I feel it is incumbent upon us North Americans to work our hearts out for the rosetta stone, the universal translator of respect, trust and dignity. (Our pious pronouncemnents of virtue have certainly cost the world enough).
Communism (sorry for you sentimental freaks) is right out. Why? Because with the best intentions at inception it has nontheless routinely resorted to brutality as a social tool.

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So that's Paul everyone. (Most of you have met him or heard of him.) Frighteningly, he's had a profound effect on my learning and development. For those who lost track, he touched on nuclear war, George Orwell, John Stuart Mill, Iran, and the brutality that was/is Communism. There will be a test later.

Gee, I like this - no effort on my part, and a nice long blog post. I should do this more often!