Ah Capitalism--don’t you just love it reader? Not like that Communism that fails every 70 years or so. No sir, with Capitalism you get a good 80 years or more before the shit hits the fan and you have to turn to Socialism or start a war to bail yourself out. Wave the flag! Yippee for money! See how free you feel as you chase those greenbacks? Run and run to catch up with the sun. You’re on the road to self-actualization. Or maybe just hoping for a few kicks and a laugh--something to make you feel like you’re actually living before you have to wake up and start all over again. Don’t want to make the boss mad you know. Tough times out there. You can be replaced with a college kid tomorrow. Or a Hindu. Or a computer. Gotta get those 8 or 9 hours in. Or 10. Important work you’re doing you know. Really getting ahead. Soon you can retire, right? Why else are your working? Then they’ll miss you when you’re gone. Well, maybe not miss you, but they’ll remember the good work you did. All those lasting accomplishments you can look to after you’ve thrown away the best, most vital years of your life in pursuit of...whatever you were pursuing. Or thought you were pursuing. Course you had no choice, right? Gotta work. That’s what they say. Earn your keep. Not enough just to live or be alive, you’ve got to be industrious. A go-getter. Work sets us free isn’t that right? Who said that? No matter. So much truth in the statement its probably from the bible.
At the time I visited Russia, it was just becoming clear to the American people that the war in Iraq was a complete debacle. By then George W. had already changed our public mission from locating weapons of mass destruction to creating Democracy in a country that had never known or asked for it. Dubya seemed to think that by sheer force of will we could alter tribal affiliations and overcome ancient religious animosities. Create a blueprint for a new society based on an ideology as opposed to past realities. Course he had to sell this nonsense to the American people since we’d already lost a couple thousand servicemen and tens of billions of dollars on what he and Cheney probably knew all along was just a goose-chase. A goose-chase that just happened to make Halliburton a billion or so dollars a month* (*might want to fact-check that).
Yet believe it or not, there were actually Americans who believed Dubya. Even after he’d stolen the election. Even after 9/11 and Condoleeza Rice’s admission to the Congressional Committee that she’d received prior (and recent) intelligence about possible terrorist-plane attacks. Even after no weapons were found in Iraq, they still believed. Or wanted to believe. And in America, if you want to close yourself off in a gated community, watch Fox News, and live in a dream world no one’s gonna stop you.
But Russia’s another story. The Russia I saw had a lot of problems, but one problem the people don’t seem to have is speaking their minds. They live in a harsh reality and call things how they see ‘em. Damn the standard niceties of social settings.
I can’t recall how it came up, but shortly before we visited The Hermitage our tour guide Galina got involved in a conversation with a middle-aged couple on our bus. They were from Atlanta and were so rich that they paid for their 15 year-old daughter’s boyfriend to accompany her on the trip. The kids had their own room. Took their own excursions, and always returned to the bus loaded-down with souvenirs.
Somehow or another Galina and this couple got involved in a conversation about Iraq. I stumbled on to it late, just as Galina was making her point. She was very polite and absent of emotion.
“...but surely you see that this is simply an attempt to secure the oil fields for your country--no? There’s no shame in it. We’d do the same thing.”
The Atlanta businessman stroked his salt-and-pepper beard anxiously as he listened, his southern manners forcing him to let her finish. Until finally he responded.
“Well we’re not like your country,” he finally responded as tactfully as he could. “We’re different. We’re only there because we were attacked. We didn’t want this. We were forced to go over there.”
Galina couldn’t help but break into a smile as she and our bus driver shared a laugh.
“Forced to go over where?--to Saudi Arabia? Isn’t that who attacked you? What did Iraq do besides have oil?”
“What did Iraq do?” the man asked as though trying to reason with a schizophrenic. “What did Iraq do? I mean...Iraq, they...they didn’t let us search for weapons. That’s what for one thing. And...”
“They’re a sovereign country,” Galina suddenly interjected. “Why do they have to let you do anything? Can they demand to inspect your weapons facilities?”
“Well of course not,” the man replied as he shared a look of consternation with his wife. “..But they murdered their own people. They...”
“So did America,” Galina stated flatly. “You committed genocide against your own people.”
“What?” the man asked, seemingly shocked by her audacious claim. “No we....”
“You didn’t?” Galina asked again with that same dry, non-emotion. “Weren’t there people in America before you? Indigenous peoples? What happened to them? And what about in the 1960’s--at your universities? I’m not so very young you know.”
Now the man began to look frustrated. He looked to me for support; and while I promise you I never dissed my country on foreign soil, I saw Galina's point. So I simply took a pull from my vodka-flask and kept quiet.
“...Well that was a long time ago,” the man’s wife finally responded.
“There is no ancient history,” Galina replied coldly, “only history. Don’t be so naive Mr. _____. You Americans, everything has to be for God or some great moral authority. Iraq has oil. You want it, so you take it.” And then in an effort to smooth things over she stroked his arm and repeated, “Trust me, we’d do the same thing.”
Our time in The Hermitage (the Tsar’s old Winter Palace) will have to be covered in another post; but I should mention that at the end of the tour Galina led us into a room where all the Russian Duma members were allegedly seated as they waited for the Communist’s inevitable storming of the palace. As she described the scene of that violent October day back in 1917, Galina turned our attention towards a seemingly innocuous clock that sat on the mantle, hands stuck at 2:11.
“And it was at this moment,” she told us with dramatic flair, “that the Communists stormed into the room, stopped this clock, and declared ‘History starts now!’ Never mind that there was no Communism before. That this was all just an idea never before practiced. This was now our country’s reality. A new world order you might say,” (and here she flashed a sardonic wink at the couple from Atlanta), “which is something I’m sure we can all relate to, in one form or another.”
Galina:
(Double-click on Pic for Full-view):
* NOTE: All pics stolen off Google Images except for this last one depicting the Bush/Cheney War machine; the photo of the clock that started history; and the photo of Galina. All rights reserved on my pics. Thanks for reading!
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