Worst-title #2: How the great Playboy scam won the Cold War
Worst-title #3: Worst-thoughts on Robert Scheer’s podcast with Katrina vanden Heuvel that may or mayn’t have missed the point
As a somewhat well read child of the Cold War, worst-writer has to take issue(s) with (his) elderly #OKBoomers. For that’s the ticket, eh, dear worst-reader. #OKBoomers (Heuvel), along with a few & far between #OKBoomer parents (Scheer), have been running the $hitshow that is #Americant (opinion journalism) since ever-more, which has brought us to this worst-world. And what a worst-world it is, eh. Hurray #OKBoomer. You guys are still doing great. (Sarcasm off.)
As an #Americant expatriate who has been living in #Eurowasteland, having arrived just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and living in Germany ever since, there is a worst-thing or three to be said when some people get on and on about this or that and thereby miss the friggin point. In this particular case the point should have to do who won the Cold War and NOT who is trying to reverse it (Putin)–or exploit it (NATO and the buying and selling of lots and lots and lots of guns and bombs). But I could be wrong.
Although the podcast is well-worth a listen, as it provides worthy nuggets of info regarding the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent continued rise of my beloved & missed #Americant as the only beacon of greed-mongering, albeit with a cynical smiley face, the thing that gets under my gander is how these two great journalists misfire the idear Gorbachev has a legacy to be squandered. Indeed.
There is no legacy to be squandered and Putin is proving that as I worst-write this.
As worst-noted above, worst-writer is confident in claiming, at a minimum level of course, to be well-read enough to pass on an opinion or three regarding the Cold War. Am I as well-read as Robert Scheer or Katrina vanden Heuvel? Heck no! So let me just blurt out all this worst-writing as though I’ve got a nasty cold and green and white and brown snot is bellowing out of my nose, ears, eyelids and it’s corroded not just worst-moi but my keyboard.
One of the things that has always stood out in my reading of twentieth century history is how/what the rest of the world perceives #Americant. There are basically two points of contention here that hither and wither in my worst-mind. The first is capitalism run amok. Most of the world sees #Americant capitalism with either admiration or as a guide how not to run their own version of capitalism. That’s kinda good, right? The other point of contention, though, is a bit hairier. Reason? It has to do with #Americant foreign policy. What is it that motivates #Americant to do what it does in the world? Since it’s clear that #Americant capitalism has never been thoroughly exported, what can it then export–without hindering #Americant capitalism? Have I lost you yet, dear worst-reader?
Do you know who imperialist Europe wasn’t afraid of when it began the Great War (=WW1+WW2)? It wasn’t afraid of #Americants. And do you know why? That’s right. #Eurowasteland knew that the hill-billies, rednecks, downtrodden nutcases that were either chasing gold nuggets with bedpans, selling snake oil and religion or getting their kicks killing stuck-in-the-Bronze-Age Native Americans–not to mention the hate and ugliness that to this day is the aftermath of Civil War–were all stuck in prepubescent sexual repression and family inbreeding and were no match for the industrialists that invented imperial high seas shipping, the steam engine, the frickin automobile, the Rothchilds, illuminati, etc. Sure. The #Americants defeated Great Britain in 1776–which lead to FREEDOM TO BE STUPID as we all know it today, pre and post former prez mango Mussolini. But up until the end of the Great War (=WW1+WW2) what did the world really think of #Americant?
Watch out world the playboys are cumming.
Worst-writer has often thought that the reason the fallacy of Cowboys and Indians became so popular and hence pushed by the propaganda machine known as Hollywood was because before #Americants took on the lie that is heroism and ruggedness on the back of a horse in the middle of fcuking nowhere, the word playboy was used. As in: you’re either a play-boy or you are a boy (man-child) stuck in a perpetual world of being played. In fact, worst-writer is sure that’s where Hugh Hefner got the name for his magazine. He wanted to rekindle the adage that to be a real #Americant you couldn’t go around being called a Cowboy. Cowboys are vulgar, farting, shitkicking, knuckle dragging thumb-brains and until Hollywood clarified everything, they were criminals. It was better, prettier, sexier, to be called a Playboy–if you could get there–or buy the magazine. And that’s exactly what Imperial #Eurowasteland called the #Americants at the turn of the nineteenth century. Deservedly so, may worst-writer add. But on that sexy note I die-gress.
The thing that Scheer and vanden Heuvel miss in their podcast trying to prop-up Gorbachev, thereby blathering about fifty or more years of #Americant foreign policy, NATO expansion, #Eurowasteland, etc., is the simple fact that, IMHO, Gorbachev had no choice because the process that would lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been underway for decades. And so. Was Gorbi unaware of this? Or did his ego–that grand male, patriarchal ego–stir his way? As most men do, he thought he had a solution. Yeah. Right.
The reason for the dissolution of the Soviet Union stems out of the uglies that is/was Stalin’s thoroughly whacked-out totalitarianism that robbed human beings of every aspect of individualism, not to mention his perversion of Marxism. Say what you will about the tenants of socialism/communism, the simple fact of its failure will always be–and please forgive me, dear worst-reader, for worst-writing it this way: human beings just want to travel, buy (consume-to-survive) things and surf. Am I wrong, Dude.
In worst-writer’s humble opinion, Gorbachev is no hero and his legacy is exactly what we’re dealing with today: he did it wrong and lackadaisically and without an ounce of that which made Russian culture great–or have I read too much Gogol? Gorbachev did what he did because those before him were just a speck above all that is authoritarianism run amok–and the fcuking Soviet Union was flat-out bankrupt because it was STUPID. That speck of stupid is and will never be enough to give Gorbi a legacy worth remembering. Hence there’s no doubt in worst-writer’s mind that Gorbachev never gave a $hit about people–or as Russia might call them: peasants. But his show was good. I’ve often wondered, if Ronald Reagan wasn’t his counterpart–you know, the wierdly pretty, cowboy actor–how different Gorbachev’s show would have been? Would he have visited Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm, jumped out of his limousine and greeted those Georgia rednecks, perhaps even joining them in spitting tobacco? But enough worst-writing about all-things worst and ugly and stupid and… Hey! Wait a sec. Why do I now have an urge to chew some tobacco? Dip anyone?
And on that worst-note I’ll admit that for all his faults and failures, like so many men who think they somehow, someway, have answers–as opposed to just helping people help themselves–if Gorbachev has a legacy it’s more about revealing how the Soviet Union was one big $hitshow. I mean. Come on. As it dissolved was it really up to The West to show it the way? To help it? Do you think The West wasn’t fully aware of the underlying reality that is/was the KGB and the uncontrollable frustration and anger and spite of all those ugly, ugly white men with their arses stuck in the snow and their bellies a vat of vodka? The Soviet Union and those from that era are now on a hell-spin to further ruin Russia–because they can and they know nothing else. That’s why it hates Ukraine, btw. Ukraine, as miserable and corrupt as it may or mayn’t be, doesn’t want to be part of the old $hitshow. Nor do any of the Baltic countries. Hence, NATO never recruited them. I’ve been here the whole time. NATO expansion has happened because these countries were begging for it. They all wanted some protection from what Russia is capable of, which we’ve been witnessing with Putin for the last twenty years. Who wants to be forced to join yet another attempt at $hitshow pseudo Soviet ill-glory? I mean. Come on. Russia has never been able to get out of its own way. It’s afraid of its own shadows–and considering its history, rightly so. And it can’t seem to get rid of that one fcuked up chromosome that makes worst-writer wonder if Putin has too many of them. But. Again. I die-gress.
Which brings worst-moi, of course, to the rest of what this podcast fails miserably to address. Isn’t Putin the other side of a Cold War legacy coin shared with Gorbi? If Gorbi has a legacy, he must share it with Putin. Two sides of the same fcuking coin, #nomatter if one wrote a book about peace and the other rides horses topless that, well, actually do look kinda sexy. And so. The new & improved authoritarian man-child or child-king of peasantry run amok unable to rid itself of fcuked up chromosomes… blah blah blah…
But they both have their faces on a coin. Now there’s a legacy for ya.
Rant on.
-T
Note: The title of this worst-post comes from something Katrina vanden Heuvel says about Gorbachev and Reagan calling each other names. You can guess, dear worst-reader, who called who what. I guess.
Link: Scheerpost.com article which includes link to the audio podcast
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