I grew up in the 70s and 80s. For most of my life I think we had five channels of TV (not including that wacky UHF!) and watched one of three 30 minute long news program every night. Even when we got cable in my teenage years, we still watched the nightly news.
Most of the news in my memory was dominated by the Cold War. The American military was always off doing something to stop the spread of communism. That’s what we were told and that’s what most of us believed. Of course, the truth is very different from what we got from Walter Cronkite and I’m not here to either whitewash the USA’s horrific global interventionist policies nor am I here to review all of them. This isn’t a whataboutery post.
But looming large over my entire childhood was the threat of nuclear holocaust. It probably wasn’t wise but my parents let me stay up late and watch The Day After. This is a movie which I probably shouldn’t have watched at age 12 and especially shouldn’t have watched since we lived on base in Ft. Riley Kansas, one of the places which is destroyed in the film. Yes, my father was in the military at the time.
After watching the film, I had a lot of questions. Was it accurate? Would anyone survive? Would we survive? The answer to the last question was an unequivocal “no”. We lived on base. All military bases would be targets. I don’t know whether my dad was right to tell me that or not. If Avie asked me that same question, I think I would say that it’s complicated and that we should all hope that it never happens.
But beyond that one film, and the constant news stories about “nuclear treaties” and whatnot, the threat of nuclear war filled our leisure media as well. Films like Wargames, the Mad Max series, Terminator, and countless low budget films either featured nuclear war as the theme, warned of a coming apocalypse, or were set in a post-apocalyptic future. Generation X is steeped in nuclear war and apocalyptic imagery and storytelling.
I spent a lot of time in my formative years trying to find a solution to that problem but there were no solutions to be found. In the event of a nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union, all life on earth would be annihilated. My conclusion was that anyone who managed to survive the initial blasts would probably count themselves as the unlucky ones. And for those few who would survive deep in some bunker somewhere, imagine the nightmare that awaits them as they spend many generations underground subsiding off algae.
That’s how I dealt with it: a huge dose of “nothing matters”. From about age 12 to age … ah 38, 39?.. I was swamped by a wave of fatalism. It faded for a while in the 90s and I managed to pull myself together and get a college degree, fall in love, get married, get divorced, develop a crippling alcohol dependency, and somehow still keep my job and house long enough to meet another person and have a child. But whatever fear faded into the background for a while I still catch myself feeling like nothing really matters because we are all going to die in a nuclear blast soon.
And of course, the war in Ukraine is dragging all those feelings back up. Especially since Putin is threatening the world with nuclear war if they get too involved in his land grab.
This is one of those things I can’t control but which I have a really hard time letting go of.
I was listening to This American Life yesterday, an episode called “The Other Mister President” and in act 3 – a segment on how Russia controls people through propaganda – it ends with a line that I’ve heard said in many different ways but which resonates here: “if you tell people that everything is a conspiracy, it doesn’t lead people to revolt, it leads people to go well I might as well give up.”
I feel like if you tell humans that the world is ending enough times, they just go ahead and figure that they might as well give up. That it’s pointless to struggle against it, to protest it, and to stand up to the people in charge and hold them accountable.
Interesting post and thoughts that echo in my mind. Im probably a few years older than you and was raised in sweden during the cold war. We, or many of us, thought, whats the point of studying, learn a trade, build a family as we´re certain that the world would end within a couple of years.
I´ve always wondered if that was the reason why it took me so long time to get long term perspective with family, children, buying a house, stocks etc?
Those thoughts come back to me now and I want to got Ukraine and fight. Its probably quite silly but we know the russians and whos next.
A week after stepping away from Chelsea, Abramovic has decided to sell the club.
Huge (though not as big as being under bombardment).
The effects of the sanctions, or has he developed a social conscience? There are people better placed than I to address this
His statement certainly checks all the right boxes. Not calling in loans, donating proceeds to Ukraine charities. But no way to know how much of that is pure PR. Will be interesting to see what happens to Marina G, who has a reputation as a very good exec.
And maybe Arsenal dodged a bullet with Usmanov divesting?
”The effects of the sanctions, or has he developed a social conscience? ”
Maybe both, or maybe neither.
Or maybe it’s his three wives and seven children who still live in the UK , work or go to best and most prestigious schools.
Donating the net proceeds ( whatever that means ) from the sale of Chelsea FC to charities buys a lot of good will and forgiveness for being associated with Putin.
And if he manages to have his cake and eat it too( condemn the war but not Putin), then he’s definitely smart enough to make back those few billions by taking advantage of the opportunities with Russia’s economy in tatters.
I remember very well being cognizant as a child and a teenager, of living under the threat of “The Bomb”
“War – I’ve known no war
And if I ever know it
The glimpse will be short
Fireball in the sky
No front line battle cries” – Pete Townsend
“Everybody’s got a bomb
we could all die any day
Before I let that happen
I’ll dance my life away” – Prince
It’s easy to be cynical about Abramovitch’s statements and motives. He also happens to the largest benefactor of the Holocaust Museum in Israel, after Sheldon Adelson and family.
It’s never black and white, and if the sale of the club actually helps people in Ukraine that will be a good thing.
Fabulous post Tim. I am slightly older then you and remember very well the threat of nuclear war. I grew up in rural South Dakota but there were plenty of missile launch silo’s in the plains so our parents and teachers all told us we would be some of the first to be targeted when the crazy Russians inevitably killed us all. Eventually I finally came to the conclusion there was absolutely nothing I could do about it so what was the point of worrying.
Sting wrote a song named “Russians” talking about the Cold War and his belief the propaganda about the Russians was way overblown and I am sure a lot of us know the song. Some of my favorite lyrics from the song.
Mr. Khrushchev says we will bury you. I don’t subscribe to that point of view. It’d be such an ignorant thing to do if the Russians loved their children too.
There is no monopoly on common sense.
There is no such thing as a winnable war. Its a lie we don’t believe anymore.
Sting was right.
+1, Bill.
I rarely name drop on here, but I possess some small knowledge about that song, as I was fortunate enough to have a bit of involvement in the “Dream of the Blue Turtles” album on which that song appears. It’s very much a Cold War song, based actually on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romance melody. Steward Copeland hated it, BTW! From an interview he gave at the time:
“”I feel very strongly that in order to relax East-West tension, you can’t leave it to the politicians anymore – they’ve proved themselves totally inept: lt’s up to individuals to make contact with one’s counterpart behind the so-called Iron Curtain in order to ascertain and confirm that they are human beings and not demographic sub-robotic morons. So I felt that it was important to go to the Soviet Union and perhaps meet fellow musicians and do something together. Unfortunately I came up against the bureaucracy that politicians put in front of you. It’s not easy to get into the Soviet Union to make a record – and it should be. I’d love to take this band to Russia. I think it would freak them out.”
He added: “It’s not a pro-Soviet song, it’s pro-children. It’s a very obvious statement to me but one that isn’t being made. The wheels were set in motion but it’s taken a very long time to do because of the politics of going through the Politburo and having them sanction it. My feeling is that you have to make contact with our potential enemies, people you might be expected to kill or be killed by.”
1Nil
That is really awesome. I was and still am a huge fan of the Police and then Sting’s solo career. Really great stuff.
“Nothing Like the Sun” is one of the greatest albums of the 1980s. Can’t say enough about it. Right up there with my favorites “Graceland” or “Purple Rain” or “Tattoo You”.
Another great line from the same song.
“We share the same biology, regardless of ideology
But what might save us, me and you
Is if the Russians love their children too”
70-80’s child here who was born and raised in … “good” ‘ole USSR. The part of the country where I grew up though is now Moldova (perhaps the next one on Putin’s list?). However, I experienced Russian propaganda first hand. We were all fed “Communist Party is Your God” and “America is the Evil Enemy” crap from the moment we were able to listen and comprehend. I had a slightly different perspective on things though since I had some family who immigrated to US in 1978. So growing up I had a rare opportunity to actually figure some stuff out on my own as opposed to been brainwashed by Soviet government. Thinking back about those years now is pretty surreal. Like imagine not having toilet paper. And I’m not talking about a shortage like we’ve had in the early days of pandemic. I’m talking about like not having it at all … or for very extended periods of time (think years). It was considered a luxury, believe it or not. In any case, when Gorbachev came to power in 1985 things have changed… and I must say generally for the better. He had a good idea (I think) but not so much a good plan on how to execute it. Either way, he’s the one (and Bush Sr.) who I have to thank for been able to immigrate here to US in 1991. Now that I got that out of the way, it’s absolutely crazy to see/hear what’s going on there right now, and my heart goes out to all families who have been directly and indirectly affected by the actions of a maniac. Hoping this ends peacefully (even though it’s kind of late for that) and soon. But I’d be more than okay if the little dictator suffers the fate of Julius Caesar. In fact, it might be the best outcome for everyone involved.
Just to blow off steam for a moment…
I’m not worried about nukes yet. I don’t think he wants that kind of war.
This thing is going to shit in exactly the same way that Syria did. Sieges, massive bombardment, cities flattened, humanitarian corridors. He’s remaking Ukraine. In Syria there were around 6 million refugees and another 6 million internally displaced, effectively permanently. Over half the population. A decade later, nobody went back home. Ukraine will be the same.
On our side what really pisses me off is that Usmanov and Abramovich and all the other guys were exactly the same cunts last month as they are this month. Last month their money was absolutely fine and now suddenly there’s a problem. Now we’re seizing their assets, forcing them to sell their football clubs and taking their yachts. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t have laundered their fucking money in the first place and let them all buy up half of London.
There’s that saying, listen to people when they tell you who they really are. Maybe, just maybe, when we sell all our principles for pennies, we tell all the bad guys exactly who we are, that despite all our talk about morals and freedom, fundamentally we don’t give a shit what they do as long as we keep getting rich. Just maybe that emboldens and encourages the bad guys to do bad things.
Missile strike in Chernihiv killed 33 civilians, footage is like Aleppo or Gaza or Grozny.
What’s different? Oh yeah, no Muslims, so no possibility to justify it by calling the Ukrainians terrorists. Putin’s trying to call them Neo Nazis instead but a) nobody’s going to buy that and b) we would still get outraged on behalf of Neo Nazis anyway, they are inside the circle.
Sorry guys this moment I’m having will blow over and I will go back to football
Exactly. On both counts. Apparently, though, pointing out these sorts of double standards and blind spots now makes one a Putin propagandist…
How can a country with a democratically elected (with a landslide 70% majority if I recall) *Jewish* president be Neo-Nazi?