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By
Bruce Bressack
04/24/2003
Boomers
It was during the early period of the Cold War, and fears of a nuclear holocaust drove some interesting (peculiar?) behavior.
Some people built bomb shelters.
Granted, a bomb shelter is more effective than duct taping plastic sheets around your family room. But, what if you happened to be at work (or getting a haircut) when the bomb dropped. Not too helpful!
School districts held air raid drills.
When the alarm went off, we all huddled in the hallway, then kneeled down...facing the walls…our tiny arms covering our fertile little minds.
We felt "safe" in those corridors, not knowing at the time that we had absolutely no chance of survival if the nukes were dropped.
Then one day, quite unexpectedly, Russia became our friend. No more Khrushchev shoe-bangin’ on tables...no more “we will bury you”.
Suddenly, and amazingly, the Russians were “just like us”. The musician Sting always preached that philosophy...he even said "we share the same biology...regardless of ideology".
Last
year, our
president said that he looked the Russian Leader
Putin in the eye and
was able to get a sense of his soul. They became the
"best-of-buddies"... arm-in-arm...no more good cop/bad cop...
just good ol' buddies.
Now, we’re hearing that Russia "can’t be trusted". [And that goes double for France].
It started with Putin taking sides with France and Germany in pledging to block any U.N. resolution authorizing war in Iraq. Then, other detrimental stories began to emerge about Russia's dealings with Iraq (before, and during, the current war).
All this leaves us little citizens "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered".
Who are our friends? Who are our mortal enemies? What's the Russian word for Alka-Seltzer?
And, who will be our enemy next month?
Guess we can just [fill in the blank]!
Bruce Bressack is a singer-songwriter, producer and freelance writer currently living in New England. He’s a 52 year old baby-boomer, ex-Yuppie, ex-New Yorker, guitar-slingin’, piano-slappin’, finally ‘retired’, television tube lover...
Bruce Bressack can be reached at bbressack@hippopress.com