Muzman on 10/11/2009 at 03:36
This is very poor branding. My first reaction on seeing that picture was that it's some weird art photograph comp of The Hoff disasterously trying to clear a toilet (the toilet is pop culture, of course).
Anyway, the coolest idea about the end of the cold war/Soviet Union for me is that it wasn't the arms race as such but Eurodollars that defeated them. And now this beast is, in a round about way, strangling the US as well. (I don't know how this stacks up with people who actually understand these things, but it's got a certain tragic poetry to it).
Anyway 2, they didn't trouble us much with the cold war when I was little. One of my teachers in about grade 4 was interested in geopolitics and used to bring it up. He used to tell us about Afganistan and was pretty much the first time anyone mentioned there were these really big countries (one which we loved/hated where all the TV comes from and one ginormous scary one which no one seemed to know anything about except they were scary) and they were going to destroy the whole world, maybe. And that was about as much as I got.
There was a genuine fear of giving us 'fear of nuclear war', which all the adults were burdened with apparently.
Everyone else was way happier than I was when the wall came down, but I could tell it was a big deal. I think my reaction was something like "Really? You can do that?" which in itself is pretty revolutionary; the idea that people could just say -we're sick of this, let's just go get rid of it- and it's not the end of the world. The sort of thing that no political mind could come up with without rejecting it as unworkable and too hard. The fact that it was the beginning of reunification and they actually did reunify as well, not just wait a while and put it back up because it's all too complicated. I don't know, but I seriously doubt that part was the inevitable and smooth downhill run it seems to be to us (or as it is often portrayed to us).
Good work following through Germans.
Namdrol on 10/11/2009 at 09:01
I was 18 and was sat watching it all unfold, tripping my head off and in tears.
Angel Dust on 10/11/2009 at 10:49
Mr Hewson, tear down this wall.
I was about 8 at the time but the images of the wall coming down and the people meeting, rejoicing and embracing struck a chord with me even if I didn't really understand the significance of what was going on.
Aerothorn on 10/11/2009 at 10:59
Every time I read "DDR" I think "Dance Dance Revolution."
Kolya on 10/11/2009 at 12:02
Every time I read "DDR" as an abbreviation for Dance Dance Revolution I think: Fuck, yeah!
Kolya on 10/11/2009 at 13:50
LOL
june gloom on 10/11/2009 at 17:37
"he'll tire himself out" rofl
