Parallels

The European past meets the European present: the home truths invented out of comfort and conformity haven’t changed one bit:

In the 1960s I was still a young kid living in the USSR. The available literature led me to believe that in the United States it was an era of romantic class struggle, moral battles, and massive heroic protests against American imperialism. In the USSR we also had massive rallies against American imperialism. They were meticulously organized by the Party apparatchiks. Attendance was mandatory because nobody in the right mind would join them voluntarily.

The new dead-enders are in fact little more than people seeking affirmation from one another that their uncertainties about their own views can be ameliorated by ignoring history.

- with thanks to Walt