Comment by TheAlchemist 5 days ago
As a fellow Eastern European of similar age, I suddenly feel quite nostalgic.
I really wonder how my life would be different if someone told be that the US, which for me was as close to a paradise as it gets, will go down the same road in the future - I think it would shatter quite a lot of my dreams of a better life.
US is nowhere near as bad as it was on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, but it's on a fast track to it for sure.
> I really wonder how my life would be different if someone told be that the US, which for me was as close to a paradise as it gets, will go down the same road in the future - I think it would shatter quite a lot of my dreams of a better life.
That reminds me of one of the things that stuck with me from The Man in the High Castle (the book). The main story is an alternate timeline where the Nazis/Japanese won WWII and conquered America. Then there's an alternate-timeline-within-the-alternate-timeline where America/Britain won WWII, but it's not our timeline (and it's hinted there that the liberal US was eventually defeated by a British Empire gone full authoritarian). Everything passes away. The good guys sometimes win, but eventually they lose too.
It diverges much from the book but it's enjoyable and terrifying at some points. I just really don't like ending - it felt rushed and way too open like they'd still had hopes for another series.
Personally I'd kept Dick's basis of this series and incorporate Robert Harris "Fatherland" novel that would set action for a longer while in Europe. It easily could provide action for at least 2 more seasons.
It's a fantastic book, highly recommend to read.
There is also a TV series based on it (on Amazon Prime I think), but as usually, it's not as good as the book.
That alternate alternate timeline sounds like what leads to V for Vendetta.
Heh, I was watching the series two days ago. That reminds me that I have to buy both Ubik and The Man in the High Castle, preferabily cheap but commented (with footnotes) ones in Spanish. PKD it's very tedious to readin English for non natives. And sometimes in Spanish too.
Ubik is a mindbender inside a mindbender. Try to read it consistently. If you put it down for a couple of days you will be lost and rereading the last page will not help much.
There's a similar feeling story in a later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book* where it's a history of England in that universe. The part that really stuck with me was the description of the government from 1984 as just another strange period in history. Eventually, Big Brother just falls and the next government takes over. Compared with how the system in 1984 feels hopeless and eternal it gives me a strange kind of hope.
* The Black Dossier
Funnily enough I got the same type of hope from Julia, the 1984-from-Julia’s perspective tome that hints at… well, you’ll have to find out :)
maybe it's not too late to find out that US was always like this and the fairy tale our parents listened on CIA's RadioFreeEurope was just - a fairy tale for gullible grown-ups ;)
I'm contemplating it, but I'm not that old yet !
Of course there was always a bit, sometimes a lot, of propaganda everywhere. But at least it was (mostly) for the right causes and ideals. Right now, US is being governed by what I see as the worst possible people, with 0 morals.
Before Trump, at least we had the hypocrisy —like, at least people would pretend to have a moral higher ground. Now there are just completely shameless thugs in charge. They don’t even bother to lie convincingly anymore; just listen to Kristi Noem in interviews, contradicting herself from sentence to sentence without a care in the world. They won’t be held accountable for anything, and they know it.
> The story of the United States is one of genocide, racism, imperialism, and oppression of the working class.
I do not think it is. The story of the US contains all those things. And just as the story of the US contains Abu Ghraib, it also contains functioning courts sending Abu Ghraib perpetrators to jail. You can call it the permanent struggle between good and evil. There is no country in the world without evil. But there is a difference between evil being present and evil dominating. When functioning courts are dismantled, the perpetrators rewarded, you are forbidden to even talk about it, and there is no recourse left, it will be different. People who have not lived through a totalitarian regime sometimes miss that distinction. I also grew up in a communist Czechoslovakia, and I did not idolize the US because I was blind to the bad parts. I idolized it because you had evil, but not evil fully controlling the game. Even now, you can still simply move out of the US. Sure, there might be some bureaucratic hurdles, but you can fly away on a plane - your only way out is not to try to crawl under barbed wire and risk getting shot.
I will be honest - when people say something like “it’s all the same, Russia, the US, all are bad”, I think to myself... óóóh, you have no idea what you are talking about. Unfortunately, the current US is going in that direction, so you might find out. Not that I wish that on anyone.
Only two Abu Ghraib perpetrators were ever sent to jail. One served 6.5 years, the other 1.5 years. I invite everyone to scroll this Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... from top to bottom and decide for themself if that should be considered a commensurate punishment.
One may genuinly debate the genocide, racism, imperialism etc. But I can guarantee you that the 'opressed working class' in the US had it 100 times better than the non opressed Eastern European one.
As someone who's lived in a SEA military dictatorship and has been through the same shenanigans - including protestors who've given their lives - I think the best way to honor their memory would be to heed those lessons in the spirit of prevention. Once we say "well, now we can compare this to Eastern Europe/the (former) third world", it's far too late.