We Suck

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Clarissa

January 31, 2014

I really respect the Spanish people. They have recorded the names and the stories of practically everybody who died in their war. When there was no institutional support for this effort, private citizens investigated using their own time and resources.

And then look at us in the FSU. We discussed Stalinism for all of two seconds and then pretended that USSR didn’t happen at all. It is decidedly unfashionable to mention our history. Officially and academically, there is nothing but pretense that the past was not that bad.

In short, we suck and the Spanish rock.

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7 responses to “We Suck”

musteryou

January 31, 2014

I went to bed last night with the image in my head of the young Herman Goering doing aerial surveillance trips over enemy lines. World War 2 was slack.

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1. musteryou
  
  January 31, 2014
  
  I mean World War one was. WW2 was inflammatory.
  
  And as you see I am still sleepy and have no idea what I am getting at. Or little.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    January 31, 2014
    
    You are still sleepy and I’m already sleepy. 🙂
    
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    1. musteryou
      
      January 31, 2014
      
      Herman Goering did in fact play a starring role in WW1, prior to the time when men were men and women were brood mares. It’s odd. They have footage of the previously-non-bloated gentleman.
      
      But I am very tired these days from training in the heat, and trying to do my pushups and my situps despite being doddery.
      
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cliff arroyo

February 1, 2014

Maybe it’s a ‘wisdom of crowds’ kind of thing.

The Spanish seem to be better able to look at the worst the world has to offer and then snap out of it.

I don’t know if it’s climate or other factors but Slavs (eastern even more than western or southern) are more psychologically delicate and easily become mired in downward spirals of depression even in the best of times (the expression ‘slavic melancholy’ exists for a reason).

I learned a rule first aid: never take the dressing off a wound, just apply more dressing until the pros arrive because they know how to change the dressing without killing the patient and the person administering first aid probably doesn’t.

Maybe until the FSU countries have about 20 million expert psychoanalysts on hand (or more how many patients can one see in a week) maybe the most psychologically healthy thing most people can do is to not dwell on the past and keep applying more dressing.

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J. Otto Pohl

February 1, 2014

It is not quite so bad as you make it out to be. Memory Books are a real thing. People like Roginsky and organizations like Memorial have done very good work on this front.

http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2011/10/usollag-memory-book.html

http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2009/10/another-memory-book-entry.html

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el

February 1, 2014

Very interesting post in Russian about history of Ukraine (and the present):
http://ibigdan.livejournal.com/14471715.html

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