> [Krimel] > I hate to be the one to bring you up to speed on this but the Russians > did get the bomb.
[Platt] Right, after we got it, thanks to your science friends. They saved us to fight foreign totalitarianism another day. I for one am much obliged. [Case] The Russians got the Bomb before I was born. I've a dim recollection of Sputnik which connects to Elvis the Pelvis singing "Hound Dog" which connects to "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Pokka Dot Bikini". The name Bikini had been blasted into public consciousness with nuclear tests on Pacific atolls several years earlier. We said the Lord's Prayer and pledged allegiance to the United States each morning before class. The prayer was a problem because some people said "...forgive us our trespasses..." others said, "...forgive us our debts..." I don't remember any fights erupting over this doctrinal difference but in the end the "...trespassers..." usually won. I was a "...debtor..." and in the time of Sputnik these elderly folk joined our congregation. There were enough of them to form their own Sunday School class. Their lessons were taught in Hungarian. They had fled their country after the US failed to deliver military support for a popular effort to eject the Russians. It is the all white '50s world That Platt and Ham long for: Pleasantville. Schools were segregated. Everything was segregated. There was a white world and a black world. And it was a white and black only world. The brown world consisted of migrant workers, Living out of sight in labor camps. Every morning in our all-white school, we prayed and pledged. One afternoon our teacher told us about people in China. Communists were shoving chopsticks in their ears either because they wanted to pray or because they longed for freedom. I can't say for sure which, but it was one of those. It was a shocking to hear. As far as I was concerned the more time we spent on praying, the less time we spent on spelling. But chopsticks in the ears? Surely the Lord heeds the silent prayer. I could pray under my breath but who could stop longing for Freedom? I'd seen enough cowboy movies to know there's a price to be paid. The sheriff is honor bound to walk into the street at High Noon. I wondered why China did not ask for statehood. The Communists put up a wall in Berlin. America was invaded by Beatles. There was the airlift and the haircut. I watched Dr. No from the backseat of a Chevy Nomad. Our Man Flint, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The world of Graham Green and John LeCarre Shifting allegiances and shades of morality Every morning in our all-white school, we prayed and pledged but the Communists had the Bomb and were watching us from space. We learned that even if the Bomb didn't blow you to bits, invisible radiation could still kill you unless you had a lead suit or a hole in the ground full of dehydrated food. We learned to Duck and Cover. Under my desk with my head between my knees I wondered how you would pee in a lead suit. My neighbors opted for a shelter. They were planning to put in a pool but it turned out Castro had missiles in Cuba. I was bussed to my all-white school. The route took on a mile long dirt road, carved through an orange grove. One day Mom took me deep into to the groves to see the spot were an Air Force jet had crashed while on maneuvers out of McDill. There was a scar in the rows of orange trees littered with fragments of glass and aluminum. Overhead more jets roared in the direction of Havana. Rabbit ears wrapped in aluminum foil brought us A snowy black and white Khrushchev Banging the table with his shoe. I drew strength from Gary Cooper, Living the code of the west at High Noon. These ear stabbing, wall builders Were aiming at us from Hemmingway's hideaway. First they booted the mob No sugar? No cigars? Now this? Every morning in our all-white school, we prayed and pledged. One day we had two new boys in class, Gustavo and Jorge. Their father owned an auto parts business in Camagüey, in the central highlands of Cuba. The Communists took his store. He was a Capitalist and didn't want chopsticks in his ears. Gustavo became "Gus" and Jorge, "George". I think Jorge was more OK with the Anglicization than Gustavo, especially when his English improved enough to translate, "Whore, Hey!" These were the first people I'd met who didn't speak English. I never fully realized that adopting a Spanish accent did not improve my ability to be understood by either of them. These Cubans in Pleasantville were not black or white; Castilians with a touch of moor, nothing like the Mayan and Aztec migrants in their work camps. Castro was a bad man for taking their father's parts store and making my Mom and Dad pay more for sugar. We could not afford a pool or a fall out shelter. I trembled at the thought of lead underwear reeking of urine (Some worried that the acid in your whizz might turn the lead into a battery and shock your tallywacker.) There were black and white Destroyers on the screen 8x10 U2 shots Grease penciled silos Snapped from the stratosphere Kennedy and the Kremlin; Fingering their buttons We checked the horizon For mushroom clouds Before breakfast and dinner We blinked first in Budapest and the Bay of Pigs This time Kennedy was steely eyed. Khrushchev caved. Vapor trails and sonic booms Began to seem unusual, again. Every morning in our almost all-white school, we prayed and pledged. Gus and George moved when their father found a job with a parts chain in Miami. But more and more refugees in flotillas found refuges in Miami and Tampa. The edge between the black and white worlds began to smudge. Police dogs and firehoses, marches and riots "We the People" were doing what it took not to be the kind of people that stabbed people in the ears with chopsticks. We shined the light of freedom into the dark corners of our own hometowns and welcomed those fleeing oppression. We began to eat tacos and Soul food. The ideals we voiced in prayer and pledge resounded in the spirituals sung by marchers in the streets. I would be in high school before there were black faces in chemistry class. Always in the background the Communists threatened us with nukes and chopsticks. Morning and night we checked the horizons. We pledged and prayed but... Fear was always there Fear of Reds Fear of Blacks Fear that Rob and Laura Petrie Might corrupt us By sleeping in the same bed We feared the skies We feared the walls We feared Pinkos in the halls All the while we feared The Other in our midst We saw the world change And feared what it might become It is not as though I haven't felt the fear the Platt and Ham voice. I was raised on it. But while they seem to have learned to fear "Communists" and "liberals" I learned to fear the kind of people who would drive a man from his auto parts store. Does it matter if such a man is driven by a dictator or and national chain. I learned to fear the kind of people who sanction torture and assassination. Does it matter if they use bamboo shoots under the nails or "advanced interrogation techniques"? Does it matter if they call it murder or "executive sanction"? I learned to fear the kind of people who think civil rights belong only to those who "deserve" them. Does it matter if it is the KGB or an employer demanding a urine sample? I learned to fear the kind of people who rule through the fear. Does it matter if they exploit our fear of A-Bombs or bad breath? I learned to fear the kind of people who would stick chopsticks in the ears of people who want freedom. The Cold War was almost over by the time Sting wrote this. It was not a part of my childhood. Perhaps the great powers of the world saw fit to wait until I had children of my own to stop acting like rams in rut. Perhaps I would not have understood him as a younger man. It's set to a tune by Prokofiev and I hum it often when I reflect on the way an F-4 Phantom jet can rip through orange trees or when I think of people mounding their pools with concrete and three feet of dirt then stocking them with can foods and shotgun shells. How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy. There is no monopoly of common sense on either side of the political fence. We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too. - Sting, 1985 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
