The Anvil of Civilization - Collapse of the Soviet Empire and seeds of new European war

 

 The Anvil of Civilization 

When I first got to this town, honey -- I had a library job at night. I would take the last Red Line train out of Boston South Station. Would run like the devil -- to make my connections. I had to catch that train. Had to make the South Shore all right. And the Second-Shift Postal Workers from South Station Annex They’d be getting on too. 

And I came to befriend Fred - Mail Sorter 1st class. He carried the Boston Herald American going south to Nantasket. It was midnight run, mind you, and his Herald was becoming Yesterday’s news. I knew no one. And found a friend in Fred. 

Tired. We would speak. In short sighs. As workers do. Devoted as much attention to the streaming landscape. Eyeballing it in stupor. World where halogen lights were passing car lots. 

As much our minds were on Watergate, a confused situation simmering like oatmeal in America's kitchen then, we thought about war, and watched the side of the tracks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I used to ride a train with a guy named Fred. A postal worker – he read as we rode “The Anvil of Civilization” – studying world history – to understand why men fought. This is remembered above. I appear in the drawing as a serial movie character known as Dr. Shroud.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1994-03-01/premature-partnership

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/russia-ukraine-diplomacy.html

Here I am an old man devouring the news dispatches of Ukraine. Wondering like Fred.

Last night watched a PBS show about the Battle of Stalingrad. Crazed dictators on both sides. “Brutal time” says historian. Lo, but now is a brutal time to behold too.

Yesterday I read a  Zbigniew Brzezinski essay from 1994 – all foretelling in retrospect. In the 90s the concern was more to engage/help Russia, than the small states. Re Ukraine the fixation was this: Making sure a small state was not a nuclear power. 

Yesterday as well listened to MIT on webcast. Historian Vlad Zhubach, who said:

*Western politicians now are swayed by general emotional momentum.

*The wisdom of politicians’ mind is clouded by emotional trends.

*It’s a little to late to understand Putin’s shift from Soviet KGB operative to Imperial Russian Nationalist.

That politicians, like 2/3rds of US poplace (per poll) seems manifest yesterday as Def. Sec Austin sets goal to weaken Russia.

My thought: If you told me USSR fell without violence, would I believe it? Have to now as its really vivid. Ukraine, 30 years later. [And thinking back There was Chechnya, sure, too. It didn’t pierce the US consciousness – except in form of Boston Marathon bombers.]

Historian Zhubach it seemed to me indicated there was a lot of myth around Russians and war. The Russians are kind of mystical in relationship to war. Is that true? A myth can be based on partial truths, or key individuals, or in something that creates a story. Then the story takes over.

A lot of the people analyzing Putin’s moves focus too much on the reality and less than they might have on the mythmaking, Zhubach said, although he clearly felt the world should offer Putin an out, not totally corner the bad black bear. Which is part of why we are here now. It is perhaps a hairball sinking in a quagmire. – Jack Vaughan, 2022.

 

https://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2013/04/blog-post-brother-bombers-of-boston.html

 https://moontravellerherald.blogspot.com/2006/07/shroud-archetypes-connected-to.html