Comment by TheAlchemist
7 hours 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.
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.
> 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.
Wow, thank you for the effort in typing out that this synopsis! Seems like quite the compelling read.
I have already retrieved the book & will start it tonight.
It's a great book. Phillip K Dick, there is no author like him.
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.
I also enjoyed the TV series equally.
That alternate alternate timeline sounds like what leads to V for Vendetta.
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 :)
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.
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.
The story of the United States is one of genocide, racism, imperialism, and oppression of the working class. For an American, to confuse rhetoric for history is an easy mistake to make - an Eastern European does not have that excuse.
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