My 1989 trip to Moscow and thoughts about fascism

[steve2470]

I have read a lot on DU about fascism. That word scares me, a lot. In 1989 my dad and I went to Moscow just for tourism (honest). I saw the true face of fascism. Lots of Red Army soldiers walking around. The KGB was monitoring us, I think. I was afraid to say the wrong thing. I was also in Beijing in 1997 and again I was afraid. Not as much as in Moscow, but still afraid. At least here, I am not afraid to express my opinions publicly. I am not saying we are not trending towards fascism, but this is my perspective based on trips to true fascist states.

[wickerwoman]

1. Where do you live?

While I agree that the US is not nearly as fascist YET as places like the Soviet Union and China, that doesn't mean that a.) there aren't sections of the US nearly as bad and b.) we aren't heading that way in a decade or two.

Try mentioning that you're gay in many parts of the US. Never mind jail time, you're taking your life in your hands. Or drive through middle America and the south with liberal bumper stickers and watch as your car is vandalized and you are refused service. Or are accosted by gangs of bullies.

The FBI monitors a broad variety of left-leaning groups including peace and non-violence organizations. Have you seen Fahrenheit 911? Didn't the guy who got an FBI visit for criticizing Bush at the gym scare the shit out of you? Ditto the college student who got an FBI visit for having an anti-Bush poster in her room. And the church group put on the do-not-fly list because the pastor protested the School of the Americas. Read the Patriot Act and tell me with a straight face that fascism isn't where we are heading. If that's the point you're trying to make, then you haven't been paying attention to what has been happening in the past four years.

[steve2470]

2. thanks for the reminders and you are right nt

[pawtucketpatriot]

3. the so-called "slippery slope"...

is one of the weakest arguments you can make.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[wickerwoman]

6. But the "irrelevant one-liner and run" is the weakest.

Have you read the Patriot Act I and II? Do you deny that these are proto-fascist documents?

[Lostnote03]

4. My first visit to Berlin....

.....as a military Dependant in Germany from 68-73, my first visit had a traumatic impact on myself as well......Crossing the E/W German border in the winter time and watching the illuminated fence wind over the distant snow filled landscape under the starlight was very sobering....My HS Graduation was another sobering experience w/ young MPs and german shepherds patrolling the perimeter.....I fear that we are further along the steps taken toward Fascism than many understand.....Best Wishes

[noamnety]

7. Wow, that doesn't match my experience at all

I was there (Moscow) in 87, with the husband. We were there as tourists, but we both worked as military intelligence/Russian linguists.

Our experience was that they were hands down the absolute nicest people we'd come across. My daughter was less than a year old, and was crying in the customs line, and the officials asked why she was crying, I told them she's hungry, I need to nurse her. They pulled us out of line and sent us through the diplomat gate so we wouldn't have to wait, and gave us a spot to sit down and feed her. One cultural difference I noticed was when I said maybe I should find a private place to nurse (being a good American), they were disgusted with me, and basically said your baby is hungry, you need to feed her (kind of an "are you some kind of moron, don't you know enough to feed a hungry baby?" moment). Anyway, it struck me that they put people above the regulations, unlike in the US.

And it was like that consistently, throughout the entire trip. When we asked the bus driver are we supposed to pay in the front or the back (we didn't understand the system), he asked where we were from, and then said we were their guests, we didn't have to pay.

When we were lost in a blizzard and asked for instructions, the woman we asked didn't give us directions - she walked through the blizzard a half mile out of her way to make sure we got to our destination, and she wouldn't take even subway fare back to her original spot as a thank you.

The Kremlin guards tried to make me leave my backpack outside, til they realized it was my kid bundled up in a baby backpack, with just her eyes visible through a hole we cut in a blanket (like Casper, as an attempt to keep the November winds out). They called over other guards to check out the backpack (they didn't have those in Moscow at the time), and had a good laugh about it.

And so on, throughout the entire trip, we were summoned over to join in wedding banquests at restaurants, they passed our daughter from table to table talking about how important it was for our children to grow up not thinking of each other as the enemy, they told us how important it was to get her on a horse, right away (so she could grow up to be a good Cossack). Where we were briefed to expect fascism, what we saw put us to shame, because we knew there was not a single instance we ran into there where Americans would have reciprocated in kind in our own country. I've lived in a couple countries, and traveled a lot, but that was the only time I was honestly ashamed to be American. It was like looking at a vision of what a society could be if people actually did care about strangers, and stunning that we realized we'd never experienced that before.

[AlbizuX]

8. you obviously haven't said anything provocative

i wrote an article that made me have to leave the country, from the backlash....

there is no freedom of speech...just freedom to make yourself a target of the uber patriots in this country.