In 1972, I was part of one of the first tourist groups into Soviet Russia after Richard Nixon had visited there--an unprecedented American presidential visit to what Reagan would later call "the Evil Empire." Frankly, my young leftist idealist self was rather shocked at what I saw, and I came away from the trip with a new respect for capitalism. We visited Leningrad. When we crossed the border from Finland to Russia, our train was greeted by Russian guards with submachine guns. Entering Leningrad, we saw rows and rows of cheap, deteriorating apartment complexes. In Leningrad, we saw more deterioration, both of historic buildings and in general, and pervasive drabness everywhere. All the women seemed to wear the same shapeless dull dress. There was almost no food in the stores. The food we were served in our hotel was unspeakably inedible--and we were honored guests as the first tourists in Russia! (I remember when we got back to Sweden being so delighted with all the flowers in the windowboxes--the gratuitous beauty!--and with the luxurious tasty smorbords. Sweden had combined socialism--care for all--with luxury and variety and delight, in a way that Soviet communism had utterly failed to do.)
We were a student group, and were given special tours, and a special reception by a group who turned out to be a sort of local "junior chamber of commerce"--young men and woman who were interested in business and capitalism, and avidly interested in America. I believe they considered themselves to be pioneers and somewhat subversive, although they did have an official stamp. (We were presented keys to the city and they did their best for us with Russian lemonade, beer, chocolate and more edible food.) Some of them spoke English. None of us spoke Russian. We had a guide/translator. Some things we said upset these Russian young people, and we soon found out why. They had asked us about the price of automobiles in America, and who could afford them. When we answered (car prices were very low in the U.S. at that time; and workers often enough had two cars), their upset was that THEY were so poor, and couldn't even afford one car. The notion of workers owning two cars just floored them. (They were angry at their government and economic conditions.)
We inevitably got into a dinner table discussion of Nixon's visit. At the time, the Vietnam War was raging, and I hated Nixon with all my heart, and so did most of our group. (We had been yelled at in Norway by drunks who were against the war.) We explained directly and through the translator that we hated the Vietnam war, that Nixon had escalated it (breaking his promise to end it), that we opposed many of his policies and that we hoped George McGovern would win the election.
Well, there was an explosion of astonishment at the table. Fists banging. Gasps. If we thought the low price of a car here was shocking, for them to hear Americans dissing Nixon--their idol, the CEO of America, the breaker of the ice with Soviet Russia, who had actually come to visit them and open new doors--it was too much. We thought they were angry, but they were not. They were just amazed and agape. They couldn't believe their ears. Likely, they couldn't believe that a group like ours with semi-official status, almost representatives of the American government (we were not official but they took us as such), would feel free to say such things. Perhaps it gave them a taste of democracy. We didn't intend it that way. We were just speaking our minds as usual. And we had very much NOT wanted to be associated, as Americans, with Nixon (because of the incident in Norway). We also had little understanding of the impact of Nixon's visit on young Russians, who longed for the freedom and luxury of the West. They and their parents had for years born the burden of the arms race with U.S. It was very depressing of their economy. And this was pre-Gorbachev. The state and economy were still quite oppressive, controlled and centralized, and Nixon's visit, and ours and other initial tourist groups, were just the first little openings to a country that might as well have had a wall around it from WW II on. Few got in. Few got out.
My knowledge of Russia had come mostly from Dostoevsky and Tolstoi novels, and spy movies. The Tsar's Winter Palace impressed me--all the statues painted in gold--as good cause for the Russian revolution. Imagine the multimillions of dirt poor Russian peasants beholding that economic (but not artistic) obscenity. Also, the memorial to the millions of Russian dead who had successfully defended Leningrad against Nazi siege and invasion. As an American child, I had little concept of the civilian sufferings of WW II in Russia, and no understanding of the importance of Russia to Allied success. (We may well have lost, had it not been for the Russians' resistance to the Nazis.) So, while I loved the flowers and smorbord of Goteberg, and luxuriated in the West's profligate luxuries, I did come away with admiration for the Russian people--and certainly with new understanding of the East-West conflict.
Another thing I came away with was the memory of the quiet little old ladies who sat at desks in the hotel hallways, giving out towels (for a gratuity). They looked so poor and drab. But they had a job, an income, something to do! I wonder about them now, when all such state supports are gone.
Anyway, the point of this story is to alleviate DUers cries of anguish about Bush's warm welcome in Albania. They know little or nothing of our problems with Bush, our Constitutional struggles, our abhorrence of yet another unjust, heinous war, our worries about the declining middle class, our looted government, our deteriorating educational system and infrastructure, and the freeze on upward mobility of the poor. He likely has the same meaning to the Albanians that Nixon did to the young Russian businesspeople we met--hope of a better life.
They no doubt associate Bush, as President of the U.S., with whatever little glimpses of "the good life" in America that they gotten--from movies, TV, travelers, relatives--with corporate media of course playing up with glitzy side, and rarely revealing the downside. His illegitimacy, his stolen elections, his crudity, and our loathing of him would simply not register with them. It might also help to realize that Albania is one of the most miserable and oppressed countries in middle Europe and perhaps in the world (certainly in the "free world"). Miserable, oppressed, poor people are easy to manipulate, brainwash and bribe. And they may well feel genuinely honored by his visit to their unhappy, poverty-ridden land.
Just give a little scan to economic and social conditions in Albania (see below), and realize that, even more so than the young Russians we met, these folks are truly desperate--and easy prey to the likes of Bush, with glitzy promises of "free trade" (global corporate piracy) and arms dealing (joining NATO).
Also, Albanians don't have a history with the U.S., in the same sense, say, as the poor populations of Guatemala (200,000 Mayan villagers slaughtered in the '80s, with Reagan's complicity), or Nicaragua (illegal U.S. war against ordinary people who just wanted social justice), or Vietnam (2 million slaughtered) or Iraq (half a million slaughtered, country in ruins). They have little knowledge of these events, and no such history with us. Likely, all they see is a meal ticket. Sad but true. They are very, very poor, and lack information and perspective on how their poverty will be exploited.
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"Albania was an economic ruin when it emerged 12 years ago from the ironfisted rule of communist dictator Enver Hoxha. High rates of poverty and unemployment, a crumbling infrastructure, and corrupt elected officials made the nation fertile ground for smuggling in drugs, weapons, and women. Albania's government has estimated the number of Albanian women and girls trafficked to Western Europe and other Balkan countries between 1991 and 1999 for sexual exploitation at 100,000. Criminal organizations based in the capital Tirana and the cities of Vlora, Bekat, Shkodra, and Fier rely on speedboats for transporting victims across the Adriatic Sea to Italy, a trafficking stronghold. Albania's northern regions were more sheltered from the trade thanks to the prevalence in rural communities of a traditional code that dictates revenge killings for traffickers who lay hold of a female family member. However, by the late 1990s, lack of economic opportunity had undermined even this traditional safeguard as thousands of Albanian men and boys went abroad to work. Today, trafficking victims come from all parts of Albania; in particular, from rural areas where poverty is higher, education levels lower, and familiarity with traffickers' ploys less extensive. (MORE)
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dying/map_albania.html 
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