Farewell to illusions
When I was seventeen, I had little respect for Western liberals. I lived in the USSR back then and was a member of an anti-government underground organization established by my friends that at its peak numbered a couple of dozen people. “Those little fucks,” I thought, using, of course, Russian expletives, “would come to Moscow to protest nuclear arms race without giving a second thought that whoever protests against the very same things in Soviet Union has a very good chance to end up never being capable to protest against anything. They would give interviews to ‘Pravda’ about the Native Americans imprisoned after the Pine Ridge incident, and not even cringe that this issue of ‘Pravda’ will be read by Ukrainians and Jews, Latvians and Estonians who were put in a close proximity with polar bears’ habitat for ‘offences’ that don’t come even close to what was done at Pine Ridge. Those liberal souls would be oh so outraged that Angela Davis did not get a proper shower in prison – well, h