russian comes down to vegas

well i just got back from listening to mikhail gorbachev speak at the thomas and mack arena at unlv. it was an interesting speech, with interesting responses from the crowd. at one point the crowd broke into applause and cheering to a statement by gorby that it looked like democracy was crumbling in many of the new democratic nations of the world. at another point a man in the row in front of me took about 30 seconds to realize that gorby was criticising the us government's handling of the iraq conflict. once he figured it out he started booing very loudly, and then sat grumbling under his breath for the rest of the speech, even staying through the question and answer session right through the honorary doctorate of law that was presented to mikhail. i have to wonder what he thought he would hear from gorby, didn't he know what gorby thought of the us in iraq?

anyhow it was kind of neat to see a person who i remember vividly from the 80s when i was growing up in w. germany. it brought back memories of the fall of the berlin wall, the fall of communism, and the end of the cold war. it's really too bad that we've had to find another war to replace it. as gorby said tonight, it's a shame that the money that had been used for the arms race has not been used for humanitarian good now that the arms race is over. its a bit strange to find my views more in line with an ex-soviet president that with my own country's president. that is not to say that i don't disagree with a lot of gorbachev's policies as well, but i think his grand view of what the world should be is vastly superior to dubya's. maybe that's because dubya's world view barely gets outside of texas.

Name:


Email Address:


URL:





Comments:


Remember info?