42 lines
1.9 KiB
Plaintext
42 lines
1.9 KiB
Plaintext
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TO MANY MORE GOOD LIVES
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It was not the start of the third millenium but the first day of a new year
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when frivolity took a time-out.
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Almost 70 years into the revolution, a faded but steadfast dream anchored to
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the past by an immense bureaucracy, breached the missile gap with a tentative
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message to the people of the other side. The steward of this dream, a balding
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man in his late 50s with a discolored spot on his forehead glanced occasionally
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to the prompter on his left as he delivered stiff greetings to the enemy.
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Hours earlier, on the other side of the world, the snow was interrupted first
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by a flicker, then a picture of a man who nodded his head as he spoke. The man
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calmly delivered his speech, looking directly out from the television as if he
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could see each viewer.
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The words came forth, separated by the distance between two markedly divergent
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national cultures; separated by mutual distrust; separated by the technology
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which transmitted them.
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The words came forth, so similar in context that style of delivery became the
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only rule by which measure of their impact could be taken.
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In America, Mikhail Gorbachev's appearance was a last-minute side show in a
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carnival of sport. Across the vast expanse of the Soviet Union, Ronald
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Reagan's appearance caromed like a billiard ball.
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The only tangible results of the November Summit meetings in Geneva, these New
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Year's greetings were heard and forgotten by publics which had long since
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relinquished their title to the arsenals; rather, they sought the pleasures
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and trials of daily living, electing the continuity of family and clan.
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"Plus ca change, c'est la meme chose." Peasants, the politically powerless,
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know war will come some day. Peasants are the continuity of the civilized
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world; they have survived horrors; they have survived governments.
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Many generations of good lives have been lived in the grey shadow of
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Armageddon.
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A toast: "To many more good lives."
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