Picture yourself grooving from Brandenburger Tor to the Siegessäule and back, then from Brandenburger Tor to the Siegessäule and back over and over for hours, shaking it to techno!

According to Robert A. Ford, a distinguished Canadian diplomat who served as the dean of ambassadors in Moscow and as an adviser to NATO on Soviet affairs, it was a “myth“ that what „NATO had actually done was prevent a military invasion.“ The real threat to Europe had been the political disintegration of the allies, and this is what NATO had prevented. Ford’s analysis was not unique; it was shared widely in the alliance from the 1940s through to the early 1990s. Even the State Department’s champions of an Atlantic Pact, men like Theodore Achilles, recalled: „I don’t think there has ever been any serious danger of an all out Soviet armed attack west of the East German—West German frontier. The danger has been, and still is, that the Russians can resort to … subversion and political blackmail backed by the threat of force.“

The great fear of NATO’s leaders throughout the Cold War and beyond was not that the Soviet Union or Russia would launch an invasion of Europe. Instead, they feared that Moscow might threaten—even imply—the use of force. The very hint of war might drive citizens in Europe to press their leaders to concede to the Kremlin’s demands rather than risk another cataclysm on the continent. Thus what American officials called the „inadequacies and anomalies of NATO, the relative unrealism of the military plans, and the slightly fictional aspects of NATO,“ were understood on both sides of the Atlantic to be essential components for providing Europeans with an intangible sense of security.

—Timothy A. Sayle, Enduring Alliance, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019), 2.

You have transgressed so often and for so long that you have driven me to my limits, and now I find I have no other choice but to exercise my ultimate weapon. Yes, that’s right: now I’m going to get arrested. Yes, you heard me correctly. No, I’m not bluffing. That’s right, mister: you don’t think I’ll do it, do you? You think this is just some idle threat?! No! I am serious: now I am mad. Now I am going to get arrested.

Yup. Then you’ll be sorry. You may think you’re in a strong position, what with police armed with handguns and tasers and handcuffs and police vehicles and courts and cells, but I have an ability which counters this. Come at me with your police! I will deftly parry your attack with my strength: I will get arrested. Just you watch.

Inconvenient Sequel, 2017

„The next generation, looking back at us“.

The framing is consistently that of „citizens in a democracy“ asked to take joint responsibility to prevent hypothetical (though likely) catastrophe occuring in some distant future.

What was I thinking in 2017? I was thinking Rex Tillerson and I likely had different abilities to impact actions taken by ExxonMobil. At a Dianne Feinstein town hall I was thinking the Indivisible audience of outraged voters was quite divisible, as evidenced by my personal experience querying a few fellow audience members on the advisability of continuing to vote for Democratic Party incumbents. I was thinking Feinstein was visibly suffering from dementia and should not continue serving as a US senator. I was thinking I would be glad to be leaving San Francisco’s world of delusion.

From the 2017 An Inconvenient Sequel. In 2023 one wonders how Al Gore feels the „fixing the democracy crisis“ endeavor is going. 🤔

Justus Bender, :

Zuerst die gute Nachricht: Das Interesse der Deutschen an Politik ist ungebrochen. Es steigt sogar. Laut Statistischem Bundesamt sind heute rund 40 Prozent der Deutschen an Politik interessiert. Das ist viel mehr als früher, 1980 galt das in Westdeutschland für weniger als dreißig Prozent, so wenige waren es 1990 auch in Ostdeutschland. Wie schön, könnte man sagen, schließlich ist mit einem uninteressierten Publikum kein Staat zu machen, zumindest nicht in einer Demokratie. Die Sorge hatte immer gelautet, dass die Deutschen sich eines Tages gelangweilt abwenden würden von politischen Fragen.

…

Jetzt also die schlechte Nachricht: Die vorbildlich interessierten Deutschen sind immer weniger bereit, sich über Politik zu informieren. Das hat auf den ersten Blick wenig Sinn, weil jemand, der sich für Fußball interessiert, normalerweise jemand ist, der viele Fußballspiele schaut. Aus Interesse entstehen so Kenntnisse. In der Politik gilt das nicht mehr. Dort artikulieren Bürger engagiert ihre Meinung, ohne sich gleichzeitig für politische Nachrichten oder Analysen zu interessieren. Kulturpessimisten haben also einen neuen Albtraum: Schlimmer noch als jemand, der sich der Debatte verweigert, ist jemand, der an ihr teilnimmt, ohne zu wissen, wovon er spricht.