Ambivalence in Former 'Evil Empire' (washingtonpost.com): "But Russia under President Vladimir Putin is hardly the free society that Reagan once envisioned. Instead, it is a country deeply ambivalent about democracy, where many "

Clearly a story that will get lost in all the hubbub. certainly there is more to the collapse of the USSR than the narrative of reagan's life can illuminate. It's kind of absurd to wrap up the disintegration of a country and a culture, a complete transformation of the world as something one guy did. It shows the fetishistic desire of people to have a clearly understandable, manichean vision of history. this is even more clearly illustrated by the fact that people seem to have no idea what is going on in Russia today--the only important point is that we ended it as a communist country. This certainly foretells the way we will think about Afghanistan and Iraq: it ultimately won't matter what happens in those countries after attention is shifted, but what "we" did to end the "evil" inside of them. Another interesting parallel is visible in this quote from the article:

Sergei Karaganov, a foreign policy expert, said that for most Russians, Reagan's name is indelibly associated with his denunciation of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and "he was not loved for it."

Karaganov added, "At that time people were insulted, they thought it was unfair to them. It was not an empire already, it was an empty shell, so people believed he was insincere, an old-time Cold Warrior. Looking from the other side of the fence, knowing the emptiness of the system and seeing the leader of a powerful country lambasting the Soviet Union as a powerful threat seemed like a bad joke."

this last quote is utterly reminescent of the empty shell of a country we attacked last year--something that was done with some obvious awareness that it would be an easy fight.



watching the funeral...
bush's speech a ridiculous charicature of the story, myth about reagan. Yet it is obvious that he really believes this.

the battle hymn of the republic followed--arranged to sound like some sort of chorale.

then a speech from some minister in which he ties reagan to 9/11--or more says that reagan was already battling that force and saw clearly the threat even then. "a triumph of light," reagan was spreading the freedom qua a gift of god. In this case, Reagan is like jesus or something. Just the kind of thing the country needs to renew its nationalistic, jingoistic pride and its desire to carry on with world domination regardless of the consequences.

followed by "amazing grace"

more prayers, etc.

8 pallbearers each from a different branch of the military doing their thing to some sort of theme that is strangely reminescent of something from a jerry bruckhiemer movie

Here is something that is also interesting from Gorbechev

All of this is followed by a lot of footage with the bells in the background of the coffin going into the hearse, dignitaries trickling out of the national cathedral (such as nancy, the queen and prince of England, etc.) and a lot of really quiet, seamless footage of the cathedral. I can't figure out how they are positioned or where, but there are a lot of semi-aerial shots and many that move from a ground shot of these people leaving to a shot about ten or fifteen feet off the ground to this sort of wierd perspective shot of the cathedral towers (wish I could remember what those are called). There are also all kinds of soldiers and sailors carrying their rifles.

finally everyone if filing out of the cathedral, talking so that occasionally the mike picks up random snippets of conversation--just saw kucinich (is that possible?).

now moved to a silent shot of air force one--which is supposed to carry the coffin from DC back to CA for the interment. It's a rather strange, boring shot to move to, except that we can see the press corps and the Howitzers--both set to go off when the coffin arrives. My sense is that this is one of the only feeds allowed--the government camera or something.

Now a helicoptor arrives presumedly carrying the body which I suppose they transferred from the motorcade--something that only seems necessary if we're concerned with TV time rather than ceremonial time--it wouldn't take more than 15 minutes or so to drive to national but a helicoptor--even with the transfer time, would probably take a third of the time. This concern would probably only happen b/c of TV.

Now the helicoptor has landed and they've let the pleb out onto the tarmac to watch the transfer/create the massive crowd.

Upon second thought, this is probably not national airport but Andrews AFB--maybe making the helicoptor a bit more necessary.

honor guard is out; camera moves to follow them. low drum beat begins; band takes their positions--looks like a very big band--around the doors of the plane. Probably all musicians from Fort Meyer.

10 minutes after helicoptor landed with still no sign of the coffin. perhaps that's not where it was after all.

Now, for some reason, one of the air force one (or two?) 747s is in motion--the one that was closest to the helicoptor that landed. Now it takes off, I guess carrying the body. the cameras follow it into the overcast sky. Then focus in on the howitzers, the soldiers, the crowd, the Honor guard in front of the other plane...everything is quiet except for the sound of the plane engines...notably, it seems like all of the soldiers and musicians are men. Now they are standing almost perfectly still, at attention

more helicoptors seem to be arriving and they look more like the secret service crafts reserved for the president. But the television says that there is definitely a motorcade taking the body so I am not sure who or what took off in AF1 earlier.

TV also having an extensive conversation about Reagan...mostly about his "faith" his religion, etc.