For the first half of the 1980s, we gorged on a culture obsessed with the coming nuclear Armageddon. A group of young activists decided enough was enough.
I've never lost the terror I had when I was maybe 10 years old and realized what nuclear war was and that it was possible, around the same time frame you're describing here (just pre-War Games). It never ceased to amaze me as the 90s progressed that this was something people just kind of forgot about, as if there weren't still hundreds of active warheads still lying around. Even sabre-rattling from North Korea was treated as little more than a South Park joke.
Just last week on the CBC I heard some (obviously young) person describe modern eco-anxiety as "the first time a young generation has genuinely had to fear for the future of the planet." Ummmm: been there, done that. I'll just be over here hiding behind my William J. Perry books.
Living in the most remote city in the world in the early eighties you had no fear of being nuked. But then Neil Young came to town selling Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars. All TV, Radio and newspapers had a huge PR blitz promoting the interviews he was going to do. Every interview he did, he promoted Nuclear weapons. He admitted his Charles Manson connection. If you wanted a blue print to end a Scene connect the dots Manson Young Kent Street Ohio. Older crew may wonder what happened to the age of Aquarius? Which was going to be the coolest Scene of all leading to Enlightenment. Neil Young is a controlled Patsy and he sold us out to live in America and do drugs. I want a refund or an Anthem to Unite the masses against our oppressor’s. Thank you for the insightful read Andrew.
Where my mother grew up in north-eastern California, they could see flashes from the Nevada nuclear tests. In school, they had drills to hide under their desks in case of a nuclear strike. (On a side note, they also passed around a glob of mercury for everyone to touch.) My grandmother was arrested on Mother's Day protesting those nuclear tests.
For myself, I was in the third grade when Reagan was shot, and my class sent him a get-well card with a school shirt and a jar of jelly beans. Of course later on the fall of the wall had a strong emotional impact, and I still have feel-good resonance with cultural media marking that event, such as The Scorpions' song "Winds of Change" and the Jesus Jones song "Right Here, Right Now," but aside from Chernobyl, my nuclear fears seemed much more abstract than acute.
This is great. The father of a girl in my class was Reagan's official photographer; he was standing next to James Brady when he was shot.
I had genuine nuclear fears until I was about 12 or so. After that it became almost funny; War Games was a comedy after all, and Missile Command was just a fun game. It is astonishing to me, in retrospect, just how much of the culture was about nuclear holocaust. They showed us The Day After in class!
I totally forgot about tge Alberta cruise missile tests. That was a big deal.
It was huge.
I've never lost the terror I had when I was maybe 10 years old and realized what nuclear war was and that it was possible, around the same time frame you're describing here (just pre-War Games). It never ceased to amaze me as the 90s progressed that this was something people just kind of forgot about, as if there weren't still hundreds of active warheads still lying around. Even sabre-rattling from North Korea was treated as little more than a South Park joke.
Just last week on the CBC I heard some (obviously young) person describe modern eco-anxiety as "the first time a young generation has genuinely had to fear for the future of the planet." Ummmm: been there, done that. I'll just be over here hiding behind my William J. Perry books.
Living in the most remote city in the world in the early eighties you had no fear of being nuked. But then Neil Young came to town selling Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars. All TV, Radio and newspapers had a huge PR blitz promoting the interviews he was going to do. Every interview he did, he promoted Nuclear weapons. He admitted his Charles Manson connection. If you wanted a blue print to end a Scene connect the dots Manson Young Kent Street Ohio. Older crew may wonder what happened to the age of Aquarius? Which was going to be the coolest Scene of all leading to Enlightenment. Neil Young is a controlled Patsy and he sold us out to live in America and do drugs. I want a refund or an Anthem to Unite the masses against our oppressor’s. Thank you for the insightful read Andrew.
Where my mother grew up in north-eastern California, they could see flashes from the Nevada nuclear tests. In school, they had drills to hide under their desks in case of a nuclear strike. (On a side note, they also passed around a glob of mercury for everyone to touch.) My grandmother was arrested on Mother's Day protesting those nuclear tests.
For myself, I was in the third grade when Reagan was shot, and my class sent him a get-well card with a school shirt and a jar of jelly beans. Of course later on the fall of the wall had a strong emotional impact, and I still have feel-good resonance with cultural media marking that event, such as The Scorpions' song "Winds of Change" and the Jesus Jones song "Right Here, Right Now," but aside from Chernobyl, my nuclear fears seemed much more abstract than acute.
This is great. The father of a girl in my class was Reagan's official photographer; he was standing next to James Brady when he was shot.
I had genuine nuclear fears until I was about 12 or so. After that it became almost funny; War Games was a comedy after all, and Missile Command was just a fun game. It is astonishing to me, in retrospect, just how much of the culture was about nuclear holocaust. They showed us The Day After in class!