Michael Gorbachev at Earth Summit

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

In a message dated 8/28/02 9:40:18 AM, owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com 
writes:
Gorby sez:
>Looking back at the events of the
>past decade, I feel great anxiety and disappointment. It seemed
>to many of us that the end of the Cold War, symbolized by the
>fall of the Berlin Wall, would at last allow mankind to look
>into the future with hope. It seemed that the world community,
>relieved of the fear of a nuclear war, of ideological
>confrontation, would start moving along the path of stable
>development, take urgent actions to combat poverty and
>disastrous environmental pollution and change the character of
>globalization by including in it notions like solidarity, human
>rights and freedom of the individual.

How quickly one forgets the rapaciousness of the ruling class when sheltered 
from it for a while.  Still, is he really this disingenuous?  I guess there 
are plenty of progressives here who live these same illusions and are forever 
in state of surprise.  Gorbachev was here a couple of years ago speaking for 
a fabulous fee ($80,000 I think) and a friend asked him how he feels now 
about the terrible conditions in Russia, the dropping lifespan, the 
unemployment, the gangsters.  He said things were fine when he left office.

Jenny Brown