Political Happenings #2of3

While riding a streetcar in Dresden, Germany, (which had been under East German Communist government for 45 years), I talked to a group of college students. One young lady bemoaned the day to day decisions and choices she was required, or permitted, to make in a democratic, capitalist society. For example, she said, “Why doesn’t the Government just determine which TV is best, and sell only that one. Why must we select from a variety.” She was the only person who expressed this sentiment. She was but one of a group of college students who were anxious to express their opinions (in English) in response to my questions.

At a street corner in Dresden, using Emmy’s limited German, we talked to two elderly ladies who had lived through the terrible bombing on February 1945. We are unable to communicate well enough to recount a complete story, but again, we lament the fact that we have found no books that relate how the real people, the “little” people, not members of the government or military, lived or existed throughout the war years, and the years of Communist oppression.

In 1983, President Mitterrand was in office in France, and at that time the US press was saying that Europeans did not like President Reagan. I took a poll of the “man-on-the-street” in France, everywhere from the English Channel to the Mediterranean Sea. Usually the question took the form of the name “Reagan,” then the name “Mitterrand,” with a thumb up or thumb down. I asked 47 people (actual count), and 45 were thumbs up for Reagan, and about half were thumbs up for Mitterrand. We then discovered that the two thumbs-down for Reagan (in Avignon), were handing out political literature for some left-wing organization. Most often the “thumbs-up” for Reagan was accompanied with a broad, happy smile.

This is from my Letter To The Editor, printed in the LA Times in 1990: “The old story that high gasoline taxes and a good transportation system will get the cars off the streets, is a myth. Visit Paris (with the best subway system of any city, and $4 per gallon gasoline), or Rome (where gas is about $5 per gallon, but the subway system is not so great) and you will see that driving and parking in any city in the USA is a "Walk in the Park" by comparison.”