The dangerous buffoons of Russia, from the 1970s to present day


Like many people all over the world nowadays, I've been puzzling out what Russia is doing, and has been doing historically. And when I started doing some research, it turned into such a complicated maze that this morning I decided to just look back on my lifetime and give you my impression of them - dangerous buffoons.

Now calm down there, I'm sure that there are a lot of people in Russia who aren't dangerous buffoons, but overall the country has given me that impression, from the 1970s to present day. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against someone being a buffoon, some of my best friends have been buffoons. And if you're not familiar with the term, I'll go look up a definition. Hang on. Here ya go:

"a ridiculous but amusing person; a clown"

And if you yourself are a buffoon, don't worry, I still love ya. I've derived a lot of amusement from the buffoonery of friends, and some of my fondest memories of high school are of my friends' buffoonery, much of which I drew cartoons about. But when someone becomes a dangerous buffoon, I have to draw the line. Twirling a loaded pistol around while I'm standing there talking to you is an example of dangerous buffoonery, and I'll just try to avoid you.

If I were a little bit older, that is, a true Baby Boomer (I was born in 1958, which technically makes me one, but not really), and had memories of Russia after World War II, especially in the fifties, my attitude would be very different. Russia, or to be more precise, the USSR, was well worth respecting, and fearing, back then. In the late 1950s their technology was showing the United States that they could launch a missile anywhere in the world, and proved it with Sputnik. But my memories as a kid are of the United States building rockets in the 1960s, and leaving Russia in the dust, by going to the moon in 1969. Our technology just got better and better, especially with miniaturization in the 1970s, and Russian technology became a joke.

But don't get wrong, Russia was still dangerous. They had the ability to launch nuclear weapons, and while they were buffoons, they were dangerous buffoons. And it looks like that hasn't changed.

Image at the top of this post: SCTV skit from the late 1970s: "What fits into Russia". Buffoonery at its best.

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