Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Ah, the Cold War. While searching the Times for something on the Gipper, found this extraordinary entry about a Kremlin denunciation of Michael Jackson as an agent of Reagan. Appropriately enough, it occured in the year 1984:
MOSCOW, June 20— The Kremlin has denounced Michael Jackson as a singer who sold his black soul for white profit and is serving the Reagan Administration by keeping the American public's mind off the country's problems.
''The great show-biz swindle known as 'The Thriller' has given rise to a kind of euphoria,'' the official cultural newspaper Sovetskaya Kultura said in its weekend issue....
The newspaper said that unlike jazz, blues, punk or new-wave rock, Mr. Jackson's music was unoriginal and ''characteristic of that ill-famed American life style which the U.S.A. is trying to foist on the world.''
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Jul '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
....''characteristic of that ill-famed American life style which the U.S.A. is trying to foist on the world.''
I remember those "Thriller" jackets taking the world by storm. The U.S.A. wasn't foisting nothing.... capitalism was spreading like wildfire.
Dec '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
During this exact time period, I lived on Soviet fishing vessels and often slept on a couch in the wheelhouse. I did so because the ships were junk and I wanted to be near the people that freaked out when there were problems I might want to be aware of. Also, I wanted to watch weather and hear stray radio broadcasts.
Once, I was awakened and a fax was shoved in my face with the comment, "Here is your America!".
It was a news story from Harry Reid's Nevada, about striking casino workers blocking a driveway and one had been hit by a car.
My point? One of my buddies on the trawl-deck crew had been killed, that week. We were off the Pribiloff Islands and the U.S. Coast Guard sent a helicopter at my request, as we tried to save their worker. All the way out, past the Pribiloffs in the Bering Sea. We were at least as close to the USSR as Alaska, and much further from Juneau. Many ordinary Russians tried to save that man, then the American government tried. The Soviets, the leaders and officers, did nothing for that expendable person.
Aug '11
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
And here I always thought that Michael Jackson was a Communist plot to sap America's precious bodily essence.
Edited on Oct 7, 2011 at 4:28pmMay '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Sometimes two tragic stories coalesce to produce something truly funny. Thanks Bill.
May '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Tom Paine: And here I always thought that Michael Jackson was a Communist plot to sap America's precious bodily essence. · Oct 7 at 4:27pm
Edited on Oct 07 at 04:28 pm
You are positing what is known as a false choice.
Jun '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Fun and funny. Thanks.
CJRun: Great story!
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Now, finally, I know what Thriller was about.
Mar '11
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Reminds me of how McDonalds drags innocent people in off the street and forces them to eat Big Macs at gunpoint.
A black man who wanted to be a white woman certainly celebrated diversity. He also proved the power of celebrity to overcome any amount of weirdness and sleaze.
Mar '11
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
I never could have imagined it but here you have done so Mr. McGurn, nostalgia for the Cold War. Simpler times or perhaps that is just what I wish to believe in retrospect. I am particularly struck by that news tidbit though, change a word or two and it is easy to imagine many of our current political class putting forth the exact same accusations.
We have fallen far.
Oct '11
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
wow....Michael would be surprised!!!
Nov '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
The arts and the Cold war have a long history; for example whether the CIA pushed Abstract Expressionism, or whether AbEx cooperated with the CIA, is still hotly debated (brief overview here). It's usually a great topic for starting arguments among the arts crowd because committed partisans to one side or the other have to defend what they really dislike - were those libidinous AbEx wreckers of art small heroes of the Cold War? Or were those celebrators of free expression and resistance to tradition and authority sell-outs to The Man? Lots of alcohol, and the fact that few artists actually ever bother reading history, helps lubricate the discussion....
Aug '11
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Back in the late 1980s Michael performed in West Berlin near the wall. There were other concerts there, too. It annoyed the E German Stasi no end b/c the E Germans wanted to hear it. Anyone who went to W Berlin to perform had to have understood the situation. Don't know if MJ knew that the Stasi was actually spying on him at the time, but he had to have known that he was performing for East Germans as well.
May '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Thanks Bill, you have brought back many happy memories. This Saturday sadly missing the 80's when my waist was 32", and punk was still a force to compel.
I prefer Nina Hagen's Russian Reggae as my memory from the 1980s. Besides Frau Hagen was one of the originators of punk, and ended up expelled from both East and West Berlin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUksQHqpdBE
"In the Soviet Union we celebrate the planned UFO reunion" *
And no, Nina is not a drag queen in spite of first impressions, but a formally trained opera singer, and a complete nut.
*I have no idea what that meant then, or now; but the German version is better scan with its lyrics, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usOmOyenzaw
Edited on Oct 8, 2011 at 9:57amDec '10
Re: Michael Jackson, Cold Warrior
Communists really don't understand Freedom. I suspect the last performer Ronald Reagan would have found to his taste was Michael Jackson. Yet Reagan could deal with a social phenomena played out in a free society and even laugh about it and shake Michael Jackson's hand at the White House. This was beyond what a Marxist mind could handle and probably helped bring them down.
We should realize reactions this bizarre are happening all the time in China (Thomas L. Friedman's nirvana) and the MSM completely ignores them. I'm sure that the 300 million Chinese on the coast are enjoying the economic advances. However, the 1 billion Chinese inland are slaves of the hideous Marxist system and living in poverty. You can imagine what it is like to live under tyrants this obsessed.