These gifts all came along with a sense of economic security--not witnessed in Germany for more than an entire generation.
Naturally, the way Jim Jones talked of love in the German language reminded me, too, of the the ironic TWO TRIBES song from 1980s Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
This song and other Frankie Goes to Hollywood (TGTH) tunes and texts were popular in Germany in the early and mid-1980s, i.e. as both East and West Germany citizens felt like they were being served up politically and militarily to the Gods of NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the biggest arms build up in history. The two tribes referred to were the West and the East during the latter years of the cold war.
In the live version of that (TGTH) TWO TRIBES song, one man carefully imitates the voice of Ronald Reagan and talks of love.
This Ronald Reagan-voice spoke passionately of love as revolutionary and then also whispered of the wonderful love of heroes for a better cause.
In this, the Reagan-voice, specifically showed his admiration for revolution and the revolutionary love of a man, like Che Guevarra, who had died for his greater cause.
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/frankie_goes_to_hollywood/two_tribes.html
When I first heard that live version of the song TWO TRIBES, I had to laugh because that voice of Reagan was not only done well , but this Reagan’s passion for ultra-patriotism and love of country had turned to praise a passion for love of all others—and the love of revolution.
http://www.elyrics.net/read/f/frankie-goes-to-hollywood-lyrics/warriors-of-the-wasteland-lyrics.html
If you readers recall, back in the early 1980s Cold-War-era, a coalition of the West, i.e. NATO, was positioning weapons in Central Europe ostensibly in order to preempt a long range nuclear attack on the USA from the Soviet Union.
In those same 1980 years, I didn’t see nor appreciate much love in the words of Ronald Reagan—but I do, indeed, know other Americans who felt Ronald Reagan was an honest and loving man.
Reagan was often called the “Teflon President”, and for many Americans who loved the man, his deeds, and his words or ideals, he represented the Teflon persons they wanted to be. There love for each other and their ideas would allow all rationale critique to bounce off their hero and their Weltanschauen (world view).
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/frankie_goes_to_hollywood/the_power_of_love.html
The joke or irony in many of the various songs from Frankie Goes to Hollywood were not lost on the Germans, in that divided nations back in 1983, i.e. as the stationing of missiles in West Germany were soon to face off against the Soviets, Eastern Europeans and East Germans. For Germans and other Central Europeans, this arms meant a suicidal gambling-with-their-lives. (In summary, the stationing of medium ranged missiles in Central Europe meant for many a far from rosy few future for them and no-hope for their children.)
This, lack of hope in Germany and Western Europe at that time (1981-1988), could be contrasted with the apparently typical hope that many pro-Reagan Americans placed in the symbol of a U.S. President who was willing to blow up half the world to prove that his opinion of the universe and love of God and state were right.
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