"Back in the USSR"

This was my first thought after crossing the Canadian border into the United States! Every other border crossing in the past felt like coming home. Not this time. It's not a case of "you can't go home again" or, "seeing the place as if for the first time." No. This time I returned to an America that does not feel or look like the America I grew up in during the 1960's. Those armed guards at the station remind me of Guatemala; those shared whispers in the ladies room of Cuba; those masked men nabbing citizens off the streets of the USSR!

Paul McCartney, of Beatles fame, in 1968 wrote a song that was prescient: https://share.google/NLiypN3CIcMIcHa8o

McCartney talked about it in a 2023 interview that is like opening up a time capsule. Beatles' music was bootlegged in the USSR when the song came out. Later, the Beatles played in Red Square. In the interview there is a clip of McCartney asking Putin if he had ever listened to the Beatles when he was young. He says: "Yes, it was a window into the world".

The interview begins at 3:30 minutes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c0dTWlWypnR1KCa9e2hnAJerXq9kZu9J/view?usp=sharing