Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" was similar to "Forty Years" in that it was a look back at how the goals of World War II had worked out. Which means it's been on my mind in a similar way, so I felt like redoing it as well.

But the bit about

"...you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears

And what's more

No-one ever disappears

You never hear their standard issue

Kicking in your door"

That seemed to me, always, an exaggeration of what happened in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.....until Minneapolis, until Portland and, yes, until Los Angeles.

But now, it's too real. It's just what The Gunner, - "in a corner of some foreign field," one that is forever England - just what he would have been fighting against. What he was fighting against.

If you can't find it on your streaming service, then in addition to the conceptual video linked below, you can also hear a simple acoustic version by Roger Waters on Youtube. It's from about the same time as this episode.

https://youtu.be/aC9rY4HeN6A?si=nUo_mcl-bh2BcYTn

My Countdown series was pretty well done, I think, so if you like it you can listen to more of them...around...if you look for it.

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What is your dream for what the world looks like, after all this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_(album)

"A place to stay, enough to eat, somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street

Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears

And what's more

No-one ever disappears

You never hear their standard issue

Kicking in your door

You can relax

On both sides of the tracks

And maniacs

don't blow holes

In bandsman by remote control

And everyone has recourse to the law

And no-one kills the children anymore."

Turns out a video was made for it, but let me recommend listening to the song on its own, if not the album, at least the first time or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSE7qdjy3Q0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States