Archive for Sunday, November 8, 2009
Crumbling of Berlin Wall still worth celebrating
November 8, 2009
Advertisement
We thought it meant the end of international contention. We thought it meant the nuclear menace was no more. We thought it meant Russia and America, the two powers of the future envisioned by de Tocqueville, could be friends. We thought it meant the end of espionage. We thought it might even be the end of history.
We were wrong, dead wrong, tragically wrong, about all of it, because we did what great powers always do when they are engaged in great contests. We thought that if only we could get through the Cold War (or World War I, or World War II) we would enter the sunlit uplands, where serenity and prosperity reigned, purchased effortlessly by (and this was the phrase that was brandished in the capital and from coast to coast two decades ago) the peace dividend. To paraphrase Churchill: Some peace. Some dividend.
The realists and pragmatists would deny us these reveries, but great struggles require great hopes and they almost always inspire great myths, and if you do not believe me, consider how bright a world was forecast by the abolitionists during the Civil War or by Woodrow Wilson during the Great War, whose sad centenary we are only five years from commemorating. The peace is never as bright as the one we yearn for in the darkness of the storm.
All of this brings us to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which began 20 years ago tomorrow, and to an unrecognized truth:
Even though things have not turned out as we hoped they might in November 1989 — the eagle has not laid down beside the bear, for example — this is still a world far preferable to the one we occupied at various points in the 20th century, when angry nations seethed at each other across militarized borders separating South and North Korea, and Vietnam, or across the Oder-Neisse Line, the Curzon Line and multiple other lines in Europe’s sand.
Today we face frightful challenges, some involving the economy (the recovery of 2009 still seems elusive) and some involving national security (global terrorism adds a new form of instability to world affairs), but we ought to remember 1989 as one of the great divides in modern history.
It effectively brought to an end a world struggle, beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917, between two competing economic systems and ideologies whose adherents believed were irreconcilable. This struggle was the leitmotif of almost all of 20th-century history, even if it was repressed between 1941 and 1945, when for reasons that were nothing more than opportunistic, the two systems united to fight a third system so odious that the world had not seen its like before or since.
Indeed, from our vantage point in 2009, it is possible to say that all of history between 1917 and 1989 — the short 20th century, you might say — was preoccupied with this struggle.
It was a large motivation behind Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points; he wanted to offer the world a utopian vision that could compete with Lenin’s. It was an important subtext in World War II; Churchill warned of an ascendant Soviet Union even as Franklin D. Roosevelt was cozying up to Stalin at Tehran and Yalta. And it dominated the life of nations big (the two Germanys) and small (Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Angola, Nicaragua, Grenada) for a half century after World War II.
We still have much to learn from the Cold War. Did we learn the lessons of Munich and appeasement well, or too well? Did our dedication to winning the Cold War allow us almost to lose the best part of the civil rights movement, many of whose leaders were pilloried for being Moscow sympathizers? Did our zeal to protect freedom in a world where our rivals wished to destroy freedom help to erode our own freedoms? (This last is a question we still might ask.)
In those decades after Bernard Baruch first used the expression “Cold War” — in a speech written by Herbert Bayard Swope — tens of millions of people lived in danger or in fear. A younger generation may giggle smugly at the Civil Defense videos (all that diving under flimsy school desks), the crumbling and rotting supplies of government-issued biscuits (some of them no doubt still in the basement of post offices and courthouses) and the moral questions of the time (what to do when your neighbor bangs at the door of your fallout shelter?).
But in those days Americans had more to fear than fear itself.
The Cold War contaminated the nation’s politics, transforming a two-bit Wisconsin politician from an insignificant man into a devastating noun. It warped the country’s economy, stifled its artistic life and stunted its cultural growth. All that, mind you, in the country with by far the better claim on the moral high ground.
Abroad, the Cold War fed the paranoia of one of the great dictatorships of history and gave a bad name to the liberation movements of dozens of colonial nations whose causes Americans might have embraced in a more rational world.
This is by way of saying that the end of the Cold War was truly one of the beautiful moments of history, even if we awoke to a world full of irredentism and post-ideological struggle that took the form of flames rising from Manhattan skyscrapers, a smoldering gash in the Pentagon and a hole in a Pennsylvania farm field.
So much of this struggle is in the memory of those who live among us — memories of episodes like the Berlin blockade, the Berlin airlift and the construction of the Berlin Wall, among many others. We remember these specifics but such memories crowd out the larger triumph, which is far bigger than the victory against Communism.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall brought an end to one of the most terrible eras of history, the time of the tyrants. We have more to celebrate than we think.
More like this
- Berlin Wall anniversary cause for reflection May 17, 2009
- Candidates see need for new strategies July 21, 2004
- Will commerce lead China to democracy? April 27, 2007
- Bush's political fortunes are tied to war March 19, 2004
- Summits sum up 50 years of change June 21, 2009
Top ads RSS
Marketplace
Arts & Entertainment · Bars · Theatres · Restaurants · Coffeehouses · Libraries · Antiques · Services
- Blog: Palin Book Could Be Your Cheapest Source For Winter Fuel November 20, 2009 · 19 comments
- Blog: We Noticed November 19, 2009 · 98 comments
- Muslim countries seek blasphemy ban November 20, 2009 · 16 comments
- KU's Chancellor issues statement putting support behind Lew Perkins November 20, 2009 · 29 comments
- Mangino denies validity of former player allegations November 19, 2009 · 154 comments
- Fatal mindset November 20, 2009 · 45 comments
- Former independent counsel praises Constitution in speech November 20, 2009 · 11 comments
- Blog: Why Do People Repeat Falsehoods? November 20, 2009 · 32 comments
- Blog: Reality Rundown: Man, It Feels Good To Be Right November 20, 2009 · 9 comments
- Report: Women can do with fewer Pap tests November 20, 2009 · 26 comments
- Baldwin City teen detained for bringing loaded gun and knife to school November 19, 2009
- Mangino denies validity of former player allegations November 19, 2009
- Resident hopes to start rickshaw business in downtown Lawrence, pending city approval November 19, 2009
- Lawrence schools preparing for another round of budget cuts November 18, 2009
- KU's Chancellor issues statement putting support behind Lew Perkins November 20, 2009
- Farmers' Turnpike reopens after four months of construction November 20, 2009
- KU student pushes button that demolishes a portion of the Kansas Turnpike bridge November 19, 2009
- Rise and shine November 20, 2009
- Kansas Board of Regents OKs contract to implement $25.6 million in conservation projects November 19, 2009
- Elder Henry makes debut November 20, 2009
8 November 2009
at 7:40 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
And you have one man to thank for it: Ronald Wilson Reagan. God rest his soul, and may his spirit rescue this nation from Barack Hussein Obama.
8 November 2009
at 1:36 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
SettingTheRecordStraight (Anonymous) says…
“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
8 November 2009
at 2:02 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
Ronald “Airhead” Reagan was merely the beneficiary of the reformist Gorbachev agenda that spiraled out of control and led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
8 November 2009
at 2:56 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Leave it to Bozo to post the standard leftist bilge that the Soviet Union “collapsed” on its own. If Reagan hadn't been at the helm and the liberal appeasers of his time in Congress had been in charge, the Berlin wall would still be standing. Speaking of which, with thanks to STRS for the reminder, the following recent exchange is indeed apropos:
Putin: “Mr. Obama, tear up your plans for missile defense systems in Eastern Europe!”
Obama: “Yes sir, Mr. Putin, sir.”
8 November 2009
at 3:10 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
Thing (Anonymous) says…
I was there when it went down. A memorable experience I can assure you. Still have the piece that I got off of the wall.
8 November 2009
at 3:29 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
The first part of your last post is just as fictional as the last, cato.
8 November 2009
at 3:34 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
snap_pop_no_crackle (Anonymous) says…
Still working on your Order of Lenin, bozo?
8 November 2009
at 3:47 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
beobachter (Anonymous) says…
bozo, age has a tremendous effect on one's memory. Also, why does anyone who doesn't hate Obama become a Nazi, a communist, or worse yet hate America?
8 November 2009
at 5:03 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
snap_pop_no_crackle (Anonymous) says…
What was Dear Leader thinking in the days of the Cold War when he managed to put down the doobie and consider something outside himself?
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blo…
8 November 2009
at 5:44 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
beobachter (Anonymous) says…
snap, as you and most right wing nutcases like to say. Why do you hate America? And since I disagree with right wing nutcases, such as you, why do I immediately become a Nazi lover, a communist and an America hater? Guess you can also call me anti-Christian, anti_semetic, anti whatever. In other words, I am not a right wing christian nutcase. The last sentence I will proudly accept
8 November 2009
at 11:53 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
As Shribman states, tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of the taking down of the Berlin Wall. Take a minute out of your day to remember Ronald Reagan as the one responsible for this great event in the history of human freedom.
9 November 2009
at 12:09 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
Marion (Marion Lynn) says…
H.Obama is ignoring it:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/…
“Obama Draws Criticism for Sitting Out Berlin Wall Anniversary
The president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.”
” President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week, he sets out on a weeklong tour of Asia.
But the president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.”
Marion writes:
What a pig.
oh wait
calling barack hussein obma a pig is an insult to pigs
never mind
9 November 2009
at 12:27 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_d…
The People freed themselves. Reagan didn't have anything to do with it.
9 November 2009
at 12:39 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Looks like Hillary Clinton will be there to represent the U.S.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091109/i…
9 November 2009
at 12:44 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
morganalefay (Anonymous) says…
Read a history book, folks.
Ever heard of the Monday Demonstrations that were going on in Leipzig every Monday for several months leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall? This came after Eastern Bloc nations had already been giving people more freedoms to travel and so on since the beginning of that year.
The people simply wanted to reform their own government; they wanted change. They didn't want to be assimilated by West Germany to become capitalist. They weren't dreaming of the American way of life. They just wanted a few things to change.
The Germans sure don't give Reagan credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall. They did that all by themselves. He just took the opportunity to make a soundbite out of their efforts.
9 November 2009
at 12:45 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
RogueThrill (Anonymous) says…
Regan had no idea what was happening in his administration and his wife was/is into occultism. His namesake is a liberal, which says a lot about how well his ideologies went over behind closed doors.. He was the original “celebrity” president. He began his campaign by pandering to racists. He rehabilitated hundreds of thousands of mentally insane and improved their standard of living by making them homeless.
If the ends justified the means he would be mediocre at best.
9 November 2009
at 12:53 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Gccs14r, your statement that “The People freed themselves” completely ignores the substantial impetus that the Reagan administration had created much earlier that ultimately gave East Germans great hope and courage, in the same way that Reagan vigorously supported the Solidarity Movement in Poland.
By the way, do you routinely cite Wikipedia as a definitive source?
9 November 2009
at 12:55 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Ditto to the equally ignorant comments of morganalefay and rogue thrill.
9 November 2009
at 1:02 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
RogueThrill (Anonymous) says…
On the contrary, I propose that you are ignorant.
9 November 2009
at 1:08 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
One further observation: I was in Berlin shortly after the wall was taken down, and to both East and West Berliners Reagan was greatly revered for America's part in the destruction of the wall just as much as JFK still was for his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech years earlier. The patent revisionism that the Left has employed for years to ignore what Reagan accomplished has been despicable.
9 November 2009
at 5:18 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
barrypenders (Anonymous) says…
Why would the Poser support a non-muslim event? The Poser's disregard for the Islamic Fort Hood, massacre is appropriate. Jabot's support for C.L.a P and support for anything anti-ant is appropriate also.
se la vie
Stimulus, evolution, Posercare lives
Darwin bless you all
9 November 2009
at 6 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
ComradeRedRooster (Anonymous) says…
The NY Times has an article saying basically the same nonsense that Bozo spewed. The left is methodically and deliberately attempting to rewrite history to favor its own ideology. The left did the same thing in the late 40s and 50s.
quoting Snap_pop_no_crackle:
“Still working on your Order of Lenin, bozo?”
9 November 2009
at 7:15 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Reagan joked about bombing Russia. That's hardly cause for hope if you're a potential recipient of those bombs.
9 November 2009
at 7:28 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
I think Reagan deserves a little bit of credit. I think he sincerely wanted to see improved relations between the US and the Soviet Bloc. However, especially by the end of his final term, he was little more than a wind-up toy who could occasionally accurately repeat the lines that were written for him.
If not for the reform movements throughout eastern Europe, and the leniency that Gorbachev afforded them, the wall would likely have stayed up for several years longer.
However, most Kremlin observers agree that Gorbachev never intended that the Soviet Union collapse. And given the undemocratic kleptocracies that replaced it, the people in the former Soviet Union aren't really much better off.
9 November 2009
at 9:16 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
barrypenders (Anonymous) says…
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Reagan joked about bombing Russia. That's hardly cause for hope if you're a potential recipient of those bombs.
I guess Iran is just joking about nuking you and I. Huh gccs14r? Maybe that's why the Poser is half-steppin' in his responses to the knee slapping jokes from Ahmedinejad.
Stimulus, evolution, and Posercare lives
Darwin bless you
9 November 2009
at 9:29 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
“I guess Iran is just joking about nuking you and I. ”
So what's the punchline here? Well, Iran has no nukes, no delivery system, and has never threatened to attack the US. Joke must be on you, barry.
bless your pointed little head.
9 November 2009
at 10:50 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
deathpenaltyliberal (Anonymous) says…
“cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
And you have one man to thank for it: Ronald Wilson Reagan. ”
Typical Republican revisionism. Tell a lie loud and often enough until the sheeple believe it.
Fifty years of history reduced to a soundbite. Weak.
9 November 2009
at 1:04 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Deathpenaltyliberal, forty years of oppression were reduced to rubble by the efforts of one man, Ronald Reagan, who stood for human freedom against communist oppression. Of course, if you're a political liberal who favors ever-increasing government control at all levels over the lives of the free citizens of this country, you would have fit in well in the former East Germany.
9 November 2009
at 1:31 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
deathpenaltyliberal (Anonymous) says…
The reality is the USA spent the USSR into the ground, when Reagan came along they were on their deathbed.
Of course, if you're a political conservative who favors ever-increasing government control at all levels over the lives of the free citizens of this country, you would have fit in well in the former Soviet Union.
Not to mention that the “cult of personality” that has developed for Reagan is kind of Stalinist, and totally un-American.
As for me, I prefer less government.
9 November 2009
at 2:05 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Deathpenaltyliberal, you're apparently unaware of the deplorable state of our military after 4 years of neglect under Jimmy Carter. The spending to which you refer was first championed by Ronald Reagan in order to get our military back to where it should have been, and was then put on steroids in order to convince the Soviet Union that they were toast. You might want to read up on it.
As Reagan said, “Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.”
Reagan succeeded, the Berlin Wall was demolished, the Soviet Union collapsed and the cause of human freedom was advanced - until Clinton was elected and continued pressure on Russia to ensure the further advancement of human rights there was viewed as passe and effectively abandoned.
9 November 2009
at 2:19 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
deathpenaltyliberal (Anonymous) says…
“cato_the_fluffer (Anonymous) says…
blah, blah, blah…”
Just more Republican revisionism. Carter bad, Reagan good, Clinton bad.
Maybe you need to read up on the 50 years of the Cold War. Maybe the USSR was tapped out after their Afghanistan War?
9 November 2009
at 2:47 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
DPL, I've forgotten more about the Cold War than you'll ever know. How old were you in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down?
9 November 2009
at 4:15 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
deathpenaltyliberal (Anonymous) says…
Early forties. You?
9 November 2009
at 4:49 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
RogueThrill (Anonymous) says…
We forget that there is a large segment of the US population for whom this event was a tragedy.
====
That's a very good point. Defense contractors to a certain degree are remiss at the end of the cold war, although we still subsidize them to the tune of $800 billion dollars a year when our closest competition barely spend $200 billion. I believe it was Eisenhower, a moderate Republican president that was their greatest critic.
And then there are the hawks and fear mongers. We don't have a clear enemy yet hawkish libs and most neocons spend a great deal of time trying to invent new cold wars and potential threats.
And who do we point to in the former USSRs stead? Russia, with it's weak economy, collapsing population and degrading nuclear stockpile (who are only significant in the sense that our “allies”… Israel… run to them to provoke us and keep us in our place). Iran with it's nuclear potential (although we never said anything to Israel, India or Pakistan with a mouth full of teeth). North Korea, even though the bombs they have tested are weaker than those we developed 50 years ago and lack a delivery system (but good propaganda to allow the Juche to barter for western attention). And lets not mention South America, a whole continent messed up because of our banana republics, needless intervention and drug wars.
The right and some of the mid-left would like nothing than to paint some country or region as the bad man. It allows foreign adventurism and unquestionable American nationalism, and we get to ignore those issues more salient to the American public because “we are doing something more important and we can't be distracted”.
And here we are with 25% of the country begging for a Christian Jihad because some crazy muslim member of the US military gunned down 13 people, totally ignoring that over 128 veterans committed suicides last year due what our military industrial complex orders them to do (most of them Chirstian).
9 November 2009
at 5:34 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Guys like Cato can't understand the concept of a peaceful revolution. The people of eastern Europe tired of not being able to travel freely, among other things, and started protesting in sufficient numbers to make a difference.
9 November 2009
at 8:35 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
DPL, that's classified information.
9 November 2009
at 9:09 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Gccs14r, you are seriously naive. Ask anyone living in Prague in the summer of 1968 how their “peacefully revolutionary” ideas were greeted by the Soviet military machine and its Warsaw Pact surrogates. By 1989, what had changed? Your “peaceful revolutionaries” in Eastern Europe had found great hope and confidence in the United States government and its President, Ronald Reagan, who had greatly revitalized our military after the shameful neglect it had undergone during the years of the Carter administration. Had leftist appeasers been in charge in Washington during the 1980's, the Berlin Wall would never have come down and the Soviet Union would not have collapsed shortly thereafter. The leftist appeasers were wrong then, just as they were wrong most recently about the surge in Iraq. Some things never change.
9 November 2009
at 9:14 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
ComradeRedRooster (Anonymous) says…
It is absolutely shameful that adults posting on this online forum have convinced themselves that the Soviet Union was a “good guy” during the cold war. If you believe that the Soviets weren't that bad then you are an idiot. There is no hope for you. End your pathetic gene pool with sterilization. We will be a better world without your offspring polluting the human gene pool.
9 November 2009
at 9:39 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Cato believes that Reagan acted alone and was personally responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, when he was at best a cheerleader for events beyond his control. CRR takes rebuttal of such assertions and argues ad absurdum that those of us who know something of history and geopolitical events must be Soviet sympathizers.
9 November 2009
at 9:47 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
RogueThrill (Anonymous) says…
I don't see anyone claiming the USSR was a good guy.
9 November 2009
at 10:20 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
Marion (Marion Lynn) says…
Spent some time today with a guy who got out of East Germany, immigrated to the USA, became an American citizen, served in the United States Navy and who was, in his own way, celebrating the Fall of The Wall.
He had three words:
“Ronald Wilson Reagan”.
Good enough for me!
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-1…
How out of control things got in Berlin:
http://features.csmonitor.com/globaln…
The Fall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLS17d…
President Ronald Wilson Reagan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjb…
President Ronald Wilson Reagan finished the work of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH6nQh…
9 November 2009
at 10:21 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
barrypenders (Anonymous) says…
RogueThrill, Was Sarah Palin's “Going Rogue” a Thrill?
USSR had healthcare like the Poser wants. Now that's a good guy.
Stimulus, evolution and Posercare lives
Darwin bless you
9 November 2009
at 10:37 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
My wife is half German. I'll take her version of events over that of some NPD friend of Marion's.
9 November 2009
at 10:58 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
ComradeRedRooster (Anonymous) says…
The East Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and Georgians are very happy to be free from soviet opression. Of course, Barry Hussein has a better form of socialism, one that will work.
Obey Obama!!
9 November 2009
at 11:22 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
morganalefay (Anonymous) says…
Cato says ” forty years of oppression were reduced to rubble by the efforts of one man, Ronald Reagan, who stood for human freedom against communist oppression.”
Wait a minute. Let me quit laughing first. OK…
I was quite surprised at how much credit Ronald Reagan was receiving for the fall of the Berlin Wall here, so I figured I'd see what the Germans were saying about his role. Today I read some articles from German news sources (in German) about the history of the Berlin Wall and the events that led up to the fall 20 years ago.
I was curious about what they had to say about Reagan's role. I also wanted to see if Chancellor Merkel had anything to say about his role.
***crickets chirping***
Guess what? Reagan was not mentioned at all in connection with the events that led up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. An archival video collection in one of my sources was especially instructive. Beginning with the wall's construction, with greater attention paid to events in the years and months before the fall, none of the articles I read mentioned Reagan. They didn't even comment on his soundbite appeal to Gorbachev. Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and the people of East Germany got all the praise.
And these weren't liberal rags either.
Oh yeah…apparently they whitewashed the anti-Reagan graffiti on the Berlin Wall and put up “Welcome Reagan” comments instead, so that he would have a nice backdrop for his little speech in 1987.
9 November 2009
at 11:33 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
Marion (Marion Lynn) says…
“gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
My wife is half German. I'll take her version of events over that of some NPD friend of Marion's. ”
Marion writes:
You do that!
“Was she there, Charlie?”
9 November 2009
at 11:43 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
jaywalker (Anonymous) says…
“The Germans sure don't give Reagan credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall. They did that all by themselves. He just took the opportunity to make a soundbite out of their efforts.”
Yeah, America had nothing to do with it. That's why: we have and had dozens of military bases throughout Europe; drove the Soviet hierarchy to starve their citizens in favor of spending everything on the military for 45 years, which in turn devastated their economy; and succeeded in isolating them globally, all without a head to head confrontation or Europe becoming another battle zone. Yup, the Germans did it all by themselves. Why, those American MP's patrolling the West German border crossings were volunteers. Nobody needed us over there.
Enough with the moronic and to the article……….Wow! I think I've read Shribman before, but this was a great piece of writing! Really impressed, pleasure to read. Just love when a writer can incorporate a pertinent account of history, especially to this extent, in support of an idea.
10 November 2009
at 12:54 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Yes, she was there during most of the Reagan years. Anti-Reagan seniment was high among Germans on both sides, since his hawkish attitude wasn't helping things.
10 November 2009
at 1:31 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
hitme (Anonymous) says…
I remember when Barrack Hussian Obama was at the peak of his popularity and there was some conjecture on the level of rioting that would take place if he was the victim of an assassin. Somehow I don't think there would be that level now.
It sure is funny listening to the liberal media blatantly trying to avoid giving Reagan any credit while trying to give the U.S. credit.
10 November 2009
at 6:14 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Morganalefay, what you describe is accurate, but the fact that you undertook such an exercise reflects your naivete concerning the current European world view. European socialists today are no more inclined to credit President Reagan for his valiant work in defeating the Soviet Union than leftists in America have been ever since the Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter. Leftists are leftists the world over, and whether they reside in Chicago's Hyde Park or Berlin, they have never liked President Reagan's expressed distrust of government as the entity that is supposed to solve all of society's problems. In their view, to honor him today for anything would be to disclaim decades of socialist policies in place all over Europe. Put another way, no matter how tremendously significant Reagan's accomplishments were, he was never going to win the Nobel Peace Prize - even though he was the one individual in recent memory who actually would have earned it.
10 November 2009
at 7:39 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newst…
“”We do not want a united Germany,” Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev at a lunch meeting in the Kremlin in September 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. “This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the whole international situation and could endanger our security.”
Among the 1,000 transcripts of Politburo and other high-level papers smuggled out of Russia by Pavel Stroilov, a researcher in the Gorbachev Foundation, and published for the first time last week – in what The Times described as a “bombshell” – was Thatcher's admission to Gorbachev that although she supported German reunification in public, in private and off-the-record she felt “deep concern” about the “big changes” afoot.”
10 November 2009
at 7:41 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
Your uncritical hero worship of Reagan is kind of cute, cato.
10 November 2009
at 8:02 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Bozo, my admiration for Reagan is not absolute in every respect. Every person has his or her shortcomings. My praise of him at the present time is driven not just by the historical moment, but by the tremendous vacuum of leadership in both parties on Capitol Hill. There is no one in either party presently active at the highest levels of our government who is anywhere near the leader that Reagan was, especially in making us proud to be Americans. You certainly don't get that from the Apologist-in-Chief currently occupying the White House.
10 November 2009
at 8:04 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
I'm not pleased with much of what Obama has done so far, but least he has a functioning brain.
10 November 2009
at 8:32 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
gccs14r (Anonymous) says…
Merkel a Socialist? Please.
Most Germans didn't want a united Germany, either. Those in the West knew it would be hugely expensive to absorb the East, and those in the East knew they'd lose their identity. They also lost some institutions they held dear, and ended up with pretty high unemployment. What the East Germans wanted was a reform of the government and greater freedom to travel, not abdication to the West. 1 in 8 Germans on both sides would separate the Germanys again.
10 November 2009
at 8:54 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
sfjayhawk (Anonymous) says…
gccs14r - you are very misinformed. I was in berlin in Dec of 87, and was in both the east and west. I promise you that almost everyone wanted a united Germany, everyone except the criminal Honecker. I was there again in Dec of 89, about a month after the wall came down, and the party was still going strong. What a great time in history and what a blessing for the German people.
10 November 2009
at 9:03 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…
I was living in Germany in 85 and spent a week in Berlin. At that point the wall coming down didn't seem to be on anyone's radar screen. But Gorbachev had just come on the scene that year, so that potential reality was still a couple of years off.
10 November 2009
at 12:44 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…
Bozo, in light of the quantity of doobies and other fun substances that the Bamster enjoyed in his youth, he's lucky to have a functioning brain.