ext_25741 ([identity profile] lazypadawan.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] therightfangirl2009-11-09 04:06 pm

20 Years of The Fall Of The Wall

The Berlin Wall, the symbol of the Cold War and Soviet domination of Central/Eastern Europe, starting coming down this week 20 years ago. Having been born into a world where there was East Germany and West Germany, East Berlin and West Berlin, it was astonishing to see. I was in college at the time and it vindicated everything President Reagan, Lady Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, etc. were trying to do that entire decade. And it blew the Yay, Global Socialism dreams of my professors out of the water, heh heh. Germany would be reunified a year later, Czechoslovakia would amically split into two countries, and the Soviet Union itself would collapse in less than two years.

Those on the left tend to ignore Reagan's leadership and overpraise Mikhail Gorbachev's "contribution." Gorby's contribution was trying too late to save a crashing plane. He knew the bottom was about to fall out of Soviet Communism and that whole glasnost/perestroika thing or trying to negotiate with the West were his last ditch attempts to save it. Reagan outmaneuvered him over SDI and outspent the Soviets on defense. That was the beginning of the end.

Unfortunately, while the Russkies are lovin' that capitalism, we failed to tear down the Berlin Wall in our own country. The threat to freedom we face today doesn't come from Vladimir Putin, it comes from our own Congress and our own President. I never thought I'd live to see the day where Pravda sounds less like government propaganda than ABC News. Melanie Phillips wrote this piece for the Daily Mail that nails it as far as I'm concerned:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226211/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-We-fools-think-fall-Berlin-Wall-killed-far-Left-Theyre--attacking-within.html

[identity profile] pastygothchick.livejournal.com 2009-11-10 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
Kind of explains why Obama passed on being there. He sent Hillary instead.

Though Hasselhoff showed, (wtf?)

I remember my parents watching it come down. They were cheering and excited. I asked them what was going on. That's how I learned about communism.

[identity profile] lucy-chronicles.livejournal.com 2009-11-10 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
hmm. for once i almost agree w/ an article posted on this site. she has many points but doesn't go far enough in acknowledging the problems in parliament, things that the monarchy (totalitarian) and gov has done to itself from Tory to not just blaming those left of Labor.

next...

[identity profile] coldblossom.livejournal.com 2009-11-10 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
I remember seeing the wall come down on the news, but I was only 7 or 8 so I didn't understand what I was seeing. My next-door neighbor was from Germany, though, and years later she told us how terrible the wall was and how wonderful it felt to be "whole again." She had known people who had been trapped on the wrong side of the wall when it went up and a few of them she never saw again.

[identity profile] caromiofic.livejournal.com 2009-11-10 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
My aunt is German and old enough to remember WW2 (though she was a little girl at the time. In '89 I was 12 and I very clearly remember watching the Wall come down on TV. That was such a moment. It felt like such an exciting time, a hopeful time.