On...200th Post...The Day the Wall Came Down

20 years of Freedom

This is a glorious anniversary, and one that become more and more distant. And with it the pure impact fades. This is a saddening truth of history. I was thirteen when the Iron Curtain began to shudder and creak. I imagine people younger than me don't have the same sense of what communism was (is) and the havoc it unleashed upon the world. Americans born right around 1976 may be that last group of citizens who can begin to understand the significance. Younger than that might not grasp the conflict. I know I have trouble relaying the magnitude of the Cold War to my students. Though certainly not as strong as those kids growing up in the 60s, anyone say born after 1981 never realized how it felt living on a planet where World War III was not merely fiction, but something very real. You lived under that realization that the whole world might be gone any minute. Movies like War Games, Red Dawn, The Hunt for Red October, Red Heat, The Day After, etc were locked into that era. But they will slowly seem like time capsules from a weird age.

This week is an appropriate time to reflect and relearn what really went down in Berlin twenty years ago and feel the powerful echo of liberty casting aside tyranny one more time--learn how free expression and free markets are longer lasting than state planning and single vision. Lessons many Americans need to think more deeply on.

I do regret that President Obama is not in Berlin just as Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were. What a missed opportunity for inspired leadership. I guess the Olympics and Greenhouse Gases are more important to him than universal examples of freedom.

The current issue of the Economist covers the anniversary and the History Channel is playing a couple of good specials on the event.

Here are other similar themed posts:

After the wall fell: Central Europe's success deserves more attention by Anne Applebaum, Washington Post

The Berlin Wall fell and a new Europe rose: Daily Telegraph UK Edition

The Lessons of 1989 by Christopher Hitchens, Slate.com

Why Berlin Mattered by Fred Kaplan, Slate.com

Reagan and Leadership

Tear Down This Wall Speech

Four Little Words by Anthony R. Dolan, Wall Street Journal

Ronald Reagan's unyielding style won the Cold War by Rudy Guiliani, NY Daily News

Video Highlight
ABC NEWS Breaking News November 9th, 1989 with Peter Jennings

NY POST Agrees that President Obama not going to Berlin is a missed opportunity.
Berlin Wall Blunder

On...Heroism

Get choked up reading about the tragic events at Ft. Hood. Here are a couple of the snapshots of heroism and the call of duty.

The Mother who brought down the Fort Hood killer Daily Telegraph UK

But for the heroes, bloodbath could have been worse Breitbart

Heroic civilian police officer 'walked up and engaged' shooter Washington Post

On...Afghanistan Insight

Real Quick (Everything is Real Quick These Days)


The best analysis on the Afghanistan conflict and the future of American forces there has been coming from David Ignatius of the Washington Post. He is always bringing new, honest angles from the debate without all the partisan rant. Also he has spent a lot of time on the ground there among the people, politicians, and soldiers of AfPak as well as Americans. Here's his latest to mull over.

The Real Afghan Strategy

In addition his posts from the last week or so as well.

On the War's Frontlines

In Waziristan

On...Grab Bag of Monday Stuff

Before we go camping I will just leave you with a few Monday morning articles that jumped to my attention.

Canada's National Post jumps in between Obama and Sarkosy and the Burka

Former Ford President and Secretary of Defense Robert "Quagmire" McNamara has died at 93

Left of Center Washington Post Columnist Fred Hiatt questions Obama's "Stuff the Beast" strategy.

Newsweek's David Ignatius speaks to Obama's Russian Reset Utopia

and last but not least
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat had a really good piece on the lesson of Sarah Palin.

On...Republican Reform

The New Right

Brand-names are very useful. The GOP is far from ruined as many wishful thinking wags would like to suggest. Diminished under Bush/Cheney? No doubt. In hibernation? Yes. In need of new blood and new vision? Definitely.

Included here are 3 essays all dealing with this theme.

• Ross Douthat, now at the New York Times, adds his 2 cents.
  
• Joe Scarborough sounds off over at Newsweek
  
• James Forsyth looks at the Tory model in The Washington Post.
  

Hopefully the GOP can be molded along these lines.

And more importantly, Dick Cheney can shut up and go back to Wyoming. When did he get so talkative? Even when he's right about something it seems dirty and cold.

Time to revist my old doctrine of convervative virtues. On...Principles. Always good for a refresher.

On...Cuba

"You talkin' about Cuba?"

Flood that Island with Cash and Capitalism and Knowledge

When I heard the Prez Obama was going to start to lift travel restrictions to Cuba I was relieved. During the campaign it was one of the few of his numerous promises he made that I agreed with. But like many things in the last couple of months it has come out half-assed and disappointing. Restrictions only for Cuban-Americans?

A start you might say, but enough is enough. Our policy on Cuba has failed. Isolation doesn't work for Cuba. Bombard them with Jacksons and Franklins. Bombard them with Midwest and LA tourists. Send down fleets of AARPers and Spring Breakers. "Leave" behind copies of the Weekly Standard and the Washington Post and Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Open Cuba up. Ripped them out of the Marxist dustbin. The Cuban government will not be able to stop the rush. And if they do they will be the bad guys. They will lose money and world standing. It's worth a shot.

If only Obama will go all the way. His motto is starting to be "Change you can kindof, sortof, believe in, sometimes...maybe."

This Washington Post Op-Ed piece makes a number of good points on the subject. And the gullibility of some on the left too.