Jules Crittenden coins it VEE Day – Victory in Eastern Europe Day.
20 years ago today the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was reunited.
Libertas dug up this remarkable video on this historic event:
But, today the Western World again faces grave threats on its freedom. This time many of these dangerous forces come from within.
In America cap and trade legislation, socialized health care, record deficits, record unemployment, government takeover of banks and car companies, record spending, a collapsing economy, a democrat-media complex, anti-American forces in education and Hollywood…
There are a number of threats facing America today.
Melanie Phillips added this today, “We were fools to believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall killed off the far left.”
The end of the Cold War even led some to proclaim that this was ‘the end of history’ – which was to say that liberal democracy was now the dominant and unchallengeable force in the world.
However, the 9/11 attacks on America tragically proved this to be absurdly over-optimistic. The eruption of radical Islamism revealed that, while the West may have been rid of one enemy in the Soviet Union, another deadly foe had risen to take its place. So much is, sadly, all too evident.
But what is perhaps less obvious is that communism did not just vanish in a puff of historical smoke. The Soviet Union was defeated and fell apart, for sure. But the communist ideology that fuelled it did not so much disintegrate as reconstitute itself into another, even more deadly form as the active enemy of western freedom.
Subversive
Soviet Communism was a belief system whose goal was to overturn the structures of society through the control of economic and political life. This mutated into a post-communist ideology of the Left, whose no-less ambitious aim was to overturn western society through a subversive transformation of its culture.To grasp the extent to which this has in fact taken place, we have to go back in time to well before the moment the Berlin Wall fell. The collapse of communism was actually a slow-burning process. Its moral and political bankruptcy became obvious decades before that glorious Berlin day in November 1989.
For many communist fellow travellers, the scales fell from their eyes when the Hungarian uprising was crushed in 1956. Others, over the years, lost faith not just in communism but in its less radical sister, socialism, as their core tenet of ‘equality’ proved itself in a myriad different ways to be the enemy of freedom and justice, with market forces appearing to carry the torch of liberty instead.
But as communism slowly crumbled, those on the far-Left who remained hostile towards western civilisation found another way to realise their goal of bringing it down.
This was what might be called ‘cultural Marxism’. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.
The Berlin Wall may be gone but socialism never died.
Maybe that explains why President Barack Obama will not be in Berlin today.
November 9th, 2009 | 9:53 am | #1
It’s probably because Obama sees the fall of the Berlin wall as a tragedy, not a triumph, as it marked the end of the valiant experiment on behalf of the People against the Bourgeoisie.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:01 am | #2
Great headline.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:12 am | #3
I suspect that this is close to BO’s perspective.
East Germans lost much in 1989
For many in the GDR, the fall of the Berlin Wall and unification meant the loss of jobs, homes, security and equality
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/1989-berlin-wall
November 9th, 2009 | 10:17 am | #4
Obama is too busy building his own Berlin Wall around the entire U.S.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:28 am | #5
More insight.
Paul Rahe: Obama’s gestures, part 4
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024916.php
November 9th, 2009 | 10:33 am | #6
What will the Sears Tower to do remember this since they honored 60 years of Communism in China? Since Obama refused to say America won the Cold War, I doubt he will do anything significant today.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:33 am | #7
Chisum,
Don’t forget the latest insulting gesture of calling hard-working, patriotic Americans “teabag, anti-government people”.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:36 am | #8
Betsy,
Thanks.
I posted that in the thread below. The “58% of Voters….” thread.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:52 am | #9
[...] Ross Douthat Life After the End of History Gateway Pundit has more Melanie Philips: We were fools to think the fall of the Berlin Wall killed the far left; [...]
November 9th, 2009 | 10:54 am | #10
freedworks.com has great pics, before and after.
These pics should be placed on every commie, moveon.org, kos, huffpo site.
They are so uneducated about the real world…Their ignorance is destroying our way of life.
November 9th, 2009 | 10:59 am | #11
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-48432.html
This is the site of the Berlin before and after pics.
Sorry for mix up….
November 9th, 2009 | 11:03 am | #12
I don’t want Obama to be there. He would taint the celebrations. His ilk support the other side.
November 9th, 2009 | 11:20 am | #13
He’s still recovering from Camp David
November 9th, 2009 | 11:23 am | #14
That’s b/c Obama thinks the US was on the wrong side of the Cold War.
And, he and Pelosi, Reid, Fwank nad Wangel are feverishly woking to rectify the situation.
November 9th, 2009 | 11:34 am | #15
there arew only two objective answers.
obama is a politically tone deaf narcissistic man who has been promoted to the pinnacle of his incompetence,
or he’s so much more socialist marxist than will ever be publically admitted. and yes he looks at this as a tragedy not a day of rejoicing for the victory of the west over communist tyrrany.
November 9th, 2009 | 11:41 am | #16
Related: Recognizing 20th Anniversary of Fall of Berlin Wall, U.S. Democrats Welcome Former Communist Central Planners http://www.optoons.blogspot.com/
November 9th, 2009 | 11:49 am | #17
++
non_dhimmie @ 10:59 am #11
wow.. cool pix,
thanks for sharing..
on another front, not all are happy
with ObaMao in Germany either..
‘Reminds One of Socialism’
[“GM’s about-face has angered both Opel workers and European governments. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, union leader and Opel board member Armin Schild blasts GM for mismanagement and says that the US company is uninterested in saving the Opel brand.”]
==
November 9th, 2009 | 11:55 am | #18
Rumcrook,
Yes. to both.
November 9th, 2009 | 11:59 am | #19
++
Ronald Reagan
“Tear Down This Wall” Reagan speech June 12 1987
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The opening of the Berlin Wall 1989
==
November 9th, 2009 | 1:15 pm | #20
What is wrong with this site? It doesn’t always post comments – totally irritating.
November 9th, 2009 | 2:10 pm | #21
Saturday’s vote on Nov 7th marked the 92nd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Since Russia was on the Julian calendar at the time, it also is known as the October Revolution. Converting October 25 to the Gregorian Calendar means the anniversary is Nov. 7th.
November 9th, 2009 | 3:41 pm | #22
What I find most repulsing is not really Obama and the rest of the left loons in the US.
It’s the Euro-peon politicians. The same people who will celebrate the fall of communism have denied their peoples the right to vote on the Lisbon Treaty. That’s the real perversion here.
All those politicians going there are instrumental for the death of the sovereign nations of Europe. They want to create a new socialist empire, the EU.
November 9th, 2009 | 6:29 pm | #23
[...] Gateway Pundit has more on the irony of celebrating freedom while ours is being desroyed. [...]
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