Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin wall was torn down. Symbolically and idealogically it was the end of Communism. Freedom had prevailed. Evil had been conquered. As a child of the 50s, I was taught that the Communists and the Soviet Union were our enemies, they wanted to kill us, to "bury" us. If you are too young to remember air raid drills and "duck and cover" in school, then you probably don't fear communism the way I do. "The Cold War" was real then and we lived with the shadow of nuclear war every day.
Two years before the fall of the wall, President Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate on the 750th anniversary of Berlin and uttered those famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" That marked the beginning of the end of the Berlin Wall and our mortal enemy, the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan's role in ending the Cold War is often diminished by revisionist historians as if the events "just happened." Time has an article that at least acknowledges the efforts of Reagan and Gorbachev (leader of the USSR) to actively pursue the end of the war and bring freedom to the Eastern Bloc.
The Soviet Union lasted almost 70 years under communist dictatorship and had the second largest economy in the world after the United States. Even so, the US economy eclipsed the USSR's. A failed war with Afghanistan and a failed economy eventually led to the collapse of the communist government. 20 years after the victory of freedom over tyranny, the United States is rushing headlong towards communism at an alarming pace. A failing economy? A war with Afghanistan? What's the answer? Communism!
Reagan COMMANDED that wall to fall! What a performance!
ReplyDeleteI guess he could have asked like President Obama might have "Mr. Gorbachev, if it's not too much trouble would you please be so kind as to tear down this wall if it's convenient?" Accompanied by a deep bow.
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