Comments on: Some Cold War Truths

By: plowshare

plowshare — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:26:30 +0000

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the symbolic climax of the Revolution of 1989 (which is the way historians ought to remember those earth-shaking events) but the opening “shot” of the revolution, as far back as I can trace it, was the dismantling of the barbed wire and other parts of the Hungarian Iron Curtain, by the Hungarian border authorities. That created a situation where the East Germans, who could freely travel to Hungary, could then freely travel to Austria and points west–including, of course, West Germany.

There was widespread talk of how East Germany was “hemorrhaging,” with the flower of its young adults leaving in droves, and how the authorities then decided that they had to relax their grip on East Germany.

For many months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the mainstream press pooh-poohed the idea of German reunification. Their correspondents, who hobnobbed with the East German “intellectuals”, had little idea of where the common people of East Germany stood. But they found out soon enough.

This is modern history, and it is a shame how few people know it.

By: goral

goral — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:52:24 +0000

The reason that there is no interest in our Cold War victory is that it really didn’t cost the average citizen anything.
Sure there are the exceptions such as servicemen who might have been personally touched on their tour of duty.

There were those whom it cost everything. It is of those Mr. Weigel speaks when he says:
“Be grateful for all those who sacrificed blood and treasure for the victory.”

Quotes taken from – The Book of Martyrs in the History of Christianity by Franklin J. Balasundaram (ed.)

“For the Church to be alive in Poland several priests had to lose their lives. Among them the most prominent was Father Jerzy Popieluszko. He died as a martyr for the cause of human dignity and freedom.”

“Popieluszko’s sermons express his stand against revenge and use of violence and a desire to pray not only for those who are oppressed but also for those who oppress people. As a staunch supporter of solidarity he referred to it as the ‘patriotic struggle to reinstate human dignity’.”

“He believed that witnessing to the truth leads to freedom and constantly encouraged his hearers to witness to truth over against the lies. It is by witnessing to the truth that one overcomes fear which is the root cause for enslavement. In one of his sermons he says, “If truth becomes for us a value, worthy of suffering and risk, then we shall overcome.”

This Oct. 19th , the 25th anniversary of his brutal murder will be remembered.

By: SeanReynoldsNZ

SeanReynoldsNZ — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:47:52 +0000

Can I add Yasser Arafat to the list of people who make the Nobel Peace Prize a cheap token? It’s kind of like the US dollar: Handing it out to worthless causes has made it a cheap and debased currency that is useless.

By: stjohnsfeast

stjohnsfeast — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:46:06 +0000

Excellent article. Anyone who remembers these events with a clear eye can only conclude that our late, great Pope John Paul II (along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher) was the main actor in bringing down the iron curtain.

I’d like to add one more “inconvenient truth” from the Cold War era (a real one, not an Al Gore one) that is not admitted by many, but should be: In spite of his bombast, history has proven that Joseph McCarthy was right. While we may question his methods, McCarthy told the truth about communist infiltration into our government, as proven by declassified KGB records. In retrospect, we can consider ourselves lucky to have prevented a Communist takeover. Thank God for preserving our country and way of life, and thank God for John Paul the Great, the right man at the time the world needed him.

By: PrairieHawk

PrairieHawk — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:03:11 +0000

This is why I felt so deeply disappointed and even betrayed when our beloved John Paul II failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize the year before he died. If ever there was an obvious winner, it was him. I guess being the fulcrum of the machine that almost bloodlessly brought down the most dictatorial, violent, and evil regime in history wasn’t enough for those who objected to John Paul’s teaching on the role of women in society. Or maybe it was abortion, or contraception, or even the Incarnation itself. Whatever the reason, the Nobel Prize is now an empty token, and if I may take a cheap sideswipe, giving it to Al Gore for making a movie just proves the point.