Yesterday, Andrew Breitbart launched his newest web venture, Big Peace. It will do for national security, what Big Hollywood has done for culture, Big Journalism for the media and Big Government for domestic policy. It has also caused me to climb into the way-back machine.

In 1985, I was an exchange student at a gymnasium (high school) in Bremen, West Germany. It was an anxious time; with renewed leftist terrorist attacks and hijackings throughout Europe. (The TWA airplane which took me to Frankfurt was hijacked about a week later.)  The Middle East was, predictably, tense. The Soviet Union looked as strong as ever. America was coming out of an economic and psychological malaise, but much of Europe, and U.S. political and media elites, were openly worried about a “warmongering” US President who didn’t understand complex foreign policy and might just start a war for kicks.

For those readers under forty, the political debates at the time centered on MX and Minuteman missiles, nuclear disarmament and small dust-ups like the Contras in Nicaragua. One night over dinner, my otherwise gracious German hosts, along with some of their friends, berated me for US foreign policy. Most every problem in the world could somehow be traced back to the U.S. They were particularly incensed about US Government support for the Contra rebels, fighting the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

America should stay out of the affairs of all other countries, I was lectured. It shouldn’t interfere in any of the domestic squabbles in other nations. I replied that I understood that, but the Sandinistas were communist dictators who were supported by the Soviets and Cuba, so it was probable we would be involved.

Support for the Sandinistas from other countries was immaterial, I was told. America should be better and never involve itself in another country’s affairs, they argued.

So, I replied, what about that Berlin Airlift?

Oh, America had to do that, my German hosts replied. That was totally different.

It always is.

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On Sunday morning, Instapundit drew attention to a startling photograph posted on the internet by the White House. In it stands President Obama in black tie, leaning against a wall, his arms folded, speaking not a word, and looking down on Vice-President Biden with hooded eyes.

When this shot is shown in high resolution, as one perceptive observer soon noted, “Obama looks like he has contempt for Biden” –which, he added, may be the case “given Joe ‘The Gaff Machine’ Biden’s performance this year.” I am, he concluded, once again reminded “of how this administration seems to have become oblivious to the images they project to the public.”

I wonder whether this last point is right.

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To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a group of students at Washington University in St. Louis chose to stand up to the tyranny of socialism and bring awareness to its consequences.

The students erected a Soviet gulag on the quad of the University to vividly display the ultimate “solution” to dissidence in socialist societies sparking campus intrigue, discussion, and debate.  Although an officer initially arrived on the scene and found everything was peaceful, undercover video reveals smarmy Washington University administrators continuing to press and make excuses to shut the fake-Gulag down.It took the bureaucracy hours to find an obscure policy to use against the students.

The group responsible has plans to make more gulag demonstrations on campuses around the country.

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Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the most visible symbol of the Iron Curtain that divided the Free World from those in bondage. Only a few short years before, Ronald Reagan famously challenged Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. Two years after the fall of the Wall, the Soviet Union had collapsed.

Can there be a sharper contrast than the hopefulness with which we watched the Berlin wall torn down, and the nightmare we find ourselves in today? Individual freedom was suddenly within reach of half a continent who were enslaved by the utopian dream fabricated by Marx and implemented by Lenin and Stalin. Incredibly, those who still believe in that utopia are running our White House and our Congress. How did we move in twenty short years from defeating the evil empire—not with bullets, but with the immense power that comes from a free people, each acting in their own self interest, outperforming those of the great Soviet collective in every way—to electing Barack Obama, whose policies more resemble those that came out of the failed Soviet state than America?

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The fall of the Berlin Wall marked a resounding victory for freedom and human dignity.  On this day 20 years ago, a long-standing symbol of division and oppression crumbled under the weight of a revolution inspired by leaders whose faith in God and commitment to freedom changed the world.  Years in the making, that movement dismantled the Soviet bloc in a matter of months, erecting in its place a number of young democracies that our nation now counts among its staunchest allies.

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Twenty years ago today, a figurative and literal tear appeared in the once seemingly impenetrable Iron Curtain–the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.  Soon after, millions of East Germans and others under Soviet domination would rise up and demand their freedom.

That day, November 9, 1989, will be remembered forever as one of the greatest in the history of human liberty.  Throughout the East Bloc, communism would begin to fall.  Millions would begin to experience political and social freedom for the first time. Families, separated for nearly 30 years would be reunited. And, throughout Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall would create an opportunity to expose communism’s violent and merciless legacy.

In the United States, though, the anniversary will pass with barely a mention.  With a few noteworthy exceptions (see here and here), the American media has treated the event as an opportunity to praise Mikhail Gorbachev, condemn the West, and lament the coming of crony capitalism in Russia.

Not wanting to let the opportunity pass, some of my colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute have produced a short video commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall .

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Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall was breached and Soviet communism, at long last, entered its death spiral.

After claiming approximately 100 million victims in the 20th century,communism was dismissed to the ash heap of history. But those who suffered under its boot heel have largely been confined to the history books when not forgotten altogether.

Author and historian Lee Edwards set out to correct this oversight with the creation of the Victims of Communism memorial and online museum, dedicated to those who perished because of Communist regimes between 1917 and 1989.

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On Feb. 13, 1985, I stood in the Theaterplatz in Dresden listening to Erich Honecker give a speech.  The speech was not simply one of those standard commie stemwinders to which those of us reporting from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were accustomed.  For one thing, we were gathered outside the newly restored Semper Opera House, designed by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841, rebuilt after a fire in 1869 and long considered one of the glories of 19^th-century musical architecture.  For another, it was bitterly cold, at least twenty below zero on the Fahrenheit scale if not colder.  For a third, all Honecker wanted to talk about – at great length – was the U.S. missile defense system, then under consideration by the Reagan Administration.

This was odd, because the occasion we – and by ‘we” I mean the western press, opera dignitaries, the local nomenklatura (party bigwigs and apparatchiks), the East German Stasi officers assigned to shadow us, and their KGB bosses – were there to witness was the celebratory re-opening of the great opera house, destroyed for the second time on the night of Feb. 12-13, 1945 “by Anglo-American bombers,” as the commemorative poster helpfully reminded us.  (I have my copy, suitably framed, on the wall of my home.)  If memory serves, Honecker, however, had very little to say about Semper or the opera house or the work we were about to hear, Weber’s Der Freischütz, which had been playing the night the city was incinerated.  Instead, the little party boss – I had run into him in the Bellevue Hotel across the river, where the westerners were staying, and was pleased to see that he was as unimpressive in person as he was on television – went on a prolonged rant about die Sternkriege, the so-called “Star Wars” program that even then was setting off protests among the “peace demonstrators” in western Europe, England and, of course, at home as well.

As we stood there, shivering and bored, my colleague and friend, John Rockwell of The New York Times (who, like me, spoke fluent German) leaned over and said: “Personally, I think Star Wars is bullshit, but it really has these guys scared.”  John was right: Star Wars pretty much was bullshit, especially at the time, but it nonetheless terrified the technologically backward Soviets and their satellite marionettes, and it set off the inexorable forces (as Marxists like to say) that just four years later would bring down the Berlin Wall.  Reagan was playing poker with a lot of chips but lousy cards, raising the rear ends off the morally, culturally and fiscally bankrupt Soviets.

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Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall fell. The picture below isn’t from that day, but it speaks volumes about what the Wall represented. In this photo, an East German guard takes his chance to run for freedom as the Wall was being constructed in 1961.

The guard’s flight to freedom should inspire us. In the comments, tell us where you were on this day in 1989. Commit to remind at least one person of today’s anniversary. We don’t expect Big Media to note the date.

From the Daily Mail:

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

Twenty years ago today, supporters of freedom and human rights cheered and wept for joy as the Berlin Wall was torn down by jubilant young Germans.

To so many, that heady day seemed to herald the emergence of a better world. The spectre of communism had finally been laid to rest. Liberty had triumphed over tyranny.

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. (more…)

The America in which I was raised always stood for freedom, and not just freedom for Americans but freedom for suffering people around the World.  When I was an exchange student in Germany in 1983, I found myself in endless debates about this, and about my President Ronald Reagan and his desire to build a missile defense system in Western Europe.   I loved the German people.  The kids were so refreshing in many ways, but their cynical views of the motives of my President shocked me.

John Loudon at Berlin Wall

I admit that I am a little unique.   As a fairly young child, I poured through every issue of Time magazine, which is like our version of the German magazine, Die Zeit.  Jimmy Carter was the President.  He talked of peace while cutting our defense spending.  I remember being very scared seeing charts and graphs comparing our defense systems including war planes, ships and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).  The American armaments were blue and the Soviets vastly superior forced were Red.  Here my story gets really odd.  I was 12 years old when I read George Orwell’s 1984.  The year was 1979.  I was so struck by what I read and the parallels to the modern Soviet Union, that I picked up a copy of the Communist Manifesto. What I read made me nearly shriek in fear.

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Today, in 1989, East German Prime Minister, Willi Stoph and his entire 44-member Cabinet were forced to resign in response to spontaneous public protests. In just two days, the landmark symbol of the Cold War would fall.

Never underestimate the power of a people with the will to win. Be sure to check Big Government on Monday, for special remembrances of that fateful day.

There is something tragic in man’s nature that an ideology which has been the scourge of the 20^th century, inflicting misery and death upon hundreds of millions, still has so many adherents. China recently celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Communist Party. Although communism’s horror show continues to enslave a large portion the world’s population, many in our county are still sympathetic to this cancer. Its track record bears repeating, particularly to students, whose naïveté and inexperience leave them susceptible to dangerous belief systems.

Also in need of a primer on communism’s track record are those in the United States Congress who continue to support and appease communist dictators and tyrants like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. For example, in April of 2009, key representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro. “It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Rush (D-Ill.). According to Representative Richardson (D-Long Beach), Castro knew her name and district. “He looked right into my eyes and he said, ‘How can we help? How can we help President Obama?’” On second thought, these minds have already been irreversibly poisoned. It’s better their constituents should hear the story of Communist China.

The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949 and the charismatic Mao Zedong, exposed to Marxism as a student at Peking University, was its leader. Mao’s cult of personality produced slavish devotion and enabled him to be seen as a visionary. Mao sought to fundamentally remake Chinese society. Dutiful to communist dogma, he needed someone to blame for society’s problems, and fomented class hatred. Mao insisted that the peasants were kept poor because landowners and small farmers had taken what was rightfully theirs. Mao demonized those farmers who held more land than he deemed acceptable. He confiscated the land and promised it to the peasants. Part of Mao’s plan for “land reform” was to select at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution. Political opponents were at first ridiculed, then simply eliminated. So far, Mao’s strategy was akin to his Soviet counterparts but Mao took it a step further. Not only did he confiscate the land; he actually made the people property of the state. Family life and traditions, personal property, privacy, personal initiative and individual freedom, were utterly destroyed for around one-seventh of mankind.

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In an age where style trumps substance in so many ways, few can be surprised that a fledging President would receive a Nobel Peace Prize.  It bears repeating that Obama was President for just a matter of days before the nomination process was closed.  Nevertheless, and without any substantive accomplishment, Obama was awarded the Prize – unanimously – apparently for things to come.  No wonder 58% of Americans believe that politics was behind the choice.

By contrast, consider the accomplishment of Ronald Reagan who, last I checked, did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  According to Margaret Thatcher, Reagan won the Cold War “without firing a shot.”   In the words of Henry Kissinger, it was “the most stunning diplomatic feat of the modern era.”  In the wake of that victory, millions upon millions of people were set free – and, as history has shown, a free people are far more likely to be a peaceful people.

So why didn’t Reagan get the Prize?  The answer is simple, the political Left, including the Nobel committee, didn’t like the way Reagan went about setting people free.   Reagan, we well remember, installed missiles in Europe.  He did so because he believed what Thomas Jefferson told us long ago:  “Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace.”  Reagan, in time, would modernize Jefferson’s wisdom by advocating “peace through strength.”

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“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Some things are more important than prizes. See you in the comments.

One of my favorite features of the Newseum in Washington, DC is the daily display of newspaper front pages from around the world. Today, Canada’s National Post was a standout with Alex Spillius’ coverage of a clash between Presidents Obama and Sarkozy.

obama sarkozy pdf –

Obama: “We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth.”

If you’ve ever wondered–and worried–about where government support of the arts leads, look no further than the full transcript of an August 10 telecon  between an official at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and a group of “independent artists from around the country.” The short version: It leads to the use of taxpayer-funded culture as a means of propagandizing for specific, partisan political aims. Which corrupts not just art but artists.

As Patrick Courrelieche, an L.A.-based arts organizer who participated in the call, reported at Big Hollywood, the people running the call, including the NEA’s director of communications Yosi Sergant  and members of the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve, told the assembled crew of “thought leaders” that “we’re going to come at you with some specific asks here” (that’s a direct quote from Buffy Wicks of the Office of Public Engagement). 

Chief among the requests from Sergant (who was either “reassigned” from the agency or “reportedly resigned” after denying the full extent of his role in organizing the call) was “to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know… [and] apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities’ utilities and bring them to the table.” Beyond the specific policy issues above, the call organizers stressed the ideologically loaded concept of “service” as the animating principle of the Obama administration and wanted the artists to do whatever they could to promote that. As Wicks put it, “We really view [our efforts] as an onramp to a lifetime of service. We really want service to be incorporated into people’s daily lives.”

Given that the NEA prides itself on being the single largest funding source for the arts in the country, such arm-twisting by agency officials, however masked in fulsome compliments to creators’ genius, is disturbing on its face. It clearly sets a political agenda for the very people who are likely to be applying for, well, NEA and other government grants. Does anyone think that the organizers were fishing around for projects that might complicate the public option for health care?

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