Cold War Christmas Messages We Must Not Forget
Reagan made clear and credible what America required. This changed the dynamic to such an extent that in 1989, the year after Reagan left office, Germans tore down the Berlin Wall. Eastern Europe shook free of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union itself began to crumble. On Christmas day, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president, and the Soviet Union disintegrated. Here is his astounding speech that Christmas, inevitable when it finally came, but almost unimaginable when Reagan was delivering his first presidential Christmas message 10 years earlier.
Why does this matter today? Because it is at bottom the same fight now going on around the globe, the old human struggle for freedom, against forces and ideologies that oppose it. A big lesson of the Cold War is that leadership matters. When America has truly led in this world, good things have followed. If America’s president will not step up to lead this fight, if America’s government busies itself with bearing “witness,” leading from behind, and nodding along as new dictatorships replace the old, if America’s president chooses to fall back, stand aside and simply hope that history will of its own accord swing in a benign direction, then it is the job of Americans who see it otherwise to keep alive the ideas that won the Cold War — the ideas that capitalism and freedom are vital to those marvelous aims of peace on earth and dignity of mankind, and in that cause, American leadership is sorely needed. These are not merely matters of history and nostalgia. They are mighty ideas that need revisiting, rebroadcasting, teaching and proud defending, as guides to a better future, and inspiration for those who might yet emerge to lead us. And with that, a Merry Christmas to all.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my hero, Claudia.
President-elect Park Geun Hyeh in South Korea did all she could for the North Korean Human Rights cause since she got involved in politics. She met many North Korean defectors and attended most of the North Korean human rights events in South Korea. The liberal leftist media in the U.S. called her “Dictotor’s Daughter,” or “Strongman’s Daughter.” She is Park Geun Hyeh, not somebody’s daughter. She is the true freedom fighter, not Kim Dae-jung or Roh Moo-hyun who helped the North Koeran Kim Dynasty, secretly and publicly. We now have hope in South Korea to fight against the red traitors and against the Kim Dynasty in North Korea. We have President Park Geun Hyeh.
The fight against the evil never ends. Lincoln said in 1858, “The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats.” It is 8 degrees F today in Chongjin, North Korea. They don’t have power, they don’t have heat. And yet, the little evil Kim JOng Eun fired a missile the other day that cost millions of dollars. People are still dying in NK at the prison camps, at the public execution stakes, and from starvation.
Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote a column yesterday in WSJ. Christians are being murdered in NK simply because they are Christians. They are the true Christians of the day. Merry Christmas to all true Christians in the world. Let’s save North Koreans.
Sincerely,
Sin-U Nam
Kim Jong-il’s Genocide Exhibit
It’s nice to see that there are some people like you, Sin-U Nam, in countries outside America who actually do support American values rather than the Communistic aspects or being just plain anti-American overall. Unfortunately, more than a few times, it seems as though America is getting a huge bashfest across the globe in various mediums. For example, there was that British newscaster who basically stated some really bad things about Bush and his policies (the same one whom the Dixie Chicks effectively agreed with). I also remember reading an article on Breitbart during the time of the Contra incident where the author, who at the time was a foreign exchange student, was staying with his German hosts, and they effectively bashed the Americans for their involvement in Nicaragua’s affairs, while conveniently turning a blind eye towards the Soviets’ own involvement in their affairs as well. Not only that, but in Japan they are currently making largely anti-American products. I can name at least two examples, maybe three, all of which are video game series. The first example is the Metal Gear series by Hideo Kojima. The first “Solid” game has the main protagonist being shown in briefing tapes as being effectively anti-American, the goal was to stop a terrorist threat on Shadow Moses who hijacked a doomsday weapon, Metal Gear REX, which was effectively created by America to bypass MAD and blow up any country they pleased without impunity, an action that’s even stated to have the UN denounce the President and have America undergo controversy by the UN had they found out during the START III treaty, and they implied in one call that the cancellation of the ban on chemical weapons was effectively because they didn’t want to give up power. It’s worse in Metal Gear Solid 2, where they have a group known as the Patriots who orchestrated it’s own terrorist attacks on its own soil, and framed its own military and others for the deed, and was even heavily implied to be the very embodiment of American values. Metal Gear Solid 3 has its ending where it basically makes the Americans out to be extremely bad, willing to sell out its own soldiers to steal cash solely for political gain. Portable Ops even has a character stating that the Americans were no different than the Communists. Metal Gear Solid 4 effectively blames America for the War Economy and implies that they deliberately abstained from the UN vote to allow for it to happen. The communist rhetoric gets pretty bad in this game as well, as the beginning of the second act has Snake being implied to aid the South American Communist rebels in order to get to Liquid Ocelot’s camp. Peace Walker so far is the absolute worst of the bunch on anti-American rhetoric, given the constant praises in Che Guevara in that game, even giving false praisehoods, as well as the main premise being to aid the FSLN and stop the CIA from going into Costa Rica, and effectively throws in every Anti-American retoric possible, even some jabs at the Americans at Okinawa. It’s making me deeply consider quitting the series. The second game is the Resident Evil series. Ever since Resident Evil 5, possibly Resident Evil 2 and 3 if we’re really pushing it, there were a lot of anti-American notions in the series. In 5, the main protagonist, Chris Redfield, effectively mentions that he’s anti-Capitalist and anti-American. In Darkside Chronicles, it is heavily implied that Leon S. Kennedy was basically blackmailed into working with the US Government because they’d experiment on or dissect a survivor of the Raccoon City destruction incident that the Government and Umbrella caused. His partner in the game, Jack Krauser, effectively ends up being fired from the military because of an injury that never quite recovered, and he promptly went rogue. Resident Evil 6 also has its main villain being an NSA director who instigates a terrorist attack on American soil to silence the president from revealing the truth about the destruction of Raccoon City at a university because of it resulting in the UN basically persecuting them if it came out. Those are the definite ones. I don’t know about the Dead or Alive series, though. That’s in the gray area. I’ve also heard from a classmate that she once witnessed at a trip to Japan that there was some guy ranting to the public about driving out the Americans as if they should do so, and from the same woman, how the French often acted like we’re like Rush Limbaugh or something as if that’s a bad thing when she stayed there. That’s also not even getting into some youtube comments about Americans being “lazy and fat” or that Psy incident. I’ll admit, sometimes we Americans have made our mistakes, as all of humanity has. But there’s a big difference between the making of mistakes, and constantly bashing us and treating us negatively all the time, and I for one am sick of it and especially all of the anti-Christianity going around both foreign and domestic. But, I digress…
It’s good to know someone like you, Sin-U Nam, who actually does respect America and doesn’t try to beat it down. I’m eternally grateful for that.
Thanks for your comments, but I am a Korean-American living in Pa. outside Philadelphia. I came to America in 1968 and became a citizen in 1975. I have been working on the North Korean human rights issue for about ten years. I am against anybody who is against America. That includes not just foreigners and terrorists, but people like Mr. Obama, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr. Reid, who I believe are against America. I am against anybody who is against fighting against the evils. There are too many evils around in this world: North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, and the U.N. I mean the rulers in those countries, not the people. We have to save the people in North Korea from the evil hereditary dictatorship of the Kim’s. They don’t even know there exist many countries in the world where they can eat three meals a day, have three bedrooms in their house, and dozens of dresses in the closet they can wear. Where they can say freely Kim Jong-il is an evil, not a Dear Leader!
Happy New Year to all!
What a nice piece that goes to the essence of the global challenges we are still dealing with. So glad you have UNESCO firmly in your sights as well Claudia. It was created to be a weapon in the Cold War against the West. Huxley knew a Cultural Revolution could change the West over time if beliefs, attitudes, values, and feelings were targeted via education and other institutions like the media and the religion. It was the West who failed to grasp what targeting consciousness itself would ultimately mean to our foundations of personal liberty and economic freedom and Individuality itself.
If Margaret Mead herself in the dark days of 1942 appreciated the Totalitarian aspects of what was being pursued to use the social sciences to alter behavior, we should be alert to the essence of that same activity and goals in 2012. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/truly-effective-teaching-involves-the-awakening-of-all-three-heart-mind-and-the-soul/ explains the Transformative noetic change we are dealing with. At the individual level and country-wide. And truth be told, global.
At that point, two different factions in the UN that mean none of us masses any good will compete over who will control the Behemoth State.
Thanks Claudia for keeping a major source of all this social poison from being out of sight where it wishes to be while it maneuvers for fundamental change.
Thank you very much for the Christmas commentary featuring Ronald Reagan. We can only hope that in the future President Reagan will be held in the same esteem as Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle. If there was ever a saint for our time, it would be Saint Reagan. Thank you.
The republican party of the moment, would block any such sainthood status of Reagan. He ask of the congress and received eleven tax hikes and later endorsed additional gun control.
But the current American President does not believe in Capitalism and is soft on freedom.
Truth be told the current President more closely resembles Soviet leaders of the Cold War era than he does the Great Ronald Reagan.
It takes a leader imbued with American ethos and moral fortitude to tackle the enemy at the free world’s throat. And one would expect that the leader of the free world would be up to the task and challenge. And herein lies the crux.
IF not for the fact that an anti-American is at the helm the US would be able to turn around the boot of Islamic jihad. Not only in a military sense, but in capturing the hearts and minds of millions around the world. And such a leader would be able to inextricably tie Islam to blood, therefore, giving a clear eyed focus as to explaining, wherever Islam takes root blood follows – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/13/islam-blood-a-groundbreaking-policy-paper-contained-herein-the-world-stands-on-a-precipice-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-109/
It is not as if Barack HUSSEIN Obama was the first POTUS to lie about Islam’s totalitarian roots, in fact, Bush tried to sell the tale too, that Islam is a religion of peace – in a pig’s eye.
But it is also the case that Bush was an American at heart, albeit misguided in his approach. Obama is anti-American in scope, whichever way you parse it.
Therein lies the difference and the world wide dangers.
Sadly Adina too many people like Claudia Rosett who ought to have known better bought into the myth of the wonderful Arab Spring which has now become the Muslim Brotherhood Arab Winter. The Russians tried to tell them that Syria was turning into another Libya on steroids, but they wouldn’t listen.
A GREAT speech by our last REAL president! Way to go Ronnie!
Good article, Ms. Rosett.
And the Cold War isn’t ancient history for me. Heck, I was born during the last two years of the Cold War (The Berlin Wall fell in July 1990, I was born on Valentines Day of that same year, and the Soviet Union fell around 1992, maybe 1993). Heck, back in Elementary school, its anti-religion stance wasn’t really kept much of a secret. I still remember seeing in one of my Social Studies textbooks (during the Cold War chapter) something where it said that they turned the Saint Basil’s cathedral into an overglorified photocopying store (even mentioning that the sounds of copiers). Granted, they never really covered the part about the Soviets actively killing religion, and I didn’t even know about that until High school when I learned about what my Uncle Bill Sweeney witnessed in the Soviet Union during a foreign exchange during the Carter Administration. He tried to find a church, and he unknowingly nearly got a congregation arrested when a guide who was secretly a KGB agent guided him to a church (the congregation hid in the shadows when he entered, and he managed to save them at the last minute by claiming it’s not the church he’s looking for) when I was reading Animal Farm, but still.
Let’s hope for an actual end to the UN in the future. If there isn’t an end to the UN by the time of 2022, I’ll run for president with the platform promise of ending the UN and the UNESCO, a promise I fully intend to keep.
I’m afraid Ms. Rosett has been living for too long in the WSJ bubble when she refers to Russia as a ‘nationalist dictatorship’. Are there still authoritarian influences? Certainly. But it is not a dictatorship, and I invite her to read the RuNet unfiltered or ask Muscovites on the street for their opinions of their local chinovniki to see that.
I didn’t really comment one way or another about Russia in the present in my prior post, just whether the Cold War is “ancient history.” So I don’t see why you had to comment on my post like that.
And I’m still not certain whether they’ve actually given up on Marxism. Until I see something that indicates that they’ve taken down Karl Marx’s statue in Moscow, I still think they at the very least support socialism, if not communism; certainly marxism either way. The Russians also are undergoing statism either way, however, if that recent law about banning Americans from adopting Russian children is anything to go by. BTW, it’s been a confirmed fact that the Russians were and still are helping out Iran.
The war between freedom and tyranny is never ending. Today, in America, we have an administration that betrays the very freedoms and principles that this nation was founded upon. For over 80 years Christianity and liberty in America have been under assault by atheists, socialists and communists who value neither. Their words are deceptions to cloak their intentions in ‘high morality’ even as they seek to impose a tyranny of the spirit that devalues both the sacred and the spiritual. While they claim concern for the ‘underprivileged’, they ultimately attack the very humanity of those the purport to represent.
The lies that they spout are myriad, and flutter like dark moths around the flame so as to obscure the light. But underlying it all is a will to power that is closely tied to a nihilism of the spirit that denies the sacred nature of man, a man made in the image of God. Hiding their despair behind a wall of lies, they seek to infect the world with their disbelief. Man is substituted for God, and the will for transcendental moral values. But even as they do this, there is still the deep understanding that what they create is transitory for all men die, and all power is dissipated in death.
But the challenge of the left, is nothing compared to the barbarity of Islam, for Islam retains transcendental values and a faith in a god and an eternity that the atheists, and others of their ilk, lack. This belief system allows them to measure success based on transcendental values that does not consider neither the sterility of their culture nor its moral impoverishment. Because of brainwashing and terror, Islam has been able to conquer and enslave many nations and to destroy their cultural identity. For some, like the Armenian, Pontine Greek, Assyrian and Nestorian Christians, Islam has resulted in their extermination, in a centuries long history of genocide and enslavement.
Today we have a cultural elite who close their hearts to God, even as they seek to make themselves Gods. They have embraced the worst of atheism and Islam, as they continue their attack on Christianity and Christianity’s demand for individual moral responsibility and a moral code that is not based on the subjective whims of the moment. Ronald Reagan is the antithesis of this evil, and so his words resonate with hope and resolve. His words ring true, while those of our current president seem self-serving and narcissistic.
Faced with that we must continue to reaffirm the truth, and strive both in our actions and beliefs, to resist what could be a dark night of the soul for this culture. We need to pray, but we also need to be unafraid as we speak to the truth. We will need hard men such as John Sobieski, and Jean de Valette, John Hunyadi,and spiritual leaders like the best of our Medieval Popes if we are to survive and prevail.
“The war between freedom and tyranny is never ending.”
Yes, you are ever so correct except — NOT ‘within’ the United States!
The constitution remains alive and quite well in the United States! The people, district by district and state by state, vote for the congressional representatives of ‘their’ choice and in accordance to what they want represented according the issues of concern at any given time. Likewise for president. By a majority vote according to the constitution the elected representatives go to Washington to represent the majority of peoples issues or positions on other issues. Each of the constitutional branches of government are to this very moment conducting their business exactly as the constitution so states they are to do.
A tyrannical government is well defined worldwide and America is no closer to such as it was from its beginning. Fear of a tyrannical government in America coming from within, is a fear manufactured by the self serving gun activists.
The U.S. constitution does not allow for any president to dispose of the congress or the judicial — period! Such a president attempting to do so would be impeached and removed from office almost immediately!
All to often, poor sportsmanship from the losing side brings forth bad self serving behaviors, manufactured fears and consipracies.
Ha ha ha ha… you right wingers crack me up…. and I can’t believe you even listen to each other. I think any honest historian would admit that the US quickened the fall of the soviet union by roughly a week at best. The system was flawed and completely destroyed itself with essentially no outside help.
As for all of this Obama bashing — get real, Obama is not much more liberal than Reagan was. I think Reagan himself would find today’s tea party completely appalling. He raised taxes willingly, and he was (at least partly) pro gun control. Obama is about as centrist as you are ever likely to get in a democrat. Learn to love him… the way things are going, the next president will probably be more liberal still.