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The Berlin Wall was a world away from the apartheid wall built by Israel around Palestinian population centers, the U.S./South Korean military wall that separates family members from North Korea, or the expanded U.S. wall against immigrants on the border with Mexico. What is the difference? Those walls are aimed at repressing the workers and oppressed. The Berlin Wall, by contrast, was built in defense of the workers and oppressed.

Because article is so short, mainly just posting the link... http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N19144921.htm "Uniformed men, apparently from the Venezuelan army, arrived in trucks on the Venezuelan side at two pedestrian bridges that link communities on both sides ... and then proceeded to dynamite them," Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said.

(snip) Most of all, I remember five long decades when, for all our many differences, Americans nonetheless maintained a bipartisan commitment to the freedom and security of our allies. And together, we in the West kept faith with those on the other side of the walls of that world struggle, confident that they wanted the same things we did – liberty, equal justice, an opportunity to prosper by their own talents, and a chance to live under the rule of law, not under the thumbs of tyrants. This, my friends, is what today’s anniversary is all about. The Berlin Wall...

After the Wall Geoff Lewis, November 13, 2009 Twenty years ago the Berlin wall that divided Germany from freedom and communism came down. At a recent event at the Heritage Foundation, panelists reviewed the “pulse” of Europe twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, publics of former Iron Curtain countries generally look back approvingly at the collapse of communism,” according to “The Pulse of Europe 2009,” a study released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2009. “Majorities of people in most former Soviet republics and Eastern European...

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (KMOX Radio) -- Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a demonstration at Washington University against socialism was making some students uncomfortable. Students cutting across the campus on a warm fall day heard the Soviet National Anthem in the breeze, coming from loud speakers inside a makeshift prison camp complete with a high-wire fence, blood-stained inmates and goose-stepping guards in Soviet-era uniforms. Organizer Dirk Doebler of the conservative group Young Americans for Liberty says the goal was to show a "liberal-leaning" campus the ugly history of socialism.

(I should've posted this the day before yesterday - on World Freedom Day...) ...President Reagan came to office with the belief that the United States and other free nations should use all aspects of political, military, economic, diplomatic and cultural power to defeat Communism. Once in office he put those ideas into practice by encouraging and influencing other free nations to join in his endeavor. Most notably was his speech in Berlin where he declared to General Secretary Gorbachev that if he wanted peace and prosperity for the Soviet Union he must, “Tear Down this Wall.”

Hillary Clinton Scrubs Ronald Reagan From History Nile Gardiner November 10th, 2009 It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness. The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President...

Once again we prepare to honor those who have served in all of our wars, paying special homage to those who did not return from our wars. Nearly all of us who served in combat zones over our history view those whose names are etched in stone on the many Veterans Memorials as the true heroes of our conflicts. Viet Nam is labeled as “America’s Longest War” due to our involvement in that country from 1950 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. That 25 years pales when considering that after World War Two, we began engagement in a much...

Many believed. So many were disappointed. 9 minute video, halfway down the page. Excellent encapsulation of life in East Berlin from the '50s to the fall of the Berlin Wall, including indoctrination of children, MEDIOCRE leaders, secret police and of course the wonderful architecture of East Germany. "Thomas Hoepker's photos chronicle 40 years of strange, sad, vicious and sometimes hilarious life in East Berlin.

Amidst all of the hoopla surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall the two men most responsible have been all but forgotten. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world dignitaries praised former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for the fall of the wall, the two men perhaps most responsible, President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were all but forgotten. Merkel praised Gorbachev, “You made this possible---you courageously let things happen.” He let things happen? Is she kidding? Gorbachev had no choice but to let things happen. Let’s revisit real history for a moment please. The fall of...

The President of leisure has a pretty slow day Monday, highlighting the point that no pressing business kept him from celebrating the fall of communism 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell. Jim Gerraghty of The Campaign Spot on National Review goes over the official schedule for our leader yesterday: Just look at the man's schedule: He had a 10 a.m. daily briefing from the intelligence community, a 10:30 a.m. economic daily briefing, an 11 a.m. meeting with senior advisers . . . and then, right after that, at 6:45 in the evening, he had to sign an executive...

It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness. The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire....

Google strikes yet another blow for p.c.: celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street on its front page, while ignoring the 234th anniversary of the founding of the USMC.Priorities ...

One international leader was conspicuously absent at the 20 Year Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall today. Even the Russian President made it there. Barack Obama is seen on screens during a video message at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Nov. 9, 2009, during the commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov.9, 1989. Even worse- Obama spoke about himself to the crowd: “Few would have seen on that day that… that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent.” And, of course, he did not...

On November 9, 2009, the world will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Naturally, in Germany, there will be commemorations of the event, and the collapse of Communism in Europe. "snip" And given all of this, it is safe to say that Barack Obama will attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Wall, right? Wrong. While Candidate Barack Obama was perfectly willing to go to Germany during the 2008 Presidential campaign, President Barack Obama has chosen to skip the 20th anniversary celebrations altogether. Needless to say, this has not elicited much outrage...

Twenty years later: Why the Berlin Wall fell S A Aiyar Sunday October 25, 2009 We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism. This comprehensively refuted the Communist claim to represent the people. Yet, the claim continues, sometimes dazzling a new generation of youngsters with no inkling of why the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In democratic Capitalism, said Karl Marx, the rich became richer and the poor poorer. Marxism inspired young idealists for over a century. Lenin’s revolution in Russia in 1917 was hailed as a new dawn. Stalin’s invasions brought Communism to Eastern...

TODAY every news service in the world will transmit the same gratifying and facile images of the destruction of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago: a moment when -- as solemn-voiced announcers will intone in practised cadences -- not just a wall, but an entire era was ground into brick-dust. Such commemorations are easy and agreeable because they invite us to celebrate the ending of something, without requiring us to know anything about what it was that ended. What could be more pleasant than to enjoy an obscurely heart-lifting, lung-expanding sensation of liberation without having to trouble ourselves as to...

Here is video of the celebration in Berlin, Germany today marking the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down on November 9, 1989. A series of 1,000 "domino-like" wall sections were set up for the observance, and Poland's solidarity leader Lech Walesa was asked to do the honors of pushing the first section over which started the domino effect as they all fell. . . . (VIDEO)

As we remember 20 years after the realization of Ronald Reagan's famous words "tear down this wall!" On this historic anniversary, the folks at Reason TV have produced a great four minute piece on the victims of Communism. I highlight this because we had so many callers today who lived under or saw first hand life under a socialist dictatorship. People like Kris and Erica and Susan (who lived in West Germany) knew first hand what is was like. But as Reason TV points out, these people and their lives and their sacrifices are too often forgotten. And today many...

For many in the GDR, the fall of the Berlin Wall and unification meant the loss of jobs, homes, security and equalityOn 9 November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down I realised German unification would soon follow, which it did a year later. This meant the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the country in which I was born, grew up, gave birth to my two children, gained my doctorate and enjoyed a fulfilling job as a lecturer in English literature at Potsdam University. Of course, unification brought with it the freedom to travel the world and, for...

BERLIN (AFP) – World leaders joined more than 100,000 revellers Monday for emotional celebrations 20 years after the Berlin Wall's fall and called for a new transatlantic push against threats to global peace. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined luminaries past and present to mark the defining moment in the end of communist rule in Europe, when the crumbling East German state finally opened the despised concrete border on November 9, 1989. Merkel, who grew up in the Stalinist state, marched through the historic Brandenburg Gate with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia,...

Guitars, keyboards and drums did not topple the Berlin Wall. But for the young people who helped bring down Communist regimes across Eastern Europe in the fall of 1989, pop music was a profoundly subversive force, inspiration and vital tool of protest for challenging and undermining a totalitarian state stricter than any parent. Now middle aged, some of the musicians who played in ostracism during those last gray years of Communist rule gathered in New York over the weekend for the festival Rebel Waltz: Underground Music From Behind the Iron Curtain. Performing at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village......

There are lots of good ones out there. Scott put up Reagan's speech, of course. Clyde had Sen. McConnell's tribute to the event (video added). Hot Air has a few good ones, all of which are worth a few minutes. But this is the one that got me. Freedom-loving people the world over, and especially our allies who were liberated from the yoke of Communist tyranny, are celebrating the triumph of good over evil. So ask yourself as you watch it, what the hell is wrong with Barack Obama?

Not many speeches are mighty deeds. When Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, he performed a mighty deed by giving the speech he gave. Our friend Peter Robinson was the man who wrote the speech. He tells the story behind the speech in his memoir How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, Peter recalled the events leading to the speech for Power Line readers in a form condensed from his book. As we celebrate the fall of the Wall today, we remember: "In...

It should be telling to all Americans that while our current "president" has plenty of time to jet set around to places like Copenhagen, to shill for his corrupt Chicago buddies, and of course, play golf and shoot hoops, he is conspicuously absent from the festivities going on in Berlin this week. I have to wonder if, instead of cheering as most of us were twenty years ago, were Obama and his Marxist friends all shedding tears and consoling one another instead, at the fall of this symbol of oppression.

Ronald Reagan's historic speech before the Berlin Wall in 1987, in which he said "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall," is one of most important speeches in world history. The Berlin Wall's falling, which came about two years later, was a victory for freedom and a crushing blow to the former Soviet Union and the tyranny of Communism around the world.

We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism. This comprehensively refuted the Communist claim to represent the people. Yet, the claim continues, sometimes dazzling a new generation of youngsters with no inkling of why the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In democratic Capitalism, said Karl Marx, the rich became richer and the poor poorer. Marxism inspired young idealists for over a century. Lenin's revolution in Russia in 1917 was hailed as a new dawn. Stalin's invasions brought Communism to Eastern Europe. Communist governments there pledged to create a paradise for workers, who would be freed...

Keeping Communism Down Allie Winegar Duzett, November 9, 2009 November 9th is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even if news stations like CNN and ABC do not, other people worldwide will be celebrating this defeat of communism. November 9th marked “the effective death of the Cold War,” Dr. Lee Edwards said at the Heritage Foundation Bloggers’ Briefing earlier this week. The Cold War was “a war which America participated in for forty-six years—it’s the reason why we fought in Korea, the reason we fought in Vietnam: fighting and opposing communism,” he explained, noting that...

Ronald Reagan brought two things to Washington that were very much out of fashion, I enjoy telling student interns at Family Research Council: brown suits and freedom for a hundred million people in Eastern Europe. When Reagan swept into office in a landslide in 1980, the reigning view of Washington’s foreign policy elites toward Eastern Europe was that expressed in the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine. State Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt in the 1970s was a disciple of Henry Kissinger. TIME Magazine explained Sonnefeldt’s ideas: He was quoted as saying that U.S. policy in Eastern Europe should “strive for an evolution that makes...

Twenty years ago today, November 9, should be forever remembered as a truly great day in the course of human history. Without a shot being fired, few could believe the exhilarating fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain just a little over two years after President Ronald Reagan audaciously demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” How was this advancement of human freedom achieved? Resolve and unity of purpose of people, motivated by the visionary leadership of Ronald Reagan and steadily supported by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and the unique moral respect of Polish-born Pope...

Thank-you Great Communicator,Pope John Paul II The Great,And Margaret Thatcher for planting the seeds that realized a harvest on this day in history. On November 9, 1989, the East German Government announced that its citizens could freely visit West Germany and West Berlin. It came after several weeks of protests by East German citizens who yearned for the kind of freedom that the west enjoyed. It also marked the end of a 28 year old blockade that was the result of some 3 and a half million people fleeing communism to the west. After its erection, numbers vary, but it...

We win. They lose.

Today, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the leaders of France, Britain and Germany are there to commemorate the end of the Cold War. President Obama was invited to attend the celebration of this great American-led victory. This President who had time to go overseas and try to get the Olympics, who never misses his golf game, says he didn't have time to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall. Maybe it he is just too darn busy resurrecting the government control of personal freedoms that existed in Eastern Europe before the wall was destroyed, and thrusting...

President Ronald Reagan's demand that the Berlin Wall be torn down became a reality. Video with his actual words.

Please join me for a special 20-year commemorative look at the fall of the Berlin Wall, the triumph of liberty, and the "change" we'd better believe we're in. Live at 3pmE/2pmTX/NoonP, archived afterward here, and also available on iTunes as a podcast. Call-in number: (347) 327-9710 Unspun with AnnaZIndependent Radio for the Independent Spirit

I first visited West Berlin in June 1981. I took the closed American military train through the 112-mile-long corridor through hostile communist East Germany that offered access to that city from the free world. I was told not to take photos out the closed and covered windows along the way. Peeking out the window I could see armed communist guards along the route making sure that the prohibition was enforced. West Berlin was an island of freedom in the middle of a communist country, protected by the occupying powers of the United States, Britain, and France. It was a bright...

Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered away at the Wall’s very premise in human tyranny, until finally the Wall itself was hammered down. Its downfall wasn’t the work of Reagan alone. Our president’s actions were joined with the brave acts of many individuals who stood firm and united in facing the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down because millions of people behind the Iron Curtain refused to accept the...

The Berlin Wall anniversary is a reminder that people smugglers were once regarded not as the scum of the earth but as heroes. Hartmut Richter was one. He fled East Berlin five years after the wall was built by swimming across one of the canals that separated the city. He then helped another 33 people escape by smuggling them across the border in his car. Twenty years on, he worries about what is called Ostalgie - nostalgia for the old East Germany. The former German Democratic Republic has largely been romanticised in film, fashion and design. But Mr Richter warns...

Google has always been surprisingly random in the historical events it chooses to highlight by changing the logo on the front page. All last week they chose to highlight Sesame Street by promoting different characters from the show to celebrate the T.V. show's 40th Anniversary. If you follow these things, you'll know that Google celebrated the birthday of H.G. Wells, the USB code, Comic Con, and crop circles in the same way. On today's anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, Americans get another Sesame Street theme featuring the "Count."

Twenty years ago, the ultimate symbol of the division between freedom and tyranny was torn down. The Berlin Wall was constructed for one purpose: to prevent the escape of East Germans to the freedom of the West. The Wall’s cold, gray façade was a stark reminder of the economic and political way of life across the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered...

Twenty years ago today an architectural monument to human enslavement melted before the eyes of the world:  The Wall, the horrific complex of barbed wire, mine fields, police dogs, killing zones, and constant military guards was torn down by East Germans who finally saw a chance for liberty.  There was always something surreal about the Wall.  Germany, after the Second World War, had been bisected into two more or less equal parts.  In the east was the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany), former German territories awarded to Poland in Pomerania, Silesia, and the southern half of East Prussia, and in...

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...

THE STATEMENT STILL GIVES ME CHILLS Despite the efforts of the Democrats, the wall came down 20 years ago. God blessed this nation indeed to have given us such a man of profound clarity and courage.

The Cold War was the original war of ideas. When Mr. Reagan used the term "Evil Empire" in 1983, his detractors laughed at his old-fashioned notions of moral judgment. When he stood at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987 and called on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," his critics sighed, "There he goes again."

November 08, 2009 Obama Draws Criticism for Sitting Out Berlin Wall Anniversary The president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy. President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week,...

The president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy. In this July 24, 2008, photo, then-Sen. Barack Obama is seen greeting the crowd in Berlin. (AP Photo) President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does...

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (R) introduces his partner Michael Mronz (L) to his U.S. counterpart Hillary Clinton during the Atlantic Council Awards ceremony at the Adlon hotel in Berlin, November 8, 2009, one day ahead of the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach (GERMANY ANNIVERSARY POLITICS)

Noting tomorrow’s 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Sunday’s Today show, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw claimed East Germans were “still adjusting to the harsh economic realities” of life after communism. But a recent poll of former East bloc countries by the Pew Research Center actually discovered that the people of what was East Germany are actually the biggest enthusiasts of the shift to capitalism, with 82% approving, higher than any other ex-communist country. Brokaw did note, however, that the current “center-right” Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, was “born and raised in East Germany,”...

BERLIN — Harald Jaeger was a loyal East German border guard — respected and trusted to command a crossing point to the west on Berlin's Bornholmer Strasse. So when his checkpoint was swarmed on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, as East Germany announced the border was being opened after 28 years, Jaeger felt ashamed as he let the thousands pass through.