The first domino fell in the several month long drama that saw walls falling and statues of dictators being toppled, and the translation of Communism away from the eastern half of Europe and into the environmentalist movement and American higher education. To extend the metaphor, Pope John Paul II blew the first breath of air on the first domino when he came out for the Solidarity organization in his native Poland earlier in the decade. (It might not amaze you that Catholics get really energized when a Catholic Pope likes what they’re doing.) Bolstered by Papal imprimatur, Solidarity soldiered onward and upward, and once Solidarity became a legitimate and tolerated political party within Poland by the Summer of 1988, Moscow didn’t have the will, energy or means to roll the Red Army in. This was about the time that the USSR gave up on Afghanistan after having wasted a lot of men and money, and this was the biggest part of the reason why they couldn’t squash Solidarity. It became clear that Moscow could be had, which gave moral energy to other freedom fighters in Eastern Europe, which started paying off 20 years ago tonight. I know there’s that book about Reagan, Thatcher and JP II, those three getting the joint credit for ending Communism as a serious threat, but the person born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland in May 1920 is the one human being on Earth that deserves the singular credit, if you have to boil it down to one person. (Why do you think the KGB hired a Turkish assassin to try and take him out?)
I was 12 years old and in the 7th grade that late fall and early winter. It was obviously a daily topic of discussion in class. I remember my first class the first morning after the Berlin Wall officially became moot (it would take awhile for it to be popularly and formally dismantled, but Wall fragments made it to St. Louis department stores a few weeks before Christmas), that night being 20 years ago tonight. It was instrumental music class at Enright CJA, and our band teacher, one Michael Collins (shout out, there), pretty much kept my trumpet and all the other noisemakers quiet and talked about what was transpiring in front of our faces. Now there was a great school, that a band teacher could do that, and that 7th graders so willingly participated. He predicted that: (1) The USSR wasn’t long for this world, perhaps replaced or dissolved within a year. He predicted that the majority Muslim SSRs would become independent countries, but the Caucasian European SSRs like the Ukraine and the Baltic States would join with Russia to form a new, somewhat decentralized country. In reality, it took a little longer than that, and all the SSRs devolved into independent countries. And that (2) The aforementioned confederation of white former SSRs would become a “democratic republic” (his own words — remember, this is a band teacher) and would, in time, surpass the United States in innovation, power, influence, and perhaps military might, but benevolently. That did not come to pass. Mr. Collins was the first teacher I encountered who gave us the deodorant talk, (he had a good sense of smell), after we call came into band class after lunch time recess on a warm September day in the 6th grade. Though as you have read before, I had already been using it for a year and a half. The “talk” perhaps vindicated my precociousness in this regard. Did I say he was a great teacher? But I digress.
Question: When’s that line of dominoes finally going to come our way, so we can topple that ugly concrete visage of our own Nicolae Ceausescu? If you’re not familiar about who I’m talking about, I’m talking about that old reprobate who is ironically situated about halfway between two D.C. east-west boulevards, one named Constitution, the other named Independence. Ironic because Adolph Lenin didn’t have respect for either the Constitution or a certain country’s independence. Nor did he have respect for the private property that his concrete visage directly stares upon; it took a SCOTUS ruling to return Arlington back to the Lee family, which is why I’m not as reflexively anti-judiciary as most right wingers. However, the damage had already been done, and there was really no other recourse for Lee’s sons than to sell the property back to the enemy for a few peanuts.
If you think I’m engaging in hyperbole, the original Marxist, Karl Marx, was pro-Lincoln and anti-secession during the WBTS, calling the concept of secession “anti-peoples.” (Evidently, Dixie’s people didn’t count as people in Marx’s worldview.) Marxist militant nutcases in Spain who tried to overthrow the Franco government called themselves the “Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” mainly because of their mutual support of equality. None of this was lost on Berliners, either. The Confederate Battle Flag is the world’s best selling flag; I bet your reading this is the first time you’ve encountered this fact. Of course, the Powers That Be suppress that little piece of good news.
What was the fate of a good egalitarian like Ceausescu should be that of that other good egalitarian, Lincoln.
Speaking of freedom anniversaries, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was released 5 years ago today. Talk about timing.
