Today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a time we remember very well. It wasn't long after the news reports of the first celebrations at the wall were televised that Dale was making arrangements to get to Berlin.
During the months which followed he made numerous trips to what had been East Germany in order to help support the re-birth of the Lutheran church there. Previously, East Germans saw their church buildings turned into swimming pools or rec clubs or merely abandoned. Worship was done in secret or at great risk.
We have pieces of the wall he picked up during the time the wall was little by little being torn down and carried away.
World leaders are meeting in Berlin today to mark and celebrate the anniversary. Our president, Barack Obama, will not attend.
To know what the West stood for during most of those years, one merely had to go to Berlin, see the Wall, consider its purpose, and observe the contrasts between the vibrant prosperity on one side of the city and the oppressive monotony on the other.
Those contrasts were even more apparent to the Germans trapped on the wrong side of the Wall. Barbed wire, closed military zones and the machinery of communist propaganda could keep the prosperity of the West out of sight of most people living east of the Iron Curtain. But that wasn't true for the people of East Berlin, many of whom merely had to look out their windows to understand how empty and cynical were the promises of socialism compared to the reality of a free-market system.
Thanks to President Ronald Reagan for his courage and leadership.
And what's up with Obama ot attending?
Posted by: Ron | November 09, 2009 at 09:44 AM
If you're missing one of those pieces of the Berlin Wall, don't worry. Dale gave it to me 20 years ago and I have it safely tucked away.
Posted by: KUKIMBIA | November 09, 2009 at 09:44 AM
Obama not attending is about as classy as he was "giving a shout out" to an alleged congressional medal of honor winner who didn't end up winning one, prior to addressing the Ft. Hood terror attack. Talk about someone with his head up his ass! 13 families just lost loved ones and BHO has to talk street slang in a solemn moment. George W. Bush would have been ripped up one side and down the other if he had done that. And in fact he was ripped, for daring to shelter those school students from an emotional moment with too much gravitas, when he learned in his ear about the 9/11 attacks. He actually was exercising good judgment in not letting on to those students that 3000 people were just killed. And now this jack ass Obama acts like this in these two examples (Ft. Hood and the Berlin Wall ceremony). What a joker, and what an oh-so-not-ready for prime time non-leader!!!! Wake up lemmings!!!!
Posted by: Pat | November 09, 2009 at 01:28 PM
Poor Pat; you really haven't gotten over last year's election, have you?
Posted by: Rand | November 09, 2009 at 02:39 PM
How can Obama be in Berlin and at Fort Hood Memorial at the same time. I feel he should be here to honor those that lost their lives.
Posted by: Lou | November 09, 2009 at 07:24 PM
Also, everything I've been reading doesn't lend itself to an event Obama should have attended. It was largely a European event; with Gorbachev, Walesa and others there from 1989. It's clear Gorbachev was considered by the German's to be instrumental to the wall's coming down. Don't you think Obama's presence would have detracted from celebrating what happened in 1989?
But I'm sure your comrades at Fox are all over this; ranting and raving just like Pat wants.
Posted by: Rand and Cowboy | November 09, 2009 at 07:55 PM
Introduced by Secretary of State Clinton, President Obama made a surprise appearance by video at yesterday's festivities celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. The White House video of Obama's remarks is below; video of Secretary Clinton's address together with Obama's remarks as broadcast at the festivities is posted here, where we learn that FOX News was the only cable network to carry Obama's address live.
Both Secretary Clinton and President Obama emphasized Obama's world-historic story. Clinton likens Obama's election to the fall of the Wall. Obama draws the moral of the story. "Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."
Hmmm! The only News media to carry the speech live. Fox News.
Posted by: Ron | November 10, 2009 at 08:20 AM