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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 10:48 pm Post subject: "Another Red Square Bites the Dust" |
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Interesting retrospective essay on the Baltic States...still struggling with the vestiges of Soviet totalitarianism...
| Quote: | Another Red Square Bites the Dust
By Shawn Macomber
Published 5/2/2007 12:09:34 AM
Can you imagine a monument in Washington, D.C. to a government that murdered eight of our ten first presidents?
TALLINN, Estonia -- I was lost en route to Tallinn's harrowing Museum of Occupation, ironically enough, when I stumbled upon the gathering storm of protest at the Soviet war memorial. Within hours this statue of a Red Army regular (dubbed the Bronze Soldier) would become the site of violence, pandemonium, extensive looting and even a death. The beauty of the city and the hospitality of its people make the destruction -- most of it, no doubt, motivated more by alcohol, greed, and bad manners than politics -- particularly lamentable. When I first arrived on the scene, however, there were only piles of flowers and milling throngs of teenagers and twenty-somethings.
The Estonian government, calling the memorial a painful reminder of Red Terror and occupation, had decided to relocate it and the Soviet soldiers buried nearby to a military cemetery outside of town. (A massive war memorial built in typical harsh, but grandiose Soviet style already lies on the outskirts of the city.) New protesters -- mostly from the nation's 30 percent ethnic Russian minority -- arrived continuously. Older Estonians stood along the periphery staring at the spectacle with gaping mouths, some shaking their heads slowly. When I attempted to engage one particularly nervous police officer about the situation, he begged off, explaining he had been bused in from a small village and was still getting his own bearings. This inexperience would soon prove disastrous.
The protesters were not nearly so reticent. "This is a late victory for fascists," one teenage girl declared when I put out an open call for any English-speaking protesters. She stabbed a finger at the statue. "Without this soldier, Hitler would have won the war and ruled Europe until he died." This rhetoric was actually fairly mild compared to that of Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin, who called Estonia's decision "sacrilegious and inhuman." Later Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised his country would "take serious steps" against Estonia, a threat the Russians have considerable experience carrying out.
As promising as it is to see that Russia and its apologists have finally added the concepts of "sacrilege" and "inhumanity" to their official lexicon, unless you are willfully ignorant or blinded by ethnic loyalty it is difficult to make heroes out of the Red Army in Tallinn. Walk a quarter mile from the site where the Bronze Soldier stood, through the winding cobblestone streets of Old Town Tallinn, and you will find a large dirty building with its lower windows bricked up. This masonry job came courtesy of the Red Army and was designed to muffle the screams emitted from their KGB brethren's endlessly overflowing basement interrogation cells.
The American Spectator - cont'd |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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It is hard to come to terms with the truth when your religious faith is Communism.
The saying "ignorance is bliss" surely explains what little happiness self-deluded and loathing leftists must experience in life.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:15 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The saying "ignorance is bliss" surely explains what little happiness self-deluded and loathing leftists must experience in life. |
Great line GenrXr.
Dusty
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Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right! |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| dusty wrote: | | Quote: | | The saying "ignorance is bliss" surely explains what little happiness self-deluded and loathing leftists must experience in life. |
Great line GenrXr.
Dusty |
Thanks Dusty. 
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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