Iron Curtain

For two generations up

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For two generations up through the mid-1980s, many thought we were losing the Cold War, even in early 1989, few believed that Poland`s solidarity movement could win, that the Iron Curtain would come down, that the Baltic states could be free, that the second of the 20th century`s great evils, communism, could be vanquished without … Read more

You have won the

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You have won the Cold War. … [Your] underappreciated valor [helped] topple the Berlin Wall, and bring down dictators the world over. … For the past four decades the world behind the Iron Curtain … looked to Americans for hope, and America looked to you to get the job done. Today, the free world says … Read more

This was 1990, the

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This was 1990, the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that were written about the fall of the iron curtain, nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know that communism never worked and I would have disliked living … Read more

The inner censor of

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The inner censor of the mind of the true believer completes the work of the public censor; his self-discipline is as tyrannical as the obedience imposed by the regime; he terrorizes his own conscience into submission;he carries his private Iron Curtain inside his skull, to protect his illusions against the intrusion of reality. Arthur Koestler

History has often showed

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History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago… The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this … Read more

You know that Estonia,

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You know that Estonia, based largely on how successful Skype was, built by Estonian developers, that was a tenth of the entire country’s GDP when eBay bought it. That was like a decade ago, it was f****** Estonia, they were behind the Iron Curtain two decades earlier. They’re now pushing for K-12 education in computer … Read more