Posted on 03/04/2008 12:04:49 PM PST by OESY
...Vaclav Havel, one of the very few truly great men of our time,... [a] lifelong advocate of nonviolent resistance, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, is a very old 71, a frail survivor of cancer and years in Communist cells. But he's as passionate as ever about freedom. The climax of his speech to NATO's military and civilian leaders was a stark warning about Russia:
"A dictatorship of a fairly new type is coming into existence to the east of the area under NATO protection. All basic human and civic freedoms are gradually and quietly being suppressed under the banner of the aggrieved ideology that everybody is doing Russia wrong or that they are all covert enemies.
"The system of formal democracy and one-party rule familiar to us from Communist times is being revived. The secret police is becoming all-powerful. The nation's enormous wealth is passing into the hands of the powerful or their friends...
"Everything that is free and has major influence is destroyed in subtle ways... Troublesome people disappear or are mysteriously murdered. Political murders and even major terrorist operations are never properly investigated.
"An enormous nation inhabiting enormous territory is lapsing into apathy and adapting to the status quo. It is accepting the propaganda-fed cult of the leader, that is sometimes reminiscent of the cult of Stalin...
"Russia is once more losing its awareness of where it begins and where it ends... as if it still thought that what once belonged to it will do so for all time."
Havel summed up: "I believe none of us has the right to remain silent and pretend... that we can't see these things. Politeness and falsehoods have never yet preserved the peace."...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE
If it were possible, I would vote for this man as President of the US in a heartbeat!
This is typical Russian behavior, going back to the times of Ivan the Terrible. However, I hear Putin is doing a bit of revisionism to Russia’s history, and Ivan will now be known as “Ivan the Not So Bad Once You Get to Know Him.”
Russia has evolved from communism to fascism.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Tsarism, Communism, Fascism, whatever. They are all subgroupings of Totalitarianism, which is all Russia has ever known or understood. Absent an American troop surge, it will never change.
Let’s give Ivan the Terrible a little credit. At least he defeated the Golden Horde. In contrast, Putin has given nuclear facilities to Iran.
I love reading Ralph Peter’s posts in the Post.
He reminds me of reporters like Victor Riesel, Don Bolles and Danny Casolaro, although he doesn’t actually do the meeting and tailing of the bad guys.
I love the Post’s conservative columnists, like Peter’s...his posts are always right on.
Ed
The economic part of your definition is not correct. A fascist state is one that runs under totalitarian rule but still practices some form of free market economy. A modern day example of a fascist state is China.
Putin is doing his best to make Russia into a fascist state similar to China. It might take him awhile as China moved towards a free market economy far earlier than Russia.
“All nations want peace. They just want a peace that suits them.” -Admiral John “Jackie” Fisher
You might be disappointed as Col.Peters is quite liberal on some domestic issues. Yet I have found that since 9/11 he and Victor Davis Hanson have been and continue to be the two most important writers in America. I may add Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic to that list.
“Ivan the Not So Bad, in comparison.”
Bears repeating.
Politeness and falsehoods have never yet preserved the peace.”...
Such is the situation we find ourselves in with regard to Iran, Venezuela, Islam et al,etc.
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