Russia Is Sick

National Review Online ^ | July 26. 2014 | George Weigel

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thirty-three years ago, on September 6, 1981, Father Józef Tischner preached one of the great sermons of the 20th century at a Mass opening the second day of the inaugural Solidarity Congress in Gdań​sk. Tischner, an old friend of John Paul II and the pope’s fellow philosopher, combined the rugged good humor and patriotism of a Polish highlander with a first-class intellect.

So he began his sermon with some essential truth-telling to the men and women about to deliberate the future of the Communist world’s first independent, self-governing trade union. Father Tischner didn’t tell the thousands assembled in Gdansk that they were heroes for having formed Solidarity, although he, and they, understood that they had already done something of historic importance. He told them they could indeed be men and women of destiny and national renewal, but only if they faced the hard truth about their lives — the truth of what Communism had done to their work, and to them:

Polish work is sick. That is the reason why we are here — because Polish work is sick. It is as great as the Vistula [River], but equally polluted. Today we ask, why is it sick? It is not easy to answer this question, but certain facts are obvious. Instead of enhancing reciprocity, instead of being a sphere for man, work in Poland became a sphere for disagreement, dispute, or even treason. The waters of the Vistula are dirty. The waters of the Vistula are even bloody. We are here to clean the waters of the Vistula. Let us work on work, so that work can again become a sphere for agreement, accord, and peace.

[redgolum]

Read Alexander Dugan. He wrote the text book for the Russian General staff on foreign policy.

[dforest]

um, maybe his vision saw this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfRtbIQ1kTw