Free Republic

Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up. March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species." Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health."Our...

"It has been sad," writes Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn in the foreword to his new book, The Perestroika Deception, "to observe the jubilation of American and West European conservatives who have been cheering 'perestroika' without realizing that it is intended to bring about their own political and physical demise. Liberal support for 'perestroika' is understandable, but conservative support came as a surprise to me." For one who studied and worked within the inner sanctum of Soviet intelligence and who risked his life to warn the West about the Kremlin's program of strategic deception, it must be sad indeed, and maddening,...

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, wrote an open letter to President Bush that was published in the Washington Post. "I am writing to you as a citizin of our planet," began the former communist dictator. He notes that "American spokesmen are perhaps somewhat overly inclined to press home to the rest of the world" their claim to hegemony. While everyone acknowledges America's power, says Gorbachev, America's hegemony is "not similarly recognized." The 21st century does not belong to America, he explains, and globalization should not proceed along American lines. This "would be a mistake. In fact, it would be...

Countries throughout the world should embrace globalization and explore new ideas on how to overcome challenges including security, poverty and environmental damage, Mikhail Gorbachev told more than 1,000 people at the University of Texas-Pan American on Tuesday. “Everything will hinge on how we use globalization,” he said through an interpreter. The Nobel laureate and former Soviet leader’s speech began the university’s Distinguished Speakers series for the 2007-08 school year. Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991, has visited various places throughout the United States in the past couple of weeks, including New Orleans, where...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev toured New Orleans on Friday as an emissary of the global environmental movement, but his first sight of the devastated Lower 9th Ward inspired a momentary return to his socialist past. "If things haven't changed by our next visit, we may have to announce a revolution," he said through a translator, as he walked the lifeless streets with well-wishers and staff members of Green Cross International, a non-governmental organization which he chairs. "No matter the flooding and the hurricane, the red tape and bureaucracy survive," he said.

MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned Russians on Wednesday of the risk of a rebirth of Stalinism, saying their country was in danger of forgetting its tragic past. "We should remember those who suffered, because this a lesson for all of us," Gorbachev told a conference marking 70 years since the start of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Great Terror. "We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by the glass or bucket," Gorbachev added. "There are those saying Stalin's rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer utopia...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned Russians on Wednesday of the risk of a rebirth of Stalinism, saying their country was in danger of forgetting its tragic past. "We should remember those who suffered, because this a lesson for all of us," Gorbachev told a conference marking 70 years since the start of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Great Terror. "We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by the glass or bucket," Gorbachev added. "There are those saying Stalin's rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer utopia and (Leonid)...

He is the former president of one the largest Communist countries in history. But Mikhail Gorbachev now has an unlikely new job - In an ad that will appear in magazines worldwide later this year, Gorbachev is shown in the backseat of a car riding through Berlin, with one of the luxury brand's bags at his side. The fee he received for the fashion shoot – estimated at several hundred thousand dollars – will go toward supporting programmes at the Gorbachev fund, according to The International Herald Tribune.

A former Russian official blames the threat of famine, not Gorbachev's reform policies. Crude oil prices last week were flirting with a record high. It's great news – for the Russians. Low oil prices contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Russia today, high oil and natural gas prices are, to a large degree, the reason for an economic boom. In the first quarter of this year, Russia's economy steamed along at a level 7.9 percent above the same three months of 2006.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev critized the United States, and current President George W. Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire. Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world. "The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?" Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow. "What has followed are unilateral actions, what has...

Once again, and engaging in perfect Soviet styled historical revisionism, our glorious MSM presents the "truth" of how failed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was really the one who "helped" the U.S. win the Cold War. AP claims Gorby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union but this "ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism," which the AP claims is responsible for "many of the world's gravest problems." So, according to the AP Gorby helped the U.S. win the Cold War, but his good deed is now the cause of all the world's ills? How losing the game can equate...

MOSCOW - Former President Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday that the fall of the Soviet Union, which he helped bring about, ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism responsible for many of the world's gravest problems. Gorbachev is lauded in the West for ushering in democratic reforms but widely despised in Russia for paving the way to the economic free-for-all of the 1990s, which brought fabulous wealth for a well-connected few while plunging much of the country into humiliating poverty. He has since became a supporter of President Vladimir Putin's assertive foreign policy and resistance to American power — calling occasional...

MOSCOW - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the United States, and President Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire. Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world. “The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?” Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow. “What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed...

In April 1987, when I was assigned to write the speech, the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin were already under way. Queen Elizabeth had already visited the city. Mikhail Gorbachev was due in a matter of days... I was told only that the President would be speaking at the Berlin Wall, that he was likely to draw an audience of about 10,000, and that, given the setting, he probably ought to talk about foreign policy...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the U.S. likely will be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report. The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the 35-page report predicts. "Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," former U.S. Army chief of staff...

Western leaders searching for a long-term strategy to defend our civilization from fundamentalist Islam ought to reread the speech President Reagan delivered at the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this month. It was neither democracy nor capitalism Reagan foresaw bringing down the wall. It was Christianity. Reagan's demand that Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the wall was the defining sound-bite of that speech, but it was another passage that defined the core meaning of the Cold War. Pondering what sustained Berliners, surrounded as they were by the Soviet menace, Reagan concluded: "Perhaps this gets to the root of the...

BERLIN - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality," and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue. After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue. Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps...

MOSCOW: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Thursday criticized Washington's plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying it could threaten international security. The United States plans to place a radar base in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of a missile defense shield it says would protect against a potential threat from Iran. Moscow does not trust Washington's claims, saying the shield or its technology could be used to spy on Russia or pre-empt a strategic missile launch. In comments on Ekho Moskvy radio, Gorbachev echoed remarks made by President...

With $20 billion per annum in public funding the modern earth cult can easily spend some nickels to attract cult members. I can well imagine that soon, on prime time TV, [or a gay sitcom], will be the tax-payer funded eco-cult recruitment, 'You must join us' advert. It will show a wide expanse of meadow populated by masses of automatons with arms outstretched resembling a fuehrer cult rally. Their laconic voices will repeat the intonation, 'save the earth goddess...save the earth goddess...' The camera will sweep in and out showing mindless, fixated faces with dilated pupils staring upwards, saliva seeping...

May 11, 2007 Unmasking Global Warming: The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev By Vasko Kohlmayer | View comments It is as paradoxical as it is revealing that the man who now parades as an angel of ecological salvation is by virtue of his actions at Chernobyl and elsewhere responsible for more environmental destruction than any other person alive. The most remarkable aspect of the man-made global warming claim is the lack of solid scientific evidence for it. Yet there are those whose apparent goal it is to advance this theory at all costs. Blatant in their disregard of the facts, they...