Stephen Harper - We Must Be Courageous.. leave the paranoid fear to the U.S.

Remember this?

So.. how did we get to this..

I remember hearing Ronald Regan utter those now famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

And I remember watching the tear down of the Berlin Wall, and being amazed, and full of hope.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I don't believe Ronald Regan brought down the wall as some of my fellow conservatives like to. 

I travelled to Moscow and  Leningrad (as it was) in 1979 while the iron curtain was still up.  I walked Red Square, I stood before the Winter Palace - seized by the Bolshevics in October of 1927 when Lenin first came to power.  And it was apparent to me then, and I recall commenting to a friend with me at the time, that communism was falling.  And it wasn't the threat of the U.S., or economic pressures - it was the communication of hope that had by then so clearly permeated the country.  Western books and magazines and movies were widely available, and even where they were edited, they still betrayed the existence of freedom outside of their borders.

The U.S.S.R. failed, and ultimately, the cold war ended because communism could not offer the hope that democracy did.

So then.

How tragic that during my lifetime I have seen the President of the U.S., Ronald Regan, becoming an icon symbolizing hope of freedom - only to now see the President of the U.S., Barack Obama, using the concept of "Hope" as a tool to gain power, but, ultimately, betraying the word completely.

How ironic.

We felt so "hopeful" watching a wall come down, and now feel so hopeless watching Barack Obama manipulate Stephen Harper into seeking to build a wall back up.

When I was in the Soviet Union, I walked the paths of the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery - the sight of mass burial mounds where the remains of half a million citizens of St. Petersburg were buried after dying in the Seige of St. Petersburg in World War II.  Half a million Russians died and were buried here in 186 mass graves.

Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery- each mound holding approximately 2,500 dead. 
Almost one "9-11" for each mound.

Before the fall of the iron curtain, evident throughout Russia were reminders of the risk of foreign aggression - a risk that we in North America have never had to experience in the very real and tangible way that it was to the Russian citizens. 
 
Consider the horror we felt over the experience of the 2,966 deaths resulting from the 9-11 attacks. 
 
Now imagine that happening every single day for 167 days.  Waking up each morning to watch another two jets crash into office towers killing 3,000 people every day for over five months.
 
Then you get an idea of the fear that went into building the Berlin Wall.
 

Do not doubt that there was uncertainty over taking down that wall.  But the "hope" overcame the "fear".

Now - in North America, and particularly in the United States, we see just the opposite.

That fear trumps hope.

How interesting that the most powerful nation in the history of the world is, no doubt, the most afraid.

It truly is the elephant running from the mouse.

As they increasingly intrude upon the freedom of their own citizens, as they slowly become the animal they so abhorred in others, resorting to torture to try and overcome their fear, and now, effectively, scrambling to try and build a "wall" around North America to make them safe - theirs is an image of increasingly pathetic surrender.

The U.S. has always used romantic symbols to support their sense of identity.  They made an actor a President who then became a symbol of courage and hope as he stood before the Brandenburg Gate and demanded that Gorbachev take down the wall.

Now, sadly, their symbol has perhaps become Howard Hughes.  Wealthy and powerful, but frightened and paranoid.

As Howard Hughes said of himself, we can, perhaps, say of the United States of America:

"I’m not a paranoid deranged millionaire. Goddamit, I’m a billionaire."

Must we join them, Stephen Harper?