I'm writing this article on November 9, 2009, which is the 20th anniversary of the "fall" of the Berlin Wall. What actually happened on this date twenty years ago was that the East German government announced that East Germans and West Germans would be allowed to visit each other freely. Throngs of East Germans climbed onto and crossed the wall. Over the next few weeks, people on both sides of the wall used sledge hammers to knock holes in the wall and topple large sections. Later, demolition crews removed most of the rest of the wall. German reunification was completed on October 2, 1990.
This event was a mind-blowing visual and emotional event worldwide, as we saw TV images of euphoric crowds celebrating, dancing and weeping at the Berlin Wall. Few really believed that the Soviet Union would collapse after only 69 years of existence. The Soviets rivaled the USA in military might, and they were as imperialistic as the Americans, exporting Communism around the globe.
But their Union unraveled, beginning in 1989 with the "glasnost" political reforms of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1990, newly-elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin led the Russian Congress to formally declare Russia's sovereignty over its own territory, and began passing laws to supersede Soviet law. Russia was the largest republic in both territory and population in the Soviet Bloc.
A national referendum was held on March 17, 1991, with the majority of the USSR's population voting for preservation of the Union in nine out of fifteen republics. But it didn't matter. After the attempted coup d'tat against Gorbachev in 1991, Yeltsin emerged as the strongman, and Latvia and Estonia declared their independence.
By December of 1991, The Soviet Union had dissolved.
I was in Berlin in December 2003, performing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and the Berlin Philharmonic. The Hilton Hotel where we stayed was only a couple blocks away from Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most prominent and widely-known points of passage between East and West Berlin. We walked to Checkpoint Charlie and were surprised to find that, even fourteen years after the Fall, East German buildings still looked gaunt and forbidding.
This little bit of history should give secessionists all over America a boost in morale.
Consider these six points:
1. The largest of the republics regained its sanity and seceded. That should give the Texas Nationalist Movement additional hope and perspective in their quest for a New Texas nation.
2. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Prior to collapse, the USSR had the second largest economy in the world after the USA. The Soviet economy was a centrally-planned economy based on state ownership of industry and management of every facet of commerce. Washington is repeating the same central-planning errors the Soviets could not make work. If the second largest world power in human history can dissolve, so can Number One.
3. Most of the people in the Soviet Union voted to maintain the Union, even though it had been the source of oppression and death for 69 years. That shows you how much suffering people will endure willingly like sheep. That also shows you that the suffering masses desperately need moral leadership.
4. Small republics like Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and the rest of the 15 republics eventually became sovereign nations once more. They have thrived since. Small American states will also thrive when they become nations once again.
5. The USSR dissolved because the republics rejected national laws that conflicted with local laws. The republics also refused to pay tax revenue to the Moscow government. This caused havoc in Moscow. In the US, 39 American states have enacted sovereignty resolutions that assert their 10th Amendment rights. The American states are on the right path. Now will they do the right thing?
6. The greatest complication for the American Federal Government, far greater than any complication that befell the Soviet Union, is that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency…the ruble wasn't. The nations of the world are forsaking the dollar because of Washington's criminal counterfeiting ways over the years. Just as creditors can force a corporation into bankruptcy, the nations of the world will force Washington into bankruptcy and eventually the USA will dissolve.
So the fall of the Berlin Wall was much more significant to your future than you ever realized. Don't miss the valuable lessons here. Just because America doesn't have a big concrete wall doesn't mean that we don't have barriers to liberty. Oppressive government must be summarily rejected, and free people have a duty to either alter or abolish it.
November 11, 2009
