FREIHEIT

Today marks the day that the wall, built for the unusual purpose of keeping people in as well as out, came tumbling down by force of sheer human free will, and no small amount of courage.

Take note, new heralds of post-modern socialism: the people of East Germany gave each other courage, they gathered quietly, they got just forceful enough, then through the first available crack they power-walked, they skipped, they danced, they laughed and smiled, and they made an orderly rush to FREEDOM.




It was kind of like a tea-party, though it had percolated up from decades of genuine starvation of every kind.

I remember it, as clearly as I remember the other landmarks of my baby-boom lifetime. Even clearer is my memory of Christmas 1989, when Leonard Bernstein conducted a concert of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Berlin, played by musicians and choristers from all over the world (including both Germanies), with the lyrics of the famous Ode to Joy ("Freude") altered to be an Ode to Freedom ("Freiheit").



[warning -- the video ends abruptly! -- to avoid disappointment, buy the DVD!]

But the dancing, the pride, and the determination have much in common with the growing strength of the movement which stands between this Obama-captained Ship of Fools, and the perilous shoals towards which they're steering; and in the end -- count on it, Commodore -- there will be an orderly rush to freedom. And you and your personal "300" (do we have that many czars yet?) will be left standing at the gates, looking perplexed and bypassed by history.

Count on it, Madame Speakress (count 220 to 215!). Count on it, Lord Axelrod of Mordor. Count on it.


In the meantime, celebrations of real history go on in Berlin, but the Reader of the Free World is too busy to attend. FORE!

As Toby Harnden of London's Telegraph reminds us, it's a good thing that previous presidents found time to make a stopover.



[Big mo': slide forward to minute 1:15]


THE PRICE OF FREIHEIT IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE

And Col. Ralph Peters is beginning wonder whether we have the stomach, and the army, to be vigilant for even a couple of minutes.