Though watched by ubiquitous secret police and their informers, these nations maintained the will to persevere against tyranny and oppression. It was a daily struggle, and spirits flagged as Soviet premiers told the United States, "We will bury you."
Many in the West, including the U.S., believed that the communists had history on their side. The wry debate reply from the defeatist lefties favoring unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament was "better Red than dead." For decades -- I repeat, decades -- this crowd had a media pulpit from which its self-proclaimed intelligentsia preached the moral equivalency of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and at times dropped the all pretense and fingered the U.S. as the "fascist state" and global oppressor.
In the language of the defeatist left, the U.S. was the jailer, the warmonger, the threat to world peace.
The Berlin Wall's collapse exposed that Big Lie, as did the documented moral, political, economic and ecological wretchedness of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, we still hear echoes of this "blame America" cant lacing al-Qaida propaganda and the lectures of hard-left reactionaries like Bill Ayers. The great anti-American lies of the Cold War are recast as the great anti-American lies of the War on Terror.
Will we hold firm in the belief that our society deserves to defeat the Islamo-fascist ideology that seeks to destroy us?
Because if we do, know that just like East Europeans, there are Moslems who don't want to live under an evil and oppressive society:
Security forces have used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition supporters in the Iranian capital, Tehran, witnesses and state media say.
Unconfirmed reports said the authorities had also opened fire.
Video footage and photos showed what appeared to be large crowds of opposition supporters being chased by security forces in riot gear.
It came as an officially backed demonstration was held to mark 30 years since the seizure of the US embassy.
Thousands were present at the anti-American rally, about 1.5km (1 mile) from where opposition supporters gathered in Haft-e Tir square.
Other groups turned out in other parts of the capital to voice their opposition to the regime.
Is it really "progressive," or "smart," or "nuanced," or "realistic" to abandon those with hope in order to craft a paper deal on nuclear arms that nobody believes Tehran would uphold?
There are people who truly need hope and change--despite months of detention, abuse and murder--yet our government secretly hopes they'll just die quietly off our television screens so we can have a lovely signing ceremony with blood-stained monsters over a lovely document in English, Farsi, and French, lovingly adorned with red ribbons and wax seals bearing the official images of proper diplomacy.
