25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

-On August 13, 1961 East Germany began constructing the Berlin Wall which would separate East and West Germany for the next 28 years.

-Thanks in part to President Ronald Reagan and other circumstances, the wall came down on November 9, 1989.



-On June 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate urging Gorbachev to tear down the wall.  The phrase, "tear down this wall", was controversial and many of Reagan's aides didn't think he should say it.  Speech writer Peter Robinson wrote the controversial phrase, and Reagan went against the critics and kept it in the speech.  No one could've known how famous and instrumental that speech would become.

-Some excerpts from Reagan's speech:

President von Weizsacker has said, "The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph. 

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

-Yesterday was the 25th Anniversary of the wall coming down. Germany celebrated and the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel led several events commemorating the fall.  She herself grew up in East Germany and was 35 years old when the wall came down.  Below are some excerpts:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel led several events Sunday, including the placing of a rose in one of the few remaining sections of the Wall  to commemorate the 138 people killed in Berlin alone as they tried to flee the Soviet-allied state.

In a speech at the main memorial site for the Wall, Merkel said that "the fall of the Wall has shown us that dreams can come true."

She called the Wall a "symbol of state abuse cast in concrete" that "took millions of people to the limits of what is tolerable."

-When I took a trip to California back in 2012, I was able to see numerous pieces of the Berlin Wall that were brought over here from Germany.  In fact, there are more pieces of the wall in the United States now than in Germany.

-It truly is a remarkable event to celebrate.  The wall coming down was a huge step for more of the world to become free and to move away from communism.  The people who live in East Germany today have a much brighter future than they did 25 years ago.

Margaret Thatcher Quotes--Part 2

We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend.

In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit, for Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett once called "the great cause of cheering us all up". His policies had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation, and ultimately, from the very heart of the "evil empire."

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery, "Whatever time I’ve got left now belongs to the big fella upstairs." And surely, it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan’s life was providential when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.--An excerpt of Margaret Thatcher's eulogy at President Reagan's funeral

--I am a huge fan of Margaret Thatcher.  I have her two thick books, The Path to Power and The Downing Street Years that she wrote about her life.  I look forward to reading them. 

--I have already done a profile on her and I also did a previous post on her quotes, but this woman is a treasure trove of wisdom.  So, I thought it fitting to do a part two.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become your character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
What we think, we become.
My father always said that.  And I think I am fine.

Margaret Thatcher talking to her husband:

I will never be one of those women who stays silent and pretty on the arm of her husband.  Or remote and alone in the kitchen, doing the washing-up for that matter.  One's life must matter.  Beyond all the cooking and the cleaning and the children, one's life must mean more than that.

Her husband responded:

Thats why I want to marry you, my dear.

Some more short quotes:

Someone must say the un-sayable.

Never be anything other than yourself.

No British soldier will die in vain for the Falklands.

If you take the tough decisions, people will hate you today, but they will love you in generations.