
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 12, 2007
/ 26 Sivan, 5767
Monument to murder
By
Cal Thomas
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Should anyone remain at the real end of history to chronicle a list of humanity's worst systems for the benefit of any left to read it, the legacy of communism is sure to be at, or near, the top.
That's why it is especially appropriate that in Washington, D.C., this week a Victims of Communism Memorial will be dedicated.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the quick collapse of the Soviet Union, many embraced the idea that the world had become free, or was headed in freedom's direction. That one-quarter of the world population remained under communist dictatorship in China seemed of less concern than the dissolution of Soviet Russia. The Tiananmen Square Massacre in June of 1989 reminded the West that communism was as deadly to those who opposed it in China as it had been in the Soviet Union. But the West's attention span is short and soon American companies were happy to do business with China because our commitment to the bottom line is stronger than it is to the moral line.
Lee Edwards, the chairman of The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOCMF), has attracted bipartisan support for the memorial, including Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who are offering remarks at the dedication. It comes on the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's Berlin speech during which he famously said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
The brutality of communism was quickly swept under history's rug, in large part because so many on the left had embraced it as the solution to humankind's problems. The memorial stands as a rebuke to such twisted thinking.
| FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER |
| Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. |
|
"The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" by Stephane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek and Jean-Louis Margolin lists by country the number of people murdered under communist regimes: 65 million (and counting) in China; 20 million in the Soviet Union, 2 million (and counting) in North Korea, 2 million in Cambodia, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in Vietnam, 1 million in communist Eastern Europe and 150,000 in Latin America.
In short, communism, an evil ideology unlike any the world has seen, is responsible for the slaughter of more than 94 million human beings. It tops all plagues, natural disasters, crime, and other political ideologies, probably combined.
The VOCMF provided some quotes that remind us of the individual human cost of communism. Anhthu Lu is a Vietnamese-American, who escaped his communist nation as one of the "boat people." He says, "There is no hope for a better tomorrow under communism. One can only hope to survive the daily rounds of communist shelling, or explosion into the villages, the schools, the markets. That is how I remember my childhood, one filled with fears, with destruction and deaths. That is what communism is all about: terror, destruction, retribution."
When he visited Stalin's "paradise," the French leftist writer Andre Gide said: "I doubt that in any country of the world, even Hitler's Germany, is thought less free, more bowed down, more terrorized."
Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang spoke of the "little terrors" of China: making 12-year-old children subject to capital punishment, sending women to work in underground coal mines, harassing workers during their lunchtime with threats of prison or worse if they are late returning to work.
While many Westerners recall Nazi-run death camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, few remember Soviet death camps named Kolyma and Magadan. True, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn mentioned them in "The Gulag Archipelago" as did Varlam Sjalamov in "Tales from Kolyma," but as the late Swedish journalist Andres Kung wrote, "There are people who have still not heard of these communist extermination camps even though the communists preceded the Nazis in creating such camps and killed an even larger number of people in their camps."
While the memorial is a welcome reminder of man's capacity to do evil, one wishes that a similar structure were erected to remind the world of leftist academics, clergy and journalists who enabled communism to survive by writing and speaking lies about its true nature. They were more than enablers. They were co-conspirators and accessories to murder. They, too, deserve to share in communism's ignominy.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Cal Thomas is the author of, among others, The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas Comment by clicking here.
Cal Thomas Archives
© 2006, Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|