Tuesday, December 20, 2011
I've been thinking about what I want to say about what to say about Vaclav Havel. How about this: we hear a lot of talk about American Exceptionalism, but it is hard to imagine the United States producing a man like Havel, let alone making him President. I'll know we are really special when that happens.
Not surprisingly, Pierce gets him right:
Not surprisingly, Pierce gets him right:
He was always the most interesting of them, those Eastern European patriots who helped change the world in the late 1980's. A poet, a playwright, a Washington in a leather jacket and jeans, he was under surveillance by the secret police for 20 goddamn years. Upon being elected president of a free Czechoslovakia, he defined what that meant by comparing it to the deadening regime that had been settled upon the country for the previous 45 years:
"We have become morally ill because we are used to saying one thing and thinking another," he said. "We have learned not to believe in anything, not to care about each other."
That applies to allegedly functioning old democracies as well as brand-new ones, by the way.
He resigned when it became plain that Czechoslovakia would become two nations, and then came back as president of the Czech Republic. He thought even old Communists had civil liberties, too. He loved the Beatles.
In his honor, may I say, as loudly as I can:
Ronald Reagan Did Not Win The Cold War."
// posted by Bill @ 12:08 PM 
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