36 Years Ago Reagan Uttered His Most Powerful Words, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!’
There’s hard and soft power. Then there’s the kind Post Soviet Ukraine has in spades
You were about to die … And you are here living despite it all
“Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will.”
~ Garner’s Spirit
A classic David & Goliath tale, complete with colourful heroes, cold-hearted villains, and nail-biting games-with the hockey rink serving as an arena for a nation's resistance.
Thank you @EthanScheiner
for a great read and a superb piece of research and writing. The expression "Freedom to win" came from Martina Navratilova who watched the two 1969 Worlds Czechoslovakia vs Soviet games, arguably the two most hate-filled hockey games ever played.
Author also reflects in his finale over the parallels of the Soviets' occupation of Czechoslovakia with the invasion of Ukraine: "All I can do is hope that it takes far less than 21 years for the people of Ukraine to be free of their own nightmare."
MEdia Dragon 🐉 is an absolute nobody who did something once upon a time …
Identity of mole who sold Russia secrets from within Australia's spy agency uncovered
Four Corners: June 19
Sally Neighbour and Margot O’Neill report on Australia’s greatest untold spy story.
- Published by David Knox
- on June 16, 2023
- Filed under Programming, Video
Monday’s Four Corners, “Traitor” by Sally Neighbour and Margot O’Neill, reveals one of Australia’s best kept spy secrets.
The program will expose how a senior officer at our national spy agency stole and sold highly classified intelligence to Russia’s KGB for at least six years.
Four Corners has uncovered the details of the breath-taking betrayal that jeopardised Australia’s security relationship with two of our closest allies — the United States and Britain.
Reporters Sally Neighbour and Margot O’Neill forensically thread the pieces of information gathered over decades of investigations, to uncover the truth about one of this country’s most grievous security breaches.
The Road to Socialism and Back: An Economic History of Poland, 1939–2019
For four decades during the latter half of the 20th century, Poland and its people were the subjects of a grand socio-economic experiment. Under the watchful eye of its Soviet masters, the Polish United Workers’ Party transformed the mixed economy of this nation of 35 million into a centrally planned, socialist state (albeit one with an irrepressible black market). Then, in the closing decade of the 20th century, under the leadership of Polish minister of finance Leszek Balcerowicz, the nation was transformed back into a mixed economy.
In this book, we document the results of this experiment. We show that there was a wide chasm between the lofty goals of socialist ideology and the realities of socialism as the Polish people experienced them. We also show that while the transition back from a socialist to a mixed economy was not without its own pain, it did unleash the extraordinary productive power of the Polish people, allowing their standard of living to rise at more than twice the rate of growth that prevailed during the socialist era. The experiences of the Poles, like those of so many behind the Iron Curtain, demonstrate the value of economic freedom, the immiserating consequences of its denial, and the often painful process of regaining lost freedoms.
That’s the opening to an excellent new book (pdf)from the Fraser Institute written by Boettke, Zhukov, and Mitchell. More than an economic history of Poland, this book is also a very good introduction to the economics of socialism.
