European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 15, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Don Tate staff writer to stands with his Friend Oskar by ,1 stand near the old town Hall drinking hot red wine and holding up a tattered red Book. Can you imagine Josef Karlov says with a pained look the kind of mind that would throw away a Book like this it was t an epistle of Lenin or Marx he clutched. It was a first edition Book published in Calcutta written in English by an obscure Indian writer. He had fished it out of someone s garbage. Can you imagine but standing there by the Little stand Selling hot wine on a cold Day in Prague this was the least of what he was having a hard Lime imagining. Beaten up by the nazis in world War ii beaten Down by the communists Ever since his people were finally fishing Freedom out of the garbage of tyranny. Dear god smiles Karlov sipping wine and marvelling at the sheer immensity of it All.  Karlov is an underemployed intellectual in a society where cod books and open discussion on anything that might stimulate the mind or spirit toward a communism was unlit recently frowned on most seriously where names were taken Iles Kepi Midnight raps on doors heard. When the fools for Freedom got too obnoxious tanks came calling. Lose also is a Folk Singer and nearby members of his group sing softly of what else in a town where All the red flags seem to have gone underground Freedom Demok Racie. Now it is 2 . Says the old town clock and Sun dial and the Golden rooster in the lower of the old town Hall rears Back and crows. Hundreds of people stand below Heads craned pointing up and laughing. It seems a simple innocent pleasure in a place that has gone through so much. Old Means Nahlin Prague first built in 1338, the old town Hall in the heart of this City of More than a million has seen it All Kings and empires and revolutions strutting and bleeding across the a Erh stage and seen no More. You can almost hear them Waves of Early horsemen led by helmeted princes thudding Over the cobblestones later he booted Helling Swastika smeared goons of a dictator who kept raving about the need for More living space All  echoing away and soon replaced by frothing Fellows standing with their hammers and Sickles and shouting egalitarian slogans and waving big red gun barrels. That was the system where All the Power was derived from the people people s army people s c ingress people s this people s that said the idealists. In practice All Power got wielded like a c Lub by the stale. The people got slogans and a Stream of five year plans that could t even count  High. The people got spied on used abused lied to jailed. They wailed endlessly in lines stayed poor got robot de and rubber stamped and Nau Seum by a rigid unimaginative creaking Hureca racy whose elephantine dead weight sat on their Spital squeezed out their Energy numbed creativity. That communist bureaucracy did everything but kill the flame. Beginning last oct. 28, the people began to hit the streets. They defaced statues. They ripped Clown the red Star wherever they found it. Hundreds grew into thousands and then by Ken George 6 sir Pel mtg line in butry is 1990 Prague