European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 03, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday augusts 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 smug liberals ignore evils of communism incidentally noted Walter Scott in his personality Parade column on july 24, Marilyn i Gayle s father or. Warren Tucker. Was a Follower of col. Robert Thieme a Houston evangelist known for his hostile attacks on it was not in tended As a compliment a telling reflection on a Peculiar moral blindness among America s Liberal intelligentsia. The Only acceptable comment on the Harry g. Summers nazis who murdered 12 million people in their concentration Camps is to Call it a hostile attack and those who deny the realities of the holocaust Are rightly condemned. But such hostile attacks on communists As Scott makes Clear Are still beyond the Many years anti anti communism has been in fashion among the cognoscenti. In those elitist circles Ronald Rea Gan s categorization of the . As an evil Empire is still a matter of scorn and derision. This remains Irue even after the horrific revelations from the official state files of the former soviet Union that detail the extent of communist the Washington Post noted on july 17, 1994, a week before Scott a column appeared in its Parade Magazine supplement " soviet dictator Josef Sta Lin is believed responsible for Between 30 million and 40 million unnatural deaths " these atrocities included the ukrainian famine in the 1930s, where Stalin deliberately starved to death some 10 million peasants in a manufactured disaster designed to consolidate his Power. To be identified As a former nazi in the United states today would unquestionably result in ostracism from society. And pleas they were ignorant of Hitler s final solution would be treated with contempt. But former communists who actively supported Stalin even after his deprivations became Public knowl Edge and who worked to extend his Mur Derous system Here at Home still evoke sympathy for the suffering they endured during the Witch Hunts of the 195j3s. And that is True of supporters of chinese communism As Well. Can you imagine the Public condemnation a movie actress would have received if she had returned from nazi Germany with Praise for their wonderful system she would still be reviled 50 years later. But that a. What Shirley Maclaine did in the 1970s following a visit to China during the cultural revolution an atrocity in which even communist party chief he Yanbang admitted that 1 million were massacred. Others claim up to 20 million died. Andt Maclaine who remains widely admired was not alone. Respected schol ars praised Mao tsp Tung s idea of per manent revolution As the wave of the future and College campuses across America blossomed with portraits of the great to their everlasting shame attic july. 17-18 Washington Post makes Clear these scholars were honouring one of the greatest mass murderers in history. In a remarkable front Page series reporter Daniel Southerland has revealed the lat est findings from chinese officials and scholars about the extent of Mao s crimes against humanity. One government document that has been internally circulated and seen by a former communist party official now at Princeton University notes Souther land says that 80 million died unnatural deaths most of them in the famine Fol lowing the great leap ing from chinese sources Southerland presents a chronology of the killings be ginning with the estimated 2 million killed in the land reforms of the 1950s. Particularly horrible Are his revelations of China about the hideous violence cultural revolution. The evidence is now overwhelming that Mao created the atmosphere that made the Nightmare possible he writes. One Man relates How Youthful red guards invoking the authority of chair Man Mao locked up tortured and killed seven teachers at his school and another relates How a dozen of the red guards aged 13 to 18," seized a school mate s Mother and mercilessly Bealhert to death. _ it has been said that one death is a tragedy a million deaths is an abstraction. But what Stalin and Mao set out to do was eliminate whole classes of people. To comprehend the extent of their ideologically inspired carnage consider their killings in american terms. Imagine the Hunting Down and massacre of every Black Man woman and child in America. That would account for some 31 million deaths. Add the 7 million jews who live in North America and you would still be Short of the,40 million killed by Stalin. And it would be less than half the 80 rail lion killed by Mao. But even with these horrible statistics the smart set still smirks at Reagan s evil Empire characterization. It is frightening to consider that Bill Clinton selected his foreign policy team from their very ranks for if they d been in charge during the cold War we d All be part of those terrible numbers. C to Angelus Toniea Comet left wonder in place of worldly worries r the Comet blasted through the news like a Celes tial bulletin. An alphabet of fragments crashed into Jupiter and slammed in to our consciousness. For Dice a cataclysm of truly astronomical Dimen Sions dwarfed the Man made disasters that dominate the headlines from places such As Rwanda Haiti and Bosnia. Astronomers As exuberant As physicists witnessing a big bang stepped up to share their excite ment at this once in lifetime perhaps once in human lifetime experience. As the blowouts and bruises emerged on the face of Jupiter these scientists struggled to bring the Story Down to human scale. A Crater _ the size of Rhode Black Eye greater than _ the diameter of the Earth. A a blast larger than All the nuclear weapons in our a but this was one event that would not be Cut Down to of Forzone the word awesome that Staple of the teen age vocabulary applied to every new song and every new sneaker took on its literal meaning. What a week in the solar system while Comet fragments pummelled Jupiter we held a " Celebration for the Silver anniversary of the Man on the Ellen Goodman those of us who were once stunned at the feat now came to the anniversary party wondering what it All meant. A _ _ was it just a cold War circus trick what arc we with technology Tang for years Long after Armstrong had been there americans told ourselves ill could put a Man on the Moon we could do anything. But that belief in science and technology As cure alls has evaporated. We_rnayj3c nostalgic for the. Sense of purpose that propelled us to the Moon. But we arc sceptical of the in retrospect the Landing on the Moon does t seem like the beginning of a new age. It seems like the end of an Era at least in our relationship to nature _ our relationship to our natural world Lias changed again from Awe to Conquest to what guilt to Many the idea that humans should strive for Domin Ion Over nature seems As Quail now As planting a War ing american Flag on the windless surface of the Moon. It turns out that we were better Coric a errs than Stew Ards. We ended up endangering species including our " our planetary party was nearly As modest As its hero Neil armstrong., today we Are not sure if that Small step for Man was a giant leap for Mankind. An american generation has grown up that takes our trip to the Moon for granted. Been there done that. _. Dur own most awesome accomplishment splitting the atom left a mushroom Cloud Over our Confidence. By sheer numbers we be tilled built and devastated what was wild. every Day we see problems of our own making.--. If we can put a Man on the Moon we cannot necessarily protect the Earth. Today the massive technological feats with astronomical Price tags Are Likely to be cleanup operations for Earth air and water. There is the sense that instead of blazing new frontiers we have to pick up our own earthly Border. In great and Small ways we Are struggling to understand our tenuous place within inc world. Not just Over it. So on a summer Day maybe it s not . Footsteps on the Moon that rivets our attention or engages Pur sense of wonder. 1 its a vast celestial event out of All human proportion a " Comet crashing into a Distant planet in alphabetical pieces. -. A v-., we Are Back to where we started a natural state of Awe in the face of nature. C Boston Gobo
