You may not have heard that Lech Walesa was recently in Chicago. Walesa is the former president of Poland and the leader of the Solidarność (Solidarity) movement that stood up against the former Soviet Union to gain Poland's independence. If you didn't hear about it, don't feel bad. There was almost a total news blackout on the events. You see, Mr. Walesa was in town to speak at a Tea Party event and to support Adam Andrzejewski, the Republican candidate for governor of Illinois.
Mr. Walesa said, through an translator, "This is the first time when I am so strongly supporting someone. But here I see a great chance for the region and for Poland. The world today needs some order...some values. The world needs Solidarity...the new Solidarity." And remember, Solidarity stood against communism and helped to bring about the end of the "Evil Empire"...the Soviet Union.
"The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope."
At another event, Mr. Walesa said, "The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they’re getting weak. But they don’t lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope." In an interview with Founding Bloggers (video below) Mr. Walesa spoke of his concerns that America is moving in the direction of socialism. "There's big challenges with the State taking care of people. While a subject for political campaigns are good. But when the government starts doing it...it basically puts a lot of money and wastes it." He continued, "The government will waste all the money. They just build the bureaucracy, just for itself...support itself. So we have to be very careful in following this." Remember, Lech Walesa knows the effects of socialism first hand. He risked his life to publicly stand up against it in the old Soviet puppet state of Poland.
In the 1980s, Walesa was a media darling. The media could not cover him enough. Today, they ignore what he has to say because it does not fit the narrative they wish to impart. I believe that if Lech Walesa were beginning his Solidarity movement today....with a press who idolizes communist thugs like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and an administration who travels the world bowing down to foreign leaders and apologizing for America's achievements, and who sides with the would-be dictator in Honduras...he would be roundly characterized as a rogue and a troublemaker.
So, I agree with Mr. Walesa...America is getting weaker. We are losing more and more of our freedoms and we are letting our own elected officials and bureaucracies take us down the path of statist control. Will we heed the warnings of Walesa and and others who have lived under the tyrannies of modern socialist dictatorships?
