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I've seen what freedom looks like — and I can see Trump trying to take it away

Summarizing Terrence Petty in Forward · Published Tuesday, September 30, 2025
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JL;DR SUMMARY Terrence Petty reflects on the democratic revolution that tore down the Berlin Wall in 1989 and compares it to the current threats to democracy he perceives under Donald Trump's leadership. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Democracy  Donald Trump  Eastern Europe  Human Rights  Authoritarianism  Vladimir Putin  Berlin Wall  George H.W. Bush  Resistance Movements  Grassroots Movements 

Places mentioned

Berlin, Germany
"One October day in 1989, I dropped in at a bar on Leipziger Strasse in Communist East Berlin."
West Berlin, Berlin, Germany
"Id crossed from West Berlin into the East for a prearranged meeting with Brbel Bohley, a leader of the anti-Communist resistance."
East Berlin, Berlin, Germany
"One October day in 1989, I dropped in at a bar on Leipziger Strasse in Communist East Berlin."
Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
"But a speech he gave in Mainz, West Germany, in spring 1989 has found residence in my head as a geopolitical masterwork."
Hungary
"Tens of thousands of East German citizens were fleeing to freedom via Hungary, whose reformist leaders had cut through barbed wire along the border with Austria to provide East Germans an escape route."
Germany
"The world has waited long enough. The time is right. Let Europe be whole and free."
Austria
"Hungarys reformist leaders began dismantling barbed-wire fences along the border with Austria."
Poland
"Bush lauded Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement for bringing changes to Poland and Hungary for reforms that were beginning there."
Serbia
"But that optimistic mood was shoved aside by new forces, some of which, ironically, were unleashed by Eastern Europeans newly won right to self-determination like the bloody civil war in Bosnia."
Russian Federation
"And Gorbachevs dreams of a reformed, open Russia have been demolished by Vladimir Putin, who has rebuilt a centralized autocracy, silenced dissent, and waged war on neighboring democracies, most brutally in Ukraine."
Ukraine
"And Gorbachevs dreams of a reformed, open Russia have been demolished by Vladimir Putin, who has rebuilt a centralized autocracy, silenced dissent, and waged war on neighboring democracies, most brutally in Ukraine."
San Francisco, California, United States
"But there are glimmers of hope, personified by a growing nationwide resistance millions of citizens who organize and march under the banner of grassroots movements like Indivisible, and politicians like Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker, who have broken from Democratic dithering to confront Trump with clarity and courage."

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Cairo Item ID 62835
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Retrieved 2025-10-01 05:30:56 UTC
Curated 2025-10-01 08:31:26 UTC