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Captive nations

July 24, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward

Many people will tell you that communism and totalitarianism ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Pundits declared communism defeated, and many cheered when one scholar famously suggested that we had arrived at “the end of history.”

Yet more than a billion people today remain under the yoke of oppressive communist governments—in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Lest we forget their plight, foreign leaders and dignitaries gathered at the Heritage Foundation last week to ensure that the fight for freedom continues. They came together as a part of “Captive Nations Week,” celebrated for nearly 50 years as a reminder for nations of the world to take up the fight against communist tyranny. 

Take our poll: Do totalitarian governments still pose a threat to the United States, more than 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Read more about Captive Nations Week and Heritage’s involvement.

—DeEtte Chatterton

Witness to a daring escape

Though the Soviet Union may be long gone, followers of its mad ideology remain in power around the world. Cuba remains firmly in the grip of Communist dictators, as Raul Castro seems to be assuming power from his ailing brother Fidel. And each year, thousands of Cubans flee their oppressive homeland and try to escape to the United States.

Heritage Vice President Rebecca Hagelin recently had a firsthand encounter with one group of Cuban refugees. “Shortly after 27 Cuban refugees set foot on a Florida beach in the wee hours of Saturday, July 14,” she writes, “Providence saw fit that I was among the first Americans to welcome them.”

Find out more about this amazing story—and the horrors they escaped.

The legacy of communism

Shortly after President Ronald Regan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” the world saw communism begin to crumble.

Last month, President Bush joined Heritage Foundation scholar Lee Edwards and others to dedicate the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C. For years, Edwards headed up the effort to make the memorial a reality.

Read more about the Victims of Communism Memorial and how it’s making a difference.

—DeEtte Chatterton

Heritage fights to defend talk radio

As liberals step up their efforts to regulate the media in order to silence conservative voices, The Heritage Foundation has launched a campaign to defend talk radio.

Find out more at DefendTalkRadio.com.

Other Heritage research of note

Here’s a sampling of what else Heritage Foundation experts have been working on:

  • Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Heritage budget expert Brian Riedl debunks claims that massive farm subsidies ensure an adequate food supply and reduce farmer poverty. “First, farm subsidy eligibility is restricted to growers of only a few crops. Second, once a farmer's eligibility is established, subsidies increase with the size of the farm. These make farm subsidies just another narrowly targeted corporate welfare program.
  • Another provision in the proposed new farm bill would grant above-market wages to workers building ethanol plants, James Sherk reports. This inane regulation imposed on the economy would drive up costs for taxpayers, who would help pay for some of these plants, and increase the costs of ethanol and thus ethanol-based gasoline.
  • Tim Kane of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis explains that new figures released by the government support conservatives’ long-standing position that a volunteer military is superior to the conscripted force favored by liberals like Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY).
  • The Bush administration’s strategy of meeting with Iran is a risky one, Peter Brookes writes, “especially considering the potential consequences of appearing concessionary in the face of an emboldened Iran. But the idea of building a case against Iran — even one line at a time — does have some merit, if the White House really believes it will result in broad agreement for a harder line against Iran.”
  • Congress is now considering whether to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act. Heritage education expert Dan Lips has some tips for lawmakers: “Rather than further consolidating power and responsibility in Washington, Congress must move in the opposite direction. American schools need more than federal Band-Aids on a broken policy.”

In other news

  • As Congress prepares to renew the farm bill, The Washington Post reports on exactly how wasteful and counterproductive this program of farm subsidies really is. The government has distributed more than $1 billion in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies to dead people over the past seven years, and approves such payments without any review in 40 percent of cases.
  • In a nonbinding resolution adopted overwhelmingly yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly declared “that detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including senior members of al Qaeda, should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.”
  • A new survey reveals what many of us have long known: the media has a liberal bias. A Rasmsussen study reports that “the Associated Press, local television stations, MSNBC, and CNBC are all perceived as tilting to the left when reporting the news. Earlier releases showed that Americans tend to believe the major broadcast networks, CNN, and NPR have a liberal bias.”
  • Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Hugo Chavez, has said he will expel foreigners critical of his increasingly despotic regime. So much for freedom of the press.
  • The federal minimum wage increases by 70 cents today. With each minimum-wage worker costing employers 13 percent more—and ultimately 40 percent more once planned future hikes are accounted for—it’s likely that employers may be forced to lay off some workers, thus hurting the very people the policy is intended to help.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend the following Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. DeEtte Chatterton contributed to this report.