NYT 4/28/22
She arrived on a ship called the SS America, an 11-year-old refugee fleeing tyranny for freedom. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, her adopted country bade farewell on Wednesday to Madeleine Korbel Albright, who in the course of a storybook life became a relentless evangelist for American ideals at home and abroad and an implacable foe of tyranny everywhere.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a friend and compatriot who prodded her husband, President Bill Clinton, to appoint Ms. Albright, recalled that in their final phone conversation two weeks before her death from cancer last month at 84, the former secretary was focused on the need to counter President Vladimir V. Putin’s war of aggression.
“She continued to issue blunt warnings about the dangers posed by authoritarianism and fascism with undeniable moral clarity,” Mrs. Clinton said. During the phone call, she said, Ms. Albright talked about the importance of rallying “the world against Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and the urgent work of defending democracy at home and around the world.”
“If Madeleine were here with us today, she would also remind us this must be a season of action, and yes, once again we must heed the wisdom of her life and the cause of her public service,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Stand up to dictators and demagogues from the battlefields of Ukraine to the halls of our own Capitol. Defend democracy at home just as vigorously as we do abroad.”
I conclude with this quote from Secretary Albright’s book, Fascism: A Warning, “There are two kinds of fascists: those who give orders and those who take them. A popular base gives Fascism the legs it needs to march, the lungs it uses to proclaim, and the muscle it relies on to menace-but that’s Fascism from the neck down. To create tyranny out of the fears and hopes of average people, money is required, and so, too, ambition and twisted ideas. It is the combination that kills.”
Pozdrav! RIP Madame Secretary.
CPW
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