Word: western
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...border into Poland, that long-suffering nation has given birth to a freely elected, non-Communist government. No metaphor better symbolizes the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism. Even the horrific memory of the bloodstains in Tiananmen Square cannot eradicate the impression that most of the world is emulating the Western form of government -- or wants to desperately, even to the point of death. Not only the Communist bloc is awash in democratic ferment; nine Latin American nations have held or are scheduled to hold free elections in 1989. For the first time in memory, there is reason to hope that...
There were several reasons for this Western irresolution. The memories of the war ran deep, and nobody was eager for more bloodshed. Both Britain and France were concerned with their own serious economic troubles. But particularly in Britain, there was a widespread view that Versailles had indeed been unfair, that the Germans had a strong case. George Bernard Shaw, for example, spoke of Hitler's "triumphant rescue of his country from the yoke the Allies imposed...
...November 1938, after a Jewish student assassinated the Third Secretary at the German embassy in Paris, the Nazis staged a nationwide pogrom, burning Jewish homes and synagogues and smashing so many windows that the rampage became known as Kristallnacht (death toll: 91). Yet again the Western Allies protested but did nothing. London maintained its strict limits on Jews' going to British-ruled Palestine, and the U.S. resisted any increase in its immigration quotas...
...doomed, however, for the British military effort during these first days consisted mainly of dropping propaganda leaflets on German military installations (among the cautious Britons' other preparations for war: killing all poisonous snakes in the London zoo). The French attempted only one feeble probe against Germany's ill- defended western frontier. And the Poles' own political and military leaders, perhaps considering discretion the better part of valor, were already abandoning Warsaw to its fate...
...Forest Service defends the logging on the ground that the timber industry is vital to the Western economy. But conservationists counter that too much of the ancient forest is already gone and the destruction should stop. Thus the forests have become the hottest battleground in a broader war between the forces of economic development and the armies of conservation being waged from the wetlands of the East Coast to the oil-stained shores of Alaska's Prince William Sound...