And the people all flooded from the evil, oppressive, Capitalist west to the glorious promise of the Socialist east, right?
…and the Socialists from the East came to the Capitalist West.
A good thing for most I’m sure. The untold story of course is how it allowed all the East German hard nosed apparatchiks to flood the West side and take over the bureaucracy.
Not that amazing. All that had happened was that the GDR had run out of other people’s money.
Western creditors had been propping the GDR up for years. They had hoped to convert the GDR into a source of cheap labour to which west German manufacturing could be outsourced to save money.
By 1989, the rise of China under Chairman Deng made such mad schemes less necessary. Why hire an Ossi who dreamt of escaping west when a Chinaman who had no idea what freedom was in the first place would do the same work for less?
To make GDR industries competitive with China, and to ensure creditors were made whole, east German living standards would have had to be cut a good 40 percent. As the GDR government could not do this without risking open revolt, their credit lines were cut, and that was that.
East Germany was not so much re-unified with the West as re-possessed by it, and stripped of anything of value. Whole industries disappeared overnight, never to return.
East Germans were happy 30 years ago today, thinking their lives would get better. If you were young and university-educated (and hence, also, could be trusted to be loyal to the elite and the latest globalist ideology), like Angela Merkel, you probably did have a bright future in the unified Germany.
If you were a factory worker, it’s a fair bet you never had it as good again. East German living standards never caught up to Western levels, and emigration, especially of women, continues to this day.
And the factory worker today probably votes AfD, hoping that an AfD government will keep the promised the western globalist parties made in 1989 and 1990 but had no intention of ever keeping.
“If you were a factory worker, it’s a fair bet you never had it as good again.”
Oh the tragedy, people no longer had to wait for years for the shitty Trabant you were producing, instead they went to a dealership and bought a VW. And you were out if the job. Good.
Yep somebody did something 30 years ago … which was called “provocative and un-presidential”.
Sadly, it unleashed Frau Merkel on the Western world
Just heard a report from Germany where various leaders are present to commerate the event and Frau Merkel in her speech spoke of “walls that keep people out….” Nope. That’s not how it worked.
You’re right and Merkel is wrong. The East Germans built the wall to keep their slaves IN. The West Germans considered people on both sides Germans. You’d think Merkel would know that bit of German history.
Oh she does know that bit of history. she participated in it actively… as a communist apparatchik, organizer of communist youth and communist propaganda activist.
The Communist Soviet nuclear scientists went East to N. Korea and the other zealots worldwide continued their takeover of our universities, schools, and (formerly) well-meaning environmental movements. The long-march continues into our bureauocracy and post-national governments.
Wall or no wall, the terminal infection of Marxism is rot at the core of humanity.
“Zealots worldwide. Terminal. Infection of. Marxism is rot.”
True. True. True. And true.
Well said.
Always remember – the deep state in the state department, all Democrats, and our media betters ridiculed Reagan for demanding Gorbachev tear down this wall. Two years later? Gone.
That’s right. His speech writers deleted the “Mr Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall” line while editing his speech not once but twice. Reagan persisted and the rest is history. One of THE iconic lines in history. It’s discussed here by one of his speech writers…
Crossing the line in the dead of night
Five years old and on the run
This ain’t no game, boy, don’t make a sound
And watch that man with the gun
Say a prayer for the ones we leave behind, say a prayer for us all
Come take my hand now and hold on tight
Take one last look at that wall
Think of the shattered lives, think of the broken hearts
Think of the battered dreams, of families still torn apart
Wall of bitter tears, wall of crying pain
Wall of chilling fear, you will never keep me here
For I, I shall crawl right down through that wall
I will crawl right on through that wall
That fateful night I was one that got away,
A young and restless renegade
Chasing my dreams, still on the run,
I had some moments in the sun
Years flew by like a speeding bullet train, I sang my songs to one and all
Then came the day when I had a chance to pay
My respects to the names on that wallI saw the wooden crosses, saw the bloody stains
Saw the gruesome pictures of all the ones that died in vain
Wall of countless victims, wall of endless shame
Had just one thing gone wrong I might have joined that list of names
And I cried for all who died there at the wall
I recall weeping at the wall
Turned on the news in November ’89
I could not move, I could not speak
Something was burning up in my eyes,
Something wet ran down my cheek
All those laughing faces, all those tears of joy
All those warm embraces of men and women, girls and boys
Sisters and brothers dancing, all singing freedom’s song
God, if only I could be there to shake your hands and sing along
Oh I, I would climb right up on that wall
And join you all dancing on the wall
Standing tall walking on the wall
Tear it down, right down to the ground
Tear it down, right down to the ground https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DgLmVXLdxI
Jon Kay is a talented song writer and musician. I like all his stuff.
i watched the wall come down with tears rolling down my face like a little baby. My thoughts were with those who had tried to escape to freedom and didn’t make it. Bush Sr. had a glorious opportunity but he spent most of his 4 years downplaying or apologizing for being a conservative. The spadework laid by Reagan was ignored or scrapped.
Shame really.
Indeed, I watched it fall down on a black and white TV from the other side of Iron Curtain. Communism was already crumbling around us, yet this was still very powerful to watch.
As for John Kay, I like his work very much, some of the later unappreciated work is in my opinion brilliant. Give Me News I Can Use for example. Coincidentally, The Wall contains autobiographical elements… he did cross under the Berlin wall as a child.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
Winston Churchill, March 1946
How did the Berlin Wall come up in the first place?
Churchill tells the world that an iron curtain has descended across Europe without telling them that it had descended right where he and Stalin had agreed it would descend.
“A half truth is a whole lie.”
Yiddish Proverb
45 years ago or so.
Steyn’s Song of the Week: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – Randy Bachman
I checked Trudeau’s CBC and his Globe and Mail, and both are censoring any mention of the 30th aniversary of the fall. A real head-scratcher that.
Still upset, after all these years, of communism’s fall in Europe.
David, the wall came down and now they find themselves in a different sort of prison, with a former East German commie in charge.
So called democrats in the West have willfully or been screened from the real import of Reagan bankrupting world communism. Many interpreted the Polish revolution and later the fall of the Berlin Wall as the destruction of world communism. I would argue that it was a realistic assessment by what passes as today’s Comintern. The struggle continues to this day rather successfully. World communism has always been directed by the Russians. Whether that is still true might be debated as the Chinese appear to be far better managers than the Russians who have descended into a more mafia type org.
In any event communism has always been about exploiting workers for the benefit of the ruling communist party elite. Accountability is non existent.
Today communist control or heavily influence the education system, media and the government civil service in both Canada and the USA. It is a done deal, they won. All that is left is the competition of personalities and how they take direction from world communism. Trump has done more to expose these people than any leadership since Eisenhower. The odds are that he does not succeed.
A salute to Grapes. Ours is the last generation that will remember!
I was a Russian interpreter at Wobeck Detachment in the British sector in the early 1970’s, just a few kilometers from Magdeburg and the Soviet Third Shock Army. England had not signed a peace agreement from WWII, and our presence in that part of Germany was as an occupying power. My apartment was one kilometer from the border in a village of a dozen houses. I could see the Iron Curtain, every day, for years: the mine fields with their warning signs and barricades, the high double fences topped with razor wire between which dogs and groups of 3 guards patrolled, the massive concrete watch/gun towers. It was always 3 guards, and never the same 3, because 2 were more likely to conspire and escape to the West. Helmstedt, just up the road, was where trains left West and entered East Germany going to West Berlin. Good times, those! Whether our work was worth the effort is surely in doubt, given the current state of Western Europe. I pray we don’t follow their path to destruction.
And the people all flooded from the evil, oppressive, Capitalist west to the glorious promise of the Socialist east, right?
…and the Socialists from the East came to the Capitalist West.
A good thing for most I’m sure. The untold story of course is how it allowed all the East German hard nosed apparatchiks to flood the West side and take over the bureaucracy.
Not that amazing. All that had happened was that the GDR had run out of other people’s money.
Western creditors had been propping the GDR up for years. They had hoped to convert the GDR into a source of cheap labour to which west German manufacturing could be outsourced to save money.
By 1989, the rise of China under Chairman Deng made such mad schemes less necessary. Why hire an Ossi who dreamt of escaping west when a Chinaman who had no idea what freedom was in the first place would do the same work for less?
To make GDR industries competitive with China, and to ensure creditors were made whole, east German living standards would have had to be cut a good 40 percent. As the GDR government could not do this without risking open revolt, their credit lines were cut, and that was that.
East Germany was not so much re-unified with the West as re-possessed by it, and stripped of anything of value. Whole industries disappeared overnight, never to return.
East Germans were happy 30 years ago today, thinking their lives would get better. If you were young and university-educated (and hence, also, could be trusted to be loyal to the elite and the latest globalist ideology), like Angela Merkel, you probably did have a bright future in the unified Germany.
If you were a factory worker, it’s a fair bet you never had it as good again. East German living standards never caught up to Western levels, and emigration, especially of women, continues to this day.
And the factory worker today probably votes AfD, hoping that an AfD government will keep the promised the western globalist parties made in 1989 and 1990 but had no intention of ever keeping.
“If you were a factory worker, it’s a fair bet you never had it as good again.”
Oh the tragedy, people no longer had to wait for years for the shitty Trabant you were producing, instead they went to a dealership and bought a VW. And you were out if the job. Good.
Yep somebody did something 30 years ago … which was called “provocative and un-presidential”.
Sadly, it unleashed Frau Merkel on the Western world
Just heard a report from Germany where various leaders are present to commerate the event and Frau Merkel in her speech spoke of “walls that keep people out….” Nope. That’s not how it worked.
You’re right and Merkel is wrong. The East Germans built the wall to keep their slaves IN. The West Germans considered people on both sides Germans. You’d think Merkel would know that bit of German history.
Oh she does know that bit of history. she participated in it actively… as a communist apparatchik, organizer of communist youth and communist propaganda activist.
The Communist Soviet nuclear scientists went East to N. Korea and the other zealots worldwide continued their takeover of our universities, schools, and (formerly) well-meaning environmental movements. The long-march continues into our bureauocracy and post-national governments.
Wall or no wall, the terminal infection of Marxism is rot at the core of humanity.
“Zealots worldwide. Terminal. Infection of. Marxism is rot.”
True. True. True. And true.
Well said.
Always remember – the deep state in the state department, all Democrats, and our media betters ridiculed Reagan for demanding Gorbachev tear down this wall. Two years later? Gone.
That’s right. His speech writers deleted the “Mr Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall” line while editing his speech not once but twice. Reagan persisted and the rest is history. One of THE iconic lines in history. It’s discussed here by one of his speech writers…
https://youtu.be/XlB6_cxtv0M
Here’s the speech…
https://youtu.be/Ei1HnWwzmNk
Steppenwolf – The Wall
Crossing the line in the dead of night
Five years old and on the run
This ain’t no game, boy, don’t make a sound
And watch that man with the gun
Say a prayer for the ones we leave behind, say a prayer for us all
Come take my hand now and hold on tight
Take one last look at that wall
Think of the shattered lives, think of the broken hearts
Think of the battered dreams, of families still torn apart
Wall of bitter tears, wall of crying pain
Wall of chilling fear, you will never keep me here
For I, I shall crawl right down through that wall
I will crawl right on through that wall
That fateful night I was one that got away,
A young and restless renegade
Chasing my dreams, still on the run,
I had some moments in the sun
Years flew by like a speeding bullet train, I sang my songs to one and all
Then came the day when I had a chance to pay
My respects to the names on that wallI saw the wooden crosses, saw the bloody stains
Saw the gruesome pictures of all the ones that died in vain
Wall of countless victims, wall of endless shame
Had just one thing gone wrong I might have joined that list of names
And I cried for all who died there at the wall
I recall weeping at the wall
Turned on the news in November ’89
I could not move, I could not speak
Something was burning up in my eyes,
Something wet ran down my cheek
All those laughing faces, all those tears of joy
All those warm embraces of men and women, girls and boys
Sisters and brothers dancing, all singing freedom’s song
God, if only I could be there to shake your hands and sing along
Oh I, I would climb right up on that wall
And join you all dancing on the wall
Standing tall walking on the wall
Tear it down, right down to the ground
Tear it down, right down to the ground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DgLmVXLdxI
Jon Kay is a talented song writer and musician. I like all his stuff.
i watched the wall come down with tears rolling down my face like a little baby. My thoughts were with those who had tried to escape to freedom and didn’t make it. Bush Sr. had a glorious opportunity but he spent most of his 4 years downplaying or apologizing for being a conservative. The spadework laid by Reagan was ignored or scrapped.
Shame really.
Indeed, I watched it fall down on a black and white TV from the other side of Iron Curtain. Communism was already crumbling around us, yet this was still very powerful to watch.
As for John Kay, I like his work very much, some of the later unappreciated work is in my opinion brilliant. Give Me News I Can Use for example. Coincidentally, The Wall contains autobiographical elements… he did cross under the Berlin wall as a child.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
Winston Churchill, March 1946
How did the Berlin Wall come up in the first place?
Churchill tells the world that an iron curtain has descended across Europe without telling them that it had descended right where he and Stalin had agreed it would descend.
“A half truth is a whole lie.”
Yiddish Proverb
45 years ago or so.
Steyn’s Song of the Week: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – Randy Bachman
https://youtu.be/kXy2oan92BE
I checked Trudeau’s CBC and his Globe and Mail, and both are censoring any mention of the 30th aniversary of the fall. A real head-scratcher that.
Still upset, after all these years, of communism’s fall in Europe.
David, the wall came down and now they find themselves in a different sort of prison, with a former East German commie in charge.
So called democrats in the West have willfully or been screened from the real import of Reagan bankrupting world communism. Many interpreted the Polish revolution and later the fall of the Berlin Wall as the destruction of world communism. I would argue that it was a realistic assessment by what passes as today’s Comintern. The struggle continues to this day rather successfully. World communism has always been directed by the Russians. Whether that is still true might be debated as the Chinese appear to be far better managers than the Russians who have descended into a more mafia type org.
In any event communism has always been about exploiting workers for the benefit of the ruling communist party elite. Accountability is non existent.
Today communist control or heavily influence the education system, media and the government civil service in both Canada and the USA. It is a done deal, they won. All that is left is the competition of personalities and how they take direction from world communism. Trump has done more to expose these people than any leadership since Eisenhower. The odds are that he does not succeed.
A salute to Grapes. Ours is the last generation that will remember!
I was a Russian interpreter at Wobeck Detachment in the British sector in the early 1970’s, just a few kilometers from Magdeburg and the Soviet Third Shock Army. England had not signed a peace agreement from WWII, and our presence in that part of Germany was as an occupying power. My apartment was one kilometer from the border in a village of a dozen houses. I could see the Iron Curtain, every day, for years: the mine fields with their warning signs and barricades, the high double fences topped with razor wire between which dogs and groups of 3 guards patrolled, the massive concrete watch/gun towers. It was always 3 guards, and never the same 3, because 2 were more likely to conspire and escape to the West. Helmstedt, just up the road, was where trains left West and entered East Germany going to West Berlin. Good times, those! Whether our work was worth the effort is surely in doubt, given the current state of Western Europe. I pray we don’t follow their path to destruction.