Death and transfiguration, although glorification is probably the more accurate term. Nothing new here, folks. Just move along now and go about your business.
Death as in the GDR, of course, as in dead as a doornail, long, long ago. Transfiguration/glorification as in the twenty-five percent of East Germans (or Germans of the East, if you prefer) that still thinks old communist Germany wasn’t such a bad place to live after all.
This wouldn’t be so bad if these were all just old communists thinking this, of course, but that’s clearly not the case.
Here in Hamburg, I’m pretty sure people would pay for 30 minutes of stasi interrogation. Frankly, I’m surprised it is only 1/4th. The last time I was in Berlin, right where the wall once stood where cheap souvenir shops where you could be Che everything. Other than the fact that I had a piece of fresh fruit with me, I would have suspected that the other side had won.
It’s that good old German blind-in-the-left-eye thang again. If you’re dyed-in-the-wool left, everything’s forgiven. What’s more is if you’re not dyed-in-the-wool left you might as well be dyed-in-the-wool right over here, which is another matter altogether, of course. I don’t care for either direction.
Are they kidding? Have they been drinking the bongwater or something? The DDR was hideous, dull, and repressive. The cops wore Nazi uniforms that were only slightly modified from the original. The tap water was brown. The air was so foul with lignite coal, diesel dust, and chemicals that you could actually TASTE IT. The place was so ill kept, especially the pre-war built area, that it barely looked like reconstruction was undertaken at all. Some places still had the neatly piled up bricks from postwar compusory gang labor work still sitting there 40 years later.
I know Germans have this thing in the back of their minds about enjoying the misery that they endure, but Die Linke must be out of their mind. Apart from a few lost souls, I’m sure they haven’t a single supporter old enough to remember the DDR through the eyes of a mind developed to adulthood.
All true, Joe, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I thought for years that this whole Die Linke thing was an elaborate practical joke, but it isn’t (they don’t really have a sense of humor, it seems). They’ll never have any power because they don’t want any – otherwise they’d have to deliver on the ridiculous stuff they propose – but they’re good at opposition because that doesn’t cost them anything (like compromise). And it’s astounding how such a meaningless party can get as much media coverage as it does but, like I said, everybody’s blind on the left eye over here.
As long as they are pushing a political system that could never work, why don’t they champion the midieval feudal system? It is just as likely to succeed in producing economic growth, but at least the costumes would be more interesting.
Observing Hermann 
Here in Hamburg, I’m pretty sure people would pay for 30 minutes of stasi interrogation. Frankly, I’m surprised it is only 1/4th. The last time I was in Berlin, right where the wall once stood where cheap souvenir shops where you could be Che everything. Other than the fact that I had a piece of fresh fruit with me, I would have suspected that the other side had won.
It’s that good old German blind-in-the-left-eye thang again. If you’re dyed-in-the-wool left, everything’s forgiven. What’s more is if you’re not dyed-in-the-wool left you might as well be dyed-in-the-wool right over here, which is another matter altogether, of course. I don’t care for either direction.
Are they kidding? Have they been drinking the bongwater or something? The DDR was hideous, dull, and repressive. The cops wore Nazi uniforms that were only slightly modified from the original. The tap water was brown. The air was so foul with lignite coal, diesel dust, and chemicals that you could actually TASTE IT. The place was so ill kept, especially the pre-war built area, that it barely looked like reconstruction was undertaken at all. Some places still had the neatly piled up bricks from postwar compusory gang labor work still sitting there 40 years later.
I know Germans have this thing in the back of their minds about enjoying the misery that they endure, but Die Linke must be out of their mind. Apart from a few lost souls, I’m sure they haven’t a single supporter old enough to remember the DDR through the eyes of a mind developed to adulthood.
All true, Joe, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I thought for years that this whole Die Linke thing was an elaborate practical joke, but it isn’t (they don’t really have a sense of humor, it seems). They’ll never have any power because they don’t want any – otherwise they’d have to deliver on the ridiculous stuff they propose – but they’re good at opposition because that doesn’t cost them anything (like compromise). And it’s astounding how such a meaningless party can get as much media coverage as it does but, like I said, everybody’s blind on the left eye over here.
As long as they are pushing a political system that could never work, why don’t they champion the midieval feudal system? It is just as likely to succeed in producing economic growth, but at least the costumes would be more interesting.