The Berlin Wall fell
And I wasn't even born yet
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The Berlin Wall fell
And I wasn't even born yet
I dvery much doubt it. Walls don't just fall over, you know. I call bs.
Link or it didn't happen.
YAY! On Nov 9th 1989 Strike did not exist! ~;)
I was under two months old then, no memories for me. But at least I can say I am a chlid of the 80's. It seems really funny to think I existed in the 80's, can't get my head round it, ha!
I remember the border crossing opening in, I think, Hungary and lots of folks driving into Austria. I was amazed. I can recall thinking, "this looks interesting, I wonder when the Soviets will send the tanks in!"
Then a few weeks later the Belin wall was ripped down. I was still expecting the guards to open fire but they didn't. History in the making.
My sister had lived for about two weeks, at that point!
And I was 8 years old. I remember nothing about the wall falling.
The wall should be a constant reminder of the pain and suffering communism has wrought throughout the world.
Let's just leave it at civil strife in general.
Hehehe, I was working the afternoon shift in the D block yard tower at Attica, ironic no?
Heh, the thing that gets me is seeing those 80's songs on TV, then realising I was around when they were in the charts. :sweatdrop:
That, and looking at a map, and seeing the USSR. By the time I was about 8 I was fascinated with maps and was very familiar with the post Cold-War looking world, seems bizarre to think the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was around when I was...
Oh my days, I just looked up what song was top of the charts when I was born, and it's Ride on Time, even I know that one! :sweatdrop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74GwwUVnPLA
Sweden has a welfare state, it is not socialist. Denmark and Finland even less so, and Norway is only where it is because of a certain resource.
What kind of pick 'n choose rightist are you to say a welfare state is not socialism, nay to say it is not communism?! :balloon3:
I am the welfare state kind of rightist myself, not a market liberal. And socially conservative, yet politically liberal.
EDIT: It's not a sliding scale from welfare state - socialism - communism, you know!
Nonsense.
First off, FINLAND ISN'T A PART OF SCANDINAVIA. What their Hitler-loving behinds are up to is none of my concern.
Secondly, both Sweden and Denmark are just as social democratic as Norway is. We've all been ruled by a social democratic party for so long that even our conservative parties have social democratic policies.
EDIT: In the 90 years that has passed since they first took office in the beginning of the 1920's, the social democratic parties in Sweden and Denmark have ruled in 50 of them. No other party or ideology comes close to the influence social democracy has had on Scandinavian society.
Social democracy =/= socialism
And different people have different definitions for geographic regions sometimes, Finland is usually considered part of Scandinavia here.
Africa used to mean the northern part of Tunisia and Asia used to mean Turkey, definitions change and come to mean different things for different people. :shrug:
If social democrats were socialist they would probably call themselves socialist and not social democrats. :idea2:
Fundamentally, social democrats support a capitalist system, they just tone done its excesses through a strong welfare state.
Well to be fair socialism is not necessarily the opposite of capitalism. That's just one particular narrow interpretation called communism (and even that can in theory be reconciled with capitalism in some form or another). At the core capitalism is about how the economy works, and socialism is about how society works.
Anyway Scandinavia kind of varies with the topic. At one point it is basically “wherever the Vikings came from” the next it is the landmass protruding from Russia towards Denmark (aka Sweden, Norway, and yes, Finland).
Socialism is primarily an economic theory, it calls for public ownership not of private property as some of its opponents use to slander it with, but of the means of the production. IMO Marx took Adam Smith's principles and applied them to an industrialised world (so yeah, not the opposite of capitalism).
Sorry you're right the socialists are socialists, and by socialist I mean social democrat??? ~:confused:
Social democracy is not just a branch of socialism. Social democrats share the same principles as socialists, but have very different ways of achieving them.