Twenty years after the wall

[Adrian II]

Why would the greens agree with a woman having to peel her eyes at the concrete at all times.

Because the greens are cryptofascists, and have been all along. Anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human. Fortuyn's murderer was only the first full-blown killer that this cabal has produced. Forget Osama. Ecoterrorism will be a top security threat within ten years from now, mark my words. Few lessons have been learned form the Wall and its demise, on that at least we can (supposedly) agree.

[Fragony]

Because the greens are cryptofascists, and have been all along..

Suggestion? It's going to hurt anyway.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I wouldn't say the education system is left-wing biased, not here in the UK at least. At school I had a geography teacher that said Margaret Thatchet was one of the 5 most evil people of all time, and I had a history teacher who called her the "blessed Margaret".

At Uni there is a slight left-wing bias, but I don't think thats a problem since it doesn't affect most of the students I've seen who are obsessed with their "civil liberties". I doubt this slight left-leaning bias is due to a conspiracy rooted in Belgium, instead its probably just because the more idealist liberal types are more likely to want to be involved in the education progress. In any case, I've never found they brainwash people and they make it clear when they are giving a personal opinion.

[Vladimir]

This thread is bi-polar. One side is the joy and elation of remembering that horrible symbol fall and remembering names like Honecker, Wolf, et al. The other is a dark and twisted world of conspiracy. Or maybe my sense of humor is off.

[Strike For The South]

Intresting. Apparently there was a "cold war" and we beat the "Soviets"

Sounds like a good movie

[LittleGrizzly]

Some brilliant conspiracy stuff in here, thanks frag needed a laugh.

Great anniversery (though apparently as a lefty im gutted, must say i haven't noticed) a victory for personal freedoms everywhere and a timely reminder to look after our civil liberties in our current nations as well!

[Brenus]

“Great anniversery (though apparently as a lefty I am gutted, must say I haven't noticed) a victory for personal freedoms everywhere”
Yeap. I remember. Freedom was flooding the world.
Then the Right Wing Nationalists started to Ethnic cleansing in Europe. Communism became bad and Nazism good….
The pretty villages went in flames in some areas, some minorities forced to change their ancestors names or/and some countries built wall to separate them from down towns, or have their children ban from schools because too dirty.
The Religious movements started to be preached with bombs and the freedom become slavery from women and “unfaithful”. It took some time from the freedom fighters to become unlawful combatants but it happened…
Genocides happened in a wonderful indifference / indulgences when suited and International Laws became no more than a piece of paper.
Cynicism became the main value, except greed.
At least, they were able to die of starvation but FREE.

Er, a lot of difference...

[LittleGrizzly]

Well im not saying it worked out great for everyone... but certainly East Germany for one... they may have not been able to enjoy the west's financial success but they could enjoy thier democracy... Poland would be another one i assume...

How widespread was most of what you talk about... are you mainly thinking of countries in the balkans....?

I would say on the whole it was a step in the right direction... maybe we (the west) could have done a bit more to help make it a more successful transition...

[Vuk]

“Great anniversery (though apparently as a lefty I am gutted, must say I haven't noticed) a victory for personal freedoms everywhere”
Yeap. I remember. Freedom was flooding the world.
Then the Right Wing Nationalists started to Ethnic cleansing in Europe. Communism became bad and Nazism good….
The pretty villages went in flames in some areas, some minorities forced to change their ancestors names or/and some countries built wall to separate them from down towns, or have their children ban from schools because too dirty.
The Religious movements started to be preached with bombs and the freedom become slavery from women and “unfaithful”. It took some time from the freedom fighters to become unlawful combatants but it happened…
Genocides happened in a wonderful indifference / indulgences when suited and International Laws became no more than a piece of paper.
Cynicism became the main value, except greed.
At least, they were able to die of starvation but FREE.

Er, a lot of difference...

Both Nazi Germany and the USSR were socialist countries. It is the left that is supporting socialism today.

[Fragony]

Some brilliant conspiracy stuff in here, thanks frag needed a laugh.

No conspiracy, just people unsure of what their opinion should be and playing it safe just to be sure. Despite the wall comming down being one of the most important events in history it does not, and will not, get the coverage it deserves because of the suffocating social control within the leftist church and the terrible fate that is being excommunicated.

[Ironside]

I'm afraid the wall came down in November 1989. Hence the lack of coverage. No leftist conspiracy.

The cracks in the Iron Curtain started twenty years ago in spring and summer. In China, democratic demonstrations took place this month. In South Africa, the end of apartheid was announced.

The year is more important than exact months or dates. 1989 was a true Annus Mirabilis. The greatest year since 1789. The end of history, the end of that wretched short European century of 1914-1989.

Well said.

BTW when do you think the new political century started, judged by the historians 2150 (added some margins there)? 1989 or later, like 2001?

Can be worth noticing that the largest Swedish newspaper did have a large article about the picknic and the opening of the Hungarian border.

ahum.

It's now time for the exams, kids are rolling from the assemblyline of the red machine as we speak to be further indoctrinated with leftist propaganda on universities, I bet there isn't a single question in the exams about the wall.

Of course not, only one subject should actually cover it and that's modern history (possibly some politics courses, but I'm quite poor on the knowledge or thier existance). That course should on the other hand always have questions about the wall, or being a horrible course, by missing the greatest event in modern history.

Intresting. Apparently there was a "cold war" and we beat the "Soviets"

Sounds like a good movie

Depends on what you like, lots of scare and thrilling stuff, very little action and then the bad guys goes on and self-defeat themself with a whisper to the surprice (and joy) to almost everyone.

[Louis VI the Fat]

BTW when do you think the new political century started, judged by the historians of 2150 (added some margins there)? 1989 or later, like 2001?

It is not possible to say where future historians will place historical fault lines. Not that this will deter me...

Hobsbawm is a famous British historian. (He's a Marxist!!1!! And thus responsible for Treblinka!!1!) He wrote two books: 'Europe's long nineteenth century: 1789 - 1914'. And the book whose title I tucked into an earlier post here: 'Europe's short twentieth century: 1914 - 1989'.

The latter century is the wretched century. Europe's most bitter.

Not really Hobsbawm, but my own thoughts, say that in the long century, progressive modernism fought reactionarism. And won. Liberal democracy triumphed, destroying the old.
In the second, short, century, liberal democracy in turn was under siege. Somewhat irrelevantly, still from reactionary anti-modernism (for example Franco). More dangerously, from revolutionary conservatism (f.e. Mussolini, Hitler), and from the peoples that missed out on modernism in the nineteenth century (f.e. Lenin, Stalin, petty East European dictators). These currents each sought to destroy the old too. Fortunately, liberal democracy triumphed again.

The other title I tucked in the post was of course Fukuyama's 'The end of History'.
He saw the final triumph of liberal democracy in 1989. Quod non. As witness, for example, below under Brenus. Or as witness 2001. Next to two skyscapers, Osama blew up Fukuyama on 9-11. The West had overlooked other anti-liberal currents. With the benefit of hindsight, Islamofascism was a storm that had been brewing for decades. The Cold War made us blind to it. From 1945-1989, the Cold War monopolised Western thought. Third World developments were only regarded in light of the ideological struggle between the First and the Second World. It made sense back then, it looks like breathtaking arrogance now. In the Third World, there was economic development, truly astounding demographic changes, and simmering strife that was fully autonomous of the West-East division. All this came to the fore with globalisation - which, contrary to what the anti-globalists of the nineties thought, was not the imposition of the West upon the rest of the world, but rather the reverse.

In this sense, I would say 1989-2001 was either a short, jubilant spring* of liberal democracy. Or the 'Indian Summer' of liberal democracy. A brief coda that disguided the end of summer.
The choice will all depent on the future fortune of liberal democracy throughout the world.

*To which Brenus has violently objected already, which I shall adress below.


Or, perhaps non-Western narratives might become dominant.
And so perhaps the entire period of 1600-1950 will be deemed a brief interlude during which a few petty states managed to seize upon Chinese internal strife to briefly surpass China for a brief interlude of China's five thousand years old dominance.
Or perhaps 1926 will be deemed the turning point. The Turks, gone and the West not paying attention, it was the year in which Wahabism took over Saudi Arabia. The year which started their quest for world dominance. Through a massive breeding program, through Arab human and cultural colonialism into Africa, Asia and Europe.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Freedom was flooding the world in 1989.

Then the Right Wing Nationalists started Ethnic cleansing in Europe.

Very well to point out that 1989 was not the end of history. I do, as always, disagree with your take on Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was always the most liberal, economically most developed part of European communism. Their system wasn't a card house that could fall down one moment from the next. However, 1989 did show the Yugo communists that their time was up. Simmerring subcurrents in Yugoslavia re-surfaced, and took over. Nationalism, regionalism, ancient strife. The narrative changed. 1989 marked the six hundred anniversary of Serbian struggle against the 'Turks'. This led to 'Bosnia'.
For all the faults you can point out in other countries, Serbian aggressive nationalism had a clear autonomous cause.

~~-~~-~~<oi0io>~~-~~-~~

Socialism is nazism is communism.

This shows a lack of precision of historical and political terminology.

It is also not very relevant.

~~-~~-~~<oi0io>~~-~~-~~

Because the greens are cryptofascists, and have been all along. Anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human. Fortuyn's murderer was only the first full-blown killer that this cabal has produced.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't disagree with you more, Adrian.

The killer thought it was 1933 and that he had to stop Hitler. See, for example, the 'Irish theocracy' thread, where Brenus argues that nazis must be prevented from gaining power, and I myself went so far as to say that there must a standing order to shoot nazis at sight. This is the mindset of the killer. Prevent nazism by force.

The second ingredient is the left's sabre-rattling and demonisation of Fortuyn, This caused many people to see Fortuyn as a nazi. Thus the obligation the killer felt to murder Fortuyn.

Fragony understands Dutch society better than you. ( ) Fortuyn was murdered by the left.

The killer just happened to be an animal rights activist. An ecoterrorist indeed, but environmental concerns were not an issue to Fortuyn. Nor to the killer's decision to shoot Fortuyn.
To say otherwise is nothing but cluelessness by a left that refuses to see its responsibility, a left that simply can not conceive of itself as sometimes anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human.

When a Nascar-loving American shoots a doctor at an abortion clinic, is he better described as a Nascar-terrorist or is it the result of Christian extremist agitation? When an animal loving Dutchman shoots a rightwing politician, is he better described as an ecoterrorist or as the result of leftist extremist agitation?

[Vuk]

Very well to point out that 1989 was not the end of history. I do, as always, disagree with your take on Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was always the most liberal, economically most developed part of European communism. Their system wasn't a card house that could fall down one moment from the next. However, 1989 did show the Yugo communists that their time was up. Simmerring subcurrents in Yugoslavia re-surfaced, and took over. Nationalism, regionalism, ancient strife. The narrative changed. 1989 marked the six hundred anniversary of Serbian struggle against the 'Turks'. This led to 'Bosnia'.
For all the faults you can point out in other countries, Serbian aggressive nationalism had a clear autonomous cause.

Quite wrong, Yugoslavian socialism did not work. They survived because of loans from the west (as many communist countries including Hungary and even the USSR did). There is only so long that something like that can last though. Yugoslavia is actually a pretty bad example for you to pick as a succes story for a controlled economy. They were plagued by old technology, and the socialism system prevented new techonology from developing rapidly enough. They were having regions with rich natural resources manufacture tank optics for which there was no market at all. It did not make sense and it did not work. Main reason for the Cold War coming to an end IMHO? They were just so deep in debt and nothing they could do would make them get out of debt. They were spending enormous amounts of money on espionage and the arms race, fighting disasterous wars in the middle east, had troops stationed in most of the Bloc countries. Socialism truely did fail.

It is not possible to say where future historians will place historical fault lines. Not that this will deter me...

Hobsbawm is a famous British historian. (He's a Marxist!!1!! And thus responsible for Treblinka!!1!) He wrote two books: 'Europe's long nineteenth century: 1789 - 1914'. And the book whose title I tucked into an earlier post here: 'Europe's short twentieth century: 1914 - 1989'.

The latter century is the wretched century. Europe's most bitter.

Not really Hobsbawm, but my own thoughts, say that in the long century, progressive modernism fought reactionarism. And won. Liberal democracy triumphed, destroying the old.
In the second, short, century, liberal democracy in turn was under siege. Somewhat irrelevantly, still from reactionary anti-modernism (for example Franco). More dangerously, from revolutionary conservatism (f.e. Mussolini, Hitler), and from the peoples that missed out on modernism in the nineteenth century (f.e. Lenin, Stalin, petty East European dictators). These currents each sought to destroy the old too. Fortunately, liberal democracy triumphed again.

Think of it, that is an oxymoron. :P Hitler was the farthest possible thing from conservative.