United Germany & The Beginning of the End for the Socialist System in Eastern Europe

[Prince Cobra]

On this day, twenty years ago, Germany united again putting end of half-century-long injustice. This was also the beginning of the end of the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe and USSR. The Soviet dictatorship and the life in an artificial economical system was no more. Long live Europe and freedom!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8349742.stm




P.S. Perhaps, mods can move it to the Backroom, though I think it can also work in the Frontroom as well. ~:shrugs:~

[Crazed Rabbit]

What an anniversary of freedom! May Communism never return to haunt the human spirit.

How a system that had to fence it's own people in to keep them from escaping could ever be admired by afar then or now is unfathomable.

The rest is spoilered until this makes it's way to the backroom.
From Alan Charles Kors:

In fact, it was only the voices of Hayek, Mises, and their few disciples that correctly identified the source of the unspeakable horrors of both Nazism and Bolshevism: the willingness -- indeed, the desire -- to use the force of government to plan other people's economic and moral lives. In terms of those horrors, the authors of The God That Failed objected, above all, to the purge of intellectuals and of communists more honorable than Stalin and his party hacks. To understand truly and with moral clarity the "god" these essayists worshipped, it is better to read The Black Book of Communism by Stéphane Courtois et al., or The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn , which present in scholarship and moral witness, respectively, the largest holocaust of the 20th century, the Red holocaust.

No cause in the history of mankind has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than communism. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. No one honors those dead. No one does penance for them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag: "No, no one would have to answer." Communism was not a "god that failed." Rather, it was an intellectually organized slaughter and slavery that succeeded, but that could not sustain itself against the productivity and resistance of free men and women.

How anyone can praise a system that affords no freedom - no freedom of speech, thought, religion, action -a system that is little more than a human abattoir - a system that oppresses thought, art, literature, civilization - is beyond me.

I pray communism will never again rise to destroy the lives of so many hundreds of millions, and kill so many millions, as it killed over 100,000,000 people in the last century.

A video remembrance.

CR

[Louis VI the Fat]

Backroom!

The fall of the wall was one of the greatest days of Europe.



French diplomats on Friday, with more today, released files of correspondence with Britian and Thatcher, showing the bitter opposition to re-unification of Germany. Mitterand and Thatcher were horrified, absolutely frightened. The two most lonely people on the planet in 1989-1990, the only ones not celebrating.

Gorbachev revealed this weekend that he received a telephone call from Margareth Thatcher. Asking him to 'keep those Germans safely tucked away behind that wall'.

[Prince Cobra]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Utterly ashamed Stephen is running to the Backroom!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Recognize him?

It's a young Sarkozy, accompanied by Juppe and Fillon, chipping away at the Berlin Wall in 1989:





There is much ado about the actual context of the picture, which is not cleared up yet.

[drone]

There is much ado about the actual context of the picture, which is not cleared up yet.

There is a women's gym shower on the other side. Sarkozy is just making a peephole.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Freiheit! How people continue to vote in droves for the successors to one of the most totalitarian parties in German and European history is beyond me.

[Crazed Rabbit]

More (recent) news of communist oppression:

In Cuba, a blogger was seized by the police, beaten, and then dumped back on the street.

Trail-blazing Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez says she was headed to a peaceable march against violence with friends in Havana Friday when she and fellow writer Orlando Luis Pardo were confronted by three men in plainclothes presumed to be state security, forced into a car, and assaulted.

"No blood," she reported to El Nuevo Herald. "But black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest...[after being] thrown head-first inside, they applied judo or karate holds to us and the punches . . . kept raining down."

Sánchez says she and Pardo were driven around for about 20 minutes before being "violently thrown on the street" near where they were first accosted. Their friends reported being taken to a police station in a second car, where they were questioned and released.

The group was en route to an event its organizers, local musicians, termed "a peaceful performance-march -- neither a protest nor a political demand." A previous gathering had included group theatre but was uneventful.

Another communist country that beats people for speaking out and won't let them leave. Cruelly funny how those are the common threads of communist regimes.


CR

[Beskar]

Also, you missed this other article which is related by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8347409.stm

"Free market is flawed"

[CountArach]

Every time someone calls the USSR Communist I die a little inside. They weren't and they didn't even call themselves that.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Also, you missed this other article which is related by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8347409.stm

"Free market is flawed"

No, a survey says some people think that.

Every time someone calls the USSR Communist I die a little inside. They weren't and they didn't even call themselves that.

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR

[Strike For The South]

Cold war? Never heard of it.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR

Couldn't have put it better myself.

[Centurion1]

Viva la capitalism.


ya'll just think the reds are gone. Dont worry ima start up my militia soon nough and we will take care of bizness.

(seriously anyone wanna join my militia)


On a more serious note. This is a gret day because not only was an evil empire tottering on its dying steps but an entire peoples were freed and reunited with their long lost countrymen (German People)

[A Very Super Market]

An evil bureacracy, to be precise, but that's a bit redundant.

[CountArach]

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR

I'm not going to disagree with you there.

[Strike For The South]

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?
.

So you don't agree with Marxism because it needs to employ the mechanism of a state? Or are you just sad your political philosiphy does exactly the oppisite of what it was supposed to?

[CountArach]

So you don't agree with Marxism because it needs to employ the mechanism of a state? Or are you just sad your political philosiphy does exactly the oppisite of what it was supposed to?

I'm not a Marxist, but that is a long and complicated story that I can't be bothered to relate... And I think you must have misread my post - Marxism is anti-State at its most pure and I have always argued that on this site.

[Strike For The South]

I'm not a Marxist, but that is a long and complicated story that I can't be bothered to relate... And I think you must have misread my post - Marxism is anti-State at its most pure and I have always argued that on this site.

So what do you beilive?

I just ask because I don't understand.

[CountArach]

What I essentially believe is that Marxism at its core is opposed to the Nation State, on the grounds that the Nation State was founded by and for the Bourgeoisie. The best examples of this are the founding of Revolutionary France and America.

[Strike For The South]

What I essentially believe is that Marxism at its core is opposed to the Nation State, on the grounds that the Nation State was founded by and for the Bourgeoisie. The best examples of this are the founding of Revolutionary France and America. ...

Ah, fair enough.

[Centurion1]

An evil bureacracy, to be precise, but that's a bit redundant.

yeah but which sounds better, i mean luke skywalker didnt destroy the Evil Bureaucracy did he/

(yes i am attempting to turnt his thread into a converstaion comparing the soviets to the Evil Empire in star Wars.)

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

It isn't going to become factual regardless of how many times you repeat it. Then again, if you want to argue semantics, Marxism isn't statist but is certainly authoritarian.

[CountArach]

It isn't going to become factual regardless of how many times you repeat it.

Show me at which point Marx talks about the necessity of a state.

Then again, if you want to argue semantics, Marxism isn't statist but is certainly authoritarian.

How can it be Authoritarian without being statist EMFM?

[Strike For The South]

Show me at which point Marx talks about the necessity of a state.

How can it be Authoritarian without being statist EMFM?

I would argue without a state the strong dominate the weak and communism therefore becomes impossible.

A vaccum will always be filled with depravity.

[CountArach]

I would argue without a state the strong dominate the weak and communism therefore becomes impossible. .

With a State the strong dominate the weak anyway, so that would be no different. However, replacing a State with actual Democracy (Meant in the truest direct democracy sense of the word) would allow for this to be rectified to an extent as the local collective can deal with things more effectively.

Anyway, as I said I'm not a Marxist, I just feel that there are parts of it well worth defending. I really do have to study now, so I'm going to go do that. I will undoubtedly return at some later point.

[Samurai Waki]

Is Germany happy now? You made the Soviets cry...

Oh, and thanks Gorbi... I don't care what they say about the head thing.

[Beskar]

if people are going to argue that Stalin was a Marxist, I am going to argue some one else is a nationalist and anyone who adovocate nations is just like that.

In short, quit doing the obvious troll arguments, because it is obvious to yourselves you are incorrect or BG might as well lock this topic.

[Crazed Rabbit]

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state. But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.

I'm not going to disagree with you there.

I think you will. I don't mean Stalinism, I don't mean the USSR. I mean communism, Marxism, Engelism, Socialism, whatever and whichever brand of collectivism you care to mention.

They are all stains on the human soul. What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art? Freedom of thought, of speech?

With a State the strong dominate the weak anyway, so that would be no different. However, replacing a State with actual Democracy (Meant in the truest direct democracy sense of the word) would allow for this to be rectified to an extent as the local collective can deal with things more effectively.

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?

And if a person decides they and others want to work as capitalists outside of your collectivist ownership, what will you do to them? Will you prevent people from working if they don't own the factory? Will you send those who do own factories or build them by themselves to jail?

Have you ever thought that others might not want to be forced into your vision of 'freedom'?

CR

[CountArach]

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state.

Do I really have to point out just how stupid this sentence is?

But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.

I re-iterate. I'm not.

What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art?

So I take it you support the NEA unquestioningly?

Freedom of thought, of speech?

I can't think of a single one.

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?

I don't have the answer to this. I support the existence of a State as a necessary evil until an answer to this can be found.

And if a person decides they and others want to work as capitalists outside of your collectivist ownership, what will you do to them? Will you prevent people from working if they don't own the factory? Will you send those who do own factories or build them by themselves to jail?

What do we do with those who want to live outside of Capitalism now?

EDIT: I just can't be any more... I'm leaving until people can at least identify the most basic terms of political ideology.