Berlin Wall, Rest in Pieces...

[Husky_Khan]

Thirty Years ago today, the Berlin Wall came crashing down.

I was born as the Berlin Wall fell. 'Socialist' millennials should learn about the USSR.

Socialism didn't work in the Soviet Union. On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that's an important reminder to today's millennials.

www.usatoday.com

Alas it's only a matter of time before Trump will imitate East Germany and place his own Grenztruppen on our border wall so we can keep economic migrants from fleeing our territory and place them in Concentration Camps... or something.

 

[Scottty]

There's a big difference between a government that wants to keep other people out, and one that wants to keep its own people in.

 

[ShieldWife]

One feature that is nearly universal to communist nations is that they have to put a lot of effort into keeping their own citizens from escaping. This often involves a wall.

Capitalist countries, on the other hand, have problems with keeping people out.

Isn’t it interesting that these utopias created by communism have to work so hard to keep their people from leaving?

 

[Edgeplay_cgo]

I have a f(r)iend who happened to be in Berlin the day The Wall came down. He has a great photo of him, two buddies, and three terrified East German border guards, arm in arm and wearing each others' hats. The look on the German guards' faces was present. They had this deer in the headlamps look that said, "This better work, or we'll all be shot in the morning."

 

[Tyzuris]

I remember an acquaintance saying he visited West Berlin in the end of the 1980s. Even as a child he realized that if a government has to keep its citizens in with a wall and guards with machineguns, then maybe the government has failed and is a shit government and should reform.

Ever since those days, he's been anti-socialist. It seems the best inoculation against socialism is at least a little bit of first-hand experience. Which is proven considering how anti-socialist those former Warsaw Pact and former Soviet Republics are.

 

[gral]

Ever since those days, he's been anti-socialist. It seems the best inoculation against socialism is at least a little bit of first-hand experience. Which is proven considering how anti-socialist those former Warsaw Pact and former Soviet Republics are.

I have a friend who's one of the most anti-socialist people I know. He used to be a leftist, until he visited Cuba...

 

[Deleted member]

I have a friend who's one of the most anti-socialist people I know. He used to be a leftist, until he visited Cuba...

That's precisely why the "It's not real communism" and "it's a plot by the West to impoverish them" canards have become so common, otherwise nobody would take communism seriously at all, too many people actually experienced it.

 

[Cherico]

the saddest thing about the berlin wall is that we learned nothing from the experience.

 

[Liberterrarium]

My parents fled Soviet communism in the forties. My father saw the wall come down as he lay dying.

 

[Deleted member]

My parents fled Soviet communism in the forties. My father saw the wall come down as he lay dying.

I am very proud and thankful that he had the opportunity. Unfortunately my grandfather died in 1983 at the age of 96, so that he could not witness the final triumph of anti-communist forces in Russia. It was an imperfect triumph, but it was still an amazing day.

 

[Liberterrarium]

I am very proud and thankful that he had the opportunity.

Thanks. It's one of my more treasured memories. That and two of my brothers trying to move the television into the bedroom from the den to make the moment possible.

Unfortunately my grandfather died in 1983 at the age of 96, so that he could not witness the final triumph of anti-communist forces in Russia. It was an imperfect triumph, but it was still an amazing day.

I'm sorry to hear that. The massive shame of such (otherwise joyous) events is that the people who need to see them the most never got the opportunity.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

They should rebuild it, for the opposite reason.