...and they usually can't name anything after that. Some people might mention the Stasi but that's pretty rare. I guess you'd have a number of people like me that were raised evangelical who were told even owning a Bible in East Germany was illegal (it wasn't) and churches were banned (they weren't); but that's such obvious bullshit I won't even address it here.
So when you ask US Americans about East Germany, the wall is the first thing that they will say, every time. It's the hallmark of why they (and communism in general) were "bad". East Germany doesn't have a leader they know about like Stalin or Mao. It doesn't have a scary name for "prisons" like "gulag". And it doesn't have a famine that anticommunists can exaggerate and blame on communism. But they do have a wall.
OK, in the ~30 years of the Berlin Wall's existence, do you know how many people were killed trying to cross it?
Not millions. Not tens of thousands. 140. Over a 30 year period. US Americans have no idea this is the actual number. Instead, we have movies like Bridge of Spies. In that movie, Tom Hanks is in a train going over to the eastern side of Berlin. And in the four seconds the train is above the zone behind the wall, of course they show someone crossing the wall getting shot. Despite the fact that there would have been only say 4-5 people that would have happened to in a given year across the length of the whole wall, not just the spot Hanks' character was at. The odds of that happening at that exact spot at that exact time were a million to one. But that doesn't stop Hollywood from including it.
But yeah, the GDR is evil and terrible for killing 140 people. I'm sure there were individual months where Obama droned more innocent civilians than that. But the US is the good guys, right? That's the worst the US can come up with about the GDR. 140 people. The US can slaughter innocents by the millions but that's not evil because reasons. Wall bad, agent orange good.
And of course, US Americans never learn about the reasons for building the wall in the first place. The US and FRG used West Berlin as a major base of operations for spying and sabotage into the Eastern Bloc. Something had to be done, or the CIA et al would continue to use West Berlin as an easy access point. I'm pretty sure the wall's main purpose was keeping folks out more than in. And yes, brain drain out of the GDR was a problem. The west absolutely pumped people in the GDR with (not necessarily incorrect for labor aristocrats) notions that they could be pretty well off in the west. Was the wall the right solution for that? Probably not, but I'm not in their shoes and I can see why they did it.
Now, about the Stasi. It's a great word, like "gulag". It sounds scary, right? Most US Americans aren't familiar with it, but the dedicated anti-communists will always bring it up. Do you know what the secret police in the FRG were called? Probably not, but don't feel bad. It's not like we were ever taught about them. But the FRG did have their own secret police, and they acted with as much impunity as the Stasi, just against leftists. Meanwhile, in the GDR... as long as you weren't a CIA asset, a Nazi, or advocated against the working class (i.e. for capitalism)... the Stasi had no interest in you. Yes, they collected a lot of info on folks. But I'm sure the data profile that Facebook or Google have on most Americans would put the Stasi to shame. And those corporations have zero problems handing that info off to law enforcement in order to put you in the slammer. But Americans think this is perfectly ok because Facebook and Google are pRiVaTE coRpOrAtiOnS, and corporations aren't able to limit our freedoms. Not to mention, I remember seeing some post-unification polls of East Germans about the things they didn't like about life there, and the Stasi was waaaay down on the list.
Basically, US Americans are the most deeply propagandized people on the planet. The capitalists built up these scary communist boogeymen that were apparently so evil. But when you learn the truth, you see that on their worst days, East Germany was still a far better country than the US could hope to be on it's best day.
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They already acknowledged this. Are you familiar with a thing called "imperialism"? I heard it has some economic advantages.
i sure do :(
Life was better in East Germany than under capitalism. The West Germans were a labor aristocracy in an international system of labor exploitation. Their living standards were propped up by the immiseration of foreign labor.
West Germanys economy was always and still is export heavy. They produce more value than they consume unless you do away with the LTV.
I largely agree with you, but in this instance I think you are very wrong. The existence of a global imperial system creates an environment in which a high technology export economy can operate and function. The global imperial system of extraction of resources and labor, lowers input commodity prices as well as systematically eliminated local and domestic commodity production. Additionally Germany benefited from being a bullwark of capital against the Socialist East even if we grant, which I wouldn't go so far as to do, that the average west German worker didn't directly benefit from imperial wealth transfers. I have see some data, and to be fair this is for the past 30 years not specifically for the period in question that up to half of all economic growth in the imperial core countries, and this includes post unification Germany, has been from imperial extraction and value transfers.
Yes your thesis is correct that there is ultimately no excuse for a socialist project not providing for its people better than capitalism. Effectively whining because capital 'cheats' and we could have won 'if only those dastardly capitalists didn't exploit people' is a bullshit cop out. That being said accurately understanding the challenges a socialist project faces and being able to explain to people the true costs of commodities under capitalism is extremely critical to any leftist project.
Yeah that's how imperialism works. They import cheap stolen raw materials then export finished commodities at higher prices back to the people they stole those resources from. Not to mention things like VAT taxes which are higher than the actual wages paid to people in the Global South, which of course go towards maintaining a certain living standard for people in the imperial core.
Of course, comrade. I absolutely appreciate a nuanced and informative take (and given that I'm an American and I believe you are closer to Germany than me, I'm sure you are more familiar with the former GDR than I am). We do ourselves no favors if we don't understand where former AES states failed. The point of my post is attacking the propaganda which US Americans were fed growing up regarding the GDR. It was portrayed as cartoonishly evil. My point was to interrogate one specific point of propaganda (the wall), understand it, and then compare it to the atrocities that the US perpetuates that Americans have zero qualms about.
Guilty as charged :)
Well, I will respectfully disagree here. Admittedly, I have been consuming plenty of information about the good aspects of the GDR. But it's hard to watch say the documentary Das Andere Leben, to see how these people talk about the lives they had in the GDR and the good they tried to accomplish, and not feel like the GDR was fundamentally a "good" state that got some things wrong. And had they not faced the intense pressure put on them over the decades by the capitalist powers, then I don't doubt they would have ironed out the problems themselves in time.
I don't disagree at all with the idea that our socialism must also be productive. I agree. But I think it also has to go hand-in-hand with our society completely re-evaluating and rethinking how we live. Consumption levels in the west are very much unsustainable. The US relies on environmental devastation and exploitation of the global south. Changing that will result in a lower standard of living in material terms for Americans for now - that's not something I would compromise on with "my" socialism. I think we need to be at a level of global consumption that is sustainable, and then look to technological advances to push out the boundary of what's possible. And I think we need to change society to think differently about commodities and what we "need". It's not just a matter of convincing people to make do with less, but to fundamentally rethink what matters. To try and offer them a vision of a better future, stronger communities, and more fulfilling social relationships in exchange for excessive commodity consumption.
You can’t out compete imperialism? Good lesson, embrace third worldism
Why was this removed? There was grounds for disagreement sure but it wasn't grounds for removal.
cut too close to the bone
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If that was grounds for removal there would be no posts on hexbear.net.