An article on the Miami Herald site explores the status of the former "East Germany" 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Told by an American reporter from the point of view of a 62 year old former East German citizen, Warnick, who was there in the days the wall came down 25 years ago. Warnick is not absolutely able to say that he is better off today. "It's a matter of perspective".
In many ways, life is better for residents of the former East in this unified nation: free speech and elections, the ability to travel, the availability of goods like Warnick’s bike and freedom from government surveillance. But in many other ways, Germany remains a nation divided, and to those from the East, the German reunification that followed the fall began to feel less like being unified than being conquered.
Today, "Ossies," as residents in the former East are called, suffer from higher unemployment and are paid less than their countrymen in the former West. Those who’ve retired find their pensions are significantly lower. Ossies also have far less in savings and assets.
Germany’s two former pieces are seen as fundamentally unequal. This year, the German Parliament passed a minimum wage law that set the bottom line lower in the old East than in the former West. An example of what that means: In September, a new high-end shopping mall opened along what had been the wall in formerly East Berlin. Employees there earn about $1,400 a year less than employees at the mall across the street, in the former West Berlin.
The article goes on to explain the differences in perception of land ownership, and the abandonment of land by fleeing easterners before the wall went up. But the records of ownership remained, and after reunification, those that had moved west started reclaiming property, sometimes impoverishing the current residents. Warnick explained how this affected him personally when his East German "99 year lease" was suddenly interrupted by the return of the former owner.
Its an interesting read, and I'd like to know the views of any Soylentils from that area.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @02:59AM
So now they have an apartheid system based on where your house happened to fall when Americans and Russians started drawing lines all over their land. Congratulations on overcoming nazism and communism. You burn books if they contain swastikas rather than the other way around.
I guess it's a good thing that now a majority of the population has Turkish origins.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday November 09 2014, @05:05AM
Haven't we learned from the last 500 years that colonization is harmful to the native populace? Don't we have international laws against this sort of ethnocide now? Or is it OK because Germans are an evil race?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 10 2014, @07:23AM
You burn books if they contain swastikas rather than the other way around.
You burn swastikas if they contain books?
I guess it's a good thing that now a majority of the population has Turkish origins.
Yeah, because exchanging a European problem for a Middle Eastern problem (observe how politically obtuse^Wcorrect I'm being!) is such a big improvement. Or is that a political for a religious problem? You know what I mean.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @03:43AM
The usual telling of the story goes:
Actually, it was to keep criminals out. Specifically, Americans and their proxies.
USA used explosives, firebombs, and chains thrown across power lines to illegally disrupt commerce.
USA poisoned livestock and added contaminants to children's food.
For a long time now, the USA Government's tactics have been those of shameless assholes.
The Story Of The Berlin Wall (Without The American Lies) [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [consortiumnews.com]
.
Oh, and FTFS: impoverishing the current residents
Yup. Capitalism will do that. Capitalism is all about concentrating wealth.
the German Parliament passed a minimum wage law that set the bottom line lower in the old East than in the former West
Their brand of Democracy doesn't seem to be working any better than ours.
Actually, San Francisco just voted in a $15 minimum wage.
4 Red states also upped the minimum.
(All local measures. Congress sucks.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @04:08AM
Not going to last long. they are going to try to abolish min wage laws among other things like repealing everything done in the past 8 years soon.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday November 09 2014, @09:41AM
That's why there were no restrictions on East Germans entering the west, but the conk ams of seat Germany were banned from the East. Right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @11:02AM
Want to try that again? This time in English.
N.B. The Preview button works well. You should try it.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @12:37PM
When citizens are asked to vote on policy issues, they generally favor progressive policies. When they are asked to vote on representatives, they generally prefer authoritarian father figures.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @08:17PM
on policy issues, they generally favor progressive policies
Yup. Reality has a well-known Liberal bias.
they generally prefer authoritarian father figures
Only those with a malformed brain. [google.com]
...and Roger Ailes, et al, have learned how to capitalize on the politics of fear.
The President's party tends to lose ground in the middle of his 2nd term.
FDR, one of the most popular presidents ever, lost a record number of congressional seats.
(He was reelected 2 more times after that.)
The Blue candidates ran away from Obama and Obamacare (which has allowed a lot of voters to finally get medical insurance even with a preexisting condition).
Obama didn't stump for his party either.
The Blues didn't differentiate themselves from the Reds this cycle.
Left-leaning voters weren't jazzed enough to leave home and cast a vote for the lazy Blue candidates.
The Dems deserved to lose.
It reminds me of Will Rogers' line "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday November 09 2014, @01:14PM
For a long time now, the USA Government's tactics have been those of shameless assholes.
Typical "1984" antics. Note that your link doesn't even provide a shred of evidence for these particular assertions that you wrote down. We have a reference for the claim that "“The open border in Berlin exposed the GDR [East Germany] to massive espionage and subversion" (note how the author makes a big deal of the claim coming from "conservative cold warriors"), but not one for the claim that the US spiked East German school milk with soap. This is a typical propaganda move - mix lies in with cited facts. I think it more likely that a) the alleged sabotage events didn't happen, b) the East German government in typical displays of bureaucratic incompetence caused the above incidents and just blamed Western interference as a matter of course, or c) the events were deliberately staged by East Germany in order to generate a propaganda pretext for a closed border.
I recall a week ago that you lectured me [soylentnews.org] about how to do "denialism and distortion through making up your own 'facts'." Why should I take advice from anyone who just parrots stale Cold War propaganda?
Oh, and FTFS: impoverishing the current residents
Yup. Capitalism will do that. Capitalism is all about concentrating wealth.
the German Parliament passed a minimum wage law that set the bottom line lower in the old East than in the former West
Capitalism remains about private ownership of capital. That's it. And in the face of your assertion, the most equitable societies in the world are capitalist societies. The US does pretty well and the best of the breed are the Scandinavian countries which are capitalist with certain welfare state mods. Why can't you be concerned about real problems?
(Score: 1) by deimios on Sunday November 09 2014, @04:59AM
Having lived in a communist country let me shed some light on some of the seemingly unfair points:
1. In communism you had plenty of money but no ways to spend them. Most of the basic foodstuffs like meat were rationed so a barter economy emerged where everybody stole something at their workplace and bartered to obtain other stolen goods. For example somebody working at a factory could trade spare parts for meat from a butcher. Or plastic bags for chocolate.
2. In communism you had your workplace and even your housing guaranteed. Regardless of how well you did your work, you were forced, by law, to have a workplace. You can imagine that people didn't really try too hard when they knew they would have a job regardless of what they do.
These 2 points sadly left a deep mark in the people from ex-communist countries. They tend to steal more and work less. Not saying all of them do, but there is a definite pattern. So maybe the difference in wages is because of performance, not because of discrimination.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday November 09 2014, @05:10AM
You left out the "tourist" stores...
I visited Cuba back in the mid-70's and made the mistake of buying some shirts for a guy at the tourist store; I was left with a lot of cash which wasn't on my currency exchange book...
I panicked because taking Cuban currency out of the island was forbidden and was about to just throw it out when we got to the airport... But found that the stores at the airport would take Cuban pesos without the exchange book, so I spent it all there.
Years later I realized it was all set up to make you spend more...
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 09 2014, @09:51AM
There's also another point. After the reunion, the western companies bought out almost all of the east German industry. Often basically to get rid of competition, with the obvious effects to economy. As a result, many people (and obviously, especially the best) went to the west to work there. The result is that the population in the east is shrinking, and at the same time it's getting even worse productivity-wise.
This take-over of the East German companies by West German ones is probably the main reason of the East Germans to feel conquered. Because, frankly, their economy was.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @01:14PM
I find it hard to believe you've lived in a communist country because historically, no country has ever adopted communism. Sure, some have associated themselves with the idea, but none of them executed anything remotely close to it. Calling your state communist doesn't make it any more communist, than calling myself a Jedi knight makes me one. I can tell you for a fact that I can't in fact lift objects with my mind or fire lightning arcs from my fingers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @06:08PM
When you have a violent revolution[1] the people who rise to the top tend to be the ones who could exert the most violence.
And guess what happens when Mr Most Violent is at the top? Does he hold elections? In rare cases perhaps. But in most cases he makes himself Dictator for Life.
That's why so many communist revolutions end up creating dictatorships.
If their implementation plan can be so stupid, you should start considering whether the rest of their plan is stupid too.
[1] Secessions/splits don't count if most of the top in the relevant territories remain about the same- e.g. not a real revolution.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Monday November 10 2014, @05:42AM
Of course you're not a Jedi. A real Jedi would know that Force Lightning is a dark side ability, and its use is banned by the Jedi Council.
You have much to learn in the ways of the force.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 10 2014, @07:19AM
I fail to see how using "that thing that has only ever existed in theory" is more useful than "that thing that several countries have actually implemented on a real-life basis that we keep trying to talk about until pedantic twats twirl their moustaches and say, 'A-ha!'."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 10 2014, @07:52PM
I've covered this topic in a previous post. [soylentnews.org]
The Five Nations in North America (before white people showed up with guns), the Shakers (again, founded before there was a USA), the Paris Commune of 1871, and Barcelona 1936 - 1937 were all communal societies.
Almost every instances of True Communism has been wiped out by Capitalists and their hired thugs with guns.
There have been enough examples to demonstrate that Communism works and works well (several of them before Marx or Engels ever scribbled a word).
It can't, however, survive mass murder by other greedy humans who insist on taking more than they need.
.
There's another nugget in the best-fit link a couple of posts down.
...and how many times does Capitalism have to fail yet again before you acknowledge that it is a deeply flawed system?
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09 2014, @02:57PM
My Cuban friend explained the system very well based on what he heard from older person once "I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Sunday November 09 2014, @06:04AM
War inevitably brings blowback, and Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war land [wikipedia.org] to the Soviet Empire. In addition to the land and human cost [wikipedia.org], the Soviets dismantled much of what remained after the war [wikipedia.org] as punishment and reparations.
The Western Allies were dismantling their share of Germany for a few years but realized "It makes no sense to forbid the most skilled workers in Europe from producing as much as they can in a continent that is desperately short of everything." Thanks to the easing of sanctions and Adenauer's administration beginning economic reforms, West Germany built up while Communist Germany was considered a buffer state by the Soviets.
In what may become a parallel story, when North and South Korea become a single nation again, it is likely the formerly Communist part will remain behind for a century. As with Germany, getting formerly unfree people to take economic control of their lives is not a switch you can just flip.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]