Comments on: The Berlin Wall and capitalism

By: The Berlin Wall, the DDR and New Labour « Manicbeancounter’s Weblog

The Berlin Wall, the DDR and New Labour « Manicbeancounter’s Weblog — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:22:19 +0000

[...] Thanks to John Redwood, who stimulated my thoughts. [...]

By: ManicBeancounter

ManicBeancounter — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:43:39 +0000

The fall of the Berlin Wall may not not have been the triumph of capitalism, but it was the collapse of communism. Some elements that we share today in this country.
1. Where everyone had to carry ID cards.
2. A “democratic” country where parliament held no power.
3. Where the official properganda differed from reality.
4. Where every aspect of life was tightly regulated.
5. Arbitary arrest and detention.
6. Endless form filling and checking on every aspect of people’s lives. And where that form filling served at a huge hinderance, but no useful purpose outside of the bureaucratic machine.

It is worthwhile to remember that a moderate socialist party contains elements of the authoritarian left of the Soviet bloc. Their instincts are that only government solutions are the valid, and that private initiative cannot be trusted. That the individual owes everything to the state, and errant views are by definition not just wrong but dangerous.

Whilst we remember died trying to escape the suffocation and those who were persecuted for the slightest protest, it is also worth a history lesson in how the mass of people lead dreary, impoverished lives, made worse by officialdom.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:40:15 +0000

How many people were killed trying to get INTO East Germany, Cuba, North Korea, or any other communist state?

For me that says it all.

We need to pull out of the EU before it all starts over. At least the EU dissidents/ escapees will then have somewhere to escape to!

By: Frugal Dougal

Frugal Dougal — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:39:35 +0000

The eejits who are unhappy with capitalism should reflect that November 9 is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht and the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, fascism occupying the same space as communism if you see the political spectrum not as a line but a circle.

By: James Matthews

James Matthews — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:16:27 +0000

A Foriegn office policy based on the premiss that the conditions for it would never arise. Ahh. Now I understand how Cameron’s Lisbon referendum promise came about.

By: Lindsay McDougall

Lindsay McDougall — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:28:05 +0000

In 1989 your Prime Minister was opposed to German reunification; this just may have something to do with the FO line. As for Germany being peace loving, it is until it gets its own way. Their ambition for domination in Europe extends from the Teutonic knights, through Frederick the Great, Bismark, Kaiser Bill and Adolf Hitler to the angelic Angela Merkel, who foisted the Lisbon Treaty on Europe.

The fall of the Berlin wall was and is a matter for rejoicing. I am no longer so sure that Franco-German rapprochement is in our interest. It has always been a matter of English (and UK) foreign policy to have a balance of power within Europe rather than a single dominant power. I see no reason for accepting a European monolith just because it was created by peaceful means, especially if the peaceful means were anti-democratic and founded on lies. Perhaps a bust up is exactly what we need.

By: Frugal Dougal

Frugal Dougal — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:17:18 +0000

It’s certainly a better anniversary than Kristallnacht or the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, both of which also fall today.

By: Ross J Warren

Ross J Warren — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:07:22 +0000

I think those who draw parallels between the USSR & the E.U. are barking mad.
All of our Nations are democracies and all of our nations are currently being lead by good people. Of course some people are not free in the west, but in every case it’s down to their own foolish behaviour. Many people whine on endlessly about the freedoms we have lost, very few understand the very real gains in real freedom we have achieved in this nation. Of course we do still have problems in the West Drug addiction being one of the very real expressions of enslavement. We also have people enslaved to debt. We are however a free nation and anyone who tells you otherwise is
Not telling the truth. Complacency would be a killer though we must not let down our guard for even a moment. This is why I believe we must keep up our presence in the Afghanistan region. Those people who we fight are slavers and extremely evil in my opinion. If we withdraw we would only have to go back in shortly and free the women and children again. Islam is not the enemy far from it Muslims are our friends but those who abuse their faith to justify evil are clearly the enemy of all.

By: Neil Craig

Neil Craig — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:40:22 +0000

However the collapse allowed this “democratic & peaceloving Germany” to fund unrepentent ……politicians publicly committed ……. to destroy Yugoslavia – a country which had been 50% our ally during the cold war & whose scrifice in WW2 saved the world. The other EU/NATO powers assisted in this because for a socialist Yugoslavia to survive would have suggested that the superiority of our Luddite “capitalism” over their bureaucratic “communism” was not as great as claimed.

By helping these (long serving German politicians-ed) carry out their (unpleasant policy -ed) we retroactively justified all the Soviet fears that the capitalists wanted to destroy them.

By: Bazman

Bazman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:54:28 +0000

You forgot to mention Thatchers resistance to the reunification of Germany John.

By: Stewart Knight

Stewart Knight — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:20:02 +0000

How ironic that Brown is there pontificating on freedom and the courage of those that fought to bring down the wall, when he and most of his cabinet, MPs and party at the time were ardent socialists.(and fellow travellers in some cases -ed)

By: Stuart Fairney

Stuart Fairney — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:12:52 +0000

I’ve seen the beeboids eulogising that good old Commie dictatorship, Cuba. The same country that has political show trials, no free speech or democracy, violation of drug patents, and a reduction of the entire population to poverty and island wide incarceration etc so this coverage (nonsense though it is) can be no surprise. One can imagine the modern day Winston Smith types airbrushing out reality to fit with the project.

Puh-lease privatise them.

By: Mike Stallard

Mike Stallard — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:13:42 +0000

And what a delightful irony that Pravda, of all newspapers, greeted the news last week with the headline:
TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, THE EU IS NOW A REINCARNATION OF THE SOVIET UNION.
Hat tip – Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph.

By: Mike Stallard

Mike Stallard — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:13:08 +0000

And what a delightful irony that Pravda, of all newspapers, greeted the news last week with the headline:
TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, THE EU IS NOW A REINCARNATION OF THE SOVIET UNION.
Haat tip – christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph.