Germans feeling nostalgic for their communist past

NYT ^ | Jan. 31, 2004 | Richard Bernstein

[Texas Eagle]

Where do I send my cinder block?

[GeronL]

If there was true socialism

nobody works, productions ends, people starve. end of utopia

[VaBthang4]

ROTFLOL!!!

[GeronL]

The Socialist Fantasy

Capitalism, Envy and the Inner City

[sam_paine]

The workers' housing blocks, with their sometimes Stalinist-classical facades, are actually rather attractive, painted in creamy or buttery or ochre tones.

BARF! This fool from the NYT!!!! We need a Stalin-Disneyland we can lock these Stalin-lovers in and see how romantic it really was.

[foreverfree]

bump

[Revolting cat!]

Now imagine our own cradle to grave welfare state ending suddenly!

[NormsRevenge]

All this has given rise to a sort of East German post-mortem feeling that maybe the East had its good aspects after all, especially a certain economic security and stability, even if your best vacation option was Bulgaria.\

Bulgaria ?

[Revolting cat!]

Great report from the always reliable CIA! Anything about the WMD's in Bulgaria? People don't vacation following countries' descriptions by the CIA semi-competent bureaucrats. In fact, they have some nice Black Sea resorts there, nice climate, Gypsy pickpockets everywhere!

[yooper]

Some of my family escaped from that DDR hellhole. That escape was the root of my familial abhorrence of communism, as well as the root of our current conservative ideology. Anyone who has nostalgic memories of those time is a nutjob.

[NormsRevenge]

LOL... Hey,,just trying to get some bang for the buck out of the CIA intel is all. ;-]

[GeronL]

Now imagine our own cradle to grave welfare state ending suddenly!

we can dream.

[Revolting cat!]

Friends in that part of the world assure me that it'll take a generation or two to get over the Communist nightmare.

[Righty1]

The reality was that the train bridges were supported on what appeared to be giant lab jacks, all the plumbing was above ground (and leaking), and the paint was about equivalent with the rooskie navy. Make a BIG L on your forehead and you will look like a hun in the mirror! This conclusion gives me no joy being a prussian, volga german kraut. But, facts are facts and the only comfort is that frogs are worse.

[GeronL]

I say we privatize anything and everything.... if the free market cannot provide it then we do not need it...

FREE MARKET newsletter archives... very interesting stuff!

[speedy]

The only real "ostalgie" comes from the demented minds of the New York Times reporters. They are so full of it. I will never forget how genuinely depressed their coverage was at the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. They didn't even try to disguise it. Well, now they are recovering, taking up the Baathist cause.

[Cicero]

What's German for that wonderful French phrase, nostalgie a la bou (nostalgia for the mud)?

[speedy]

Agree. If they love the days of Walter Ubricht so much, they can elect guys like that if they want. I have no doubt you could have gone to Munich ten years after Hitler was defeated and found people nostalgic for the good old days of torchlight parades and youth rallies. Wonder if the Times would have found that as cute as they find this.