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Comment by coldtea

1 day ago

>People - here in Germany as well as abroad - forget too easily what a sinister but also ridiculous state the GDR was

Wait till you hear how sinister its precursor state was

We hear far more about the precursor than the GDR, don't we? (Actually its immediate precursor was Allied Occupied Germany with the GDR being the Soviet zone.)

  • Do we? I’d say it’s pretty close, especially if you include every time that someone shrieks ‘that’s socialism,’ or ‘that’s communism’ every time any social programme is proposed.

    Eg: Shall we improve public healthcare?

    • By "we", I didn't mean Americans, but weaterners. We have the National Health Service where I live and it is a complete mess (I know someone who waited over seven years for a jaw operation, another who has several years to wait for autism screening). I don't want the American system, and the basic principle of the NHS is good but still....

      This AI slop is a pretty accurate description of my local medical practice (bar the cheap joke at beginning and everyone having an English accent): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3U25wNyVRw

      We hardly ever hear about East Germany or all the horrors of living in such a place. Very rarely these days. I've known quite a few people who lived under that regime and they told me what it was like. Everyone was being watched, and even school children had to write spy reports on their neighbours. All while the East German state kept proclaiming how it was a place of freedom and equality.

    • > especially if you include every time that someone shrieks ‘that’s socialism,’ or ‘that’s communism’

      But... why would you include that? They're certainly not discussions of the DDR.

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