Comment by dijit
3 hours ago
its only with the benefit of hindsight (and being on the winning side- thus the propaganda was never dispelled) that we consider the stasi and so on the way we do.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.. might just be a duck.
I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.
> I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.
"normal life" under the Stasi was constant political terror and suppression.
The death counts are low because they thought death too little of a penalty for opposing them - they used psychological warfare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung) and torture instead.
The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims states that there were between 300,000 and 500,000 victims of the Stasi's use of psychological warfare, direct physical torture and gross human rights violations: https://web.archive.org/web/20210909114942/https://irct.org/....
Nobody that I know of in the USA felt compelled to build a giant balloon to fly their family to Canada yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany_balloon_escape
If we don’t try to delete the data off our phones then the anti-freedom brigade has already won.
We're just not at that stage yet, but we're getting there.
It's already a crime (in the books) to drive out of several red states for women's health care reasons, and they'll follow you on flock if they can.
Mark Bray had his and his family's airline tickets to Spain out of Newark "mysteriously cancelled" while in line after checking in their baggage.
Imagine the stories the currently ICE-detained could tell. Hunted in the streets like animals and stuck in cages, with no right to due process.
Sure, not as bad. Woohoo.
Be that as it may, observe that the directions are opposite.
Planning, attempting to, or helping people escape (not stay) was the #1 reason for Stasi arrests.
Specifically, the most frequent Stasi arrest charges were Republikflucht ("fleeing the republic") and Fluchthelfer ("helping others flee")
Also, the Stasi ran on roughly 1 informant per 60–180 residents. Your network of friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors would have several. They officially criminalized private speech, correspondence and travel. The US surveillance system is bad, but the Stasi informant network and set of official consequences was at such a level as to cause constant fear and dread for everyone.
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As others point out, in the DDR one could not LEAVE. The main reason we have to have large sweeps for people coming here illegally is because administrations other than Obama and Trump turned a blind eye and did little enforcement. The Biden admin went to far as being negligent in their enforcement, so now there is a lot of backlog.
There are very few if any country that does not enforce immigration rules. Let any American try to live illegally in Canada. Sure, they can live under the radar like you can in Mexico too, but if they catch up to you, goodbye. Mexico doesn’t even treat its own returning citizens well. If you have not been a taxpayer you have to assume many things tax paying Mexicans get for free like education and healthcare. People act like we’re an aberration for enforcing immigration laws. We’re not. Go check out South Africa and see how they treat illegals.
> I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.
That's wrong.
I am sure you do not speak German, because otherwise you'd have a lot more information available.
If you do speak German, listen to Dieter Hallervorden. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJh9ejnpvFc
He explained why he escaped from the DDR. And they ALL knew that the cops were sniffing on them. Of course they considered the cops as evil and invasive, even by today standards.
But I consider what the US/UK are doing to be invasive, and if the governments fell I might be proven right (hell, Snowden already proved it over a decade ago- yet here we are).
He was not a “normal person”, normal people are like your neighbour who lives simply and doesn’t engage in politics except to share their discomfort about some relatively trivial grievance like the price of eggs.
Soviet era under Stalin was brutal.
Soviet famine of 1930–1933
"It is estimated that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died from starvation across the Soviet Union. In addition, 50 to 70 million Soviet citizens starved during the famine but ultimately survived."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...
Great Purge
"Scholars estimate the death toll of the Great Purge at 700,000 to 1.2 million."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
We blame the Soviet government for famine, but that’s not necessarily the opinion of people living at the time. Famine tended to occur every ~10 years due to natural weather variability so while 1930-1933 was unusually brutal it was just one of a very long string of famine. For example the Russian famine of 1921–1922 killed 5 million from a drought + WWI. Which was preceded by the famine of 1906-1908 which was preceded by the famine of 1901–1902, though these where less significant.
Famine was so common you need extreme outliers like 1601–1603 which killed ~1/3 of the population before they tend to show up in history books.
You might not realise it, but you're proving my point to some extent.
We don't look at the deaths of our own people as "oppressive" despite the fact that the circumstances that caused them to die was our system.
I'm not some bleeding heart liberal or anti-capitalist... I just have an open mind to the idea that we're not necessarily the good guys just because we are us and I look at what is factually true - as in, how could we be described by a non-sympathetic entity.
Everyone is their own hero. Nobody believes sincerely that they're the baddie.
Chronic lower respiratory diseases account for 145k people a year in the US, and that is a consequence (largely) of car dependence...
Or, more directly, 20,000 people a year die due to malnutrition and starvation, tallied over years (as most do) that can rapidly rise to over 100k in a half-decade.
The UK has an excess mortality rate of 330,000 linked to healthcare cuts (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000...).
I get that the numbers were talking about are much higher, but it doesn't follow logically to me that ordinary citizens knew that their government was the "bad" one with its actions.
Hell, I know Russian families who genuinely believe Putin is doing the right thing right now. So, I don't blindly accept that my government is right just because I think "we're the goodies".