20 years since the wall came down.

[DotCommunist]

I suppose the 'fallout' from Nagasaki and Hiroshima gave even the most hawkish of authorities pause for thought.

 

[stethoscope]

Do you have a cite for that? Or evan an explanation of how this makes sense to you? Something like, 'all the countries which called themselves socialist weren't really socialist after all'?

Are you confusing socialism with communism?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not much traffic iirc

Not much traffic and a decent (and cheap) public transport system too.
But hey, everyone wants a Merc, don't they?

 

[ViolentPanda]

and they were built by commies too

socalism could'nt feed themselves the system did'nt fucking work its going to take another 10 years for germany to bring the east up to the same state as west germany

The problem for "feeding themselves" wasn't one of not having the capacity to feed themselves, but rather the failure of central planning. Planting crops that have been decided by a committee is not a sensible way to grow food, even when you have places as fertile as the Ukraine.
As for "bringing the east up", at least part of that is due to Kohl's bureaucrats shutting down most Ossi industry in 1991-92 rather than starting to modernise back then. Result: Massively higher unemployment, infrastructure that has degenerated during over 15 years of non-use, and the loss of the good with the bad.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Tonight is the night, 20 years ago tonight when the wall was torn down.

Do you remember where you were at the time?

I watched it on TV, I might have been in Cardiff or I may have been in England with my parents I can't fully remember.

I was sitting in my bedsit, raising a glass of Berliner Kindl and thinking "thank fuck".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Do you have a cite for that? Or evan an explanation of how this makes sense to you? Something like, 'all the countries which called themselves socialist weren't really socialist after all'?

(On the tangent: I learned to drive in the family Maxi, and have always thought it a perfectly fine car.)

First, separate your preconceptions about "socialism" from your preconceptions about "communism" (they're not the same thing, as the Yanks seem to assume), because unless you do that, there's no point in anyone trying to give you an explanation.

 

[ViolentPanda]

In the absence of the guinea pigs' informed consent, about as worthy as WWII Japanese medical experiments on POWs.

Do politicians EVER get the informed consent of the population in ANY situation in ANY society?
Except in Utopia, obviously.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He says in 2009.

Ain't hindsight wonderful?!!!

 

[likesfish]

I remember the inner german border grim scary place all the weapons and guards were to stop people getting out.

Face it EU and the US worry about keeping people out.
The Soviet union had to worry about people leaving the Berlin wall came about because without it East germany would have been empty.
But thats because the west was so evil people could'nt wait to get here.

 

[LLETSA]

They had plenty of these

but the average Russian couldn't get a refrigerator that worked.

Yes they could. I've never been in a Russian flat that lacked one.

And they were made to last.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yes they could. I've never been in a Russian flat that lacked one.

And they were made to last.

What was the brand name?

 

[newharper]

I was sitting in my bedsit, raising a glass of Berliner Kindl and thinking "thank fuck".

I was in a London hotel shouting. Saturday I was back home in Hamburg. Living on one of the few hills (Blankenese) on the north german plain it would be facile to claim we could see them coming.

However Saturday came and we went to shop in the town centre and you could hear and smell the Trabis before they arrived. Thousands and thousands of Ossies drove over on that first weekend, they didn't have any money but no -one cared. On that day everyone was celebrating.

The Ossies just walked around with amazement, and even the very knowing Hamburgers were entranced. It was one of those days when even the most cynical of us get goosebumps.

 

[weltweit]

I would have loved to have been in Germany when the wall came down.
It was a historic moment, not something I will get the chance to see again.

I was in Erfurt and then Hellersdorf East Berlin about half a year after the wall came down.

 

[LLETSA]

What was the brand name?

I don't know. It was nigh on twenty years ago. You can probably find out though.

It's well known that Soviet consumer durables, although not as readily available as in the West, and despite sometimes erratic performance, were long-lasting, often passed down to the next generation in good working order and lasting many years after that. Wasn't Solzhenitsyn shocked and contemptuous at the built-in obsolescence of Western goods, and the general disregard for the concept of repair?

In terms of consumer goods and general living standards, in 1988-91 the average Soviet flat reminded me of the typical British working class home of my earliest memories in the late sixties (although the tellies were colour.)

 

[LLETSA]

I would have loved to have been in Germany when the wall came down.
It was a historic moment, not something I will get the chance to see again.

I was in Erfurt and then Hellersdorf East Berlin about half a year after the wall came down.

Don't worry. If you're not yet a pensioner you'll see even more momentous events now that consumer capitalism has begun to crumble.

 

[Belushi]

Face it EU and the US worry about keeping people out.

Yes, twenty years of Free Market Capitalism and still Eadtern Europeans are trying to get to Western Europe...

 

[peterkro]

I don't know. It was nigh on twenty years ago. You can probably find out though.

It's well known that Soviet consumer durables, although not as readily available as in the West, and despite sometimes erratic performance, were long-lasting, often passed down to the next generation in good working order and lasting many years after that. Wasn't Solzhenitsyn shocked and contemptuous at the built-in obsolescence of Western goods, and the general disregard for the concept of repair?

In terms of consumer goods and general living standards, in 1988-91 the average Soviet flat reminded me of the typical British working class home of my earliest memories in the late sixties (although the tellies were colour.)

Stinol produced about 40% of Russian fridges,what they were branded as I don't know (they're now owned by an Italian company). Many years ago I brought a Russian made washing machine from a place in Brixton,simple reliable and build like a brick shithouse.

 

[weltweit]

Don't worry. If you're not yet a pensioner you'll see even more momentous events now that consumer capitalism has begun to crumble.

Well, I don't agree with you, but say that I did.

What would be the system after that?

 

[likesfish]

Yes, twenty years of Free Market Capitalism and still Eadtern Europeans are trying to get to Western Europe...

because soviet style goverment failed so badly the mess is still being cleared up.
Unless your going to argue everyone was an idiot in eastern europe. The systems few good points were overwhelmed by the repression incompetence and failure.

 

[LLETSA]

Well, I don't agree with you, but say that I did.

What would be the system after that?

How should I know?

 

[LLETSA]

because soviet style goverment failed so badly the mess is still being cleared up.
Unless your going to argue everyone was an idiot in eastern europe. The systems few good points were overwhelmed by the repression incompetence and failure.

There's a good amount of incompetence and failure come to light on the, ahem, victorious side, of late. Not to mention no shortage of repression being unleashed by its hand.

When the shit hits the fan on this side it will make what happened after the fall of the Communist regimes look like kid's party games. And it's started.

 

[weltweit]

... When the shit hits the fan on this side it will make what happened after the fall of the Communist regimes look like kid's party games. And it's started.

But this system, at the individual player level, is adaptive which is its great strength over command economies. The only way captalism could fail in any catestrophic way would be a systemic failure as we saw the start of during the banking fiasco. But the banking fiasco was averted.

So what doom exactly are you mongering for us LLETSA?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I don't know. It was nigh on twenty years ago. You can probably find out though.

It's well known that Soviet consumer durables, although not as readily available as in the West, and despite sometimes erratic performance, were long-lasting, often passed down to the next generation in good working order and lasting many years after that. Wasn't Solzhenitsyn shocked and contemptuous at the built-in obsolescence of Western goods, and the general disregard for the concept of repair?

In terms of consumer goods and general living standards, in 1988-91 the average Soviet flat reminded me of the typical British working class home of my earliest memories in the late sixties (although the tellies were colour.)

I recall an APEC conference in Vancouver. We were out for a walk, and got stopped by the RCMP at Granville Street. The road was closed to allow Clinton's, then Yeltsin's motorcades to pass by to the airport.

Clinton's came first. All the trucks, cop cars etc, you'd expect, and a couple of stretch Cadillacs, one of which contained the Prez. Where we were standing was on a bit of a hill, and the vehicles were accelerating up it. The limos purred up the hill.

Next was Yeltsin's convoy. Yeltsin was in a stretch Zil. When the Zil driver hit the gas to get up the hill, the engine sounded like the car was a 63 Pontiac Parisienne.

 

[skyscraper101]

Yeltsin was in a stretch Zil. When the Zil driver hit the gas to get up the hill, the engine sounded like the car was a 63 Pontiac Parisienne.

You'll have to explain that to me.

It sounded good? Or bad?

sorry

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You'll have to explain that to me.

It sounded good? Or bad?

sorry

It didn't sound like a modern car. It sounded like the engine and muffler of a car from 30 years in the past.

 

[LLETSA]

But this system, at the individual player level, is adaptive which is its great strength over command economies. The only way captalism could fail in any catestrophic way would be a systemic failure as we saw the start of during the banking fiasco. But the banking fiasco was averted.

So what doom exactly are you mongering for us LLETSA?

I'm not necessarily saying that capitalism per se will fail but that the days of the consumer capitalism we've all come to accept as somehow natural are numbered.

How will it fail? By a series of crises such as the one we've already entered. There will be recoveries but they'll be based on the reinflating of bubbles, which will inevitably burst. Far from being 'adaptive', you can already see that the West has run out of both ideas and options. Factor in the accelerating competition for resources that is also inevitable as new, vastly populated industrial powers set on emulating (economically at least) Western consumerism continue to rise, and you realise that, like everything, it will not last forever. Competition for resources is, going on the past record of the human race, unlikely to be handled peacefully as it accelerates. It could feasibly put an end to us all, even if inadvertently, and if it doesn't there will be massive social dislocation. People who've grown up under the softest way of living in human history will wonder what the hell has hit them when the system starts to fail, and the political repercussions will be ugly. There isn't going to be a relatively smooth easing into what is, essentially, another version of the same system that the aftermath of the fall of the Communist regimes represented. And there are no political solutions, only panaceas and stop-gap measures.

For the children of the kids of today, consumer capitalism, as we've known it, will be a thing of the past.

 

[LLETSA]

I recall an APEC conference in Vancouver. We were out for a walk, and got stopped by the RCMP at Granville Street. The road was closed to allow Clinton's, then Yeltsin's motorcades to pass by to the airport.

Clinton's came first. All the trucks, cop cars etc, you'd expect, and a couple of stretch Cadillacs, one of which contained the Prez. Where we were standing was on a bit of a hill, and the vehicles were accelerating up it. The limos purred up the hill.

Next was Yeltsin's convoy. Yeltsin was in a stretch Zil. When the Zil driver hit the gas to get up the hill, the engine sounded like the car was a 63 Pontiac Parisienne.

Yes, but so what?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, but so what?

Obviously Johnny believes that a man and/or a culture should be judged by the ability to build a certain amount of excess/unnecessary engine capacity into official cars, so that statesmen are given smooth and un-noisy rides, rather than hearing the engine labour.
Myself, I think they should all ride in tumbrils.

 

[Idris2002]

Obviously Johnny believes that a man and/or a culture should be judged by the ability to build a certain amount of excess/unnecessary engine capacity into official cars, so that statesmen are given smooth and un-noisy rides, rather than hearing the engine labour.
Myself, I think they should all ride in tumbrils.

Given Boris Y.'s fondness for the bottle, who wouldn't notice if either the limo or the tumbril had a smooth ride or not.