This is just what we need these days: Uplifting communist photography. More specifically, a nostalgic retrospective of art photography produced in communist East Germany.
They just don’t make German democratic republics like they used to.
Tag Archives: Communism
The Protective Hand
You’ve heard of the invisible hand being everywhere in the free market system, right? Well if you’re a left-wing terrorist in Germany you can count on having a protective hand taking care of you, too. When it comes to the German justice system, I mean.
Four years for being an accessory to murder? Deduct the trial time, which they already have, and RAF terrorist Verena Becker will be out on the street in no time (the safe German street, now that the RAF isn’t active there anymore).
What can I say? The German judicial system has ein Herz für linke Terroristen (left-wing terrorists). They are the ones who are always the Opfer (the victims). The system made them that way or something. That’s why this article confirms “that the sentence was relatively light, but that’s a good thing.” Why that’s a good thing is still not clear to me. But I’m not German.
Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry insists that portions of the BfV files on Becker will remain confidential, as will passages in the documents related to when she was pardoned in 1989 by then German President Richard von Weizsäcker. All of this incomprehensible secretiveness has only contributed to fostering more speculation.
Michael Buback, the son of the murdered prosecutor, added some emotional moments to the trial. In a statement before the court, the chemistry professor from Göttingen admitted to feeling “attacked, insulted and disparaged” by federal prosecutors. What’s more, he accused investigators of having held a “protective hand” over Becker.
Mark Your Calendars And Place Your Bets
I had no idea Auflösungserscheinungen (signs of disintegration) could occur this quickly with “progressive” political parties, not even in Germany. But disintegrating they are, two of them, right before our very eyes.
Let’s make a bet:
In three years at the latest, the Left Party will have completely lost whatever very, very little relevance they are said to have once had (still have?).
In two years time, no one will be reporting about the Pirate Party at all anymore. Not even Der Spiegel.
If I lose the bet, I’ll admit that I was wrong and you can buy me a cup of coffee. If I’m right, I won’t have to admit I was wrong and you can still buy me the cup of coffee.
“Ich bin müde, ausgepowert, erschöpft.”
PS: Little Big Man Oskar Lafontaine just shot himself in the foot for the last time (I hope) and the Left Party is now mutating back to roll over and die on either side of its natural East-West divide, with the Communists of the East literally dying off like flies and the Möchtegern (wannabe) Communists of the West having lost interest and now wandering off for the latest next great cause (see Pirate Party). The Pirate Party has already long reached its fraternity house gag zenith and just will not function, “transparancy” or not, because it refuses to develop a platform more suitable for the inhabitants of Planet Earth, much less a structure of any kind, and the people supposedly running the show throw in the towels quicker than they can learn how to use them (they don’t bathe regulary, get it?). That guy up there (and the guy right after him) quite from exhaustion after a couple of days of something that used to be called “work,” just like that.
I wish I could make stuff like this up but I can’t.
Die Lötzsche geht von Bord
Germany‘s Left Party was shocked or something yesterday by the surprise resignation of one of its top two fearless leaders, Gesine Loetszch.
I thought she’d never leave – but I’m going to miss her anyway. Really. She clearly said and did everything wrong you could possibly say and do (it must be hard being a communist who has to pretend not to be), but she still couldn’t get her leaky little Linke ship to sink. Sure, it’s run aground and all that and won’t be sailing anywhere ever again (not that it was ever going anywhere in the first place), but the damned thing just won’t go under.
I guess it’s time to bring in the demolition crew and scuttle this puppy for good.
Der Napoleon von der Saar, die schöne Kommunistin aus Berlin.
Left Party Victims Victimized Again
What a shock or something.
Around a third of Germany’s far-left Left Party’s parliamentarians are under observation by the country’s Verfassungsschutz or BfV (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), a domestic intelligence agency designed to, well, protect the German constitution.
This is outrageous, I guess, and Germans everywhere are empört (scandalized), as usual. How could it possibly be, they ask themselves, that a political party having members who…
belonging to the “Communist Platform,” claim that in order to introduce a new social order, “illogical, unobjective, unjust and pure power” will be necessary at first…
belonging to the “Marxist Forum,” maintain that “the ruling elite” must be removed from the “operating levers of state power” and have their “economical power base wrested from them…”
get enthusiastic about a party leader (Gesine Lötzsch) who congratulates Fidel Castro on his “fullfilled life of armed struggle and many accomplished works…”
having belonged to the Stasi (the GDR’s Ministry of State Security) still, in essence, belong to the GDR’s Ministry of State Security…
How could it be, like I said, that they could possibly, by any wild stretch of the imagination, ever be considered to be a threat to modern German democratic society based as it is upon the rule of law?
Like I said, what a shock or something.
Es geht nicht darum, eine Partei unter Generalverdacht zu stellen. Es geht darum, verfassungsfeindliche Bestrebungen zu orten, bevor sie Schaden anrichten. Hat man dem Verfassungsschutz nicht gerade – zu Recht – vorgeworfen, das Undenkbare nicht gedacht zu haben? Extremismus kann auf vielerlei Humus wachsen. Auch auf linkem.
PS: By the way, Left Party members are big fans of Iran and Syria, too, to name just a few. I’m just sayin’, it’s none of my business or anything.
Staunch Communist Seeking Deluded Socialist For Meaningful Progressive Relationship, Common Starry-Eyed Idealist Undertakings And Hot Passionate Sex
And just when you thought the Left Party freak show couldn’t get any freakier.
Now when former Left Party boss Oskar Lafontaine and Sahra “The Stalinist” Wagenknecht aren’t working on plans to redistribute other people’s wealth and ensure that the means of other people’s production are at the service of the whole of society, they’re – you might want to look away here – gettin’ it on.
Like how revolting can revolution get?
“Es ist alles gesagt.”
Our Curricula Can’t Cover Everything
Happy German Unity Day or something.
The GDR is part of school curricula – at the end of the 10th grade, after the unit on World War II. Some teachers say they just never get to the GDR, because their students need more time to digest all of the heavy history that came before it. Other teachers and parents simply don’t want to relive their past.
“When I give tours like this now, [two decades] after the end of the GDR, I’m amazed at how little is known about it.”
The GDR wasn’t so bad, her godmother said, as long as you didn’t criticize the system; you could have a normal family life just like in the West.
But in general, many young people are unfamiliar with East Germany: a majority doesn’t know who built the Berlin Wall or whether Willy Brandt was a politician in the East or the West.
“The division of Germany and the postwar period are probably some of the most documented times in history. There are endless shelves full of books on the subject,” Hillmer said. “But the collective historical memory is at zero. All these countless anniversary events aren’t changing anything.”
“The main finding of our study is that young people today, from both the East and the West, are not really able to differentiate between democracy and dictatorship.”
Tribute
You got to pay tribute where tribute is due. And Germany’s Left party has done it yet again–and deserve the tribute (damn these guys are on a roll these days). By paying tribute to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in a letter to mark his 85th birthday over the weekend, I mean.
“You can look back proudly on your life of battles and successful action at the head of the Cuban revolution,” the letter goes. OK. But always remember: The Left party is not communist or communist-like or even all that left-leaning in any way shape or form, as they say time and time again. They’re just, uh, progressive or something.
Auf die Genossen in Deutschland kann sich Fidel Castro verlassen. Pünktlich zum 85. Geburtstag des kubanischen Revolutionsführers hat die Parteispitze der Linken eine Grußbotschaft nach Havanna geschickt, die den Jubilar gerührt haben dürfte.
The Left Keeps Talking
At least these guys are consistent.
Three Die Linke politicians snub minute’s silence and far-left newspaper lists reasons to be grateful for Berlin Wall.
A far-left newspaper added to the controversy by printing a front page saying “thank you” to the wall for “28 years of keeping the peace in Europe” and “28 years of plentiful crèche and kindergarten places”.
The story even paid tribute to 28 years of Club Cola, East Germany’s answer to the Coca-Cola of the imperialist west, and of FKK, a nudist movement popular in East Germany.
Leave It To The Linke (I wanted to say beaver sooo bad but just couldn’t bring myself to do so)
Timing is everything. Today is of course the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, not that anybody actually feels like celebrating or anything.
So what does Left party leader Gesine Lötzsch do? What she always does. When not lecturing about “Paths to Communism” in the Junge Welt (communist, sorry marxist) newspaper, she likes to make other provocative pronouncements to keep her constituents happy. The most recent zinger: The building of the Berlin Wall was a logical consequence of World War II. In other words, it wasn’t us communists who did it (you know, good old German denial), it was those other guys. Not that she is a communist or anything, of course. She isn’t and never was and never will be and will tell you this time and time again until she is red, I mean blue in the face.
Times sure have changed in fifty years, haven’t they? Not for everybody, though. I’m sure there are still some folks out there who still believe the world is flat, too. Whatever. It’s amazing really, and funny, sort of, and I guess everyone has gotten pretty used to her comments by now so let the festivities begin or something.
Speaking of comments, the best comment I read about her was from the guy who said that when you listen to Frau Lötzsch you get the sneaking suspicion that she is that last government spokesman of the GDR.
“Frau Lötzsch wirkt wie die letzte Regierungssprecherin der DDR.”
PS: Just in case anybody was wondering, the Left party governs as part of the city government right here in Berlin this very day.
Observing Hermann 