NationStates Jolt Archive

Several months ago I read a very unreliable newspaper article claiming that 42% of Germans want the Berlin wall back. Apparently their justification is that the east is to underdeveloped.

Now, the accuracy of the survey aside, do YOU want the wall back, and why?

All and all you're just another brick in the wall :)

i don't, my parents do, i despise them for it.

and i htink 42% is a rather high number, but i know that quite a lot of "west" germans think that way.

Absolutely not.

Then again, on occasion, I have suggested that with all the unemployment in Germany there would be a nice solution:

Since increasing the Autobahn-network is out of the question (and we all know where that lead to last time) this time we should build a nice wall around all of Germany. :D

(The post is meant as sarcastic irony - except for the first sentence)

Well, if people want it...

Well, if people want it...
You just lost my vote! How are we to unleash the weasel when it's trapped by barbed wire, mines, spring guns, and a high concrete wall?

oy nachtmahr! as you insulted my orthography last night now it's my turn to pick on your understanding of grammar (or did i indeed misunderstand your political stance? :D):

there is only one *sentence* in your post..and it is not your first, er, uttering in it..

;)

oy nachtmahr! as you insulted my orthography last night now it's my turn to pick on your understanding of grammar (or did i indeed misunderstand your political stance? :D):

there is only one *sentence* in your post..and it is not your first, er, uttering in it..

;)
Okay, fair enough. The first uttering stands, then.

Come to think of it, I just found a volunteer for a new project: Thou shall be immured immediately http://www.smileyville.com/images/evil/sasmokin.gif!

The answer to that would be "no". You can't go back now anyways.

Not that I am a fan of the way they tackled the issue, or the way the Easterlings are behaving these days - but the wall ain't comin' back.

If you really want to know why it all went pearshaped then read this article about Germany and its problems.

The German Defect (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,366938,00.html)
Europe's largest nation is in decline and has been for several years. The very core of its economy has begun to shrink: a process that no reforms have managed to halt. Germany's problems are rooted deeply in the postwar era.

eh? what's the melkor smiley doing in here?

p.s. ha! i win! do i get a shiny badge with that?

wow, leon, nice way to get info in..*salutes*
but did you really need to call 'em Easterlings? ;)

Several months ago I read a very unreliable newspaper article claiming that 42% of Germans want the Berlin wall back. Apparently their justification is that the east is to underdeveloped.

Now, the accuracy of the survey aside, do YOU want the wall back, and why?

42% of Germans argued that the East was underdeveloped? Excuse me? Did they only survey Western Germans, then? And are Eastern Germans no Germans?

No, I wouldn't want the wall back. I grew up in the West, studied in the East, and I like and appreciate both sides, although I don't really see them as different sides. The differences between North and South ar efar more pronounced than between East and West.

but did you really need to call 'em Easterlings? ;)
:p Yes. Yes, I did...

I surely don't want it back.

There's one thing I miss though: all those jokes like "Wenn's dir hier nicht paßt, dann geh' doch 'rüber"...

eh? what's the melkor smiley doing in here?
I liked the smoking devil. I am the smoking devil, hence... I borrowed the smoking devil :D

p.s. ha! i win! do i get a shiny badge with that?
Yes. *polishes badge* Ooh. It's so shiny... My precious... [/QUOTE]

Restoring Apartheid would help South Africa's economy to, if we're tossing dumbass ideas into the wind...

42% of west germans want a wall around themselves. Personally if I was a west german and resented the underdeveloped east, rather than want the wall back, I'd want a wall around the east ;)

newspaper article claiming that 42% of Germans want the Berlin wall back. Apparently their justification is that the east is to underdeveloped.

That is a great testament to communist socialism as practiced the world over,
despite the high unemployment problems of germany.

Wow. Who would ever want the wall back? I don't even live in Germany, butI know enough to know that I would never want it back... It's a symbol of communision and division... Just... why?

Wow. Who would ever want the wall back? I don't even live in Germany, butI know enough to know that I would never want it back... It's a symbol of communision and division... Just... why?

"Communision"! The dreaded communision. You may not know what it is, but you know you don't like it. :D

Now, the accuracy of the survey aside, do YOU want the wall back, and why?I'm glad to be rid of that bothersome eyesore.

The last thing I want is someone to build up what took me a lot of effort to tear down (http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/6927/robinunddieeisenstange5gg.jpg) (the blue hat is me).

I was born in the west and in my childhood,
I was teached about the "Evil Sowiets"
and in my school, we learnd, that the "poor DDR" is innocent
and in my Military Time I was teached to kill the "Evil Sowiets"...
and as the wall has opened I smoked a cigar and I made a big party
a half year later the first easterlings entered our country....and I thought "ARRGH AN INVASION !"

The most asked question was : " Give me 100 Deutsche Mark or 200 Marlboros

This year I travelled the first time to cities like Wismar, Schwerin, Rostock, Potsdam and last but not least Dresden and I tell you :

"Everything what I have learnded was wrong...I like the land and the people and they are germans like the westlings too..."

I think , to be prisoners for 40 years will change every person in the world !!

I think they should build a wall around 10 meters wide and 100 meters tall as a reminder of the past and the uselessness of barriers.

"Everything what I have learnded was wrong...I like the land and the people and they are germans like the westlings too..."
I'm just disappointed with them still voting for the Socialists - one would think they'd know better by now...

Wow. Who would ever want the wall back? [...] Just... why?

just why? well, maybe because you don't give that much of a shit of whether people "over there" are free or not. maybe because all you care about is whether you yourself have it nice and cozy. because you think that everybody gets what they deserve. because you say that you don't want your "money earned the hard way" to be spent on such a wuss thing such as solidarity.

or at least that is what you might hear my parents say. but then, you also hear them asking to have the wall be rebuilt, but only a couple feet higher and "out of glass, so that this time they really see what they are missing out on".

yes. any more questions?

I'm just disappointed with them still voting for the Socialists - one would think they'd know better by now...

Has it ever occured to you that some people prefer safety?
My experience with people form the East, many or most of them didn't have an informed idea about what was going to happen to their country the moment the wall went down, and even moreso after the reunification. They feel like they were sold out, and I think to some degree they are right. If it hadn't been for Kohl's ambition to become the "Chancellor of unity" and the subsequent urgency with which Western German politicians promoted the unity. if the whole process had been given more time and forethought, the situation wouldn't be as bad now. Eastern Germany may have remained an indipendent country for another few years, and then they could have held a referendum regarding the reunification. People would then have had time to consider the consequences, they would have been better informed and certainly less eager to get their hand on hard currency.

But the way it was done, people were simply too euphoric about the West, they had only seen the positive sides, and few if any of the negative ones.
Now, their situation has worsened drastically over the last 15 years, unemployment (unknown before) has reached almost 3rd world heights, almost all their securities have gone, pensions have been severely reduced, etc. I can't really blame them for being nostalgic...

But I will never ever understand the Westerners who ask for the wall back. They are simply using the East as a scapegoat for their crumbling economy, which had been going downwards well before...

Has it ever occured to you that some people prefer safety?
Well, everyone guaranteed a little bit of nothing?
It should be pretty clear to everyone that the times of protectionism are over, regardless of what party one votes for. Rather than have their say in how the reforms should be done however, these people decided to exclude themselves from the process, and I'm never happy when so many willingly do that.

My experience with people form the East, many or most of them didn't have an informed idea about what was going to happen to their country the moment the wall went down, and even moreso after the reunification. They feel like they were sold out, and I think to some degree they are right. If it hadn't been for Kohl's ambition to become the "Chancellor of unity" and the subsequent urgency with which Western German politicians promoted the unity. if the whole process had been given more time and forethought, the situation wouldn't be as bad now. Eastern Germany may have remained an indipendent country for another few years, and then they could have held a referendum regarding the reunification. People would then have had time to consider the consequences, they would have been better informed and certainly less eager to get their hand on hard currency.
True, the way it was handled was amateurish. It was motivated by Politics rather than Economics.

Nonetheless, there was little that one could actually work with in the East. There were no working industries, there was no proper system and most of what the GDR had in terms of capital only existed on paper.
And whatever happened to those hundreds of billions marks and Euros of Solidarity Payments?

I can't really blame them for being nostalgic...
If they want to be nostalgic, they can. The only people I ever spoke to from the East were quite glad that they lived in a free society now where they didn't have to fear some sort of Tiananmen Square-type disaster happening, or the Stasi spying on them, and where they could buy Bananas.

The thing I will not forgive easily though was the reaction to Agenda 2010. "Montagsdemos"? That was waaay below the belt, and it made it more difficult for the lot of the people who live in Germany, both East and West.
And with their (not only in the East, also in the West) doomsday talk they still keep consumer confidence down - and that is what does more damage than anything else right now.

Restoring Apartheid would help South Africa's economy to, if we're tossing dumbass ideas into the wind...

You have retaken my signature, sir.

TEAR DOWN THE WALL!
Ooooh, you cannot reach me now
Ooooh, no matter how you try
Goodbye, cruel world, it's over
Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

In perfect isolation here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.
Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queers and the coons
and the reds and the Jews.
Waiting to follow the worms.

Would you like to see Britannia
Rule again, my friend?

All you have to do is follow the worms.

Would you like to send our colored cousins
Home again, my friend?

All you need to do is follow the worms.

Screw the wall!

Give me a plasma shield.

Keep all them damned Commies out...

I really could give a shit less if they put the wall back up or not, especially since this time it's meant for another reason entirely that has nothing to do with me.

On a lighter note, walls are great because you can grafitti all over them, causing the stupid liberals in your country to say it's a work of art, and should be preserved as a historic monument. And, they keep people out. You can paint it bright colors with lilies on it. It'll be a white picket fence!

Complete with concrete, sandbags, machine gun nests, barbed wire...

EDIT: PS, the above is completely sarcastic. Though I did answer Yeah, why not...

Yeah I'd like it just so I could chant for it to be torn down.

if we need the wall back, than it should not pass through the land but arround it

:headbang:

if we need the wall back, than it should not pass through the land but arround it

:headbang:

Walling in all Germans? I daresay the only ones who'll miss them might be the Mallorcans... :rolleyes:

What do the Balearic Islands (sp?) have to do with this?

Several months ago I read a very unreliable newspaper article claiming that 42% of Germans want the Berlin wall back. Apparently their justification is that the east is to underdeveloped.

Now, the accuracy of the survey aside, do YOU want the wall back, and why?

I want the whole cold war back. For the very simple reason that the "cold war" is much more accurately described by the name "the long peace". It was the longest period without wars on the European continent in centuries..

What do the Balearic Islands (sp?) have to do with this?

I take it you've never been to Mallorca, then? Nasty people might call the island a German colony...

I take it you've never been to Mallorca, then? Nasty people might call the island a German colony...

I've been there recently. Met more Brits than Germans. But that was really good ... a british breakfast helps you going far, far away from all the other tourists :)

The wall back? There is even a party which promotes this ... not really in earnest. See here: http://www.die-partei.de/. They already tested it out :)

As I said in another thread: Most people like old times. They will always complain about the present, preferring the past. They will even weigh political freedoms against security of <whatever>, because they already can not imagine anymore how oppressive it was, how stereotyped you had to behave.