why me wrote:John Larsen wrote:Exactly. I think why me has earned full blow weirdo status in my book now.
Why me, why don't you call in and express you concerns: 801-906-6722. I promise I will play your concerns unedited.
Well, John, you would have to know what happened in East Germany after the fall. Mass unemployment, decaying east german towns, as people left for the western part of the country, hopelessness experienced by some segments of the population etc. It was not an easy time and it still isn't. Now I do think that the East Germans should have saved East Germany and created their own social democratic state. It would have been much better than what they have now. And not all in East Germany was bad. There is still some nostalgia for the good old days.
Whyme, you old socialist commie, you!
Funny, I was living in east Germany for nearly four years. I never heard one person ever wish for the old days.
This is not to say, however, that they aren't a little pissed off at the west Germans after the money to rebuild was reduced from a flood to a mere trickle. And a little jealous as well because of the standard of living discrepancy. (Rich Americans are coming in now and buying up all the cheap property. What little remains of it anyway.) I never heard of anyone complaining about that, either.
I never met anyone that wishes they had created their own state. That is your pipe dream, not theirs. I wonder what Uchtdorf thinks about all that?
A funny aside: a physics professor at the university (actually, with the Max Plank Institute) told me that he was quite shocked when he worked for the California state university system one summer. He said the lab conditions he experienced in the U.S. were worse than what he had experienced in East Germany under Russian control.
Whether he was exaggerating or not, I really don't know. Go figure.
One last thing: What might surprise people is that it feels much more like a police state, here in southern Germany, than in former east Germany. Here, in the south, a foreigner better have his ID with him at all times because he could be stopped at any time, for no reason, and searched.
This is unheard of in Dresden or Berlin. Things change.