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East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

maxhertzberg.co.uk

31–40 of 256 posts

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#31
post #3

> than political grassroots activists have today in places such as Western Europe and North America That (2021) from the title is on the mark, as I think that by now, 2025, it has been made quite obvious that political protests in the West can only get up to a certain point, after which you risk prison, job loss or a combination of the two (even bough January 6 and the associated political repression took place in ea…

January 6 was an attempted coup de etat and high treason, not a protest.

It was not persecuted nearly enough - participants would've deserved the death penalty.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#32

On this topic, I can't recommend enough the movie "The life of Others" (2006). Depicts surveillance in Eastern Germany and the state of sheer fear and paranoia its citizens had to live in.

Stasiland by Anna Funder is also a great read on the topic. And then there’s Katja Hoyer’s “Beyond The Wall” which takes a comprehensive look at the DDR.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#33
post #6

Time and again we see how half-assed dictatorships don't work. Soviet Union and the Eastern Block failed because they tried to be nice. By doing so, they achieved the worst result possible: cynical, profoundly disillusioned society and an economic failure on top of that. They should've either folded when they realised that "classless and stateless" Communism was never going to work - which is, by the late 1970s at th…

Are you using Socialism and Communism interchangeably? Communism goes further than Socialism (or Socialism doesn't go as far as Communism), Communism is more extreme, cold and hard and not at all blurry-edged, according to my understanding anyway. All instances of -isms eventually fall to the unrelenting winds of human nature. Not necessarily due to the ideals within the -ism itself.

Well, Communism was seen by countries we call "Communist" (GDR, Soviet Union, Red China in Mao era, and the like), as something potentially possible in some distant future, it was their endgame (some claim, only notionally so, with no actual plan of getting there, but it doesn't matter really). What they had in reality, they called "Socialism".

Socialism is the "form of industrialised society where private ownership of means of production is outlawed". Communism is the (hypothetical) "classless, stateless society".

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#34
post #3

> than political grassroots activists have today in places such as Western Europe and North America That (2021) from the title is on the mark, as I think that by now, 2025, it has been made quite obvious that political protests in the West can only get up to a certain point, after which you risk prison, job loss or a combination of the two (even bough January 6 and the associated political repression took place in ea…

That looked more like an attempt to overthrow a democractically elected government by a mob of primitive brutes than 'political protest' to me tbh.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#35
Divide and conquer.

I'm pretty sure that the intelligence services nowadays condone the contemporary identity politics revolution because it distracts people (especially the youth) from the actual problems of society.

I am old enough to remember the time where revolution meant actively fighting the oppressors or those in power, not posting on twitter about who has what between their pants and to which bathroom they should go to.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#36
post #21
post #4

It's remarkable how quickly Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe the moment Soviet support went. Despite decades of intense propaganda, killings of people in uprisings and the methods of Stasi as described in the article. Even with all that effort most people didn't believe in the regime. So it's hard to say whether the Stasi's tactics worked. Only people in the regimes like Ceausescu and Honecker actually thought p…

As for your last point, Solzhenitzyn said something memorable about that - 'We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the p…

It makes you wonder if 'disinformation' actually works if the mass propaganda of totalitarian regimes fails so dramatically.

There is an interesting book called 'Not Born Yesterday' that points out that people are pretty skeptical .

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45358676-not-born-yester...

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#37
post #21
post #4

It's remarkable how quickly Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe the moment Soviet support went. Despite decades of intense propaganda, killings of people in uprisings and the methods of Stasi as described in the article. Even with all that effort most people didn't believe in the regime. So it's hard to say whether the Stasi's tactics worked. Only people in the regimes like Ceausescu and Honecker actually thought p…

As for your last point, Solzhenitzyn said something memorable about that - 'We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the p…

I love it how Americans point to such quotes without realizing that this is how most corporate jobs function.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wish to increase his rent 10% annually and after move out keep his deposit 6 months. Then confiscate 50% of the deposit for "damages". You wish!

In fact, I would first like to see rent being paid at all. And I don't have a deposit to keep.

My experience as a legit and regularly paying tenant are equally awful.

Re: East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

#40

So much effort and resources only to produce Trabants and Wartburgs. You will know them by the cars they produce.

https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric... indeed. the economic circumstances that produce. the situations that produce. a system that produces. which collapses and gives way to.

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