A suggestion for a good movie: "The Lives of Others"

[fullautovalmet76]

I was listening to a nationally broadcast show the other day and a woman called in to talk about what it was like for her to live under a totalitarian regime (Romania). She said that Americans have no idea what is really happening to them. She sees this country sliding toward a dictatorship very much like what they had in eastern Europe. She recommended a movie to give us a glimpse of what it's like to live in such conditions and she recommended the movie "The Lives of Others."

I saw the movie on Friday and I must say that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight! The movie is a German movie with English subtitles. It is about a writer living in the GDR (east Germany) and it show some of the tactics the state used to control dissent in their country. The movie has a good story line and the actors are really good. I highly recommend it!

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lives_of_others

-FullAuto

[Rob Pincus]

I watched this movie with my wife. She was only a kid when East Germany was really East Germany, but said that the movie is very true to the spirit of the way things were under the Stasi and the things that her parents had to deal with.

-RJP

[tombogan03884]

Part of what got BO elected was the ever growing number of voters for whom the Berlin Wall and the era of Soviet communism are a mere footnote in history.
They can not comprehend seeing a thriving bustling  Late 20th century West Berlin and the drabness of  "post WWII " East Berlin, separated  not by time, but merely by the death strip where the "ideals of socialism" needed to resort to machinegun towers, land mines and vehicle barriers merely to keep "citizens" IN.

[fullautovalmet76]

Part of what got BO elected was the ever growing number of voters for whom the Berlin Wall and the era of Soviet communism are a mere footnote in history.
They can not comprehend seeing a thriving bustling  Late 20th century West Berlin and the drabness of  "post WWII " East Berlin, separated  not by time, but merely by the death strip where the "ideals of socialism" needed to resort to machinegun towers, land mines and vehicle barriers merely to keep "citizens" IN.

Tom,
You don't know the half of it.....When I was in graduate school, I sat in a class where some kid (< 30 yrs.) said that our rights were given to us by the government! I about fell out my chair when he said that. And it took the professor to explain to him (after several attempts by others) that our rights are ours at birth, but privileges are those that are extended from the government.

These little sh*ts are conditioned in school to think of themselves as part of the whole and not as individuals. They are so used to having every little step ordered for them that it is "natural" for them to think that government is the solution to our problems.....And to top it off they are smug and arrogant about the whole thing too....

[tombogan03884]

 It started when I was in school, with the UNICEF collection boxes handed out to 1st and 2nd graders at Halloween. To be honest even parents have unknowingly reinforced the propaganda with the old "Do you know how many kids are starving in Africa". (I don't care, I'm STILL not gonna eat that sh!t    ) It all comes down to the UN efforts to impose world government  at the expense of human liberty and dignity.

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