Welcome to the GDR [German Democratic Republic] 2.0

a reply to: Hecate666

Lets clap like seals.

Or we could all Bah...Bah...like the good little sheep we are.

I am so blessed to live in the peoples republic of NY, where comrade Fredo humbly bestows his brilliance upon us undeserving rubes, saving us from ourselves as well as from those simple minded Conservatives who are still living in their medieval mindset.
You know, people like the dimwitted Governor of S. Dakota, Kristi Noem.
Gov. Noem Ridiculed By The Left Now Vindicated & Celebrated By Citizens


Billions of people in every corner of the globe, programmed to unquestioningly obey their rulers.
Sounded like a conspiracy theory just last year, now it's the "new normal".

This is what my best friend thinks of the current programming.

a reply to: Hecate666

I've been to a few former communist countries in Eastern Europe.

I remember once going into a back street local bar once that was decorated with smoke stained portraits of people like Brezhnev and Andropov etc and scattered about around the bar old(ish) men sat alone staring into their glasses.
Everyone was very polite but the elder generation all seemed to have a far away feel about them.....the younger people were friendly - they were every where I visited in Eastern Europe - and seemed a lot more positive in their demeanour.

I think your memory may be slightly off; a minor thing I know but Spandau Ballet didn't release Gold until 1983.
I know because I remember having to listen to it in nightclubs round about that time.

There are emergency dentists open every day where I live and I know for a fact there are many plumber/gas installers and numerous other tradesmen working - quite a few never stopped.

I go shopping nearly every day for either myself and my wife, daughter - who is a nurse - and grandson as well as for my parents - who are both in their 70's - and my disabled and handicapped brother who my parents are full time carers for.
Yes, the shelves aren't as packed as they used to be and sometimes I have to get different brand names to those previously used but generally speaking there is ample for everyone.
The hardest things to find are stuff for my Mother as she's started baking again.....which may not be a bad thing judging my my expanding waistline.

Things aren't as bad as we all feared they would be....for now.

I understand the need for many of the social distancing guidelines but others make no sense.
Many businesses closed for no real reason and are only now re-opening - for the life of me I don't see why beer gardens can't be opened serving drinks in plastic glasses if necessary and bottles etc - and even senior police officers have questioned some of the reasoning.

What we do need to be careful about is the elite trying to use this outbreak as an opportunity to further their interests and agenda.
We absolutely can not let them encroach upon our civil liberties and, to borrow a phrase, inalienable rights any longer than necessary.
We must remain firm in our resolve and insist they justify thoroughly any extension of these powers and actively resist if necessary.

There is a lot going on behind the scenes everywhere. I do not know what legal rules in your countries count...

For anyone afraid of a tracking app... I do not like it too... Old roommate of mine owns/started a company, that produces electronic boards for mobile network reading devices. If you have any thing with an antenna on you, you are trackeable with a unique electronic fingerprint.

It does not need to be like a mobile phone that can send things. If it receives, it is enough. A music playing radio is enough. It is not useful in crowded areas but you can find people that hide somewhere not in sight.

The next thing is different. Have you all searched your clothes for those wireless patches sewed in? A lot of fashion companies in Germany do that, it is not a secret but also not commonly known. Anti-theft.... just many are not disabled when you leave the store. Some trigger anti-theft alarms on the entrances of shops.

I did not believe it first. When I was visiting him, I just had a few clothes and necessities with me. We talked about some things and came to that topic. It was my spring-jacket and my purse that had one in it. These patches look pentagonal, you can find them with a bright light and see the antenna. In my purse we only found it with a device. It was sewed onto the inliner right behind a pocket with a ziplock.

Cut it out and microwave it. These things need a reading device around so it is not like you can be tracked everywhere. It is more like it unveils your presence, not like a GPS. They are used to monitor customer behavior inside malls and shops.

They have a serialnumber and it is unique. They can be paired so if you walk around with several ones at one time, it can still know it is one user, just not who exactly. But that can be changed very quickly, since you wear the stuff and most have these point collecting cards anyways.

I hope I could relay it accurate.

a reply to: Hecate666

What's happening to you in this thread reminds me of another from a year or two ago.

The poster took their time and told about their experience, specifically in South Africa. Then, even though they were talking about their experience and their story, people had to come in and somehow try to marginalize their experience with "well it's not like that where I am" or "I've been told such and such". It's ridiculous to be discounting your experience because it isn't theirs.

If anything we could use more thoughtful threads from people, even in the rant forum.

I don't know your experience and neither does anyone else here. Ignore the people trying to invalidate your story.

originally posted by: Hecate666

originally posted by: seattlerat
I lived in Friedrichshaffen and Germering in the early 80's, I never went into E. Germany, but did accidentally venture into Czechoslovakia once. Some of my absolute fondest memories are of days at Graf Zeppelin Gymnasium.

Thanks for sharing.

Why did you leave Deutschland?

I originally left as an Au-Pair girl [Nanny]. Then I met my husband almost 30 years ago and here I am.
Which country did you live in? I too love Czechoslovakia [now Czeck Republic

] My nan was Czeck.

I am glad someone here understands my suspicions. I guess if you never experienced it, you won't see it coming because it's all for your own good.

Prague has pretty much recovered. For a European capital of course it is still pretty drab, but it is pretty progressive and up till about 2005 or 2010 my God was it cheap. Two or three American dollars for a salad, wine, dumplings, meat, and a dessert. That is probably nine to twelve bucks though now. But yea you didn't even have to see it while it "was". I used to take the train from Athens every time we had a break in school and I would go through places like Sofia, Bratislava, Bucharest...big cities. And even then in the early 2000s to 2005 or 2010, you could go for miles and not see one advertisement other than political propaganda, no bright colors or no colors at all really just gray and beige buildings, and a real lack of commercial property. Just endless homes apartments and offices with tons of empty space and just a bar and a market here and there. These places are quickly joining the modern world but even 20 plus years after being behind the curtain, there was still such a sense of it being so plain and dull with barely anywhere to shop or go pass the time doing something fun. And anyone who saw it during communism or in the 30 years that followed would see the totally unstimulating bleak world that comes when all businesses are coerced by the gobernment into shutting down. It is so so depressing even to spend a weekend there much less live your life.

originally posted by: Hecate666
Yesterday we were queuing at Tesco in the wind, ordered about by some little hitlers pointing out the arrows on the floor. Prices hiked up for luxury items such as rice £8 for 2kg packet.
But that wasn't even the worst.
Today I stood yet again in a queue in front of Sainsbury's. when inside a woman's voice over the tannoy told us that certain foods have been discontinued [yeah I noticed, frivolous things such as tinned mince and onion or steak], outrageous things such as oyster sauce and other things I regularly use to cook my own chinese food as all restaurants are shut and don't deliver here.

She 'reminded' us all only to buy things we really need.

I don't know where you are but that's not my experience here in south London. Sainsbury's, Morrison's, Asda and Tesco are all pretty much up to normal stock. The only inconvenience is the queueing up but once you're in you have the place to yourself.

I only lived in a dictatorship for a few months as a kid but I have a middle aged (less of the older, eh?) German friend who grew up in the DDR. I was nine but I did manage to get myself arrested. The police kept their guns in their holsters but it made a huge impression on someone used to PC Derek taking his jacket and helmet off for a kickabout in the street. K is older than me, was in the Pioneers, the full nine yards. We both agree we are nowhere near a police state yet but the potential is always there. A police state is much more than not getting oyster sauce or being told off by a jobsworth.

In anything approaching a police state, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

In Wuhan, you had a code on your phone saying where you could go when. In France, you needed to fill in an online form to get permission to go out. In Spain, there were police and army checkpoints to ensure people only travelled with the appropriate permission.

In south London, I've come and gone as I pleased (and my wife let me). In the last four weeks I've been to supermarket three times a week, the corner shop every day, to Wickes twice, B and Q once, walked the dog every other day, bought a takeaway in person once a week and carried on training six days a week for a duathlon that probably won't happen, including a 45 mile bike ride. I'm working from home, the air is noticeably cleaner when I train and my blood pressure is down.

Some oppression.

The potential for dictatorship, for a police state, is always there but it won't come from a supermarket. It won't come from the left. It will come from a bastid alliance between corporate business and government, sold to us as freedom, as the only choice to protect us from chaos, and supported by the majority of the population, same as it did in the 1930s.

Oh, and our local plumbers, builders and handymen are all working.

originally posted by: Ksihkehe
. Then, even though they were talking about their experience and their story, people had to come in and somehow try to marginalize their experience with "well it's not like that where I am" or "I've been told such and such". It's ridiculous to be discounting your experience because it isn't theirs.

If anything we could use more thoughtful threads from people, even in the rant forum.

I don't know your experience and neither does anyone else here. Ignore the people trying to invalidate your story.

His story is at best an outlier.

originally posted by: Freeborn
What we do need to be careful about is the elite trying to use this outbreak as an opportunity to further their interests and agenda.
We absolutely can not let them encroach upon our civil liberties and, to borrow a phrase, inalienable rights any longer than necessary.
We must remain firm in our resolve and insist they justify thoroughly any extension of these powers and actively resist if necessary.

Quite right, sir.

Unfortunately, the British government already passed emergency powers legislation. On the surface, there are no additional powers for police.

However, the devil is always in the detail. The government has given itself the power to bypass the usual tendering process for government contracts. That means that what's left of our infrastructure, and the data that goes with it, is being sold to nobody knows who without any transparency whatsoever.

Any number of social and psychological studies, including MK Ultra, have shown us that a frightened population is putty in TPB's hands. It will be easy to engineer consent for those same corporate powers to extend their control.

It's a different situation in the US because the fox is already in the hen house.