Im on a keyboard with a screwy space key and no apostrophe right now, so bear with me. That aside... I get to move to my new apartment to day .I would put an exclamation mark there, but i t isnt working either. U m... my parents had asked how the former Eas t £BVerliners feel about all the foreigners who hav e come over here sinc e the w all cam e down. I can t really answer that difinitevely, but I can tell yo u what I saw the other day at Alexanderplatz . Alexanderplat z used to be near the border in East Berlin .I t is no w a giant s hopping area a s well as a metro stop. The other day there were three people in their 50s st anding quietly with a sign tha t said something to the effect of "capitalism hurts people, socialism is good for everyone." I couldn t translate it very exactly, but there they were, right outside a huge department store. We alw ays assume that they were glad to be free of the GDR and the S tasi (and of course many people are glad) , but w e forget that there w ere media influences coming at themn from all sides telling t hem that capitalism is evil and tha t so^cialism was f or their own good . Of course, the fact that the government had t o build a wall t o force the people to stay "for their own good" is obviouslly an argument against that view ...

This keyboa rd is making me insane. I gotta go.




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