Slashdot Mirror
25th Anniversary: When the Berlin Wall Fell
Lasrick writes Today is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This retrospective describes how quickly the Wall was erected, and how Berliners were completely caught off guard by its construction: "Berlin's citizens woke up one morning in August 1961 to find coils of barbed wire running down the middle of their streets; the first inkling some people had that anything was amiss was when their subway train didn't stop at certain stations. Later, the first strands of wire were replaced with a cement wall, along with watchtowers, a wide 'death strip,' and an electrified fence."
Nerd-appropriate would be just how many Western brands and firms sent their production lines to the East.
Cash that then supported the East German gov for years.
Nerd-appropriate would be just how quickly Western political leaders had their East German files found and then removed.
Nerd-appropriate would be where some top East German security experts later found work in the USA.
The ability of the West to track most of the East German and Russian gov and mil movements.
The fall of the wall still has many good tech stories but all the press likes is the escapes and television news.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Now as to Obama, he did order Gitmo shut down. What happened? Congress rebelled, even Democrats, spinning up fear of Magneto-like supervillians too dastardly to contain in American prisons. Congress passed a law making it illegal to bring Gitmo prisoners to the US even for medical treatment, so now we spend millions flying medical equipment down there to rot.
I suppose a more forceful President might be able to prevail on the Congress more often, Teddy Roosevelt-style, and do something about the NSA, if they had some reason to do so, which they don't. It's hardly ever a voting issue. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was used by both Democratic and Republican administrations to trample the Constitution for decades and voters never cared, because they were so scared of Communism they supported the purge. Now the roles are filled by a new cast of characters, but little has changed.
One of the installations made obsolete by the fall of the Berlin Wall was the NSA's listening post on the Teufelsberg (itself an artificial hill built from the millions of tons of rubble cleared after WW2, burying a Nazi training camp and the highest point in the city). This should be on the list of any self-respecting nerd's list of places to visit in Berlin. It's really eerie now, largely abandoned though sort of occupied by some sort of artists' commune. You can get into the radomes which housed the antennae, and the acoustics in there are incredible - a whisper will travel around the room and a sharp clap goes around and around. Rumour has it that the flooded basement rooms, which are currently inaccessible, house some strange and dark secrets. The whole place will give you the shivers (and a great view over the city). I visited last year just after the Snowden revelations, and the overwhelming sentiment was the hope that one day the rest of the NSA will go to ruin in the same way.
Nerd-appropriate would be...
You swanned past the Reichstag to the Berlin Wall
In chiffon - Christian Dior
Gazing at the debris through electrified barbed wire
So grey - what an awful bore
You thought the border guards parading looked so picturesque
And their goose-stepping was so surreal
Did you have any conception of the blood between the stone
Did you notice that their guns were real?