>At 12:32 PM 1/29/00 +1100, Joanna Sheldon wrote:
>>I grant you this is a wonderful thing. But was it also the case, as in E.
>>Germany, that you were obliged to have a job, that joblessness was illegal?
>> In 1983 my East German friends told me that a jobless person risked going
>>to prison.
<...>
>In general, I would be very suspicious of any complaint against socialism
>in E. Europe that is voiced by a person who speaks English. The chances
>are that such a person is a member of the intelligentsia and that scum was
>known to rabidly hate socialism because it did not give them as much power
>and privilege (esp. vis a vis manual workers) as they craved for. If you
>want to learn about everyday life under state socialism, get an interpreter
>and talk to people who held manual jobs, or at least who cannot speak
English.
I speak German.
Joanna
www.overlookhouse.com