😡😡😡
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Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill | 
pickAn extraordinarily important book so we do not forget those who died for freedom, and those who risked their lives to dig tunnels. The epilogue is disturbing: there is a growing nostalgia for east Germany, that it wasn‘t so bad. Americans showed practically no interest in the anniversary of the fall of the wall. And the book divulges the beginnings of our abhorrent government practice of surveilling citizens (ironic?) and controlling the press. ⬇️
Teenager Peter Fechter was shot and slowly bled to death trying to escape East Germany. The guards who shot him did not try to save him but waited till he died to retrieve the body. This was the eulogy at his funeral, summing up the communist state‘s explanation that no one was free to determine their own path. 😟
The conflict between East and West Germany and the Berlin Wall heightened fears of nuclear war. This excerpt from the tagged books note the poor attitude top officials had about protecting the world from nuclear war.
And so President JFK set the precedent and spying on America‘s “free” press began.
1. 64, probably a record for me!
2. To finish #LitsyAtoZ, which I did way ahead of schedule
3. Tagged. It‘s so good, but sad
4. Christmas time with family
25 points
Plus 1 for the post? (Help me here y‘all; I‘m new to the games)
#wintergames #tmskellington #christmastime @crimson613 @clwojick @StayCurious
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Apparently president Kennedy didn‘t like bad press about the Bay of Pigs fiasco, a bad economy, and his failure to deal adequately with race discrimination. In one speech, he asked the public to consider the importance of increasing restraints on the “irresponsible” media. Whoa, I had no idea...but I guess it is the nature of the powerful to want to “power-protect.”
Happy Thanksgiving fellow Littens! This dismal quote from the tagged book is a reminder of how much we should be grateful for, not the least of which that the wall came down, and forever serves as an example why walls are disastrous and dehumanizing.
Honestly! Walls do not work! You can make them taller and thicker but it will never be enough.
Ok I‘ll try to quit spamming Litsy with quotes tonight, but this book is just so quotable!
Heartbreaking.
Liftin was the second to die trying to escape East Berlin within one week of the wall going up, but the first of many to be fatally shot.
This book holds no punches back from Kennedy‘s administration, which did little to nothing when the wall was threatened and started going up.
An unputdownable book and I‘m only on page 9!
Supremely accurate reference to Orwell!
“Few in East Berlin imagined that any sort of wall—or “anti-Fascist protection barrier,” as East German leader Walter Ulbricht dubbed it (proving he had read his Orwell)—could last for years.”
pickA lot of this book was the specific story of American news networks covering a tunneling operation. I loved the parts about the wall and the tunneling operations and digging, though.
Just got this book from Blogging for Books. Excited to check it out.
