Fond remembrances of Communism

So my GF rented one of those left wing, foreign films last night. It is called Bye Bye Lenin and I highly recommend it. It is about this family living in East Berlin under the Communists. Their father leaves the family for the west, and some years later, just before the fall of the wall, the mother has a heart attack and is in a coma for 7 months. When she wakes, the wall is down and radical changes are taking place. Any emotional shocks might kill her, so her son goes about trying to convince her that the East German “socialist paradise” still exists. From how the son has to bribe kids 20 marks to come and sing socialists propaganda songs, to his older sister’s comments about forcing her daughter to wear crappy plastic diapers, the movie is quite funny. At one point they want to take the mother on a trip in the new car bought by the daughter’s West German boyfriend (who is a manager at Burger King). As they are trying to explain why they have a new car, to their mother, she exclaims words to the effect that how did we get our car already, it’s been only 3 years since we requested one. Her son, who lost his job as a TV repairman, now works for a satellite company, installing satellite dishes. At one point his mother remarks about how tired he is after work and how he never used to work this hard before. For anyone who wants to be reminded about why socialism doesn’t work, I highly recommend it.