Another One Squeals

This is what you get when gossip columnists try to use historical metaphors.

Bloggers are the new Stasi.

"Who were the Stasi?" I hear you ask.

The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (German for Ministry for State Security), commonly known by the abbreviation Stasi, was the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).. [SNIP]

Many early Stasi officers were former officers of the Nazi SS with East German Communist leaders actively seeking former Gestapo and SD personnel to lead the Stasi in its formative years.

The Stasi's influence over almost every aspect of life in the German Democratic Republic cannot be underestimated. Until the mid-1980s, a civilian network of informants (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter [IMs], or unofficial collaborators) grew within the GDR, and in West Germany as well. By the East German collapse in 1989, it is estimated that the Stasi had 91,000 full time employees and 300,000 informants. This means approximately one in fifty East Germans collaborated with the Stasi, possibly the highest penetration of any society by a security apparatus.

The Stasi monitored politically "incorrect" behavior among all citizens of East Germany, comparable to activity of the former Gestapo. During the 1989 peaceful revolution, the Stasi offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before a huge amount of compromising material was destroyed by Stasi officers. The remaining files are available for review to all people who were reported upon, often revealing that friends, colleagues, husbands, wives, and other family members were regularly filing reports with the Stasi.

After German unification, it was revealed that the Stasi also secretly aided left-wing terrorist groups such as the Red Army Faction. Loss of support from the Stasi was a major factor in the dissolution of these groups.

(Emphasis mine.)

I would say that this is Tina Brown’s subtle method of calling bloggers “digital brownshirts,” but, somehow, I don’t think that she thought it through that far or has enough knowledge to be that cunning.

(BTW, yes I know who Tina Brown is; I used to take The New Yorker back when she was the executive editor. However, read the linked article and tell me that it doesn’t read like a gossip column.)

(Thanks to Roger L. Simon)

Comments

[talon karrde]

Yes, that's what a gossip column looks like.

And you're right. For the appellation of "New Stasi" to take hold, the bloggers would have to:

(a) all be working for a single person/corporation/governmental entity
(b) be collecting reams of PRIVATE files about every chance word that falls out of the lips of every citizen, and every suspicious meeting that takes places.
(c) be totally unaccountable

The comparison becomes absurdly comic in part (a), and parts (b) and (c) do little to remedy that.

Yes, people who say shockingly unfounded things on public television (or the radio, or in a newspaper) get called much more easily now than they used to be.

But that isn't the new Stasi, it is the new streetcorner pamphleteer.

[Patrick Chester]

Odd, didn't the original Stasi have the power to arrest people for saying bad things about them? Why hasn't Tina Brown vanished in the night?

Oh wait, she was just talking out of her solid waste disposal orifice. If bloggers were true successors to the Stasi, she wouldn't have dared make the comparison.

[StinKerr]

I wouldn't have read that piece without your gentle prompting. I was ready to put out a saucer of milk for Ms.Brown after a few 'graphs. By the time I was halfway through I decided to make it skim milk.

By the time I got 2/3 of the way down the page I was going to close the browser tab, but not having reached the quote in question, I soldiered on to the end.

How anyone can read this ...er... pap escapes me and how it can be taken seriously is totally beyond comprehension.

There seems to be this aspect of the Nazi party that was well known in the 1920s to as far as the 1960s. It is now forgotten but I think many can sense it, or will realize it as the missing peice to their inner puzzle. I wish it weren't so but in so many aspects of PC enforcement it can be felt. (Sorry if it doesn't work when you click on it. I am new at the computer and I am taking a stab that this will work).

[url]http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/lively.html[/url]

[click here then]

Click below.

[dick]

I think Mme Tina has lost her marbles. I read that and all I could think of it is that this broad is sorry that Bush doesn't have a Monica in his life. She just can't seem to believe that there can be a group of adults running the government instead of a bunch of testosterone laden teenagers and over the hill harpies. I really feel sorry for her.

Maybe she should move back to Britain and check into what is going on with Tony and his crew. After all one of his cabinet ministers had to resign because his mistress had a baby and then when he had a DNA test done it wasn't his. That sounds more like what she is looking for.

For myself I am happy just to have the adults in charge for a change and the right people coming on board in the right jobs. Condi, Karen Huges, John Bolton, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld - all good people and all adults. What a wonderful time to be alive!!

[jeffj]

For a media whore like Tina, Condi is guilty of the ultimate affront: being a private person.

[James M. Barber]

Juliette,
Your knowledge of German and the meaning of Stasi seems to point to education in the military. After all, it was only a change of names from the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) to DDR's Stasi. The left,including Tina Brown, have become unhinged with events such as the election in Iraq. They think all brains and education belong to the left. Dr Rice's knowledge of foreign languages and general intelligence makes the left see red. Condi is the daughter and granddaughter of ministers.

[BJ]

Actually bloggers are the new Minutemen.

Just as the Brit generals were shocked that the Revolutionary Army adopted new tactics, so is the MSM distressed to find that we are not playing by their rules.

Boo-hoo.