{"id":23247,"date":"2026-10-08T11:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T15:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=23247"},"modified":"2026-10-08T12:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:14:16","slug":"my-east-bloc-adventures-1977-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/08\/my-east-bloc-adventures-1977-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"My East Bloc Adventures 1977-1987"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My escapades behind the Iron Curtain vaccinated me for life against any affection for socialism. From my 1977 trip to East Berlin with a Dutch lesbian to my 1987 interrogation by East German border guards to dodging a commie machine gun at the Bucharest airport, I earned my cynicism fair and square. This is from my spiel to the <a href=\"http:\/\/fff.org\"><strong>Future of Freedom Foundation<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s online conference on t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E3wmbkrgk2o\">he horrors of socialism<\/a>. You can see the full video, including my discussion with Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling, at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E3wmbkrgk2o<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"My East Bloc Adventures 1977-1987\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pBIoeZqXQ7w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My East Bloc adventures vaccinated me for life against trust socialism. Here&#8217;s my spiel on my adventures behind the Iron Curtain &#8211; part of the Future of Freedom Foundation series on the Horrors of Socialism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1070,1374,2137,4958,4959,4956,1159,4957,2572,4960,99],"class_list":["post-23247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-communism","tag-czechoslovakia","tag-east-berlin","tag-environmental-problems","tag-nazi-concentration-camp","tag-prague","tag-romania","tag-schweinhund","tag-stasi","tag-terezin","tag-world-bank"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My East Bloc Adventures 1977-1987 - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/08\/my-east-bloc-adventures-1977-1987\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My East Bloc Adventures 1977-1987 - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My East Bloc adventures vaccinated me for life against trust socialism. 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