US VE-day version: The Soviets did not help win WWII


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Freak V-Day glitch? Facebook engine CENSORS iconic photo with Soviet flag raised over Reichstag’, 9 May, 2020, RT.com

As I remember it, it was the same airbrushing under Barack Obomba, but I couldn’t easily find a citation, so…onward.

‘United States officially REWROTE history this V-day when it IGNORED Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazism’, George Szamuely, May 10, 2020, RT.com

“The US is undertaking a major revision of World War II history, deliberately minimizing the contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Nazism, while painting countries that fought alongside Germany as Russian victims.

This is no oversight or simple historical illiteracy. It is part and parcel of a mobilization that is taking place in the United States today for a new, and more serious, confrontation with Russia.

On May 7, to mark the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, the US government issued two extraordinary statements. The first boasted as its authors US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the foreign ministers of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Bizarrely, the statement had nothing to do with the liberation of Europe from Nazism, though perhaps less surprisingly, considering that both Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary actually started the war on the side of the Axis.

The statement veered off immediately into a familiar Cold War diatribe:

“While May 1945 brought the end of the Second World War in Europe, it did not bring freedom to all of Europe. The central and eastern part of the continent remained under the rule of communist regimes for almost 50 years. The Baltic States were illegally occupied and annexed, and the iron grip over the other captive nations was enforced by the Soviet Union using overwhelming military force, repression, and ideological control.”
[…]
“There was no mention of the fact that it was the Red Army that liberated every country that co-signed this statement with the United States. Most troubling of all was the menacing tone of the statement’s conclusion:

“Today, we are working together toward a strong and free Europe, where human rights, democracy and the rule of law prevail. The future should be based on the facts of history and justice for the victims of totalitarian regimes. We are ready for dialogue with all those interested in pursuing these principles. Manipulating the historical events that led to the Second World War and to the division of Europe in the aftermath of the war constitutes a regrettable effort to falsify history.”

Small wonder the Russians see it as the next iteration of the New Cold War.

‘Moscow promises Washington a ‘SERIOUS TALK’ about its V-Day message that omits Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazis’, 10 May, 2020, RT.com

“The US officials have found neither the courage nor the desire to … do justice to the indisputable role of the Red Army and of the Soviet people, and to the enormous sacrifices they made in the name of humanity,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It added that ignoring the historical facts due to current political likes or dislikes was unthinkable.

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of fighting Nazi Germany, with at least 27 million of its people killed in WWII. Few families were left untouched, and so celebrations of Victory Day and remembering that war’s tragic toll are still a big deal in Russia.

This is why many reacted with disbelief when media cited a message from the White House that said “on May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis” and failed to even mention their Second World War ally, the USSR. The Twitter post with Donald Trump’s soundbite was soon pelted with tweets that graphically reminded the White House how it was the Red Army that took Berlin.”

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old people suck

A poll conducted in 2009 also found that 63% of Russians believed that the USSR could have won the war on its own.

There are some hints in YouGov's poll that memories of the Cold War may be a factor. Americans aged 18-29 were the age group most likely to credit the USSR, though they still prefer the US by 36% to 16%. However Americans 65 and up, who would have mostly come of age during the heart of the US-Soviet rivalry, pick the US over the Soviet Union by 66% to 9%, a much wider margin.

WW2-2.png

actual facts

So to recap, America, the hero (actually Pippen, or possibly Rodman to Russia's Jordan) of the war, might not have joined the beloved (reviled drunk) Churchill, had it not been for the maverick decision (one of countless tactical errors) by the diabolical (borderline retarded) Hitler. Bang up job, History Channel!
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wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

a newer poll might even be more telling. ; ) the cracked page made my day!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit

It was bad enough on the Eastern Front already. Jesus, they didn't need more Nazis coming their way.

Nobody could win the war alone. However, Russia bled oceans for the world and never got credit for it, because Stalin/Communism/Eastern Bloc.

None of this means I like Stalin, Stalinism, or his colonial policies in Eastern Europe. But facts are facts.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

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wendy davis's picture

@artisan

investigation. i loved Kruk! 'i couldn't help but join the (neo-nazi) azov batallion!'

thanks, artisan. farcebook and jack dorsey are working directly for the Imperium now, aren't they? as well as 'the google playlist' on youtube deleting things.

on later edit: what sort of artisan?

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the 'winners' are entitled to re-write history L(awfully)

doncha' know (wink, wink)

exceptional

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wendy davis's picture

@QMS

good thing the US and UK won the war, then! ; )

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6 users have voted.

I grew up watching that show. Even in America in the 60s and 70s the Western front was known to be a cakewalk compared to the Eastern Front. Col Clink was constantly threatened to be set to the Eastern Front.

Now our propaganda machine has turned it on its head.

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wendy davis's picture

@Mickt

the past! i can see the face and body of the constantly-threatening general. kinda like if a tugboat were...a pig.

thanks, yes, a full circle we've come, noting the US war dept. video in the OP.

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wendy davis's picture

doesn't play. i'll just link to the tweet in case anyone wants to watch it (about min.), and hope it works.

on edit: oh, tiddley pom, i gave the wrong twitter url. fixed it.

an addition from deputy FM Foreign minister maria zakharova:

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@wendy davis
and rewriting of history. US intelligence will not allow a russia or china to have a moral
upper hand in ending wars. It was US dammit!
Some kind of justification for bleeding the budget for the sake of military revisionism.

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wendy davis's picture

@QMS

isn't that what's known as an Oxymoron?

but no: NATO/africom keeps acquiring new members, nations under it's umbrella, aspiring members...all with the same status.

proxy wars w/ russia (and china) are ubiquitous. how many self-proclaimed 'leftists' still believe that 'russia stole crimea', for instance?

oh, dan balz; it won't play either. here's the tweet's url. it's beautiful.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

Thank [REDACTED FICTIONAL ENTITY] Russia can stand up for itself.

Lest we forget, Putin IS a bad guy, absolutely - but Russian tyrants saving the world in brazen feats of LOTEitude has become its very own 'genre' of history, hasn't it? They're kind of like Godzilla, I guess.

ProTip: When your country/global bloc is liquefying beneath your feet, try to AVOID antagonizing that one cagey bastard out there who's been growing stronger from your every fuck-up.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

zounds; how did you remember the jimmy dean recording, much less find it? blss his heart! how great to hear, although by now russian orthodox is an official religion.

i admit i used to be quite averse to vladamir myself...until i kinda got to know him. again, though, nothing is acceptable but anti-putin propaganda.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@wendy davis I heard about its existence somewhere long ago, then eventually looked it up and found it on YouTube.

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1 user has voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

as a kid did you sing alternate lyrics to the background schmaltzy music?

'glory glory hallelujah
teacher hit me with a rulah
bopped her the eye
with a rotten cherry pie...

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

Glory glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
The ruler turned red
And the teacher dropped dead
And there ain't no school no more!

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

thanks, amiga.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@wendy davis @TheOtherMaven I wouldn't even really know the correct lyrics. I grew up in Golden-Age Silicon Valley, a parallel universe where the Counterculture had (mostly) won the Culture Wars; it wasn't exactly gospel country (although, to my lasting misfortune, it wasn't enough to protect me from the harmful radiation of the Satanic Panic/4.5th Great Awakening).

I did have a friend in kindergarten who knew this one:

I'm Popeye the Sailor-Man!
I live in a garbage can!
I turn on the heater,
and blow off my wiener,
I'm Popeye the Sailor-Man!

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4 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

; )

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mimi's picture

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

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wendy davis's picture

recently wrote:

The classic ITV documentary series The World at War, made in 1973 and still being shown on nostalgia channels today, did full justice to the role played by the Soviet Union and the incredible stoicism of its people. At the end of the series the historian Noble Frankland dismissed the assertion (so widely presented today), that after the war the people of eastern Europe merely swapped one tyranny for another that was just as bad.

this seems to be the last of the series: episode #13:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LTBUtm87rU&list=PL5x7rYQNb4drZnQLfoJMiF...

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wendy davis's picture

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wendy davis's picture

tonight's closing song will be from a russian (largely) balalaika folk orchestra.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUlIcoqM2UE]

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I may not like Stalin, but I'm not going to lie about how the Nazis were defeated (and I don't like them either).

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

wendy davis's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

but dangerous, imo. it's all reminded me of the US/UK firebombing of dresden ('the florence of the elbe') in feb. 1945 which killed as many as 135,000 civilians, leaving it in burning rubble.

kurt vonnegut (who was a POW at the time, being held underground) memorialized it in his epic 'slaughterhouse five'. it included this dream by billy pilgrim:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUhMzmeW3Qw]

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lotlizard's picture

https://satwcomic.com/how-liberating

… the original liberation ended in a bloodbath because people went out to kill the remaining nazis and nazi supporters.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard

I'm certainly not surprised.

The problem is that once you start that sort of thing, it so often becomes either indiscriminate, authoritarian, or both. One of my first principles is that responsibility goes hand in hand with power. Those without power, generally speaking, look like civilians to me, not soldiers, and I think it's inappropriate to kill them. Like, for instance, I wouldn't kill little kids for being in the Hitlerjugend, nor a prostitute for servicing Nazis. It gets harder when it's a Jenk (a low-level grunt who might have had the choice between being shot and serving the monster).

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lotlizard's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal  
History rushes on, a window in time opens, and the Good can add to their list of Goodnesses the liberty to be as bad as the Bad while still remaining the Good!

How intoxicating it must be, to feel free to pay the Other back in kind with no moral qualms, guilt, or shame at all, only certainty that the Other deserves it …

They started it! It’s payback time! Humanity’s epitaph …

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard

It's not that I especially see mob revenge as right. I'm just not sure I can blame them. Except that, of course, I believe that those without power should not be held responsible. For anything, really. Those who kill indiscriminately, or because of some tribal identification or other (class, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.) are obviously doing great wrong. It's when you're killing because of revenge on particular people for atrocities they have particularly committed that it gets difficult. Those who do it may not be doing right, but I have a hard time sitting in judgement on them.

I always hovered between horror and empathy when reading about Madame Dufarge.

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3 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

which means Dickens did his work particularly well on her.

As played by Blanche Yurka in the 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities, she was both in spades and hearts. 1935 is considered the classic version, even though Ronald Colman refused to play both Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay (the studio settled for casting Donald Woods, who was similar in height and build and coloring, and could be mistaken for Colman in a very bad light). Colman's aversion was partly to the absurdity of the gimmick (two completely unrelated people looking that much alike?), and partly to his having had a surfeit of dual roles earlier in his career. (He had to grin and bear it when he was cast in The Prisoner of Zenda in 1937 - there was no escaping it that time.)

Note: the entire supporting cast is excellent too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities_(1935_film)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

being the thickwit i am, but that reflecting the fact that sweden's in lockdown (perhaps anew?) and some are pissed they weren't go out to celebrate VE day? i did try to find out with the fist trace of comments, but...

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
especially those that have a tradition of marking the end of World War II every year anyway, even when it isn’t a special number like 75 years = 3/4 of a century.

All called off and replaced by anodyne video footage of leaders laying wreaths at tombs and monuments — I’m sure there was a lot of frustration. So much anticipation and preparation, and then pffft, nothing.

There are more reader comments on the situation in Sweden below a different Scandinavia and the World strip:
https://satwcomic.com/balancing-act

The “How liberating” strip seems unusually dark for Scandinavia and the World — the humor is usually light-hearted, diffuse, somewhat silly, while pointing up genuine cultural contrasts and historical truths.

Still, a recurring motif in the humor is the circumstance that the peaceful, civilized Scandinavians of today trace their lineage back to the Vikings, who, to go by their reputation, would have buried an axe in your skull as soon as look at you.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

i've been watching the underclass in the 'replacement regime' in bolivia leaving lockdown as they are literally starving, as many are in other nations, including the US and UK, and do have some sympathy for them. arrests and fines are rampant, of course.

on the other hand, we have grifter Lord of the Universe bill gates saying that lockdown will be in force until everyone on the planet is vaccinated. when he speaks, like EF hutton: people genuflect and listen.

please tell me again who lot lizard is/was? i finally discovered why most of the authors at zero hedge call themselves: tyler durden. took watching the film this week to twig. (even a dim bulb lights now and again.)

on later edit: three tweet urls (i'll skip the poor in bolvia).

https://twitter.com/Daniilgor/status/1259836001222090753

https://twitter.com/WinterOakPress/status/1260166377182240774

https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1259941623951228935

not endorsing them, just bringing them for your consideration. ; )

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

i haven't a clue what CSTMS's response had to do w/ your scandinavian comix link. i must not be seeing something.

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