Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Mawkish nursery games. It’s time to leave the Second World War
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Mawkish nursery games. It’s time to leave the Second World War in the history books
The Mail thinks that "VE Day" stands for "victory *over* Europe". A potent mixture of profound ignorance and jingoism, from a paper which had published antisemitic ? about Jewish refugees from Hitler a few years beforehand Ht @CeitidhD pic.twitter.com/1JZzqaMLHD
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
https://twitter.com/Psythor/status/1257692638859403266
I don't quite see following that through to commentary on VE day. This year is, I think, the first time I really recall much of a meal being made of it. That's no doubt not the case, but I honestly don't recall it being mentioned as much in past years.
So while I take a lot of the main thrust of this piece I think it's not the strongest from Mr Meeks, who has some truly hard hitting ones in the catalogue. It feels like it is pushing its theme a bit too hard for the point. It's outrage seems a little bit theatrical and manufactured. Not that it is not there, but not as convincingly so.
And the ultimate irony, using the actions of a newspaper 80 years ago to attack its (admittedly very stupid and ignorant) coverage today.
Exactly the same thing Meeks is railing against.
Should the Second World War be seen in Britain as a Pyrrhic victory, which ushered in austerity, greater state activity and a significant shift in the world's political and economic compass?
I think the idea of Vera Lynn singing 'we'll meet again' on Friday at 9pm has great poignancy both for the current situation as well as remembering the War and we will still clap for the NHS on Thursday evening too.
Overall 67% of voters think it is right to celebrate VE Day. 85% of Tories and 80% of Leavers think so but still 60% of Labour voters and 61% of Remainers thinks so too
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1255528727838175238?s=20
https://www.alzheimer-europe.org/var/plain_site/storage/original/application/f5253c2c572b6e0c28b45922149d2289.pdf
Scientists say they have identified a mutation in coronavirus which they believe means a more contagious strain has been sweeping Europe and the US - and could even reinfect those who already have antibodies.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-scientists-identify-more-contagious-mutant-coronavirus-strain-sweeping-europe-and-us-11983554?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Even if as suggested the spooks haven given up an exploit, still seems mad.
The main justification for this has been that it's probably the last major milestone that any of the surviving combatants will live to see, and that seems reasonable.
I do worry, though, that the grip of the War on the national psyche has only tightened and that there might be a general tendency to more celebration of past victories, rather than less.
It is part of our national character, etched on our psyche, one of defiance, resiliance - it is a history to be proud of.
What is wrong with commemorating that? What on earth is wrong with Mr Meeks that he continually wants to put us "in our place", to borrow from the Nick Clegg quote in his post.
We should be celebrating this moment in our history as well as honouring the sacrifices made by those who fought for our freedoms.
Mr Meeks does them, and us, a great disservice. I'm proud of my country and our history. And I won't be made to feel shame for it.
All those Empire forces get airbrushed out.
BBC News - Coronavirus: Prof Neil Ferguson quits government role after 'undermining' lockdown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52553229
Now we are fubared...every which way orifice looks particularly shitty....
Most deaths in Europe headlines should keep people indoors for a while longer also.
All London mainline stations should be renamed after such battles.
Most of the nineties was consumed by trying to put Mother Russia and all of Eastern Europe under the yoke of the west, only the accession to the throne of Czar Vladimir thwarted that attempt.
After an interlude around oil and religious extremism in the Middle East, the next phase of WWII now revolves around the confrontation with 'Djinah'.
Discuss.
But actually TSE was quoting Sir Humphrey in Yes Prime Minister, A victory for Democracy:
‘All we achieved after six years of war was to leave Eastern Europe under a Communist dictatorship instead of a Fascist dictatorship. At a cost of millions of lives and the ruination of this country.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51233734
There's a real history of blackwashing.
Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory.
Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead.
Yet the BBC's Document programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers - who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces - were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital.
By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.
Many of them were simply shot where they stood soon after surrendering to German troops who often regarded them as sub-human savages.
Their chance for revenge came in August 1944 as Allied troops prepared to retake Paris. But despite their overwhelming numbers, they were not to get it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7984436.stm
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/liberation-of-paris-the-hidden-truth-434403.html
Now...it is just too late...that ship has sailed...we had a moment in time to get on top of it and create a fortress UK....
We have this virus...we have to just carry on now....at great cost to human lives and the economy....people are just not going to stand to trying to push down R
The UK perhaps even wanted the war, as it was a bulwark against republican sentiment. (Or so it seeems)
Whatever it takes, and at the least cost. Surely that is war?
.However matters may go in France or with the French Government or with another French Government, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye. And freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands—Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, all who have joined their causes to our own shall be restored.
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over... the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."
It would have looked a tad ungrateful.
Equivocating Nazism to totalitarian communism is quite frankly the kind of kind of masturbatory bullshit that only people of a right wing kind of persuasion like to articulate.....
It seems like you're interested in proving a tangential point because you don't have an answer to mine.
There is a lot we shouldn't be proud of in our history. Including parts of WWII - Dresden to use an obvious example.
My point was that there is nothing wrong with celebrating our defiance of Nazism.
It is a cornerstone of our national psyche and is not something we should be made to feel shame for, as Mr Meeks apparently wants us to do.
If you are right though and time lags have distorted the data, it's worth also remembering that the UK is lagging well behind the timeline to recovery of Italy, Spain and France such that the UK is now typically reporting daily deaths in official counts far in excess of theirs going forward. So there are going to be a lot more deaths down the road to add to our figures compared to theirs. A delay in reporting excess deaths elsewhere would serve to bring our timeline into line with theirs, so they the stats would still be comparable. If there's not a delay elsewhere then our excess death stats are comparatively even worse.
As for Italy and France, there is every chance they would have elected Communist governments in 1946-47 but for American intervention in their elections, backed up by the Catholic Church. Stalin didn’t object to that, possibly because he appears to have divided Europe in his own mind into spheres of influence, and decided France and Italy were American sphere.
And although I was for locking down earlier and tighter....now I'm of the view that we have to open up and manage it.....and just face the crapness of it all really...
Edit - the point about Vichy France is that from 1940-43 it was not under the control of Nazi Germany, and it controlled the French colonies in Africa as well as the French Navy. Of course, in practice it was a convenient front for the Nazis, but by the time it was got rid of Germany and Italy had pretty well lost the war in Africa anyway.
If I'd said "the finest hour in our empire's history" you would have accused me of being a fascist, racist, imperialist for mere mention of the word "empire".
I used the words part of our national character because that is what it is.
I think your problem is that you think it's disgusting to be proud of your country so you want to use semantics to justify your hatred. Fair enough, but that's hardly my problem.
Horror and gratitude is roughly the legacy. No Holocaust though.
The government is so desperate to prevent the repercussions of lockdown being felt by the population that they are prepared to keep the country's credit card running well into the future.
As far as I can remember there was nothing particular said about Western Europe other than Germany and Austria where three, later four power occupation was agreed.
There is nothing wrong with remembering it or even celebrating winning it.
The way some people like to mix the celebration with their own personal politics and prejudices can be offensive.
Most people get the balance right even if they dont know the details. A minority are idiots and quite a few politicians and journalists take advantage.
They need a quick and powerful recovery from the private sector to prevent a total catastrophe
Trouble is, its a private sector they have smashed to pieces with their lockdown, frightened with their propaganda, and are saddling with 'new normal' nanny state rules on social distancing.
All of which makes that recovery a mirage.
Although some it was over 3 million dead due to Bengal Famine.