Russians are celebrating the victory in WWII today. Their favorite slogan today is “We Can Repeat”, meaning that they can repeat whatever they did during the war. Defeat their enemies, show everybody how great they are, whatevs.
Ukrainians are also celebrating. Curiously, their slogan is “Never Again.” The Ukrainian slogan dates back to a long time ago. The Russian slogan is very new. I think it was brought into use only in the last couple of years.
There is no doubt in my mind that no actual survivor of the war would support this new Russian slogan. But. . . who cares about such things any more?
Clarissa's Blog 
Good times.
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It’s hardly observed at all in Poland for the obvious reason that the end of the trauma of WWII was followed by the trauma of de facto Soviet occupation.
One reason that those in Central and Eastern Europe are not so grateful for the Soviet victory (which drives modern Russians to apoplexy) was that they didn’t leave afterward but stayed to become a burden on the economy and general societal functioning.
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True enough. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, leading to the reunification of Germany, and the Warsaw Pact dissolved as Soviet troops finally left the Eastern European nations under their domination, there was much bitterness among the Russians at the “ingratitude” of the Eastern Bloc countries compared to the the tremendous gratitude expressed by the time by the areas previously occupied by the Western Allies (mainly West Germany and West Berlin).
The frequently expressed feeling back in 1989 was that during the Cold War the Western countries had come as conquerors and stayed as partners, while the Soviet forces had maintained a harsh military occupation until the bitter end.
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They are still seething over the “ingratitude” not only of Eastern Europe but of the entire world. Everybody should be grateful forever and ever, in their opinion. And express their gratitude by giving them what they want.
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Uri about the Iranian deal, Bibi and Trump:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1526044811
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I like the author but I disagree with this analysis. The reason why the US walked out of the deal seems to be that they see it as the best hope for regime change in Iran. Nobody can say right now that it won’t work that way. If it does, it will be an enormous triumph for Trump. If not, he’s lost nothing.
Have to go but more later.
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As for the idea that Trump needs a conflict between Israel and Iran to distract from the aging prostitute debacle, I’m not buying that at all. Trump is on the verge of a massive diplomatic victory in North Korea. He’s had a minor victory there already. Compared to the fact that he slept with some tired old whore 15 years ago, this is really big. If he succeeds in either Korea or Iran, we are massively screwed. If he succeeds on both, oh lordy.
As for Israel, I think Israel wouldn’t mind getting some good PR for a change, and if the whole plan with promoting a regime change in Iran succeeds, that’s going to be good PR. The whole plan is a very long shot but crazier things have been known to happen.
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And on the subject of Israel, there’s, of course, also this:
https://m.vz.ru/news/2018/5/10/922077.html
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Uri Avnery is a very old Israeli patriot who fought valiantly for his country’s creation, but no longer understands the existential threats facing Israel.
Iran already has thousands of missiles and rockets aimed at Israel’s heartland from the northwest by its proxy Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, and Netanyahu isn’t about to let the mullahs set up military bases in Syria to simultaneously aim a thousand more at the Jewish homeland from the opposite side of its northern border.
Obama was a naif who had no understanding of how the world works, and willingly surrendered the Middle East to Putin and Iran. Trump is also an idiot, but external forces are pushing him to make appropriate international decisions in spite of himself.
Isn’t it strange how the genuine threat of war (Trump with Korea, Netanyahu bloodying Iran’s nose in Syria) sometimes avoids it?
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\ If he succeeds in either Korea or Iran, we are massively screwed. If he succeeds on both, oh lordy.
Don’t you want him to succeed in both like I do?
Millions of people in those countries and elsewhere could live better lives then.
I do not care about any prostitutes – as long as politicians’ private lives are separated from what they do in their professional role.
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“We are screwed” means the Democratic Party will lose the 2018 and 2020 elections, and the Republican Party and Trump will stay in power. Of course, that’s the best political outcome for the U.S. and the world, but you can’t expect any American “progressives” to agree.
At least Clarissa gives Trump credit for the things he’s doing right — which makes her most intelligent than 99% of the native-born Democrats in my country.
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“the Republican Party and Trump will stay in power. Of course, that’s the best political outcome for the U.S. and the world”
I’m not convinced, I’m more and more struck by the weird parallels with the period 1976-80.
Trump voters voted for domestic issues and foreign successes (if they turn into successes) won’t get his voters to the polls if he doesn’t deliver the Wall (the single issue that put him over).
Domestically Trump has been stymied by both the democrats and his own party. No wall, no Trump victory in 2020 and the republicans will only have themselves to blame.
Realignment, realignment, realignment – if voters wanted Reagan era politics then they would have nominated Cruz and you’d be bitching about President Hillary bombing everyone in sight.
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Okay, Cliff, it’s way past my Arizona bedtime, but I’ll make one last comment for the night…
You’re actually comparing the Jimmy Carter period to the current situation?? Bizarrely liberal-yet-evangelical Carter won in 1976 because Nixon and Watergate had made the Republican brand poison, then the never-elected Ford pardoned him, and President Ford ridiculously tried to fight the terrible mid-Seventies economic mess by physically passing out “WIP (Whip Inflation Now)” buttons!
World and domestic economic events are currently outrunning Trump’s core base voters. If Trump has major military / international successes (in Korea and Iran, perhaps with trade deals), and the economy keeps racing for the ceiling, then immigration issues will recede into the background, and Trump will get plenty of crossover voters who don’t care about his silly “Wall” pledge.
Do you seriously think that the Democrats can come up with an electable alternative, when half of them are young, ethnic hard-left “identity politics” idiots who want to bankrupt the country, and the other half are old, white geriatric crony-capitalists who love Wall Street at least as much as the Republicans, and so far neither of those groups can find their ass with both hands?
As for the dead-but-not-yet-ready-to-lie-down-and-croak Hillary, you’ve never heard me criticize her for her only two admirable traits: that she’s a crocked-as-hell crony capitalist, and a blood-thirsty “bombs-away” warmonger who could have saved Obama’s gutless surrender of the Middle East, if he’s only taken her advice to hit Syria in the teeth and ground its air force, driving Assad from power, saving hundreds of thousands of civilian lives over the past several years, and establishing America rather than Russia as the preeminent power in the Middle East.
Hillary missed her chance. Trumps’ unpredictable bizarreness is still in play.
Going to bed now. If you write a comment worthy of a reply, don’t expect my response until late tomorrow morning, by which time nobody will be interested, anyway. G’night!
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All I can say is that if I suspected Democrats of being capable of having a strategy, then I’d think their strategy is to lose in 2020.
Of course, I don’t believe they are trying on purpose. It’s just in their nature to self-sabotage.
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What, now you are a Trump fan?
Hey, if you were always for him, there was no need to conceal it. Some of my best friends… you know. 🙂
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I was never a Trump fan. I was horrified when he got the Republican nomination, but never seriously thought that he could actually win, so I just grimly waited for Horrible Hillary to become president, figuring, “Well, at least she’ll be a hawk on foreign policy and push back against Putin and our other adversaries.”
My current views on Trump are a bit conflicted. I consider him an arrogant, temperamentally unqualified buffoon who publicly humiliates his subordinates and says/tweets stupid things daily. BUT somehow his administration so far has resulted in moderately conservative Republican policies that I like (conservative judges and a Supreme Court justice, tax reform, economic growth, a hard line on illegal immigration, etc.). Internationally, Trump’s a wild card, yet his threats toward Korea and Iran haven’t led to armageddon, but paradoxically seem to have increased the possibility of highly successful outcomes that nobody thought possible.
And I’m amazed that how totally inept at just about everything the Democrats have been since Trump’s election. They can’t come up with any coherent policies of their own to counter him, can’t even decide what their basic party principles are, have no idea what type of candidate to fend against him in 2020 — so at this point I don’t see how anything they’ll be able to offer in 2020 will be an improvement over a continued Trump administration.
In summary: Trump’s doing better than I expected, perhaps in spite of himself, and the current Democratic Party is in no way a viable alternative.
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Yes, he’s done a LOT better than I expected, too. But that’s not thanks to him. It’s only thanks to the clueless idiot “resistance” that has been bleating since day one that Trump was going to “incinerate the planet in a nuclear Holocaust.” So now everything that he does looks like really small potatoes in comparison. I have no idea how these geniuses are planning to address this issue during the election.
“You said he was going to start a nuclear apocalypse and he didn’t.”
“But he appointed judges I don’t like! And he grabbed pussies back in 2005!”
“Ok, then.”
It’s like they are trying to make him look better than he ever would without their help. It’s painful to watch.
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Of course, I’m all for a denuclearized North Korea and a secular Iran. I want us to win, though. We are the ones who should be doing it, my side.
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