An absence that speaks volumes

I believe Maxie and the original author's point was that Obama shrugging off going to this event in light of his trip to attempt to gain the Olympics is somewhat of an insult. This would be an excellent gesture on Obama's part - acknowledging a big moment in history and gaining good will with the Germans. Instead he declines Merkel's invite to the event when just a short while ago he made a somewhat irrelevant stop in Copenhagen to try to use his stature to gain the Olympic games. I had no problem with his attempts to do so, but if he can make the effort for a treasured athletic past time he can make the effort to acknowledge the fall and defeat of the Cold War. There would be absolutely nothing to lose for him going to Berlin, nothing at all, and this was a misstep and blunder on his part to decline the invitation.

 

Actually, it was the "fall" of the Soviet Union . . . wars are not "defeated," but nations are.

That being said, liberals hate to acknowledge the end of communism, because the communist system is so dear to their heart. Check your history, and you'll see that many liberals in the U.S. were staunch supporters of Stalin in the 1930s and 1940s, and believed that the USSR was a kind of heaven on earth.

As a marxist, Obama has no wish to commemorate the end of a system which he believed in.

 

I would agree that the soviet states were more like colonies as were the Asian attempts at communism. But Indochina was clearly a colony and we tried to help prop it up, not for the people's interests but for our own fear of communism.

Would you not agree that we forced our views onto Japan and Germany after WW2?

 

As a Cannibal, George W Bush does not see Zombie movies because he does not want to see his people mocked.

 

General Paul Ely (French COS) came to Washington in 1954 and asked for US military assistance to relieve the forces under seige at Dien Bien Phu. We responded that if we did intervene, we would want freedom for the Associated States (the states that comprised French Indochina). When the French wouldn't agree to our terms, we let the French suffer defeat at DBP and as a result Indochina.

Certainly, containing communism was first and foremost in our mind, but so was democracy. Then again, democracy is in our self-interest. There hasn't been a recorded even of two legitimately elected democracies going to war against each other.

Look at the terms we put upon Germany and Japan in 1945 and compare them with the terms put on any defeated nation by any victor in the annals of human conflict. Never has the victor helped the defeated so much in history. We didn't ask for reparations. Instead, all we asked for a piece of land to bury our dead.

We helped them build democratic institutions, with the only restrictions being no Fascist parties, which were the parties that gave us Hitler and Tojo. We allowed Japan to keep their Emporer. I'm not even sure we outlawed communist parties. In other words, we allowed the German and Japanese people to express their voices that had long been surpressed by their previous leaders.

 

So MaxieP, do you feel Obama is hurting the campaign against communism? Or is it simply a matter of respect?

 

You throw democrats, liberals, communists, anarchists, socialists, facists, muslims, citizens of France, and left-handed gay lawyers together like they are a common enemy sharing the same views.

And communisn never "ended". It is still the most popular form of government in the world today.

 

Obama was raised by Communists and mentored by Communists. The head of the SEIU has made 43 visits to the WH thus far into Obama's presidency. Why in the world would anybody expect him to celebrate the anniversary of communisms biggest defeat?

Seriously?