7 ms·

Maybe it's because the Brits (as in the civil population) never really got to experience the horrors of war for the last 200 years, at least. Are you serious?

Maybe it's because the Brits (as in the civil population) never really got to experience the horrors of war for the last 200 years, at least. Are you serious? What do you think the Blitz was?

quirkafleeg 9y ago
Doesn't sound like he has any idea what the Blitz was. During the cold war (and in Hollywood) the propaganda seemed more about the US defeating the Nazis single handed, while the Soviet and other effort was relatively overlooked. More recently, Russia likes to do the same, downplaying the role of other countries, including those that were in it from the start and didn't ally themselves with Nazi Germany. Now we have someone apparently from a country that was on the side of the Nazis in WWII writing off the sacrifices of a country that was under attack and bombed by the Nazis for almost six years.
urbanj 9y ago
Interesting that the city most affected by the Blitz is overwhelmingly Remain...
pjc50 9y ago
He has something of a point; the Blitz was bad, and rationing and evacuation was bad, but compared to occupation? Compared to the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad? The UK has never experienced occupying armies marching in and arbitrarily executing the public (unless you count, er, either of the "Bloody Sunday" shootings)
eropple 9y ago
The Blitz was huge. It was terrible. It was also across a channel. He's talking about ground-level, street-to-street fighting, where you see men clomp into the town in which you live and remake your society, and that's very arguably a difference of kind. Britain has not seen fighting on its soil that was not internecine in the better part of a thousand years (honorable mention to the French who bailed on Fishguard Bay, though). The countries he's talking about were stomped on in living memory.
- quirkafleeg 9y ago
  He didn't say that what happened to other people and not him long before he was even born was worse than what happened during the Blitz, he said British people "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. Not everywhere in Eastern Europe was Stalingrad or Warsaw, particularly in fascist, anti-Semitic states like Romania, which eagerly invaded the USSR alongside its Nazi ally, and was second only to Nazi Germany in murdering Jews.
  - paganel 9y ago
    > He didn't say that what happened to other people and not him long before he was even born was worse than what happened during the Blitz, he said British people "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. I know my basic history, thank you very much. I moved office recently and in my way to work I'm passing on a street which used to have a Jewish cemetery until 1942 (or 1943). At that point all the tombstones were taken way, the buried taken who knows where and some garden was built in that place. On my way to my previous office I used to pass on the street where 2 Jewish synagogues had been burned in 1941, by the members of a right wing party which was all powerful back then. > "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. Have the British experienced the horrors of communism, which was brought to us directly by WW2? No, they have not. > Not everywhere in Eastern Europe was Stalingrad or Warsaw, particularly in fascist, anti-Semitic states like Romania, which eagerly invaded the USSR alongside its Nazi ally, and was second only to Nazi Germany in murdering Jews. We invaded USSR because of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which saw the Soviets take part of our country (I'll let you search on wikipedia which part exactly). I, for myself, do not think that was the best decision for us to take, but saying that we invaded USSR like we were the Golden Horde searching for things to loot then you're utterly mistaken. > offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. I don't care if people get so easily offended by things that are very close to the truth (as in we can't never know the historical truth 100%). To put it more bluntly, I was always asking myself as a kid, in my head: "Has my grand-mother been raped by the Russians as they entered our country?". Answer: she was probably not, or, if she was, it doesn't matter, now, as she's dead, but that question was put by a lot of kids and grand-kids after WW2 all the way from Berlin to the gates of Moscow (you can replace "Russian soldiers" with "German soldiers" as you go East). What I'm trying to say is that things on the Continent have been fucking bleak, and what happened in Britain, as a comparison, is kids' play. I don't care if you find that offensive or not.
paganel 9y ago
Just read a couple of days ago about a Romanian soldier who saw how his German comrades were taking the unborn babies out of their Russian pregnant mothers, using bayonettes. I'm now having a beer with one of my best friends, Romanian, never set foot in Russia, who has cousins somewhere in Russia because one of his grand-fathers was a war prisoner there. After he was set free he met a Russian woman with whom he had a kid (and on case you wonder why would a Russian woman have kids with a Romanian prisoner, thst was because there were no Russian men left). Earlier in the day, when I first left my comment, I was writing from my parents' town, on the Danube. There were reports of Bulgarian soldiers raping and killing civilians after they defeated us and occupied the town in WW1, I'ce seen those photos in a book published just after the war ended. They were all civilians As far as I know no British civilian was killed with bayonettes nor raped. Yeah, we overhere on the Continent (especially here in the East) got it a lot worst than the British. Yes, I was serious, and some of you people need to learn more about history, not the kind of stuff you get to watch on TV.
- quirkafleeg 9y ago
  > Yeah, we overhere on the Continent (especially here in the East) got it a lot worst than the British. Yeah, after all your parents had to endure the horror of no central heating occasionally, an unimaginable atrocity beyond comprehension that nobody - certainly that no pampered "Brit" living in their ivory tower - has ever had to endure. > some of you people need to learn more about history Says the person who thinks Castro remained Cuban leader because the country is sunny.
  - paganel 9y ago
    > Yeah, after all your parents had to endure the horror of no central heating occasionally, an unimaginable atrocity beyond comprehension that nobody - certainly that no pampered "Brit" living in their ivory towers - has ever had to endure. That was caused by communism, and communism was brought to our country by us being on the wrong side of the Wall after WW2. And if you think that raising a kid with no fucking heat to speak of in the middle of an Eastern European winter (we're not talking about the foggy winters you got over there in the British Isles) then you really need to also learn about geography. > Says the person who thinks Castro remained Cuban leader because the country is sunny. There was a discussion in a thread about Venezuela recently where some HN-er was discovering the incredible truth about how the end of civilization, i.e. mass revolts, is about 6 missing meals away (too lazy to search for the link, the thread happened in the last 2 weeks or so). During the December 1989 revolt against communism people on the street were shouting for having electrical power and heating in their homes, and if possible more food in the stores. But you can't possibly know that, the British haven't revolted or protested for anything meaningful since the Levellers. I know that the audience in here tends to be pretty pampered, generally speaking, but I was also thinking that a lot of HN-ers would compensate that by reading more about what's happening and and what happened in the world.

Maybe it's because the Brits (as in the civil population) never really got to experience the horrors of war for the last 200 years, at least. Are you serious? What do you think the Blitz was?

quirkafleeg 9y ago

Doesn't sound like he has any idea what the Blitz was. During the cold war (and in Hollywood) the propaganda seemed more about the US defeating the Nazis single handed, while the Soviet and other effort was relatively overlooked. More recently, Russia likes to do the same, downplaying the role of other countries, including those that were in it from the start and didn't ally themselves with Nazi Germany. Now we have someone apparently from a country that was on the side of the Nazis in WWII writing off the sacrifices of a country that was under attack and bombed by the Nazis for almost six years.

urbanj 9y ago

Interesting that the city most affected by the Blitz is overwhelmingly Remain...

pjc50 9y ago

He has something of a point; the Blitz was bad, and rationing and evacuation was bad, but compared to occupation? Compared to the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad? The UK has never experienced occupying armies marching in and arbitrarily executing the public (unless you count, er, either of the "Bloody Sunday" shootings)

eropple 9y ago

The Blitz was huge. It was terrible. It was also across a channel. He's talking about ground-level, street-to-street fighting, where you see men clomp into the town in which you live and remake your society, and that's very arguably a difference of kind. Britain has not seen fighting on its soil that was not internecine in the better part of a thousand years (honorable mention to the French who bailed on Fishguard Bay, though). The countries he's talking about were stomped on in living memory.

quirkafleeg 9y ago
He didn't say that what happened to other people and not him long before he was even born was worse than what happened during the Blitz, he said British people "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. Not everywhere in Eastern Europe was Stalingrad or Warsaw, particularly in fascist, anti-Semitic states like Romania, which eagerly invaded the USSR alongside its Nazi ally, and was second only to Nazi Germany in murdering Jews.
- paganel 9y ago
  > He didn't say that what happened to other people and not him long before he was even born was worse than what happened during the Blitz, he said British people "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. I know my basic history, thank you very much. I moved office recently and in my way to work I'm passing on a street which used to have a Jewish cemetery until 1942 (or 1943). At that point all the tombstones were taken way, the buried taken who knows where and some garden was built in that place. On my way to my previous office I used to pass on the street where 2 Jewish synagogues had been burned in 1941, by the members of a right wing party which was all powerful back then. > "never really got to experience the horrors" of WWII, which is simply a denial of fact, offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. Have the British experienced the horrors of communism, which was brought to us directly by WW2? No, they have not. > Not everywhere in Eastern Europe was Stalingrad or Warsaw, particularly in fascist, anti-Semitic states like Romania, which eagerly invaded the USSR alongside its Nazi ally, and was second only to Nazi Germany in murdering Jews. We invaded USSR because of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which saw the Soviets take part of our country (I'll let you search on wikipedia which part exactly). I, for myself, do not think that was the best decision for us to take, but saying that we invaded USSR like we were the Golden Horde searching for things to loot then you're utterly mistaken. > offensive and the words of someone who doesn't know even basic history. I don't care if people get so easily offended by things that are very close to the truth (as in we can't never know the historical truth 100%). To put it more bluntly, I was always asking myself as a kid, in my head: "Has my grand-mother been raped by the Russians as they entered our country?". Answer: she was probably not, or, if she was, it doesn't matter, now, as she's dead, but that question was put by a lot of kids and grand-kids after WW2 all the way from Berlin to the gates of Moscow (you can replace "Russian soldiers" with "German soldiers" as you go East). What I'm trying to say is that things on the Continent have been fucking bleak, and what happened in Britain, as a comparison, is kids' play. I don't care if you find that offensive or not.

paganel 9y ago

Just read a couple of days ago about a Romanian soldier who saw how his German comrades were taking the unborn babies out of their Russian pregnant mothers, using bayonettes. I'm now having a beer with one of my best friends, Romanian, never set foot in Russia, who has cousins somewhere in Russia because one of his grand-fathers was a war prisoner there. After he was set free he met a Russian woman with whom he had a kid (and on case you wonder why would a Russian woman have kids with a Romanian prisoner, thst was because there were no Russian men left). Earlier in the day, when I first left my comment, I was writing from my parents' town, on the Danube. There were reports of Bulgarian soldiers raping and killing civilians after they defeated us and occupied the town in WW1, I'ce seen those photos in a book published just after the war ended. They were all civilians As far as I know no British civilian was killed with bayonettes nor raped. Yeah, we overhere on the Continent (especially here in the East) got it a lot worst than the British. Yes, I was serious, and some of you people need to learn more about history, not the kind of stuff you get to watch on TV.

quirkafleeg 9y ago
> Yeah, we overhere on the Continent (especially here in the East) got it a lot worst than the British. Yeah, after all your parents had to endure the horror of no central heating occasionally, an unimaginable atrocity beyond comprehension that nobody - certainly that no pampered "Brit" living in their ivory tower - has ever had to endure. > some of you people need to learn more about history Says the person who thinks Castro remained Cuban leader because the country is sunny.
- paganel 9y ago
  > Yeah, after all your parents had to endure the horror of no central heating occasionally, an unimaginable atrocity beyond comprehension that nobody - certainly that no pampered "Brit" living in their ivory towers - has ever had to endure. That was caused by communism, and communism was brought to our country by us being on the wrong side of the Wall after WW2. And if you think that raising a kid with no fucking heat to speak of in the middle of an Eastern European winter (we're not talking about the foggy winters you got over there in the British Isles) then you really need to also learn about geography. > Says the person who thinks Castro remained Cuban leader because the country is sunny. There was a discussion in a thread about Venezuela recently where some HN-er was discovering the incredible truth about how the end of civilization, i.e. mass revolts, is about 6 missing meals away (too lazy to search for the link, the thread happened in the last 2 weeks or so). During the December 1989 revolt against communism people on the street were shouting for having electrical power and heating in their homes, and if possible more food in the stores. But you can't possibly know that, the British haven't revolted or protested for anything meaningful since the Levellers. I know that the audience in here tends to be pretty pampered, generally speaking, but I was also thinking that a lot of HN-ers would compensate that by reading more about what's happening and and what happened in the world.