Woeful Woke Wonders Weakening the West

Now even this classic pic is verboten:

The end of Western civilisation as we know it could come down to this: either the masses will get so utterly sick and tired of all the crapola being forced down their throats by the loony left, or the Woke brigade will triumph and we will all be toast. Things really are moving in that direction.

And the way things are now going, pretty soon even celebrating things like the end of WWII and the defeat of Hitler and the Nazis will be declared to be illegal. Consider a quite recent episode of this woke insanity which has caused a massive uproar on the social media – and rightly so.

One of the most iconic photos of all of WWII was about to be banned by the Veterans Affairs Department in the hyper-left Biden administration. But in this case people power meant the government had to do a very quick backdown. But it was not the first time these clowns tried pulling off stuff like this, nor will it be the last.

The picture itself is one of exuberant celebration. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese officially surrendered, bringing this wretched global conflict to a close. One young sailor, George Mendonsa, gave an impromptu celebratory act by giving a young Jewish dental assistant who was passing by a quick hug and a kiss. The rest is history.

However, in our current climate of political correctness, this is now seen as a great evil – one that must forever be purged from the history books. But when ordinary Americans got wind of what was about to happen, they instantly rose to their feet and spoke out. As one media account puts it:

The Veterans Affairs secretary has reversed a department memo that aimed to ban VA displays of the iconic “V-J Day in Times Square” photograph of a Navy sailor kissing a strange woman on the streets of New York at the end of World War II. Secretary Denis McDonough acted hours after a copy of a memo from a VA assistant undersecretary requesting the photo’s removal from all VA health facilities was shared on social media. The memo had said the photo “depicts a non-consensual act” and is inconsistent with the department’s sexual harassment policy. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/day-kiss-photo-stays-display-va-head-reverses-107815608

Claims of her being basically sexually assaulted have been around for some time. The Me-Too movement has played this up, among others. The woman in the photo, whose married name was Greta Zimmer Friedman, did say that the kiss took her by surprise, but she did not regard it as an attack on her person:

In 2016, after her death at 92, her son, Joshua Friedman, told The New York Times that, while his mother understood the contention that it was an unwanted sexual advance, she did not view it that way. In the 2005 interview, Zimmer said, “It was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn’t a romantic event. It was just an event of ‘thank God the war is over’ kind of thing.”

 

“It wasn’t that much of a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act that he didn’t have to go back,” she said. “And the reason he grabbed someone dressed like a nurse was that he just felt very grateful to nurses who took care of the wounded.” Three months earlier, Mendonsa had been at the helm of the USS The Sullivans during the Battle of Okinawa and dragged survivors and the dead from the water. Nurses helped save many lives.

 

In an interview for the same project, Mendonsa said he’d grabbed Zimmer because he thought she was a war nurse. “It was all done in good clean honest fun,” he said. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/karinabland/2019/02/20/post-war-kiss-iconic-picture-unwanted-sexual-advance/2928622002/

As the previous article had also mentioned:

The photo was taken on Aug. 14, 1945, known as V-J Day, the day Japan surrendered to the United States, as people spilled into the New York City streets from restaurants, bars and movie theaters, celebrating the news. George Mendonsa spotted Greta Friedman, spun her around and planted a kiss. The two had never met.

 

The photo, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, is called “V-J Day in Times Square” but is known to most people simply as “The Kiss.” Friedman told the Library of Congress in 2005 that “it wasn’t a romantic event. It was just an event of thank God the war is over kind of thing.” She added in an oral history of the photo, “It wasn’t my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed.” Friedman died in 2016 at age 92. Mendonsa died in 2019 at age 95.

Yes, in today’s politically charged climate where simply a look or a comment can send you to the slammer for all sorts of contrived crimes, a scene like this will likely never again take place. We are afraid to say anything or do anything for fear of offending the woke wonders who think just about everything is offensive and should be criminalised.

Of course had this young sailor actually tried to molest this woman, that might be another matter. Real rape and assault is always to be condemned. But he clearly did not try to do this. He said so, and more importantly, she said so. Therefore an issue should never have been made about this classic photograph and what the sailor had done.

Indeed, as my accompanying photo shows, years later both of them signed the famous picture. Had she really felt that she had been violated and assaulted, she would not have signed her name to it, but would have taken the sailor to court and laid charges. She of course did no such thing.

Were I living back then, and were I a bit more brave and less shy, who knows, I might have hugged someone as well if I had lived through the horrors of the Second World War. It was such a relief to millions of Americans and others that it finally had come to an end. Celebrations were the order of the day.

But today you have to think twice about everything you say and do – you even have to double check on what you are thinking about. That is the stifling climate of political correctness, the woke culture, and the cult of victimisation that we now have to endure. Big Brother is alive and well.

And that does not auger well for Western civilisation.

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