August 23rd, 1989: V-C Day

Matt Welch asks why we aren’t celebrating it.
It’s a question that needs to be asked: why don’t we celebrate the greatest victory in American history? After all, we celebrate V-E day, even though our WW II “victory” in Europe left more of that continent under totalitarian rule than before the war, and failed to achieve the war’s initial aim of restoring Polish sovereignty.
Some of the discrepancy stems from the undramatic nature of the event, of course: there was no great decisive shooting war of machines and men, no surrender ceremony. But a large part of why August 23rd is practically unknown can be explained by the fact that the left dominates our cultural institutions, and many never regarded our triumph over Communism as a victory at all. There’s a reason Platoon and Apocalypse Now won Oscars and The Green Berets didn’t (it’s the same reason Obama won a Nobel for 268 hours of… nothing much).
To celebrate V-C Day is to rub their noses in the Pulitzer they gave to Duranty, Dan Rather’s assertion that Soviets enjoyed “economic freedom,” and FDR’s embrace of “Uncle Joe” Stalin. It says maybe Joe McCarthy had a valid point. It says “America, f**k yeah!”