Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)

[rich]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:27 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> It's funny how Hiroshima is always evaluated in terms of the lives of American servicemen. The real currency-unit of war is the child-life.

there is no currency in war, only the incidental to further survival,
even nations, damn the consequences.

>How many American children's lives were saved by the decision to incinerate Japanese children (or napalm Vietnamese children, or drone Pakistani and Afghan children)?

It's all a rather pointless argument, tallying up numbers in this way
and unknowable anyway. All I'm saying is I don't believe that some
line about avoiding an invasion of Japan proper by the use of the bomb
was some sort of propaganda. There was an element of truth to such
notions.

>I think it's very easy to say nay to this issue, Rich.  You shout Stone down because he even questions the orthodoxy.  Show me all the public venues, the Spielberg movies, the congressional panels, where pre-Hiroshima Japanese diplomatic maneuverings have been parsed and analyzed. Why would you be opposed to anyone - ANYONE!- asking tough questions about this decision.


What he's laying down is hardly revelatory. It's up to the individual
to be informed. I never said I was opposed to thoughtful reflection,
research and exposes. I just find Oliver Stone is not the man to do
that. He's a hack

>Not only were children incinerated, but the survivors gave birth to deformed children.  Survivors and their descendants are shunned to this day as genetic mutants. This idea of laying waste to future generations of "the enemy," whether with nuclear fallout or Agent Orange, was born with the dropping of the bomb.  What a great concept:  We (no, fuck it, They) can kill unseen people with the touch of a button.  "We had to do it to save American lives," has all the moral authority of the German "we didn't know about the concentration camps," or Holocaust denials, or the idea of the "smart bomb that only kills 'bad' guys."  It's the same mentality that allows the Bushes and Obama to pretend that only high-placed al-Qaeda terrorists are killed by the drones.

There's been an historical revisionist movement out there w/r/t to
WW2. I've found their arguments rather unconvincing

>
> Her's the explanation Truman gave for dropping the bomb (from http://www.doug-long.com/truman.htm):
>
> "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold."
> ("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 197).
>
> On Aug. 9, after Nagasaki was a-bombed, Truman made another public statement on why the atomic bombs were used:
>
> "Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans."
> ("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 212).
>
> The "thousands and thousands" he refers to has been escalated to millions by the average, clueless American.  But revenge for Pearl Harbor was the big excuse back then.

I think it's wrong to try to equate America in 1945 with America today.