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RE: American Freedom?
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: American Freedom? (in reply to dformell)
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quote:
Stalingrad, Kursk, etc. would be under the Russian campaign but your point is well taken, Herr Hitler indeed made many more mistakes. The post should have been titled the 5 major mistakes. Lucky for us allies Hitler was not a military genius.
I have been traveling most of the day. Left Washington, DC this morning, and after a 2 1/2 hour layover in Chicago's O'Hare Airport, just arrived in Pheonix. Spending four delightful days in Tempe, Arizona, for no other reason than a change of scenery
In my opinion, the two biggest mistakes Hitler made were:
A. embarking on Operation Barbarossa and invading Russia in the first place. Even if he hadn't delayed six weeks in order to invade Yugoslavia, I think he would have ultimately bogged down in Russia.
B. I would say his second biggest mistake was the air campaign against Britain, the "Battle of Britain." At the time, Britain was impotent to do anything on the Continent. The British had been evacuated at Dunkirk, they had ignominiously left the Norwegians to the Nazis, and, Churchill notwithstanding, there were appeasers (most notably Lord Halifax) who wanted to cut a deal with Hitler via Mussolini. If Hitler had just left Britain alone, they would have keenly felt their own impotence, and the voices for appeasement would have gained more credibility. The Nazi air war against Britain stiffened their resistance and gave them reason to fight, and it was tailor-made for Winston Churchill's great speeches that gave the British a vision of themselves that they heretofore did not possess. It has been said that Churchill marshalled the English language and took it into battle. That is very true. But what is also true is Hitler's air war against Britain set the framework for the great effort.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 16 2012 23:23:21
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
First I counsel against anger, then I fly completely off the handle.
I apologize for insults I uttered while I was off the reservation.*
I don't think you flew completely off the handle at all, Richard, nor do I think you were off the reservation. Nor did I detect any insults in your post. I don't know why you apologize for speaking the truth in a manner that was far less insulting than some of the stuff that has been thrown at others during various anti-American diatribes.
As for me, I stand by my post of December 15 on the subject. I refuse to try and curry favor with those spewing such venom.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 16 2012 23:41:32
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Miguel, I have just returned from having a fantastic meal at Rosita's. If you find time for lunch or dinner, I have already sent you, via PM, the Mission Palms telephone No. I am registered in the name of William Barkell. Give me a call if you can manage it. If not, I will think of you next time I go to Rosita's (probably Tuesday evening) and have wonderful tacos with shredded beef and just the right amount of lettuce, cheese, and tomatos. I will also drink a Pacifico (brewed in Mazatlan) in your honor.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 17 2012 3:01:18
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dformell
Posts: 126
Joined: Nov. 7 2010
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Doitsujin)
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I agree with you, the topic has shifted considerably. I started this thread to examine what I see as injustices in American society, i.e. the stranglehold that corporations & banks have on the average person and indeed the world. A few members have gotten upset which was not my intention. The idea was to have a calm rational discussion and respect the other person whether you agree with them or not. It's interesting to hear another person's perspective and healthy to. If everyone had the same political viewpoint, religion, language, etc. the world would be a very boring place. While we are on the subject of American Freedom the Connecticut shootings come to mind, this kind of thing has been going on in America for a long time. The aforementioned incident can be seen as a symptom to an illness. When a person has a cold they sneeze, cough, etc. which demonstrates the person isn't well. The shootings that keep happening in America are symptoms that American society is not well. When I started this thread I was pointing my finger at Corporate America and it's star employees, namely the U.S. government. But we are all responsible. On a personal level I see us Americans treating each other like $hit. People are rude to each other in public; at supermarkets people leave their carts in parking lots because they are to lazy to put them in cart corrals. Sometimes, like on windy days, the cart will roll into a car. Who cares? it's not their problem. There is also a total lack of trust and sincerity. More evidence that American society is eroding, stores being opened on Thanksgiving. The American consumer acts like a drug addict only his drug is products. I want more more more and I want it now! Americans aren't citizens, they are consumers. A lack of responsibility is another problem; we live in time when one can flip off another and just drive away with no consequences. Post whatever you want on the internet even if it's not true, it's o.k. there's no repercussions. Selfishness runs rampant in American Society as well, me me me, it's all about me. Fellow Americans we need to start caring for each other more. We are blowing it. Our politicians are a product and reflection of our society, when we get mad at them it's like we are mad at ourselves. No one is going to cure our society's illness, we have to do it ourselves. I look forward to replies, good night a god bless you all.
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Date Dec. 17 2012 4:29:39
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Time to try to come at it, I suppose.
As usual, I start with a boring little story. When I was 11 and 12 years old, we lived in Alaska. It was marvelous for a boy that age. My best friend Ivan and I could set out walking after breakfast on Saturday, and before lunch we could be in a place where there was no evidence there had been any human there before us. We could put together our fly rods, dip our flies into a stream and be guaranteed a trout for lunch, garnished with berries from the streamside grove.
On longer trips we could see the majesty of the Alaska Range and the stupendous mass of of the great god Denali, which we white people called Mount McKinley. With Ivan's Dad whose professional work took him on long hikes and camping trips, we could penetrate the utter wilderness of the Kenai Peninsula. In those days there were no roads there. We experienced the paralyzing fear, awe and beauty of walking into a clearing among the big trees, only to have two brown bears rear up to their full 10-foot height and start sniffing the breeze to find our direction.
No one has to tell you what to do when you see a brown bear up close. You will automatically stand perfectly still, breathe silently, and try not to piss in your pants.
Then we moved to Washington, DC. Of course at the beginning of school we had the "stand in front of the class for ten minutes, and tell what you did over the summer."
In my previous school I had the top grades in both speaking and writing. My teacher gave me good grades for my talk in Washington. But my new friends were utterly indifferent to what I was so deeply moved by.
They were smart kids. They knew their way around a relatively sophisticated city. They went to concerts, art galleries and the theater. But almost all of them had lived there all their lives. They had never seen a real mountain. They had never left home in the morning confident of catching a trout for lunch. Many had never seen a wild rabbit, much less a brown bear that towered over them with huge menace and awful beauty.
There was no common experience to base communication upon. If you asked them to define "mountain", they could write it out perfectly. But they had never seen a range of 4,000 meter peaks with deep snow on them all summer long, much less the titanic beauty of Denali, visible from 300 kilometers away. They thought they knew the words, but they didn't know what they meant. I soon stopped talking about Alaska, and set about learning my way around the East Coast.
When I came home from combat in Central America, I knew why my father and uncles never spoke about WW II. They weren't ashamed of what they had done, as I was. They were proud that they had successfully defended their country against attack. But they knew that their experiences had been so different, that if they spoke to folks back home about war, it would be senseless babble, or worse yet, terribly misunderstood.
Total war is a different state of existence than peace. My parents' generation experienced it firsthand. Not just a few countries. The whole planet was enveloped in the rage and madness of total war. There has never been anything remotely like it since.
Shall I describe combat? Sorry, I can't. You would read the words, but would understand them differently, or not at all.
So why did I get angry?
My generation lived through the war as children. We felt the fear, anger and determination around us. We ourselves feared for our fathers and uncles. My large extended family was very close. I loved my uncles almost as much as my father. We hated the enemies who did their best to kill them, or to capture and torture them, as the Japanese did.
After the war many of us kids faced another task, along with our parents: reconciliation. My father went to Japan and met a different kind of people than the ones he, his brother and brothers-in-law had faced in battle. Many of us military kids were soon exposed to our former enemies in person. Guys brought home German and Japanese wives from their tours in the occupations. We played with their kids, and were invited to their houses. Their mothers were nothing like how we pictured their uncles, who had done their very best to kill our fathers. We soon realized our friends' mothers may have been loyal subjects of Der Führer or the Emperor, but now they were not. They were Americans.
My task of reconciliation was perhaps a little more intense than some. Thirty-five years after the war was done, I fell in love with a girl who had grown up in Tokyo. My father had tried to kill her mother by setting the city on fire with incendiary bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the highest single cases of civilian fatality. The fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people right away than either atomic bomb. Atomic victims died by the thousands later from radiation sickness. People in Tokyo starved to death.
When my girl and I began to talk of our families, she found out my father had been in the Air Force. She asked if he had anything to do with the fire bombing of Tokyo, which she had heard her mother describe with deep emotion. I started to apologize. She said, "Richard, don't. We started it. If they could have, the militarists would have done the same thing to you."
So, who were "the militarists"? Her mother told me.
Once when we talked, her mother said to me, apropos of nothing I could see, "I was a member of a generation that was disillusioned with Japan, perhaps more than most. The militarists imprisoned my father. He died in jail." Her father was a prominent physicist who had studied in America. He said publicly that if Japan attacked America, they would lose the war.
"The militarists...?" I asked.
"While America was tearing itself to pieces and killing millions of their brothers over the question of slavery, Japan was struggling with feudalism. I come from a feudal family." Her great-great grandfather was Yamagata Aritomo, one of the great feudal lords of Choshu.
"We were among those who rebelled against the Shogun, and moved to transfer power back to the Emperor in 1867, after the centuries of the Tokugawa Shogunate. There was no intent to dismantle the feudal system. But other elements seized the chance to remove power from the samurai class and the daimyo, my ancestors among them. They could no longer walk through the street with their swords, with the power of life and death over the lower classes. It established the beginnings of modern Japan, for which we may be thankful. But many of the feudal classes went into the military. They were the personal subjects of the Emperor, beyond parliamentary control. Japanese officers still carried the sword, the symbol of the samurai and the daimyo. They no longer held the power of life and death over Japanese merchants and peasants, but you know well that they made sword practice cutting off the heads of prisoners of war. You know your English history. When was the last time when the whole company of an English bodyguard died with their defeated king on the field of battle?
"At Maldon, in Essex."
"When was that, my friend Richard?"
"More than a thousand years ago."
"In Japan that ethic was still alive in 1867...and in 1945. Those were the militarists. Those were the descendants of the feudal elite who maneuvered to ever greater power under Meiji's weak son, and who took over the government under the Showa Emperor [Hirohito, Emperor during WWII]. Those were the men who started the war in Manchuria and invaded China. Those were the men whose troops raped Nanking. Those were the men who killed millions in China and bombed the city of Chongqing. Those were the men who foolishly attacked America. Those were the men who killed my father by imprisoning him when he betrayed his class. Those were the men who MacArthur removed from power in the Occupation. Those were the men who made my generation disillusioned with Japan by bringing defeat upon us for the first time since the beginning of the world."
She spoke calmly, but the hand that held the antique teacup trembled slightly. I had known her for a little over two years.
Though the subject of my father's profession never came up between my girl's mother and me, the Japanese expatriate community in San Francisco was small and relatively tight knit. As I came to understand that community better, I began to suspect her mother may have known my father's profession anyhow. Maybe someone remembered a name from MacArthur's staff. I asked my girl.
"It may be, Richard. I don't know. You know I won't bring it up with her. If she does know, she won't bring it up with me. Certainly not with you. Maybe not even with Daddy."
"Do you think what she said about the militarists...."
"I thought it was her....formal act of forgiveness." She wept for about five seconds, then dried her eyes. "But I don't know for sure. I won't ever know for sure. I will always think it was."
It wasn't the last time we wept about what had been done to her family and her country, what had happened to my uncle because of her country attacking mine, what had been done to her father's family by the Nazis, what my family had done in retaliation for her country's attack., how the lives of my father and uncles had been endangered for years at a time by their defense of their unjustly attacked country, and just about the brutality of total war.
She asked if it would be appropriate to meet my uncle. I thought about it for at least a week. Then I said, "Yes, he's always been strong, but he's well now. I know you won't do anything..."
They got along great. He had a suit he had picked up working at the Salvation Army that fit him perfectly. He looked great. We went to a Kansas City steakhouse. He never drank, but he bought us a bottle of wine.
The next time I saw him, he said he liked my girl. "You always like the cute ones,"he said. "But she's a real sweetheart." Without a word being said he knew what she meant by coming to Kansas City to see him.
I'll stop now. You don't know what I'm talking about. You never will. At least I hope you never have the experiences that would give you the basis for communication.
Millions of those who fought on all sides of the great madness, millions of their children who experienced war at second hand, reconciled. Many of us have a special bond of mutual forgiveness with our former enemies. You have no skin in the game. Leave us in peace, for God's sake.
You have no idea what total war is. It is the province of historians. Historians don't sift through the ashes of madness, and say, "Oh, that was evil. This whole country is to be condemned." They view history with all the coolness and precision they can muster. Their emotions are bound to be engaged, but they know that in total war they are dealing with a form of madness.
My girl's father visited his only surviving relative, the sister he persuaded to leave Germany when he did. She was a psychiatrist in Buenos Aires. With his thoughtful, gentle, but ironic smile, my girl's father said to me, "I asked her why she chose psychiatry. She said she wanted to try to learn why things went wrong with people's minds. I asked her if she had found out. She said, 'No, but in a few cases I can help with their symptoms.'"
Politicians in America are masters of promoting the fake issue. Shortly after the last election I was violently attacked by one of my close relatives for how I had cast my vote. I had resolved not to discuss politics with her, but it had not occurred to me to resolve to lie, saying i had not voted. When I said I couldn't figure out where her candidate stood, she lashed out, "You didn't vote for Obama, did you??? Did You???"
Caught flat footed, without a rehearsed lie, i said, "Well, yes."
"My God, I thought you were an intelligent man. How could you be so STUPID as to vote for a Muslim communist from Kenya who passed a law permitting partial birth abortion???!!!" She was violently angry, screaming and fuming. Unfortunately all the things she accused the president of were bald faced lies. Absolutely huge bald faced lies. She is an educated woman, who has lived in a foreign country, though it was in the Near East 40 years ago. I love her dearly, but my stomach churns at the thought of meeting her at Christmas time.
The fake issue is meant to stir emotions and get people to vote, without addressing the real issues.
You no doubt have real issues with America. So do all thinking Americans. I think they deserve an airing, as long as we can refrain from personal attacks.
But the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, Stalin's killing of millions of kulaks by his intentional famine, the Soviet gulag, the Stasi surveillance of German citizens, Mussolini's colonization of Ethiopia, France's conduct in Indochina, the fire bombing of Tokyo, the British suppression of the Mutiny in India, all these are fake issues for us. The people who did those things are dead. They are not responsible for today's evils, except for the repercussions of their acts that echo down the years of history. All these are useful fields of study for historians, but for today's debates they are fake issues. They stir emotions, but they have nothing to do with the problems at hand.
I am not responsible for the gradual Anglo-Saxon conquest of England, the Danish conquest of England, the Norman conquest of England--in all of which my various ancestors played a part. The consequences of these events still reverberate in England today. But they are not indicative of my character. Not even slave owning by two of my great-grandfathers is indicative of my character, though some here would seem to imply that it is. My other two great-grandfathers fought against slavery, at the risk of their lives. How do you score that game? The reverberations of slavery are readily apparent in the demographics of the last presidential vote. But taking the present day residents of Mississippi to task for slavery is a fake issue. Some are still racist, but they are not slave owners, nor do they want to be.
I didn't fire bomb Tokyo. My father did. My girl and her mother, who were the victims at first and second hand, forgave him. So did many of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forgive their attackers. So did my uncle forgive the forces, both American and Japanese, that gave him nightmares and disabling waking flashbacks for years, as he strove to survive as a kind of agnostic monk. It was sad to see him in those days, though I admired his bravery. They finally left him in peace, for the last 20 years of his life. He was a keen observer of the world during those days. My visits to him at the Salvation Army or Goodwill were high points for me. For all those people, for my girl and me, forgiveness was the way forward.
But when Deniz put together what my father had been forgiven for, after much pain and grief, and what Hitler had done to my girl's father, he stepped on a land mine. it took the rag off the bush. That's a Texas phrase. Nobody seems to know its literal meaning. It means a sudden flaming rage, often accompanied by physical violence.
Deniz had no way of knowing what it meant to me. Fortunately he was not within reach for me to throw a chair at his head. Being a tireless keyboarder, I launched a flaming, sarcastic personal attack, for which I apologized. I regret the attack. I'm not sorry for the rage.
End of story.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 17 2012 5:36:55
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Ruphus, I think you stir the pot too much. I know things about some of you i wished I had never known. I'm totally convinced you and your buddies hate Americans and have a huge ax to grind against them. The garbage you say goes far beyond critical conversations. You pushing and pushing has made me never want to trust you again in context where join together over music. I also feel as though you and your buddies really don't care. You have nothing to lose I suppose, except possible friendly exchanges on a music website. If that is your intention congratulations you're very accomplished at it.
To presume me of something I have explained several times as not of my attitude seems easier for you than to ever assume anything contradicting your intact world of national background.
Your method being the one described by the old lady in Richard´s post, when she mentioned her societal niche by: "Those were the men who killed my father by imprisoning him when he betrayed his class" for his prediction of Japan to lose the war if they attack the USA.
For the emotionally based mind rejected matters must not be said, otherwise affiliation will be denied. I have said it before, you have surprised me about your associative depth in this matter while on the other hand so capable of wise and beautiful ponderings. Cognition one other time shows to be a very diverse and complex thing.
What you color as "pushing" for to adjust your neglection is my argument about the inconsistency of what needs to stay "democracy" for you. You say things are easier for you with being totally convinced of me and my buddies being haters of Americans? You want us on the trivial level that you need to float on?
So be it. I can´t do more than trying to tell you what my thinking is like.
After all, the good thing with the internet is that there can a number of people be motivated to take up clues and continue with their own research. That is what I am after. If you won´t, others might.
Still, your contributions, just like mine, will help to illuminate qualities.
Do I want to stir things up?
In certain aspects: Absolutely!
I see a plain horrible world with superstition, stupidity and mental pathology causing unspeakable atrocities which are being passed by giant hosts of sleepwalkers, quite like in the B-movie They Live ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live ) only more defficile regarding intellectual symptoms.
I see a vast of intellectuals firmly isolated from a certain degree of depth. Minds who can´t approach certain very simple concreteness like the human right of inalienable labour value or several principles of proportionality.
I see that moonwalk expropriating us from this planets greatest gems and steering all of it into disintigration; and thus am desperately wishing for some kind of finger snip that could possibly wake up the sleepwalkers and have menkind run for the last retrievals possible.
You, in the meantime may stay entangled with keeping up the ideal world and integrity of established world policies; may refrain from absorbing mine and my buddies compunctions, - and please take your compagnion Doitsujin with you who stems from the traditional culture of rational eluding and would rather take all collapsing than getting prepared of noticing anything of woeful content.
Ruphus
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Date Dec. 17 2012 10:24:10
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
You have no idea what total war is. It is the province of historians.
Since your post was addressed to me, I suppose your comments were meant for me, Richard. None of us, including you, knows what it is like to experience total war. Nevertheless, I think I have as good an understanding of it as anyone can have who hasn't experienced it first-hand.
Regarding what you term as your "rage" toward Deniz's comments. If that is your idea of rage, you are a very mild man indeed. And that is meant as a compliment. As I stated earlier, your comments simply spoke the truth about the unrelenting rubbish he and his buddies propagate about America. And you did it in a manner that was far less offensive than their comments about those who contend that America occasionally gets things right. For that, you are to be complimented.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 17 2012 13:41:59
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XXX
Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Richard, i didnt wholly read your last long post, i only glanced over the parts that carry my name. Raging is ok i think, as long as the content of whats being said doesnt suffer. I dont care about the how, only the what. As you see i dont have any personal feelings on the matter we are talking about. I also dont aim to insult anyones feelings by what i write. Feelings make up for a good story, but they are uninteresting in terms of analysis.
My mistake was to assume only crazy far far right wing people would defend the nuke bombing. As i see, also otherwise reasonable people can defend the undefendable. HOW this mechanism works, i explained earlier. Also you have to notice... criticizing the nukes doesnt mean defending any other atrocities done by any other nation. People need to get rid of this thinking in parties/nationalities. Maybe, just a thought, if so many nations have dirty laundry to wash, the nationalism per se sucks? Just a thought...
To be honest with you, it makes my stomach turn otherwise to live on the same planet with people who defend mass slaughter and are not considered insane or sick. But maybe thats just me.
Anyway i wanted to write a point about that you can only forgive somebody if he feels sorry for something and that we were talking about the actions of states, not individuals etc.... of course a state can forgive another state. Vietnam became a valued trading partner didnt it? Sorry im in a hurry and these last sentences are not particularly well formulated. I also dont think they will change much in others minds. Sorry for taking your time, continue as usual please.
_____________________________
Фламенко
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Date Dec. 17 2012 15:31:23
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Deniz
Richard, i didnt wholly read your last long post, i only glanced over the parts that carry my name. Raging is ok i think, as long as the content of whats being said doesnt suffer. I dont care about the how, only the what. As you see i dont have any personal feelings on the matter we are talking about. I also dont aim to insult anyones feelings by what i write. Feelings make up for a good story, but they are uninteresting in terms of analysis.
But much of war is about feelings, don't you think?
quote:
Anyway i wanted to write a point about that you can only forgive somebody if he feels sorry for something and that we were talking about the actions of states, not individuals etc.... of course a state can forgive another state. Vietnam became a valued trading partner didnt it? Sorry im in a hurry and these last sentences are not particularly well formulated. I also dont think they will change much in others minds. Sorry for taking your time, continue as usual please.
I don't keep track of the apologies of states very well. To me their motivations range from sincerity to hypocrisy dictated by political expedience.
"Feeling sorry" covers a variety of mental states. I am sure the fire bombing of Tokyo weighed on my father's conscience. I saw the tears in his eyes when he described his first sight of the results. The description I witnessed came after he experienced Japan at first hand for a couple of years.
I'm pretty sure he subscribed to the justification of the atomic bombing that Bill detailed. Was he insane? As I said, total war is a form of madness. Especially after he retired from the military he appeared to me as a sane, reasonable and good hearted man, though we did have our political disagreements. He was used to it. He lived with a loving wife for 65 years who often disagreed with his politics. Both he and my girl's parents agreed on the madness of war. They say no one hates war like an old soldier. I am one of them as well.
Is "America" sorry for the atomic bombing? I have no idea. The decision was Truman's, eleven presidents ago. George W. Bush takes up far more attention in the conscience of American people, both pro and con.
But here are a couple of links that say the Obama administration at least explored the possibility of a formal apology for the atomic bombings, but was advised against it by the Japanese government itself.
A straightforward news report from a source that is usually reliable:
http://tinyurl.com/dxmk9dm
The subtlety of East Asian discourse is clear in the suggestion that a simple visit to Hiroshima by the president would convey the message, without making the Japanese government's position more difficult with elements in their own country.
A right wing niche site abhorring the possibility:
http://tinyurl.com/d5ymgkm
In my opinion the right wing site is a good example of the sort of false issue I mentioned earlier. Respectable news organizations, reputed for their accuracy, whatever their editorial politics may be, have examined the repeated claims of Obama's "apology" tour, and reported that he didn't really apologize to anybody, though he was trying to temper frayed relations with the nations he visited.
But some of my close relatives believe in the "apology tour" and hate the idea. Some of them hate "Obama" as he is portrayed by some political elements. At least a slim majority of U.S. voters disagree with this portrayal. I know of quite a few people who voted against him who disagree with this portrayal.
There are plenty of real issues between Obama and his political opponents. The false ones just impede progress on solutions to these differences.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 17 2012 16:28:19
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
To presume me of something I have explained several times as not of my attitude seems easier for you than to ever assume anything contradicting your intact world of national background.
Your method being the one described by the old lady in Richard´s post, when she mentioned her societal niche by: "Those were the men who killed my father by imprisoning him when he betrayed his class" for his prediction of Japan to lose the war if they attack the USA.
For the emotionally based mind rejected matters must not be said, otherwise affiliation will be denied. I have said it before, you have surprised me about your associative depth in this matter while on the other hand so capable of wise and beautiful ponderings. Cognition one other time shows to be a very diverse and complex thing.
What you color as "pushing" for to adjust your neglection is my argument about the inconsistency of what needs to stay "democracy" for you. You say things are easier for you with being totally convinced of me and my buddies being haters of Americans? You want us on the trivial level that you need to float on?
So be it. I can´t do more than trying to tell you what my thinking is like.
After all, the good thing with the internet is that there can a number of people be motivated to take up clues and continue with their own research. That is what I am after. If you won´t, others might.
Still, your contributions, just like mine, will help to illuminate qualities.
Do I want to stir things up?
In certain aspects: Absolutely!
I see a plain horrible world with superstition, stupidity and mental pathology causing unspeakable atrocities which are being passed by giant hosts of sleepwalkers, quite like in the B-movie They Live ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live ) only more defficile regarding intellectual symptoms.
I see a vast of intellectuals firmly isolated from a certain degree of depth. Minds who can´t approach certain very simple concreteness like the human right of inalienable labour value or several principles of proportionality.
I see that moonwalk expropriating us from this planets greatest gems and steering all of it into disintigration; and thus am desperately wishing for some kind of finger snip that could possibly wake up the sleepwalkers and have menkind run for the last retrievals possible.
You, in the meantime may stay entangled with keeping up the ideal world and integrity of established world policies; may refrain from absorbing mine and my buddies compunctions, - and please take your compagnion Doitsujin with you who stems from the traditional culture of rational eluding and would rather take all collapsing than getting prepared of noticing anything of woeful content.
Ruphus
More hollow talk.
You're the wrong person to attack me about being non progressive. If I can recall back one of your numerous diatribes, slanders against modern art or art that is non objective, abstract or conceptual, it is evident that you have non many many non progressive opinions. Your favorite pet peeve is Andy Warhol, or how New York school abstract painting was cooked up by the US State Dept as propaganda.
Tell you what, all those topics you bring up are totally passe' for any progressively thinking person in the international art world or social intelligentsia. And yet you fume over these ideas that are not progressive at all, let alone actually real.
The reason many writers, visual artists, dancers and film makers came to the US before, during and after WWII was to escape the persecution and mental tyranny of people like you. And Franz Kline our painter was not thinking about US propaganda when he painted. The Europeans expats who came to the US, like Arshile Gorky or Max Ernst, Hans Hoffman, the cellist Emanuel Feuermann, were escaping political persecution of small minds who hated modernity and artists who gave progressive thought to politics. I could make a list four blocks long and explain all the contributions each one made.
We embraced the progressives artists and thinkers that the reactionary powers in Central Europe disposed of, we made them our venerated teachers and philosophers. The US gave safe harbor to the thinkers and artists that arrived here. If they had stayed in Europe they very likely would not have survived, thus the world would have lost much of its art and 20th century culture from Central Europe.
Really you want argue me down as anti-progressive? You can't even get your mind to move farther than mid 19th century realist academic painting.
Want to swim in the deep end of the pool? Better get hip to the last hundred and fifty years of literature, art and music.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 17 2012 16:58:25
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to mezzo)
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quote:
3. Japan' nukes were State territorism (I not bring this one on the topic, I just give my POV afterwards. So unlike the others points listed, this one it's not a personal).
4. Unit 731. (Here's when Estebanana started to portrayed me as a retarded anti american a$$hole).
Regarding Unit 731:
I said I disliked that you searched the internet and found an atrocity which fit the profile of your grievences against the US and then used it without too much thought as to the total implications of how you used it. Or without researching the motive of Mac Arthur and comparing them to your fast and dirty internet "research" as cross a reference before you posted your atrocity of the moment. I never called you an a##hole, just a poor researcher. Big difference. I am in full right to critique your research method.
What I objected to, if you give a close reading to what I actually wrote, is that this type of fast reading and posting on the internet creates a situation where you use or exploit the victims of that atrocity to your own ends before conducting a fully developed understanding of the incident committed, why it happened, what the later social implications were and so on. I was in China and I can't think of any reason I would bring that up with a Chinese person or have the hubris to point to that time in history and use it make a point in an argument unless I had a vested interest in the actutal victims of those horrible medical experiments. I think Richard said it best in his post: " You have no skin in the game."
I don't not know what Mac Arthur was thinking, but I do know that he wanted to keep the Japanese identity intact, he aimed at destroying the Japanese military class, if you read Richards post you will see the historical implications of the samurai class over the common people, (beginning with the edict of the 1860's which banned the wearing katana in public) without crushing the spirit of the Japanese people. And if you recall I posted earlier about my own grandfather being in the Motion Picture Unit of the Air Force and how the model of Tokyo was designed to keep US bombing raids from bombing the Emperors Palace and important shines. Why? Because even though we were at war with Japan, the US commanders knew eventually there would have to be reconciliation and that destroying the heart of the culture and the Japanese religious system was not admissible even in war.
Another salient point which arises as a by product of Mac Arthur's decision on Unit 731 is that it helped to keep the Japanese people humanized in the eyes of Americans. Why was this important? The Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast were sent to internment camps and had suffered greatly due to losing property, jobs and esteem in the eyes of non Japanese Americans. If it had been sesationalized that Japanese war criminals had performed medical vivisection on live US airmen in as prisoners in China this would have served as a flash point for hate crimes against Japanese Americans who were fully citizens in exemplary standing of the United States. And who had nothing to do wit these horrors. You understand very little of the pressures and intricacies of politics or social problems of Asian immigrants to the US in relation to the events of WWII.
As a European who presumably did not grow up on the West Coast and had the same experiences and oral histories recounted to you about WWII both by Japanese Americans and non Japanese Americans I doubt you could process all the differing points of view about how it effected post WWII relationships. So forgive me if I find your posts problematic in the context of having spent my whole life around Asian Americans and having listened to their experiences. It is part of the history of California that these issues about cultural identity and post WWII complications of Japanese American internment camps are taught. And they are not taught from the point of view of what you Europeans characterize as the "official" dominant paradigm of the narrative of US WWII propaganda. These issues are taught through the oral histories of those who went through them and I have heard them and studied them since I was an elementary school student.
Another point about the atomic bombing of Japan. ( which I find completely vile that you bring them up in the context of a music website) You are also ignorant of the facts that these were not civilian assaults, but military targets. The towns that were bombed were warned to evacuate civilians two days prior to the bombing because the military bases in the cities were to be military targets. This is a component of the situation that is overlooked continually by those who want foment argument about the morality of the bombings. Do I think it was wrong? Yes I do. Do those who research this event shallowly have a right to accuse ? No!
If you want to talk about killing you need to get your facts straight. Too many people died for you to use this history to grind your petty little axes.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 17 2012 21:24:55
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