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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 Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
I'm not clear why it was necessary to invade Japan and kill off the civilians to end the war. Wouldn't destruction of offensive military materiel be sufficient to accomplish that task?
The purpose of invading the Japanese home islands would not have been to kill off civilians. If the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not occurred, the Japanese High Command and Emperor Hirohito's War Cabinet planned to continue fighting, necessitating an invasion of the home islands in order to force a defeat and surrender. The Japanese military was literally fanatical about defending Japan and not surrendering. An American and allied invasion to defeat Japan would have meant facing a determined and fanatical Japanese military whose war plans were to make it so difficult for the American and allied invaders that they hoped for an eventual cessation of hostilities that would leave Japan in control of Manchuria and other conquests, and with no American and allied occupation of Japan. This, of course, would have been completely unacceptable to the allies. That is why the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified and necessary. It ended the war with far fewer casualties--American, Japanese, and other Asians in Japanese occupied countries-- than would have been the case had the bombs not been dropped and an invasion been necessary to defeat Japan.
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. 12 2012 1:29:53
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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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quote:
Why was it necessary to occupy the Japanese homeland?
Hello, Miguel,
For the same reason it was necessary to occupy Germany after the war. Namely, both Germany and Japan were highly militaristic societies with a long history of militarism and aggession. In the case of Germany, the 19th century wars that culminated in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 that led to the defeat of France and German unification under Bismark, followed by World War I and World War II. In the case of Japan, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 that led to Russia's defeat, the occupation of Korea in 1910, followed by the 1931 Japanese aggression and occupation of part of Manchuria, the 1937 aggression against China proper, and finally as a member of the Axis in World War II, aggression across Asia and the Pacific, including, of course, the attack against the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.
In the case of both Germany and Japan, the allied occupation, and consequent reforms and programs introduced by the occupying authorities, led to both countries renouncing their militaristic past and becoming responsible members of the world community of nations.
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. 12 2012 2:05:34
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estebanana
Posts: 9354
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to estebanana)
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Interesting, the place I'm going to go live in Japan is the very area of Kyushu that would have been the landing point if the invasion of Japan had been implemented. The Japanese military would have fought to the last boy of 14 years old unless the emperor said stop.
The estimates of Japanese casualties of civilians was in the millions.
On a point to Richard. My grandfather worked in Culver City CA. in the Air Force motion Picture Unit. His commanding officer was none other than Ronald Reagan. My grandfather was an Air Force photographer and set carpenter. He worked on the soundstage that was housed in a huge warehouse where the giant scale model of Tokyo was built. The model used was used to make training films for the pilots who bombed Tokyo in order to simulate what it was like flying over the bay, the city and Mt. Fuji.
The warehouse was several hundred yard long and the like a huge model train layout it was covered in scale buildings, roads and topography which were made from aerial photos of Tokyo. Over the model hung a movable track on a gantry which could place the track in any position over the stage. The track held a movie camera which could be controlled to "fly" over Tokyo and film the city in order to make a perfect simulation of a bombing run over the the city.
The reason the films were made was to ensure that the pilots were familiar certain areas which were off limits to bombing. One of them was the Emperors palace, and several others were important historic temples.
My dear grandfather never spoke poorly of Mr. Reagan, but a few years after my grandfather died there was a radio documentary about Reagan that interested me. The idea was that Reagan was a stanch anti communist and that he gained his fervor for fighting communism because he was one of the first line of officers and lab workers to see combat footage as it was unloaded from reels, developed and classified. The thesis was Reagan never knew actual combat, but lived, well to say it vicariously through the combat footage that passed through his unit. The presenters were quite adamant that Reagan was because of this happenstance was quite sheltered and deluded in his world views about war, combat and global politics.
They said he indoctrinated his men, of whom my grandfather would have been one, by showing them the combat footage and extolling the evils of communism to them, much perhaps the way a charismatic leader like Hitler, for example, could have orated passionately about his delusional hates and ideals. The program was on mainstream American radio and was broadcast several times both before and after the death of ronald Reagan. It was an excoriating expose' of the mind and theory of the formative times of political goals of an important American president.
My dear grandfather was a man of the generation and he spoke reverently of Mr. Reagan as you would expect most of the time for a man to speak about his commanding officer. However my grandfather lost over time some of the fervor, if he ever had it, for a type of seething anti communism that the Reagan profile types promoted.
He told me many interesting stories about the war from the propaganda perspective, both sides allies and axis powers, as his unit was in charge of making films with objectives such as boosting morale of soldiers to survival training films about how to deal with shark attack in the Pacific. They made a film about how to survive if you crash landed on an atoll in the Pacific or were shot down behind enemy lines on a Japanese occupied island. The set was at Camp Pendelton in So. CA. It was a tidal lagoon near the train tracks , they made a mock up of the tail and rear fuselage of a Mitsubishi Zero and stuck that up at a diagonal out of the lagoon. That was also the place I learned to surf, it is called Trestles and it is on of the classic California rock reef breaks and is known for its exceptionally good right breaking wave. I remember clearly seeing that very same lagoon covered in light mist and first sunshine on many mornings when I would go surf Trestles. My grandfather upon finding out I was surfing there hauled out the photos he took on the set of the film making. It pretty much looked the same in 1943 as it did forty years later when I pulled on my wetsuit.
See why Americans are deluded? War is all Hollywoodesque to us.
My other grandfather was an infantryman in the Big Red One, he was like Lee Marvin. After the war he was baseball coach he played semi pro ball before the war and he was champion ice skater. During the war he marched from France to Italy and back and felt lucky when he got to sleep indoors during the four years he was gone. He was 28 when he left the US to go to Europe. He was in the Battle of the Bulge and he was at Buckenvald (sp?) concentration camp when it was "liberated". Because he was older than most guys and was athletic and careful he was placed in the Signal Corps. His job was to walk into German towns behind enemy lines at night and pretend he was a local. He was to confirm if the maps of the town were correct by walking around identifying certain land marks. he went through several helpers who did not heed his warnings to be careful. He also witnessed in real life that war movie cliche where a commanding officer is sending guys into a slaughter over and over and the commanding officer gets shot by his own men to put it to an end.
He would only tell me these things many years later as he would take me fishing when I was in college. We would be floating around in his 16 ft aluminum boat early in the morning eating donuts on some idyllic lake fishing for trout. He would look out over the lake and start by saying: "You know I saw some things over there." He told me many stories about walking into German towns or seeing stacks of bodies like frozen cord wood. I am pretty certain even though men of his generation did not look at it this way that he suffered from PTSD.
He was not like Reagan at all.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Dec. 12 2012 3:03:35
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria
I'm not clear why it was necessary to invade Japan and kill off the civilians to end the war. Wouldn't destruction of offensive military materiel be sufficient to accomplish that task?
Many of the Allied leadership had fought Germany twice within 24 years, in wars of the greatest violence, resulting in the deaths of millions. Two generations have passed since then. Very few people now living can remember the horrors of that time.
The demand for unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan was due to Allied fear of a never ending cycle of total war. The Allies felt it was necessary to occupy both countries for long periods in an effort to re-mold both societies to avoid the resurgence of movements like the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists.
According to the published diaries of members of the Japanese Imperial Household, the Japanese realized they were beaten at least a year before the actual surrender. The Emperor held out, fearful that if he surrendered unconditionally he would be responsible for ending one of the longest running royal dynasties in history. Loyalty to the Emperor was such that the Japanese military fought on.
About thirty-five years ago I was half asleep in front of the TV late at night. I snapped to attention when I realized what was being shown. It was a Japanese home movie. A young man in aviator's gear was attending his own funeral. He was the son of a Duke, preparing to go off on his mission as part of the Kamikaze, the Divine Wind of suicide planes deployed to protect the homeland and the divine Emperor. The women wore their best kimonos, the men formal Japanese clothing. Songs were sung. Flower petals sprinkled on the wind. Downing a last cup of sake the young man strode off with a smile on his face.
I asked my father whether he had seen this film. Was it part of the Allied propaganda effort? No. He had seen the film. He had spoken to the Duke during the Occupation. He was proud of his son's actions.
The last time anything like that had happened in the West was at the battle of Maldon in England almost a thousand years before. Maldon is famous because it is the last recorded incident of a Germanic (English) army following its ancient custom. The entire bodyguard of the defeated king died with him on the field of battle. To do otherwise would have led to ostracism or execution. But that was a thousand years ago.
It was believed the Japanese general population, the Imperial forces, and the reserve forces of older men and boys would fight to the death for the Emperor and the homeland.
At a New Years Eve party at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC I heard a story from a 3-star general. He was the father of the girl I was in love with at the time. He was reminiscing with his friends about the war, less than ten years before. During the first months of the the Japanese Occupation, he and his entourage were taking off in the general's plane from an air field in Japan. A man rushed from the side of the runway and threw himself into the propellors. He was sliced to bits and distributed over the runway. The takeoff was aborted.
The general, seeing a group of people gathering the remains and beginning to conduct a ceremony, walked back to the group with his interpreter. He waited, and eventually was addressed by a member of the group. "My son was in poor health. He was not accepted for military service. But he could not live while barbarian feet trampled the sacred soil of Japan. So he killed himself, trying to kill you. I suppose we will be arrested."
The general left them to their own devices, impressed by the bravery and devotion of both the son and the father.
The shock of the atomic bombings broke through the Emperor's reluctance to surrender. According to the Imperial Household diaries, he felt he could no longer subject the people of Japan to such unendurable suffering. Japan surrendered unconditionally.
The Emperor was retained during the Occupation, but as a purely constitutional monarch. Here is the notorious photo of his humiliation by MacArthur.
http://tinyurl.com/as6qq2r
The Emperor was made to call upon MacArthur at his headquarters. He appeared in full diplomatic regalia, top hat, claw hammer coat and all. MacArthur was dressed casually, no tie, hands in pockets. The photo was published in all the Japanese newspapers, with the Emperor's renunciation of his divine status.
The Occupation propaganda machine cranked out the story that the Emperor had effectively no role in the war. He was supposed to be just an out of touch figurehead. Prime Minister Tojo was tried for war crimes and hanged. Like a good warrior he went to his grave with his lips sealed. In fact, according to the Imperial Household diaries, the Emperor was highly involved in the inception of the war against China that led to WW II in the Pacific. He was deeply involved in the prosecution of WW II. He was the ultimate barrier to Japan's surrender for a year after the military realized they were beaten and told him so, costing many thousands of lives on both sides.
The propaganda was effective. My Japanese girlfriend's wealthy family had opposed the militarists. Her grandfather was imprisoned by them, and died in jail. Yet she would never hear any hint of criticism of the Emperor. To her he was an innocent figurehead, an out of touch father figure.
Ironically, my own father had to have known of the propaganda effort. He went to his grave without uttering a word. In retrospect, the closest I ever heard him come was to say of MacArthur's biographer, "Of course there were things that went on during the Occupation that Manchester didn't know about."
The Emperor's submission made it clear to the Japanese that MacArthur was the ruler of their country. My girlfriend often compared America unfavorably to her home country. Once she said something about Japanese attitudes that I misunderstood. My response was, "I thought the Japanese didn't particularly like Americans."
"I didn't say they liked Americans. I said they respected them."
"Why?"
"You won the war."
She was a U.S. citizen at the time. She said shortly after they moved from Japan to San Francisco when she was 14, she came home from school crying. Her mother asked what was wrong. She said, "We are studying WW II."
Her mother replied, "You know more about it probably than anyone else in class."
"Yes, but I can never keep track of who 'we' are. And it hurts."
You may or may not approve of the results of the lengthy occupation and re-making of German and Japanese society by the Allies, and the economic aid which put them on the road to recovery. But they both emerged peaceful friends of the USA and western Europe, Germany after ten years of occupation, Japan after twelve. There was no WW III.
The Roman tactic of making friends of your conquests worked. It worked much better than the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WW I which left Germany alone except for punishing financial reparations to be paid to the victors. This led to hyperinflation, the destabilization of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of the Nazis, a far, far worse regime than the one the Allies defeated in WW i.
The Allies saw the Axis as an existential threat in WW II. I was a kid during WW II. The USA feared for its life. It was not clear during the early years of the war who would win. I have never seen anything remotely like it since.
The USA was not a super power at the beginning of WW II. The population was largely pacifist and isolationist, although President Roosevelt, the Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall, the Air Staff commander "Hap" Arnold, the Navy leadership and others saw that U.S. involvement in the war was almost inevitable. They began to prepare. But American entrance into the war was politically impossible until the Japanese kicked the hornet's nest at Pearl Harbor.
This is not just propaganda. My mother told of friends, not fringe people but respected members of the community, who went to jail as conscientious objectors, refusing to serve in the military. She never said so, but I suspect she thought her father might have done the same if he had lived. In the 1920s he ran for the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma on the Socialist ticket and won 48% of the vote.
America emerged from WW II as the only industrialized country left standing, and began its career as a super power.
The Cold War was merely a bad dream compared to America's fear, determination and national unity during WW II. The experience of the Axis threat of WW II led to the fear of the Soviet Union with its rhetoric of world domination, and to Allied determination to limit Soviet expansion.
The result was the Cold War, but that's a different subject for lengthy discussions.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 12 2012 5:24:31
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
My dear grandfather was a man of the generation and he spoke reverently of Mr. Reagan as you would expect most of the time for a man to speak about his commanding officer. However my grandfather lost over time some of the fervor, if he ever had it, for a type of seething anti communism that the Reagan profile types promoted.
<snip>
He was not like Reagan at all.
I was never a fan of Reagan. I once posted a photo on the company security bulletin board and labelled it the "Worst Security Breach of the Year." The photo showed Reagan and Edward Teller after Teller had told Reagan about his desk-size x-ray laser that could shoot down the whole Soviet ICBM fleet in mid-flight. Teller was by then crazy as a bedbug. But the joke was there were only three people in the world who believed the Star Wars missile defense system would work: Teller, Reagan and Gorbachev. But the last two were enough.
By the way, present missile defense systems, based on more realistic principles, and thoroughly tested, are effective enough to at least impose severe uncertainty upon the plans of a potential attacker--or would if widely deployed. The Navy's fleet defense systems are pretty good, unless subjected to an attack of overwhelming mass. We're good at this kind of stuff. We're no good at defeating the Taliban, but then, neither were the Soviets with their different philosophy, strategy and equipment. ...well, their strategy wasn't all that different, fighting a 20th century war against a 21st century adversary. I'm sure as hell glad it's not my job.
Along with most of my generation, I hated Nixon. I was tear-gassed along with the other anti-Vietnam war protesters, but never beaten, as were many. And it wasn't the first time I sniffed a bit of CS, so it wasn't the radicalizing experience for me that it was for many others. All the same, I hated him.
My father and I spent a couple of afternoons watching the Watergate hearings on TV. It was just after Butterfield had revealed the existence not only of the White House taping system, but also the continued existence of the tapes! John Connally said that if he had known they had existed he would have advised Nixon to, "take all the damned things out into the Rose Garden and burn them."
The revelations of the illegal and dishonest coverup of the Watergate burglary and the illegal actions of Nixon against his "enemies list" shook my father. He had devoted his life to serving his country. He had risked his life for it many times. And here was the president, behaving like a small time gangster.
Yet the super-hawk anti-communist Nixon was the one who reopened U.S. relations with China with his and his wife's famous visit to Chairman Mao.
And Gorbachev trusted Reagan's assurance that he would not take advantage of Soviet weakness enough to continue to promote the reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika, which spun out of control and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. People who were close to him said that when Reagan realized Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader, he underwent a personal transformation, and began to support Gorbachev in his goals to reform the Soviet Union.
Maybe Nixon and Reagan both wised up a little as they got older and felt the weight of the world on their shoulders? It happens sometimes.
As my dear professor Hubert Stanley Wall would say, shaking his head, "Some world, isn't it?"
RNJ
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Date Dec. 12 2012 6:16:13
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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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Very illustrating examples of how a routine of mixing facts and half truth to stucco of cleared paradox works. Especially Bill´s last post about reknown Japanese traditions of loyality to path the necessity of nuking, under complete removal of how the bombs were dropped simply because they could and for the sustain of flippant pre WWII standfards of cruelty. - Which the USA foreign policy preserved despite and throughout post WWII common understandings and humane establishings, and which again renders Bill´s comparison with ancient empires as the typical wishiwashi of conservative levelling.
( Which always call their offences "mistakes" when these can´t be justified anymore in the aftermath. NEVER standing to the actual motivation of power hunger and greed that caused casualty, destruction and messing up whole of post WWII history and future. But how naive to request a level of sincerity and conscience from rulers in the first place.)
A bluring that conquered your justifications too, Richard. I assume that more exchange with your uncle who wrote to your grandmother would had left you reluctant to adopt certain blinkers against profound humane disconcern and ethical mudholes.
Btw, I would really be interested in hearing from you two´s routine of explaining US´quiet rehabilitations and sheltering of Nazi nomenclatura.
There certainly was some humane reasoning behind it, similar to nuking US officials´ worries about Japanese slaughtering in China; right? ( Whome in the world of adults can you make believe such wonderland like a Roosevelt´s concerns about Chinese folks intact being? * Do we have to frank our wishlists to Santa Claus, besides?)
Beyond that, regarding decades of uncounted cases where no actual explanation was given about obvious corruption, nepotism, cartell agenda and lobbyism, followed by remarkable procedures like for instance arrant breach of law through acquitting and evidence withholding proscecutors and courts, I am sure you could find reasonably sounding explanations for. All just serving higher goals, isn´t it.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
He became quite wealthy out of his ownership of Der Spiegel, through the alienation of his employees'labor. He left the business to his employees, like several capitalists I know or know of in the USA, but under the employees'collective ownership they didn't live up to your standards.
Again: Love can do without perfection of the object.
Augstein was defintily not perfect ( like anyone anyway). He even was a conservative, hence basically erring in life ( leaving him still as the far better of his fraction, compared to corrupted agenda of willfully bending conservative´s perspective to demand ).
Correct, his editorial managed hefty profits, not only through an ever rising magazine price, but through endlessly growing advertisement which long since now occupys the vast of print surface. - At incredible fees, BTW. When I inquired once, thinking of a small ad for a book I almost fell aback in sight of the quoted sums.
What I learned those daya as a potential ad customer / side effect was that the vast majority of subscribers are states employees and officials ... Go figure, ... >scratch, scratch<
BUT despite the practical inherence of recklessness with conservative and capitalist he managed the conflict of being a genuine democrat, and that is what I adore him for. In fact even more for the so much higher challenge of being democratically inspired inspite of personal privilege than if he had been a poor.
He was an actual seeker, and the open being for eventual change of track even led him to participating his editors in company shares. Which however he regreted later, saying: "That was a mistake". Which is, as I suspect, where the conservative mind set had him back. - Likely provoked by under appreciating staff, which would be only all to common with people grown up in capitalistic ambience.
Rudolph Augstein outright acted against his understanding of the world, with his main lead having been the idol of democracy. His example standing for extreme self-overcoming and devoteness to a high premisse.
I have mentioned before a number of ( extremely) privileged individuals whose responsible acting on benefit of reason, human community and evironment I do respect even more than the engagement of others who gained their insights on paths of average or underprivileged being. That is, because of the greater personal challenge and seek that it takes to reach to common shore from a velvet starting point.
Ruphus
PS:
* Did you know that a drop of Fat Boy siblings was considered over Germany too?
And that it was refrained from merely for fear of duds and consequential Nazi reverse engineering?
I guess the sublime motivation for that bombing ought to have been a stop of the German´s rage in petied Russia then; or what?
PS2:
Interesting and wise post, Stephen.
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Date Dec. 12 2012 13:55:29
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
once looked at an animated map of Germany showing the redrawing of borders over a 800 years time. As the rest of Europe around Germany changed slowly, Germany looked like rapid fire jigsaw puzzle of border changes.
What is up with that?
Germany as a unified nation-state has only existed since 1871, with the defeat of France by Prussia under Bismarck, who used the Franco-Prussian War as a pretext for unification. Much earlier, during the period of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the territory we now know as Germany consisted of more than 300 states ruled by kings, princes, dukes, bishops, abbots, and other assorted sovereigns. From 1806 to 1815, Napolean consolidated many of these tiny states. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the German Confederation was formed, which consolidated them even more into 39 states. Finally, in 1871, there was one German nation-state.
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. 12 2012 20:17:24
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
I once looked at an animated map of Germany showing the redrawing of borders over a 800 years time. As the rest of Europe around Germany changed slowly, Germany looked like rapid fire jigsaw puzzle of border changes.
What is up with that?
I dunno. My picture of things is that "Germany," as we now think of it, didn't exist until the Prussian unification under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm late in the 19th century. Before that I see it as a collection of small states, loosely unified by a common language, but to a considerable extent separate politically, economically and even culturally. For example, the northern states were, and still are largely protestant, while the south was Roman Catholic--a big deal back in the day.
What constituted "Germany" on the map you mentioned?
Visiting my college room mate in Munich, starting in the 1960s and as recently as last June, Bavarian identity, contrasted with "German" identity seemed still pretty strong. Not necessarily dominant, but not to be ignored, either. My Texan room mate expresses a strong preference for living in Bavaria, as against the north or east.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 12 2012 20:18:28
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mezzo
Posts: 1409
Joined: Feb. 18 2010
From: .fr
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
But yeah ive always wondered how you can reason such a barbaric act like nuking two heavily populated cities.
The justification of such actions did not surprise me. The civilization who comitted them is actually in charge and rule the world, so what else would we expect? It totally make sense that the victors (in both political, economical, cultural and militar fields) pretend they acted the right way.
Talking about another barbaric activities such as tortures, murder, disappearance...All those thing that took place in Latin america with 9/11 (1973) and expanded through the the sub continent with the Condor operation.
I already mentionned this argument, yeah I know I reapeat myself alot!
So you cannot expect from the same categorie of victors that they condamned such atrocities. Coz they were perpretated by their allies (puppets?) to serve their direct interests. The justification might be the high danger of the marxism threat, that these guerrilleros were too determined, whatever! But still there's a justification for them. Just as there is one for the nukes! It can't be otherwise...
But my point is that while the military exactions were going on in Chile and Argentina, the 'Chigago boys' were in these countries given advices to the dictators in place. To make sure they took the good measures to implement big deregulation on the economy, privatization, all the Friedman's formula. Of course, they did not ask for any citizens approuval, they imposed them with electrical discharges...
To echo Bill's happy end in his bombing version,
"In the case of both Germany and Japan, the allied occupation, and consequent reforms and programs introduced by the occupying authorities, led to both countries renouncing their militaristic past and becoming responsible members of the world community of nations".
Here's my happy end Milton received nobel prize of economy in 1976. Congrats!!
_____________________________
"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
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Date Dec. 12 2012 23:34:25
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XXX
Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria
Imperialism and war and barbarity and nationalism and such--the motivations for these phenomena are fairly clear. They seem to be fairly straightforward extrapolations from basic human nature.
But from whence come the "enlightened", "civilized", "humane" parts? It seems that Ruphus, Deniz, and mezza assume that these are the best part of human behavior. Where do they come from? What is the justification for assuming they should be the default motives, rather than the basic greed, fear, etc.?
I dont think of it as extrapolations of human nature. Human nature is: anatomy, metabolism, evolution, etc. States are political objects, not natural, and they base their decisions on how their economic and political structures are organized in them. Nothing to do with nature, more to do with capitalism. Capitalism is the economy in which the economic interests of people exclude each other, your advantage is your competitors disadvantage etc. In the same way, states seek to grow their wealth by letting their capitalists (ie, people who control property of means of production) accumulate money, not another state's capitalists. This can mean bombing a country to make homeland companies get oil contracts, it can mean inviting foreign investors into the country, it can mean forcing embargo on other states. Now what kind of role does the averages guy play in here. He, normally, does not have any means of production. He only has his workforce to sell, and the price at which he sells it needs to be low enough so the company can grow from it. Otherwise it will loose competitiveness and the country will loose economic and by that in the end also political power (less money, less attractive as debtor, less weaponry to buy etc). [There is some elasticity to it. Some states can flood the currency market without having to fear a devaluation of their money, like US. Others like greece have to abandon a certain amount of political power to get economic power.]
I just have divided 3 different classes, each has his own economic interest and they exclude not only each other, but also within one class (competition). I claim that THIS is the reason the world looks like it does, and not because of fear, greed etc. At this point i of course only assume that people of whatever class would prefer wealthiness over poverty, but i think thats a legitimate assumption, and what i doubt is more that people have the neccessary awareness of their own economic situation. General consensus is to work 8-12h a day, and not wonder why this figure didnt drop in the last 40 years although the productivity like ... doubled? I want to speak against the attitude "dont care about politics, just make the best out of your life", because not only it is ignorant, but also it will ensure a life in constant poverty for the average man.
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Фламенко
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Date Dec. 13 2012 9:45:37
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to NormanKliman)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NormanKliman
if you're exptrapolating the terms "enlightened,""civilized"and "humane"to general human behavior, the justification is that the benefits of those qualities are not limited to those who possess them. In other words, being nice to people makes the world a nicer place for everyone. It seems that some people, maybe a lot of people, cease to understand such a simple concept when the immediate results are unfavorable for them.
To me Miguel´s question is a good one, and Norman´s reply a beautiful.
Ol´chompanions like Richard may pardon me for being molested with a string of consciousness they have seen me with before already, but there are only so many useful connections to this very relevant item that the discourse has arrived at so nicely consistently.
Ancient sovereigns and specially their clerical scouts found it practical to declare natural being as selfish and cruel.
This directive over the centuries firmly conquered doctrins and the common sense. With scholars however freeing themselves gradually from the dogma up from the early 20 century by valueing empirics. But the resistence against cognizance was high, an still prevails in lesser inspired fractions of academies and before all common fellow man´s head.
The theological layout of an evil slumbering in us, dominating the barbaric, and ever prevailing with an Adam and Eve´s progeny appears just too handy and justifying inhumane rule and economizing for to let it go that easily.
Only consequetial how scientists of that time envisioned earlie hominids when that fragment of a Neandertaler was found. The beast had to have a back head like a ( obligatory dumb ) gorilla and be club swinging brute with low cognition.
To the intelligence of anthropology and behavioural science however that claim appears as fundamental contradiction to plausibility. For humans with "evil nature" and simultaneously badly inferiour physics could had never overcome millions of years under mighty predators dominance and steady page breaks through natural desasters.
And in fact, later findings revealed Neandertalers as carying mates who feed their injured and handicaped over average age, who would burry their dears on flowers and be just as advanced in artisan and adornment like meanwhile found relicts of homo sapiens.
In fact the evolutionary benefits and conclusiveness of cooperation and ethics are becoming more evident with other higher developed species ( and not just with primates) as well and are being increasingly discovered form year to year.
The speciality of the hominids, including homo sapiens, has been social skills. Our ancestors´small communities could not have survived without extremely strong sense of solidarity and care.
This sense is still with us genetically and is leaving us psychotic under todays standards of emotional void and contradictive sense, like with the actually discussed contradiction of selfish "human nature".
Our evolutionary speciality is culture and in the same time what determines our status.
There have probably always existed rapacious cultures too who would specialize on assaulting other tribes instead of developing their own productive skills. But without these culture as far minority, humanity could had not made it through the times.
The culture of abducting and extorting seems to have established yet about 5000 years ago with the first larger settlements and taking advantage of communities through self-entitled reigns ( and their metaphyscial spinning courts support).
For younger historys mentality to become "human nature" however it would be needing the genetical time of one anthropological development step however, hence 100 000 years.
From there for the short-sighted, destructive standards of today to not only leave us alive ( completely unlikely as we can foresee already ) but even integrate into our drives and psyche, another 95 millenia would be needed to result in natural ogre.
Truth is that the myth of the "extrapolations from basic human nature" that Miguel pointed at, are doing a very effective job with blurring people´s sight and have them accept destructive and inhumane outlines of feudalism and capitalism.
The myth of a selfish and brute human being is essential for pharaonic societal structures that are devastating humanity and environment on behalf of decadent minorities.
Without a doctrine of the beast oligarchy would be having a hard time explaining grotesque exploitation as godly / naturally given.
Ruphus
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Date Dec. 13 2012 10:38:07
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria
But from whence come the "enlightened", "civilized", "humane" parts? It seems that Ruphus, Deniz, and mezza assume that these are the best part of human behavior. Where do they come from? What is the justification for assuming they should be the default motives, rather than the basic greed, fear, etc.?
We evolved genetically, according to the scientific evidence. At some stage we became capable of evolving culturally, at a much greater rate.
For the altruistic qualities you mention to have evolved genetically into the "default motives", the theory of evolution predicts they must have enabled their possessors to produce more offspring than the more selfish members of the species. But where did all the selfish people come from?
They came from the same place. Evolution didn't select for pure altruism or pure selfishness, it selected for a mixture. We find this mixture within ourselves. It causes conflicts, sometimes painful ones within ourselves, sometimes violent ones with our fellow humans.
When I was the boss of about 250 people, I was older than most of my employees, by ten to twenty years. So I was sometimes consulted for advice. Most of the people were highly skilled and highly competitive. When I thought it might be useful, I would ask them what their priorities were.
Usually they would put their families first and their jobs second. After that the order varied. If I thought they were putting too much stress on themselves and their families through overwork, I would say I thought their priorities were out of order. To be of use to their families they must be in good health, both physically and mentally. I would suggest they consider the fact that to satisfy the priorities they stated, they must take care of themselves.
This was not to counsel selfishness in the end. It was to point out that the story they were telling themselves might be leading them astray. They needed to seek a balance: care for themselves enough to be able to carry out their responsibilities to their families and coworkers. Fairly often this advice seemed to offer a new perspective.
Back to evolution. When we began to evolve culturally, we made up stories to tell ourselves. We were, and still are really great at making up stories. We didn't know why the sun rose and set, why the wind blew, nor why there were thunder and lightning. We made up such good stories that we still like telling them, though we laugh at the ignorance of our ancestors.
We made up stories about good and evil, externalizing the conflicts we found within ourselves between selfishness and altruism by attributing our actions to gods or demons. As Ruphus points out, fairly recently some of us made up a set of stories that put evil within ourselves and simplified our pantheon to one, or maybe three, or maybe 3=1 god(s).
A major problem with our stories was that we tended to believe them. We still do. We know a few stories now that are pretty much true. We can explain sunrise, sunset, wind, thunder and lightning with stories that always work. We can even explain electricity, the light spectra given off by elements when heated--a pretty long list of stuff. These stories work. They always turn out the way we said they would. Well, almost always. At least we know when they work and when they don't. And we're working away to patch up the parts that don't work. Science marches on.
Our stories about good and evil, economics and politics don't work. We have tried quite a few stories and given up on them. But we have some right now that we tend to believe in. We believe in some of them enough to go to war over them, and to kill millions of people. But these stories don't work. They might work well enough long enough to convince most people that they are absolutely true, but they're not. Capitalism creates "high standards of living" for large numbers of people. It also puts people out on the street. It goes off the rails from time to time and destroys the lives of those it previously benefitted. Socialism gets corrupted by the people who are supposed to be seeing to the general welfare. Our main economic stories are destroying the planet.
Much of the world still sees things in terms of good and evil. Yes, there are people who are extraordinarily altruistic--sometimes after a career of being extraordinarily selfish. Yes there are murderers, rapists and thieves who must be forcibly restrained. But there are people crazy enough to claim that pure selfishness is a virtue, and others equally misguided who claim that the only virtue is self-sacrifice. And there are very large numbers of people who insist that evil, as their favorite story defines it, must be stamped out.
Bullsh1t. All of them, bullsh1t.
What is needed is a balance between self interest on the one hand, and cooperation and caring on the other. One is necessary for the survival of the individual, the other is necessary for the survival of society. For us to survive, as Ruphus points out, society must survive.
Another tactic I discovered at work was this, if you will excuse me for boring you with another of my stories. We had a big project, spent about $200-million upgrading a suite of radars worth about $1-billion. Three organizations were involved, the U.S. Army, Raytheon, Inc. and Lincoln Laboratory, a non-profit administered by Massachetts Institute of Technology. The latter two were as great experts on radar technology as anyone on the planet. I never met an officer in the Army who would have known what a radar was if one jumped up and bit him in the butt. But I will give the Army credit for being very good at killing people.
Due to the huge differences in culture among the three organizations, epic battles would break out among the highly competitive men in their thirties and early forties. When I saw that progress was coming to a halt, I felt the need to intervene. I called a meeting in my office. The tactic I stumbled upon was this: "Gentlemen, we seem to be at an impasse. We can't agree on how to take the next step in design. Since we are trying to find the way forward, we will talk only about the future, not the past."
The room fell silent. Everyone had spent the last three days preparing their indictments of the others. No one could articulate their position without damning the others. I adjourned the meeting, to meet again in two days, same ground rules. In the second meeting we reached agreement on how to proceed.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to learn from history in order to come up with better stories to tell ourselves about economics and politics. But I am saying that damning the perceived opposition is a sure road to inaction. And I am saying we should be really careful about the stories we make up, until they have been tested and proven to work.
The "default motive" should be a balance between self interest and altruism. Both are necessary to our survival.
RNJ
Now I'm going to go and read more of the book about the physics of subatomic particles, where the stories turn out to be true...except we don't know the whole story. And that's where the fun begins in physics--when we realize we don't know the whole story and try to figure out more of it.
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Date Dec. 13 2012 15:50:44
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to mezzo)
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quote:
But yeah ive always wondered how you can reason such a barbaric act like nuking two heavily populated cities.
quote:
ORIGINAL: mezzo
The justification of such actions did not surprise me. The civilization who comitted them is actually in charge and rule the world, so what else would we expect? It totally make sense that the victors (in both political, economical, cultural and militar fields) pretend they acted the right way.
It's easy to mistake my intention in my account of the motivation to bomb the Japanese homeland, since I mentioned my relief and gratitude that my father and uncles didn't have to invade Japan. What I meant to do was to describe the motivation, not justify it. Each person is obliged to arrive at their own evaluation of the morality.
The Allies emerged from WW II as rulers of the world. They entered it in fear of their continued existence. The transition was quite rapid. I'm sure that fear was a significant factor in America's bombing of Japan, and in America's postwar behavior.
I heard two men who became Chief of Staff of the Air Force say that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved both American and Japanese lives. They were talking among friends with whom they had no need to propagandize. I think they believed it. But I don't think they woke up one morning and said, "Hey, we can do the Japs a big favor by nuking them."
I speculate that the thinking in top political and military circles went like this. They feared a recurrence of total war if they didn't occupy Germany and Japan for long periods and root out the militaristic elements. There was precedent for this in the North's military occupation of the South for years after the Civil War. Reconstruction didn't turn out perfectly, but there hasn't been a war between the North and the South since then, except at the ballot box.
Fearing huge losses if they invaded Japan, they asked themselves what to do. The atomic bomb would be ready in a couple of months if all went well. "We could nuke 'em. That's what the bomb is for."
"Yes, but terror bombing doesn't work. And it's immoral."
"Well, we could try it. If it does work, we'll probably kill less Japs that way than if we invade and they fight to the death even if they know they're going to lose, like they did at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. And we won't lose hundreds of thousands of our boys, who have already been to hell and back."
Speculation suspended for a moment to present facts:
Iwo Jima was the first Allied assault on the Japanese homeland. The objective was to take the island and the three airfields, enabling air attacks on the main Japanese islands.
From the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Iwo Jima:
"The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels.[3][4] The Americans on the ground were aided by extensive naval artillery and the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators had complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle. American seapower and airpower were capable of delivering vast amounts of fire onto the Japanese troops.[5] This invasion was the first American attack on Japanese home territory, and the Japanese soldiers and Marines defended their positions tenaciously with no thought of surrender. The Japanese general in charge never considered surrendering to the Americans to save his men, and he and his officers had vowed to fight to the death, no matter how hopeless their battle was."
"Iwo Jima was also the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the overall American casualties (killed and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese,[6] although Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 of these were taken prisoner. Some of these were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled.[1] The rest were killed or missing and presumed dead.[1]"
"Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. The Americans possessed an overwhelming superiority in arms and numbers. These factors, coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, ensured that there were no plausible circumstances in which the Americans could have lost the battle.[7]"
My speculation resumes: "Hmm. You're right. If it works, it will be justified. If it doesn't we will have to kill the bastards anyhow."
"We'll be killing civilians, not soldiers."
"If we invade, a lot of civilians are going to get killed. We're going to bomb those cities as soon as the bombs are ready."
That's my guess. In a war for survival the moral compass swings. America felt it was still in a war for survival during the cold war.
This is not meant as a justification. It is meant as a description of the facts as I saw them, and a speculation as to how the reasoning went. You can make up your own minds about the credibility of the speculation, and about justification of the bombing.
Personally, I think that in modern war morality has deviated from its peacetime definition, due to arrogance on the part of aggressors and due to fear, anger and the spur to revenge among those attacked.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 13 2012 16:58:08
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