Something worth thinking about

Baakay · Post by **Baakay** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:10 pm

Yes, this will sound horrible. Middle aged librarian driving home in a MINIVAN listening to... NPR. (may I die of embarrassment now?)

At any rate. It happens that August 6 is the 60th anniversary of when, in what I'm sure must have seemed like wisdom at the time, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

I was listening to the recording of the sole eyewitness to be interviewed in English. She's now something like 84 and lived in a suburb of Hiroshima at the time.

Her description of the people who survived the initial blast for, oh, two weeks, was... sobering. "One minute there was a city, and the next there wasn't. You could see the ocean." And then she talked about what happened to the people in the hospital for the next couple of days.

70,000 people or so died either in the intial blast or as a direct result of radiation sickness, burns, or disease resulting from them.

Compare those figures to the roughly 3,000 citizens who died in the World Trade Center bombings, think of how horrific that was, or the couple of hundred dead and wounded from last months' London subway attacks. And them multiply them ...

and think of Nagasaki.

I know the world is a very different place now than it was then, and that I probably should not be drawing any sort of comparison, but...

It made me stop and think how very, very fortunate we are to have our Japanese friends who share their joy in storytelling and artwork with us.

They would have every right not to.

hanaeleh · Post by **hanaeleh** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:04 am

I cannot say that dropping an atomic bomb should ever be any sort of retribution, but I also cannot draw the same similarity.

Having relatives who were stationed at Pearl Harbor, I most likely have a different version of the story... because my grandmother showed me the bullet that almost ended her life, and which would have kept me from being here, typing today.

The only thing I can hope is that the bomb remains in the history books and in memories of people, not in current events.

transmet · Post by **transmet** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:30 am

Touchy subject, to say the least.

My birthday is on Dec. 7 and apparently it will always be, at least according to my mom, "a date that shall live in infamy." Yeah...

So, needless to say, I've been a WWII fanatic since I was a kid and, taking it solely on a historical perspective, I think that Hiroshima was war and that Nagasaki was... well... let's just say that I don't believe that if Roosevelt had survived the war that the second bomb would have been dropped. At least, not within 72 hours.

A lot of rarely spoken of "negotiations" done between the Japanese and U.S. governments with regards to atrocities committed during the war.
Both sides have a lot to answer for.

Let us forgive, but never forget.

Moop · Post by **Moop** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 8:10 am

Baakay wrote:They would have every right not to.

An unequivocal right, to be sure - but in this particular case, the logic would escape me. Governmental decisions during a time of war are frequently not reflective of the will of the general populace. How many people do you know who are even remotely to blame for Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

Germany was responsible for the slaughter of so many innocents during WWII that it boggles the mind... and yet there are relationships between the living kin of the dead and the younger generations of German people. Evil men and the evil that good men perpetrate all become ancient history eventually. It's a blessing that war and its horrific consequences are almost surreal to those who were not there to witness it. As human beings, we learn to grieve, feel rage, and eventually forgive and move on... because how could we possibly share this tiny planet without doing so?

Baakay · Post by **Baakay** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 8:43 am

I was afraid this would happen. I should know better than to express an emotion online, but I thought it might be worth thinking about with a little... I don't know, plain reverence or something.

Before this gets carried away any further into a POLITICAL discussion, let me clarify what I'm getting at.

I know all about the history, why it happened, so forth. My parents were young when Pearl Harbor happened and I heard first-hand accounts of how people felt from my grandparents (very reminiscent of 9/11, actually). I believe I was probably a lot closer to the events, chronologically, than anyone who has answered me (which is my way of saying yes, I know at least as much about it as you do and I understand all of the various points of view VERY well. And they all have validity.) As I said, there were reasons, and they seemed like good ones at the time. THE POLTICS OF IT WAS NOT THE POINT. Let me reiterate: THE POLTICS OF IT WAS NOT THE POINT.

What I was reacting to here was the sheer human horror of the description of people turning brown, and walking down the street not realizing how badly burned they were because their nerves had been destroyed. Of having their skin peel off layer by layer, right down to the bone, before they died. It was pretty horrible. And the MAGNITUDE of it dwarfs anything but the Holocaust and World War I.

I don't think we should ever, EVER rationalize the taking of hundreds of thousands of lives in such a horrible fashion, by any sleight of logic.

It happened that this particular piece aired shortly after they had run a piece earlier this week on what our intrepid news industry is not showing us from the conflict we're currently in. The truly grievous injuries that troops (from all countries) as well as all of the civilian population are suffering. It's not quite as gruesome as dying from radiation poisoning or burns, but it sure isn't pretty. It's the human suffering that was tearing at my heart.

Rather than arguing the tired point that yes, none of us were directly involved in (but still reap the benefits of), take a moment to do what I was doing:

Be THANKFUL that we have such good friends now, in this century.

Moop · Post by **Moop** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:17 am

<-- Looks over her post. Fails to see sniping or rationalization for taking human lives. I believe I said that politics were not the point. Maybe I worded it badly? *Wanders off to make some much needed coffee*

Baakay · Post by **Baakay** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:37 am

Moop wrote:<-- Looks over her post. Fails to see sniping or rationalization for taking human lives. I believe I said that politics were not the point. Maybe I worded it badly? *Wanders off to make some much needed coffee*

Apparently I did too. (it was the reference to logic that got me...logic doesn't have anything to do with gut emotions, ordinarily).

(BTW...Moop, while you were writing I was editing, because I realized "sniping" wasn't what was happening. You'll notice my post changed just before you submitted yours).

Anyway, I've asked Deadly Whispers if she could either kill off or lock this topic because I don't want it escalating into something it wasn't intended to be. Everyone is entitled to express an opinion (including me) regardless of how illogical, dumb, or sappy it may be and I wasn't intending to offend anyone by it.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:38 am

Logic is the fundamental basis of all programming.

Baakay · Post by **Baakay** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:39 am

Cloud wrote:Logic is the fundamental basis of all programming.

Yes Cloud, but I'm not a bot. My programming is biological only

and thus subject to failure of logic.

Frequently!

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:39 am

When is [quoteyou]Logic not the fundamental basis of all programming?

RalphVboy · Post by **RalphVboy** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:14 am

Hi there Baakay ^_^

I think I understand what you were meaning by your post. Rather than viewing this tragic event through a political view, you were analyzing it through a neutral viewpoint. Instead of worrying about the who and why, this whole post was meant as a solemn reminder that many people lost there lives at that time in a horrible, horrible fashion. With this viewpoint I try to look past the start and reasons behind that war, and in the end all that is left from that war was human suffering on ALL involved sides

It hurts, but the best thing we can do is keep those who died in our memories and never forget.

Best Regards,
Ralph Velazquez Jr. (RalphVboy)

Post by **JWR** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:00 am

As they Say WAR IS HELL.

Nothing said on either side can truly justify the horror done on both sides.

At least one good thing came out of the events in Hiroshima & Nagasaki and that was that the world realized the horror created and have never again used such weapons.

"We knew the world could never be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most were silent. I remember the line from the Hindu scripture, The Bhagavad Gita:"I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds" I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." J. Robert Oppenheimer

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:00 am

+~random()+ Nein.

Ashura · Post by **Ashura** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:18 am

Well, I really dont have anything significant to add to this topic. My boyfriends great great grandfather is Admiral Nimets (did I spell that right?). When the bombing of Pearl Harbour happened, the original Admiral stepped down and Admiral Nimets took charge. My boyfriend takes pride in his great great grandfather and finds that what happened a shame on both sides.

Wars are horrible and they happen.......

Baakay · Post by **Baakay** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:40 am

Thanks everyone...

It seems you did understand what I meant, after all

I appreciate it. (I get very frustrated when I can't express myself properly. I'm *supposed* to be able to do that!)

Anime-Beta TNG

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