Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 04:34:14 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> Cc: Stephen Hurd <deuce@lordlegacy.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <3BA33CB6.FE0102C8@mindspring.com> References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAMEFMCDAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> <xzpelp9s9ga.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote:
[ ... Bad Japan analogy involving a preannounced demonstration
bombing using a new weapon in a declared war with the
aggressor nation ... ]
> The only problem with this analogy is that Japan had already lost the
> war, its leaders had already acknowledged that fact to themselves, and
> all the Bomb achieved was horrify and terrify the world and serve
> anti-western propagandist as an example of American brutality and
> ruthlessness.
You are not very well read on this subject, it seems. I suggest
the works of Kenzaburo Oe; in particular, I recommend:
Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech
and Other Lectures
Kenzaburo Oe
Kodansha International
ISBN: 4770019807
If you can't find the book, the speech is reproduced here:
<http://dental.senzoku.showa-u.ac.jp/dent/radiol/Prometheus/Bookshelf/Nob=
el_Lecture94_Oe.html>
I also suggest reading a Japanese written prewar history of Japan;
Orson Scott Card paraphrases the most common theme thusly:
I was reading a history of prewar Japan and was
intrigued by the notion that the people driving
the war forward were not the members of the ruling
elite, nor even the top leaders of the Japanese
military, but rather the young midlevel officers.
Of course these very officers would have thought
it ridiculous that they were in any way in control
of the war effort. They drove the war forward,
not because they had power in their hands, but
because the rulers of Japan dare not be shamed
before them.
In other words, it was culturally impossible for Japan to stop the
war, without definitively losing the war. The Japanese word for
this is "Bushido".
> Likewise, I was in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, and you have no idea
> how hard it was - as a descendant of the "winners" - to stand in the
> ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Ged=E4chtniskirche knowing that the carpet
> bombing of Hamburg, Berlin and other major German cities from 1943 and
> onwards, in which the church was destroyed, served no military purpose
> other than maybe boost British morale and allow Allied Bomber Command
> to pat eachother's backs and congratulate eachother about their
> cleverness.
I'm certain that, had the Germans pointed out a more direct
route to defeating them, including precisely the targets to
concentrate on in order to make them lose, the Allies would
have been very happy to undo the one bolt that held everything
together, instead of maniacally blasting away with a shotgun.
PS: How many holes did it take to fill the Albert Hall?
> What's even harder to swallow (and quite humbling) is the sense that
> many younger Germans (most I've had a chance to talk to, in fact)
> still harbor deep feelings of guilt about World War II. Americans,
> however, don't seem to think much of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the
> carpet bombings; history is obviously written by the winners.
This is aggregiously incorrect.
The U.S. is so guilt-ridden over the use of atomic weapons in
Japan that it eschews nuclear power with a fear verging on a
true phobia. In order of percentage of power generated via
nuclear energy, the U.S. ranks 10th. In order of most to least
(Source: "Energy Studies Yearbook, United Nations, 1995"), the
top 10 are: France, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, Ukraine,
Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States.
Note Germany (29% nuclear powered) and Japan (28%) are much
higher up the list than the U.S. (19%).
California PG&E customers pay a fee on their bill each month to
support the decommissioning of existing nuclear plants -- and
this decommissioning is occurring _despite_ a large enough power
crisis that rolling blackouts were occurring alost daily for
months on end: we were so afraid of nuclear power, we were getting
rid of the reactors, despite having to cut power to homes, schools,
businesses, and, in some instances, vital services on which peoples
lives may depend.
We do this _despite_ the fact that one half of the Diablo Canyon
facility generates 1.8 times the electricity that would be
generated by all the wind turbines in California running at full
speed, constantly -- assuming we could force the wind to blow
sufficiently fast, everywhere at once.
We do this _despite_ the fact that natural gas powered plants
generate the vast majority of the green house gas CO2 that is
generated in California -- very close to all other sources of
the gas in the state _combined_.
We do this _despite_ the fact that nuclear waste can be held
safely until it is itself safe, while the chemical waste from
coal-fired plants _does not break down_ -- it is dangerous
_forever_. In the worst case scenario, you mix the waste
with the tailing from the mine you extracted it from, and
put it back -- and then it's _safer_ than what you took out
in the first place.
We use standard fission plants, unlike Japan and France and
most other countries, which use breeder reactors -- making
nuclear a self-renewing fuel everywhere but the U.S. (in
the U.S., there are only two breeder reactors, and they are
only used to generate nuclear weapons).
So you are an idiot if you don't think that America does not
suffer _profound_ guilt over the use of nuclear weapons in the
Japan conflict; it does -- to the point of abandoning money,
working lights and heat, efficiency, and rabid environmentalism...
all to assuage that guilt.
PS: How profound do you think is the guilt of the perpetrators
of the September 11th atrocity?.
-- Terry
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