Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Hiroshima

quote [ A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb. Survivors wonder why they lived when so many others died. ]

A long and gripping read, and a different perspective on the atomic bomb, apropos to Oppenheimer.
[SFW] [history] [+2 Good]
[by avid@4:13pmGMT]

Comments

stv179 said @ 4:23am GMT on 2nd Aug
.. and despite the horror, humans are still fighting and hating each each other. Sometimes I feel tired living in this world.
avid said @ 7:45pm GMT on 2nd Aug
Well, if your response to someone being shitty to you or your friends is to politely ask them to stop, and then do nothing if they won't, wouldn't the world be a shittier place where shitty people are more often rewarded for shitty behavior?

That's not to say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary (historians still disagree) or that the shittiest people in Japan were punished (they weren't).

You can read Downfall to understand how we needed the same shitty upperclass in Japan to administrate after the war...
steele said @ 8:23pm GMT on 2nd Aug
You can read Downfall to understand how we needed the same shitty upperclass in Japan to administrate after the war...

Hey, guy complaining about Tankies a few weeks ago. You only "needed" them if you're more aligned with the shitty upperclass fascists than the leftist alternatives.
avid said @ 6:34am GMT on 3rd Aug
You still needed them. If the Soviets took Japan, (and assuming they wanted to recuperate Japan) they would still need organized resources and administrators. They could skim the fat off the top, but you still need the underlings at some level.

There wasn't some leftist administration waiting in the wings.

The argument for why the atomic bomb wasn't needed, however, is that the Soviets were closing in on Japan, and if they captured Japan, they were just as likely to raze Japan (and its ruling class), ship all the industrial might back to Russia. So it was in Japan's upper class's interest to have the U.S. capture them.
steele said @ 4:58pm GMT on 3rd Aug
Weird. It's incredibly coincidental then that over the years the US constantly "needs" to ally with the ruling and collaborating parties that just happen to align with imperialism and fascism, but seemingly haven't had so many problems with the wholesale slaughter of administrations that support things like land reform and literacy programs.


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