Mandatory Aug 6 Hiroshima thread

[Dis]

I may as well be the first to post it. We know it's coming.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050805/wl_asia_afp/wwiihistorynuclear_050805235006

This article probably doesn't have what I read in the paper today. At the peace memorial there's an inscription that was vandalized by what authorities believe is an ultra-nationalist. They feel that the inscription infers that Japan is somehow responsible for being nuked.

I want to go with that. Maybe the discussion can be a little different this year than last. Where people kept insisting Japan was going to surrender.

I support the use of these devices on those 2 day in August. I feel that the deaths of those couple hundred thousand people have saved millions of lives since then. I feel that was the reason we have avoided ww3 and millions more deaths. And imagine if there was no atom bomb. WW3 would have happened. And it would be just as devestating as WW2 (but with no halocaust)

[Dis]

Another interesting bit is some people in Japan now feel they should possibly attain nuclear weapons. Since Hiroshima bombing Japan has never allowed nuclear weapons on it's soil.

But with the threat of North Korean nukes and missiles that have the capability to strike Japan, some are rethinking this policy.

Should the Japanese develop nukes?

[dannubis]

post 1 :

then you should have used it on a military target. not on a city. imo


post 2 :

dunno...

if NK ever nukes japan, wouldn't the US retaliate ?

[Ecthy]

Mandatory? If you don't feel it's really necessary, why post it?

Military schmilitary. The way it happened it had a proper effect on the Japanese leadership's psychology. A purely military target probably wouldn't have scared them enough.

Also, it provided a scare of nuclear combat and of the willingness of any nuclear power to actually use the bomb that was necessary to keep the bipolar system cold. With no fear of going nuclear, I see the Cuban missile crisis go a much more dangerous path.

While all that doesn't justify the use of the bomb, it explains why it happened and also what positive effects it had. And noone should apologise on the Japanese before they have done likewise.

[Bereta_Eder]

I was watching CNN the other day about that. and they said that the japanese explain to their children all the horrours of being blasted with a nuclear weapon but the cnn had trouble because they say the japanese didnt educate their kids why it was necessairy to drop the nuclear bomb.

then the cnn had more questions like why if they dont feel for the US so much then why do young japanese (i hope i write it according to q cube wishes or he'll bust my testicles again) embrace "american culture" so much.

then i realized it's not american culture or non american culture. it's modern culture. would you expect someone to dance folklore dances in 2005 so as to characterize them not following american culture? it's simply modern culture, that is similar to most modern nations. maybe it looks like american because there are similarities but the underground unificating factor is modernity i thought.

[Donegeal]

I always kind of atributed the Japanese obsession with American culture with the fierce honor system that was inplace at the time (during WWII). The Japanese people thought that they were unbeatable and would gladly give up their lives to serve the Emperor. When the Americans came and whopped up on them and droped a couple of Nukes, they latched onto what they thought of as a higher power and started to imitate the people that defeated them so they could be just as good. IMHO.

[Ecthy]

Why did West Germans imitate them then? Hardly for the same reason...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Why did West Germans imitate them then? Hardly for the same reason...

Jeans are cooler than lederhosen.

[Ecthy]

Bavarians never actually did.

[molly bloom]

Not a Bavarian:

[Ecthy]

Austrian then or something along those lines, maybe even Swabian.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Austrian then or something along those lines, maybe even Swabian.

This website might be dodgy but I'm selecting this from it:

Figure 1.--Quite a number of the boys in this German school photograph wear lederhosen, more than we have noticed in most German classes. The German reader who provided us his image reports that it was taken in Eslingen, a small city close to Stuttgart, during 1965-1967.

[Ecthy]

Close to Stuttgart means it's in Swabia. They're not remotely human beings.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Close to Stuttgart means it's in Swabia. They're not remotely human beings.

Germanic brotherly love.

It's been there ever since the time when Lothar, Louis and Charles fell out.


Kulturkampf, anyone ?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Not a Bavarian:

That's a very cruel thing to do to your boyfriend.