Current Affairs Donald Trump POS: Judgement cometh and that right soon

[ilikecheese]

Ruairi makes the key point. Never forget. When you destroy evidence like these statues, you are in danger of unintended consequences thwarting your noble goals.

Careful examination will show that many of these statues were erected not immediately post-bellum but in the first twenty years of the 20th century, when the old War veterans were dying off and a much needed spirit of live and let live was unfortunately contemporary with the very lowest period of Jim Crow in the American South. These factors combined to sprout dozens of marble and bronze reminders of the men who embodied the final proud defeat of the Confederacy in its futile yet courageous effort to extend the old era of land slavery and feudalism past its date of expiration. Leave it and tell the entire story. These were ferocious warriors in service to an ignoble cause. Fear them. Remember them.

Be accurate. Tell the whole truth.

I'd also like to point out that this is an excellent example of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

 

[mezzrow]

I'd also like to point out that this is an excellent example of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

No argument here. That's exactly the lost cause position, with the exception of changing the word noble to ignoble. It's a powerful narrative for a beaten region. To combat it, you have to face it straight up. I've had "discussions" with these guys, which always ends with me pointing out that slavery is and was an abomination as I leave the room. There's simply no argument against that.

 

[ilikecheese]

No argument here. That's exactly the lost cause position, with the exception of changing the word noble to ignoble. It's a powerful narrative for a beaten region. To combat it, you have to face it straight up. I've had "discussions" with these guys, which always ends with me pointing out that slavery is and was an abomination as I leave the room. There's simply no argument against that.

The Lost Cause ideology is like Holocaust Denial for me.

 

[dholliday]

slavery is and was an abomination. There's simply no argument against that.

The Lost Cause ideology is like Holocaust Denial for me.

Holocaust denial is bad enough, but at least it's not supporting an abomination. First accepting a crime against humanity happened and then still supporting it is wordless horror for me.

But then I bet there's still many who support the US atom bombs against Japan.

 

[ilikecheese]

Holocaust denial is bad enough, but at least it's not supporting an abomination. First accepting a crime against humanity happened and then still supporting it is wordless horror for me.

But then I bet there's still many who support the US atom bombs against Japan.

You have a point, but most studies I've read conclude that lives were saved by using them.

 

[mezzrow]

But then I bet there's still many who support the US atom bombs against Japan.

There's many who believe that they would not be here if not for said bombs. I'm one of those.

My old man got the word on a Philippine beach, where his outfit was camped out waiting to support the planned invasion. When considering the carnage that an invasion would have entailed, especially after what both sides had just experienced in Okinawa, there's an argument that lives were saved, both allied and Japanese. We'll never know, and what's done is done. I hope we never get a chance to really understand the mindset of those people in that time and place. The past century looks more and more a horror when it is re-examined, especially the first half of it.

 

[ilikecheese]

There's many who believe that they would not be here if not for said bombs. I'm one of those.

My old man got the word on a Philippine beach, where his outfit was camped out waiting to support the planned invasion. When considering the carnage that an invasion would have entailed, especially after what both sides had just experienced in Okinawa, there's an argument that lives were saved, both allied and Japanese. We'll never know, and what's done is done. I hope we never get a chance to really understand the mindset of those people in that time and place. The past century looks more and more a horror when it is re-examined, especially the first half of it.

It didn't hurt that Russia joined in the war against Japan right after Hiroshima either.

 

[summerisle]

I don't really like it either but sometimes it is the truth. The South founded a country to protect its enslavement of Africans as otherwise their entire economy would be wrecked (which it was after the war although losing major cities like Atlanta and Richmond didn't help.) The flag is a symbol of this country. I said in a prior post that if you don't believe me just read the declarations of secession. Many of them make it clear that slavery is a root cause. The point in all of this is that if you are flying that flag you are professing support for a movement that sought to keep Africans enslaved.

Another side point is that it also supports a country that was in open rebellion against the United States. Lots of people who fly that flag also lose their mind when someone disrespects the American flag. Hypocrisy is all around in our world nowadays

Mentioning the declarations of secession piqued my interest, as I only vaguely had an inkling about it. Reading them was fascinating , thanks for mentioning them. Anybody interested, here they are :

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

 

[mezzrow]

It didn't hurt that Russia joined in the war against Japan right after Hiroshima either.

Nobody ever accused Stalin of not having an eye for an opportunity. That's not what ended the war, though. The bombs did that.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Meanwhile, he seems to have got the EU to move.......

New York Times...

“The United States and the European Union stepped back from the brink of a trade war after President Trump said the Europeans agreed to work toward lowering tariffs and other trade barriers.”.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

From that article

And Mr. Trump stepped back from punitive tariff threats for some relatively minor European concessions: the purchase of soybeans to make up for a steep falloff of buying by China, and the promise to purchase liquefied natural gas once the United States builds more L.N.G. export terminals, which are far away. For weeks, the president has portrayed the European Union as fleecing America with unfair trade, but he put away his saber as farm state Republicans were begging for relief.

You’ll know the EU better than I but I don’t understand how the EU can commit private business to buy anything including soybeans and have no idea how much government contolled agencies buy - is it a lot?

Surely the reason a private business would buy US soybeans now is because China has switched contracts to Brazil/Russia supply raising those prices and tanking US soybean prices - so aren’t the EU trying to con Trump with claiming credit for what normal market forces would already achieve given Trump’s wrecked other markets for his own farmers?

The only other “commitment” seems to be increased LNG which will only occur in the future and likely would have happened anyway through both market forces and security concerns about having diverse suppliers.

These seem mightly slim reeds to base a “he has got the EU to move” conclusion even if you ignore whether these could have been achieved by negotiations without imposing any sanctions.

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[dholliday]

There's many who believe that they would not be here if not for said bombs. I'm one of those.

My old man got the word on a Philippine beach, where his outfit was camped out waiting to support the planned invasion. When considering the carnage that an invasion would have entailed, especially after what both sides had just experienced in Okinawa, there's an argument that lives were saved, both allied and Japanese. We'll never know, and what's done is done. I hope we never get a chance to really understand the mindset of those people in that time and place. The past century looks more and more a horror when it is re-examined, especially the first half of it.

You have a point, but most studies I've read conclude that lives were saved by using them.

Now I know we can't truly understand what it was like back then, and I do accept the japanese were a highly-strung unpredictable force of nature back then. Their democide of folk leaves one speechless.

And I understand, at least via chaos theory, that there's an argument the atom bombs ultimately improved Japan & the world. As Mezz says, we'll never know what might've been the best way forward.

But still, reflection is often good, so I wonder: why even invade Japan? They weren't likely to carry out more Pearl-Habor-style attacks, nevermind invade US themselves. Sure, they were the ones who struck first & declared war but the evidence is substantial that a diplomatic solution from the Commonwealth & US alliance, in wake of Germany being defeated months prior, could have worked.

The counter-argument (and I guess your arguments) would be that nowadays we'd be more liable to try the diplomatic route precisely because we've already experienced the ultimate horror of the atom bomb. Like the small child who avoids running down the stairs because last time he fell down and broke his nose. He needed that piping down to learn.

I guess it just seems unfathomable that there could be any justification for killing over 200,000 innocent civilians in such a short space of time. The numbers saved seem to be projections which could never be known with any accuracy, they reek of face-saving exercises with some fantastical number-crunching.

And it hasn't all been roses looking at what happened next. That the US, even today, feel justified has arguably been the catalyst for their continued aggression in the world.

The WP has a useful little piece on the myths surrounding that time:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...df005a0fb28_story.html?utm_term=.0e3ba2818f75

It confirms what neutral analysis has always shown, that Japan was close to being beaten before the bombs hit, especially so after the Soviets declared war on Japan, and that if any lives were theoritically saved it was deaths caused by an invasion of Japan from the US. Which is almost kafka reasoning.

We don't learn as much from history as we'd like to think, as the response to Saddam's '45-minute threat' and the response to 9/11 has shown. And there are many from the liberal democrat side who still support how the West reacted to those things, including the frankly evil drone program.

The atom bombs were the first time the US responded to a slap with a force a hundred-fold times stronger (i.e. causing a hundred times more deaths than they themselves suffered...see also post-9/11 response). It might sound impressive (don't mess with the US!) but we should consider if the reactions could be more humane.

From that perspective, it's not just supporters of the confederacy who have views which from some angles appear somewhat inhumane.

 

[mezzrow]

Near the end of World War II, in 1945, the US Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops. A third of the civilian population died; a quarter of the civilian population died during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa alone.

The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-okinawa-operation-iceberg.htm

A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

 

[dholliday]

Near the end of World War II, in 1945, the US Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops. A third of the civilian population died; a quarter of the civilian population died during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa alone.

The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-okinawa-operation-iceberg.htm

A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

Shockley was a white supremist who thought genetically-inferior races shouldn't breed so much as it would bring down the world's average intelligence.

I think we can safely say his study was not neutral or scientific. It was propaganda. i.e. fantastical number crunching.

 

[ilikecheese]

Now I know we can't truly understand what it was like back then, and I do accept the japanese were a highly-strung unpredictable force of nature back then. Their democide of folk leaves one speechless.

And I understand, at least via chaos theory, that there's an argument the atom bombs ultimately improved Japan & the world. As Mezz says, we'll never know what might've been the best way forward.

But still, reflection is often good, so I wonder: why even invade Japan? They weren't likely to carry out more Pearl-Habor-style attacks, nevermind invade US themselves. Sure, they were the ones who struck first & declared war but the evidence is substantial that a diplomatic solution from the Commonwealth & US alliance, in wake of Germany being defeated months prior, could have worked.

The counter-argument (and I guess your arguments) would be that nowadays we'd be more liable to try the diplomatic route precisely because we've already experienced the ultimate horror of the atom bomb. Like the small child who avoids running down the stairs because last time he fell down and broke his nose. He needed that piping down to learn.

I guess it just seems unfathomable that there could be any justification for killing over 200,000 innocent civilians in such a short space of time. The numbers saved seem to be projections which could never be known with any accuracy, they reek of face-saving exercises with some fantastical number-crunching.

And it hasn't all been roses looking at what happened next. That the US, even today, feel justified has arguably been the catalyst for their continued aggression in the world.

The WP has a useful little piece on the myths surrounding that time:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...df005a0fb28_story.html?utm_term=.0e3ba2818f75

It confirms what neutral analysis has always shown, that Japan was close to being beaten before the bombs hit, especially so after the Soviets declared war on Japan, and that if any lives were theoritically saved it was deaths caused by an invasion of Japan from the US. Which is almost kafka reasoning.

We don't learn as much from history as we'd like to think, as the response to Saddam's '45-minute threat' and the response to 9/11 has shown. And there are many from the liberal democrat side who still support how the West reacted to those things, including the frankly evil drone program.

The atom bombs were the first time the US responded to a slap with a force a hundred-fold times stronger (i.e. causing a hundred times more deaths than they themselves suffered...see also post-9/11 response). It might sound impressive (don't mess with the US!) but we should consider if the reactions could be more humane.

From that perspective, it's not just supporters of the confederacy who have views which from some angles appear somewhat inhumane.

Near the end of World War II, in 1945, the US Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops. A third of the civilian population died; a quarter of the civilian population died during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa alone.

The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-okinawa-operation-iceberg.htm

A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

I think it's too easy in hindsight to assume Japan was anywhere near surrender. Okinawa and Iwo Jima were very costly.

Japan using their own shock and awe kamikaze attacks later in the war on US ships was damn effective and showed what people are willing to do to win...at all costs.

While nobody can be certain of the casualties both sides would have faced with an invasion, I think everyone can agree it would have been bloody.

How many lives did the Bomb save? No idea the number but I can say without a doubt it saved Allied lives.