[Xmca-l] Re: Hiroshima and us

Thu Aug 6 22:43:06 PDT 2015

Message from Francine:

In regard to David's remark regarding ". . . what American imperialism had done to Asia"

I have to ask David, what are you referring to?  Do you consider the American bombing of Japan
as American Imperialism against the continent of Asia? The war in Vietnam did not affect the entire continent of Asia. Both the War in Vietnam and the Korean War were matters of Chinese
and Russian Imperialism, as much as, American Imperialism. The Philippines were subjected to Spanish Imperialism, then American Imperialism (Philippine-American War of 1899-1902) and then Japanese Imperialism (1941-1945).  

There is the era of European colonial imperialism that subjugated India, Indochina, and the "Spice Islands." Albeit the memorable role of Charlton Heston in 55 Days in Peking,
the USA was not a major world power at the time of the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). 

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Muslim Imperialism into India, and inter-Asian
Imperialism (Mongols invading China, etc.); oh yes and there was that nasty business of Genghis Khan invading Europe.

The real issue is how to prevent (as well as stop) the cycles of violence and the subjugation of 'other' people. Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to stop violence and subjugation, has been with a horrendous act (that breaks the will to continue fighting).

There has to be a better way. But what is it? Should the Allies have negotiated a treaty with Japan after the Battle of Okinawa? -  that would surely have left large areas of Asia under Japanese control (certainly Korea). Where did the brutality of Japanese Imperialism spring from?

There are blood feuds that did not begin because of Western (whether American or European)
actions - the enmity between different sects of Islam is the catalyst behind ISIL. The slaughter of infidels and apostates is not a response to any aggression on their part, it is because they exist.

> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 08:33:54 +0900
> From: dkellogg60@gmail.com
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hiroshima and us
> 
>  A few years ago, I took my sixteen year old nephew to Hiroshima. Unlike my
> generation, Luc had no direct memory of Vietnam, but he was just beginning
> to have a sense of what American imperialism had done to Asia. He also had
> a vague sense that our own family was somehow involved: my father, his
> grandfather, had worked on the Manhattan Project as a physics undergraduate
> inducted into the army.
> 
> Dad didn't exactly defend the bombing. When I was sixteen, and rather
> obsessed with the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust, he made me read John
> Hersey's harrowing book "Hiroshima". Dad always claimed that the majority
> of physicists supported Leo Szilard, who had demanded that the bomb should
> be used on an uninhabited island with the whole world watching, but that
> somehow they had been betrayed at the last minute by Robert Oppenheimer.
> But Dad did say more people would have died in a ground invasion of Japan,
> and so in the end he believed that the bomb saved more lives than it cost.
> 
> When Luc and I toured the museum in the Peace Park, he was struck by the
> fact that the captain of the Enola Gay was only just thirty years old,
> flying a plane he'd named after his own mother, and that he made the
> decision to obliterate a whole city opportunistically, according to the
> good weather conditions, less than an hour before the bomb was actually
> dropped. A large number of those who died were sixteen year olds like Luc,
> interested in the newly invented genre of manga, taking the day off from
> school to clear fire lanes in case the city were fire-bombed as Tokyo had
> been.
> 
> We can, of course, discuss this or that comparison (who knows--perhaps some
> day people will consider "old age" or "cancer" as responsible for similar
> horrors, albeit on a more extended time scale). But I think Mike's right:
> comparison is beside the point. This kind of opportunistic mass murder of
> completely innocent people on an hour's notice was unprecedented and to
> date unparalleled, and the reasons are technological. What my dad's
> colleagues at Los Alamos had really done was to enable a rookie president
> and a thirty-year-old colonel to throw one switch and plunge a whole city
> into six million degrees of heat.
> 
> At the door of the museum, we saw a photograph of the men who loaded the
> bomb onto the Enola Gay at Tinian. In the centre was my father's Ph.D.
> supervisor, Phil Morrison. He wasn't smiling.
> 
> David Kellogg
> 
> 
> 
> the. I had grown up with John Hersey's marvWhile we were touring the museum
> in the Peace Park, I learned that
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 6:51 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Mike, Rafi and Francine:
> >
> > Thank you. This from the NY Times:
> >
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/world/asia/witnesses-to-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-pass-their-stories-to-a-new-generation.html?emc=edit_th_20150806&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63154245
> > <
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/world/asia/witnesses-to-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-pass-their-stories-to-a-new-generation.html?emc=edit_th_20150806&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63154245
> > >
> >
> > The article profiles the commemoration of the victims of Hiroshima, but
> > there are two “background” issues mentioned that are worth thinking on:
> > 1)  the efforts at remilitarization of Japan under the leadership of prime
> > minister Shinzo Abe, something that must give pause in light of the the
> > “Asian holocaust”, and
> > 2) the fact that the memory of Hiroshima is fading even among Japanese.
> > Shinzo Abe is probably counting on voters knowing even less about the rape
> > of Nanking and the rest of what Japan did before Hiroshima.
> >
> > This CHAT is a constant reminder that we forget our history at our peril,
> > especially the history that puts us in a bad light.
> >
> > Henry
> >
> >
> > > On Aug 6, 2015, at 10:30 AM, Rafi Santo <rsanto@indiana.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > It's hard to know which of the two instances being discussed here is more
> > > disturbing in terms of what they say about organized societies. The
> > > dropping of the atomic bomb(s) highlights the willingness of humans to
> > > engage in specific decisions to engage in an act that they know will
> > result
> > > in instantly decimating 10s of thousands of people in a fell swoop. The
> > > asian holocaust highlights the willingness to engage in ongoing campaigns
> > > of destruction of human life, actions which are too often both obscure in
> > > moment as well as not nearly as highlighted in the historical record (at
> > > least in case of the Asian Holocaust).
> > >
> > > While not entirely parallel, the bombing of the World Trade Center one on
> > > hand and resultant contemporary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and
> > attendant
> > > loss of life) come to mind in that the events have similar qualities in
> > > terms of the meanings that are linked to them.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 12:10 PM, larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Please post this on XMCA:
> > >>
> > >> Message from Francine:
> > >>
> > >> Reflecting on the bye gone days before an atomic bomb (or incendiary
> > >> bombing) could kill
> > >> 70,000 people at one day - yes it did take the Japanese in WWII six
> > weeks
> > >> to kill  300,000 Chinese in 1937 in the Rape of Nanking, weeks to kill
> > >> 100,000 civilian Philippine civilians in 1945 in the Rape of Manila and
> > >> 100,000 civilian in 1942 in the Rape of Singapore. Total estimate of
> > >> civilians and prisoners of war killed by the Japanese in WWII is from 3
> > >> million to 10 million people (it is called the Asian Holocaust). This
> > >> figure does not include those soldiers killed in combat fighting the
> > >> Japanese Army.
> > >>
> > >> This does not diminish the tragic suffering and loss of life in
> > Hiroshima,
> > >> Nagasaki, and Tokyo.
> > >>
> > >> When entire cities are 'raped' for weeks not destroyed in one day is the
> > >> suffering any less?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 08:16:39 -0400
> > >>> From: mcole@ucsd.edu
> > >>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Hiroshima and us
> > >>>
> > >>> 70 years ago 70,000 people evaporated in Hiroshima, a few days after
> > >> about
> > >>> as many were killed by Dresden-style fire bombing in Tokyo and just
> > >> before
> > >>> like numbers were killed in Nagasaki.
> > >>>
> > >>> It seems worthwhile pausing for a minute to think about those bye gone
> > >> days
> > >>> when we humans were not as skilled at mass extinction as we are now.
> > >>> Mike
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>>
> > >>> Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
> > >>> ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
> > >>> Ecological Niche, 2008)
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Rafi Santo
> > > Project Lead
> > > Hive Research Lab
> > > hiveresearchlab.org
> > > A project of Indiana University and New York University
> > >
> > > Indiana University - Learning Sciences
> >
> >