21–30 of 142 posts
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…
On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans…
The US has never lived up to those. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (I hope no one forgot about that one) or all the tragic events that ignited the BLM movement are just current examples.
On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans…
It's impossible to figure out what percentage of Japanese people in the US would have sided with Japan over America. But it might be telling that during the Niihau incident, literally every Japanese person the pilot ran across decided to help him, in contrast to helping the native Hawaiians they had been living with for decades. I wonder at what point the internment becomes acceptable. If 99% of the Japanese people in America would have supported Japan in the war, would the internment have been okay?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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From what I've read it's very likely they'll be rolling out vaccines with ~50% effectiveness this year (and deploying it in high volumes in 2021). The vaccine doesn't have to be perfect. As long as it's proven safe, confers some level of protection and is deployed in badly affected areas (including nursing homes) it will help drop the death numbers and we'll reach herd immunity faster. Operation Warp Speed has meant…
Also, it's August already. Although some other nations have fast reliable testing for anyone who needs it, USA CDC is still struggling to field a convenient test. How are these people going to crank out hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by November? That isn't totally Trump's fault, but he has certainly been among the public figures giving us the vaccine song-and-dance. He may need to somehow trick Biden into saying something like "I believe in the new vaccine that the wonderful scientists have given us" right before everyone realizes what a fairy tale it has been. We'll still see high-six-figures of Americans dead by election time. Any political machine that actually wanted to win could make a powerful argument out of all those dead people...
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…
On this historic day (exactly 75 years to the day since the August 9 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki) we should take a moment to understand more about our shared history. > But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". The internment of Japanese-Americans…
You write like there are dangers that the US might forget or lose their values, like innocent until proven guilty or that everybody is created equal. The US has never lived up to those. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (I hope no one forgot about that one) or all the tragic events that ignited the BLM movement are just current examples.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that "All men are created equal" in 1776 as part of the United States' founding principles, but it took until 1865 for slavery to even be abolished in the United States. He even owned slaves himself and famously bore 6 children with his slave, Sally Hemings. As recently as 155 years ago in the United States, you could own people as property, and 70 years ago black people couldn't drink out of the same drinking fountain as white people.
The US has always been a work in progress, and it's better to have some kind of aspirational set of values (like presumption of innocence and equality) that we should try and make sure our societies are living up to.
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…
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I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…
I'd suggest that using the bomb against Japan was not the real sin. The real sin, and the real idiotic blunder, was not to immediately renounce the use of nuclear weapons and institute an international order to safeguard that renunciation. From 1945 to 1949, Stalin did not have the bomb, and until the very last he had no good reason to believe he would have it anytime soon. USSR would have been very open to negotiati…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is Biden appears much weaker than Trump on China. He has the baggage of being an Obama administration official (overseeing the South China Sea militarization and the US-China Cyber Agreement). Some core Trump advisors like Peter Navarro (author of "Death by China" and the associated documentary) believe in economic decoupling far more deeply Biden advisors. I agree some Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer…
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just hard to imagine such nitty-gritty details of the US-China relationship being the central issue of this election.
I grew up with a cold war era US-centric understanding of why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to happen. I get those arguments, Later I was taught a very different, also compelling, rationale for Nagazaki from a Japanese perspective. I get that argument, too. I'm USian, so of course I like any argument that puts the US on the right side of history. But as that moment gets more and more into the past, and we lose the conte…
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What does China """deserve""" for what they’re doing to Hong Kong and Uyghurs right now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
You will not run out of digging up other stuff like that.