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A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

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Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#31

Post by Ma8ee »

someperson wrote: post #26
Ma8ee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't disagree that the values of the United States have always been an aspiration rather than actual reality. 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…

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way.

But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#32

Post by im_down_w_otp »

freeopinion wrote: post #14

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, like you, learned all the rationalizations that got to be written in history by the victor.

The point at which most of it started to unravel for me was when I learned that the United States had a whole spate of atomic bombs they were scheduling to drop if Imperial Japan didn't surrender. We think of it as two because that's all the further we got, but if things had gone a little differently it would have been six, eight, etc.

A willingness to cause that kind of unprecedented basically indiscriminate devastation, well it forced me to look at the events that actually did happen through a very different lens.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#33

Post by someperson »

Ma8ee wrote: post #31
someperson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that the values of the United States have always been an aspiration rather than actual reality. 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…

Of course you should have aspirations! But many people seems to think that the US is this shining light of enlightenment and democracy in the world that, just a little bit, at a few occasions, forgotten they way. But that is just not true. From slavery, Jim Crow, internment camps, McCarthy, Vietnam, killing of “enemy combatants”, etc. You have never been even close to the way.

Just to clarify, I am not American.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#34

Post by crooked-v »

oh_sigh wrote: post #23
someperson wrote: post #3

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…

Yeah, the Japanese interment sucks, but I wonder what would have happened if there was no internment. Could US wartime industry on the West coast have operated successfully under constant sabotage? Would it be better for America to lose the war to Japan (or at least reach a deal and let Japan keep all of the Pacific islands and Chinese land holdings) if it meant that the internment didn't happen? It's impossible to f…

> literally every Japanese person

In this case, "literally every" means exactly three people, two of whom were first-generation immigrants without citizen.

I do hope you understand how that's not a sufficient basis to make conclusions about 120,000 people.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#35

Post by Udik »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #10
someperson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's off-topic, but (as a non-American) I personally believe Trump will win re-election. Steve Bannon (the architect of Trump's 2016 election win) has said Trump will win re-election if the Chinese Communist Party is the central issue of the election (which it increasingly is). Come November they'll likely be multiple vaccine candidates in late-stage trials, and the compelling argument can be made saying the botched…

The CCP isn't a tremendously controversial issue in the US (the consensus against it is strong and bipartisan), so it's hard to see how it could become the central issue of the election.

Easy. After carefully creating the enemy in the past four years (the relationship with China was then much better and people weren't using "CCP" as a stand-in for "China"), Trump will just need to stress that he's the only one who can protect Americans from the threat- those democrats weaklings were selling the country to the CCP and will continue to do so.

Job done.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#36

Post by ngold »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #15
someperson wrote: post #12

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 have to agree, most Americans are using nothing but Chinese made products. If there was some commie scare that would be the first thing to go.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#37

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Razengan wrote: post #30
MangoCoffee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What do China and Korea ""deserve"" for what they did to their own citizens? 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.

And that's why nuclear weapons exist - not to stop "plenty of other stuff like that", but because they're just another example of "plenty of other stuff like that."

Collectively humans are belligerent, acquisitive, tribal, and stupid. We keep hoping and telling ourselves we're better than that, but so far there's disappointingly little evidence we are.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#38

Post by oh_sigh »

crooked-v wrote: post #34
oh_sigh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Japanese interment sucks, but I wonder what would have happened if there was no internment. Could US wartime industry on the West coast have operated successfully under constant sabotage? Would it be better for America to lose the war to Japan (or at least reach a deal and let Japan keep all of the Pacific islands and Chinese land holdings) if it meant that the internment didn't happen? It's impossible to f…

> literally every Japanese person In this case, "literally every" means exactly three people, two of whom were first-generation immigrants without citizen. I do hope you understand how that's not a sufficient basis to make conclusions about 120,000 people.

There isn't a shortage of bytes for storing HN comments - you can go ahead and quote the full phrase of "literally every Japanese person the pilot ran across".

Would you have supported the internment if 110,000 of those 120,000 people supported Japan in their war against the USA?

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#39

Post by duskwuff »

1MachineElf wrote: post #29
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believe geopolitics were a significant part of the last POTUS election. The parties are split based on their constituents relative anxiety over Russia. Also, Hillary's "no fly zone" over Russia's naval base in Syria seemed an important issue too.

I think you are vastly overestimating the degree of nuance involved in that election.

Re: A man who saved Kyoto from the atomic bomb (2015)

#40

Post by hhua_ »

One less known fact is that one of the advisors to US army back in WWII is Dr Liang Sicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_Sicheng. He is the father of modern Chinese architecture. He recommended that the Americans military authorities spare the ancient Japanese cities of Kyoto and Nara.

He married with another legend Lin Huiyin, whose niece Maya Lin later designed Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin

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