The Stupid Things We Do When We Do Religion List
Ned Ludd
I moved the Eruv to the top of the list. - Ned
THE STUPID THINGS WE DO WHEN WE DO RELIGION LIST
(the STWDWWDR list)
- The Eruv. A continuous line or perimeter around a city or part
of a city, formed of pre-existing things like walls, fences,
powerlines, etc., but if no natural thing exists, then a string
or wire which is inspected once a week, so that Orthodox Jews
can work on Saturdays.
- Demonizing the totem poles in Vancouver.
- The Mormons baptizing dead 'souls' of people in other religions
into their Mormon religion.
- The strappado - a device used for centuries to torture a heretic
by pulling his shoulder joints out of their sockets - to SAVE
HIS SOUL, of course.
- The call to prayer.
- Tearing apart a chicken while dancing with it and eventually
decapitating it.
- Ritually killing mammals as offerings to God.
- Killing our first-born children.
- The Spanish Inquisition.
- John Daido Loori's bandaged tattoo of an anchor.
- Flying kamikaze planes into battleships.
Benjamin
I think it's a bit hard to separate that last one from Nationalism, but
that's often the case.
Killing anything should be on the list, since it's seems to be
hypocritical in pretty much every religion out there.
Plus the dumb things we wear on our heads.
Ned Ludd
"Benjamin" <eggplan...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:b9050$4b05bc9b$4038ecbe$32...@PRIMUS.CA...
Except when the priest tells you to do it. Thank God we dropped
the bomb. It would have been millions and millions dead on both
sides without the bomb. Even the bomb didn't stop them. It took
ANOTHER bomb (a second one) for them to throw in the towel.
> Killing anything should be on the list, since it's seems to be
> hypocritical in pretty much every religion out there.
>
Except for dinner. I just don't see why we should reject 30
million years of evolution (to turn us back into carnivores)
because of some modern pseudo-religious diet fad. Even Buddha
wasn't a vegetarian. But his bat-shit crazy cousin was. Just
like Hitler. Did you hear me? Hitler. Hitler! HITLER!!!
> Plus the dumb things we wear on our heads.
>
Red hat, yellow hat, it's all just a ruse to suggest that
they have something on their mind.
Ned
Ned Ludd
"Ned Ludd" <ned...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:X5GdnenzdPi1bJjW...@earthlink.com...
> "Benjamin" <eggplan...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:b9050$4b05bc9b$4038ecbe$32...@PRIMUS.CA...
>>
>> hypocritical in pretty much every religion out there.
>
> Except for dinner. I just don't see why we should reject 30
> million years of evolution (to turn us back into carnivores)
> because of some modern pseudo-religious diet fad. Even Buddha
> wasn't a vegetarian. But his bat-shit crazy cousin was. Just
> like Hitler. Did you hear me? Hitler. Hitler! HITLER!!!
>
But there's something here, perhaps, for the STWDWWDR list.
I don't know exactly how to express it, but it comes down
to something like... "Cutting fine distinctions between
the living things that we kill and digest so that we may
live on (instead of them), and the other things which we
feel SHOULD live on and not be used for food."
Ned
Nobody in Particular
>
> Thank God we dropped
> the bomb. It would have been millions and millions dead on both
> sides without the bomb. Even the bomb didn't stop them. It took
> ANOTHER bomb (a second one) for them to throw in the towel.
The Japanese were done and looked for a way to end it. They went
through the Russians and other sources to try to find a way out.
Their only condition: Don't kill the emperor. But the politicians
wanted to use the bomb. So much money had been spent on the
development. The Germans had already surrendered. They wanted to
show the Russians what we had and we were fully willing to use it
in case they tried to take over Europe, as many feared. The military
was totally against its use. They knew Japan was finished.
Eisenhower especially tried to stop it, but politics prevailed.
So we insisted on an unconditional surrender. The Japanese
condition not to kill the emperor was therefore "unacceptable",
and Hiroshima was bombed. The Japanese came back, ready to
surrender, except under the condition that the emperor not be
killed. Unacceptable. Nagasaki was bombed. The Japanese came
back still with the same conditions. By that time we were fresh
out of nukes and realized they weren't going to change their minds,
no matter what we did to them, so we let them have their damned
emperor. Immediate end of the war.
AFTER that, when news of the horrible effect of the bombs began
to make it into the public mind, a reason had to be cooked up
that would justify the use. So the myth of potential "millions
of dead" was invented. There is no credible record of this myth
being mentioned anywhere before the bombs were dropped. It
certainly did not come from the military. It was only invented
so that those who had some moral conscience could sleep at night.
And apparently it persists to this day.
Ned Ludd
"Nobody in Particular" <nob...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:he545l$cjj$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
That is so much bullshit, and bullshit on the face of it. If they
refused to surrender rather than allow us "kill the emperor",
then they were willing to kill millions of their own people to
prevent that.
Dumbass! They slaughtered THEMSELVES on Iwo Jimo rather
than be taken prisoner. THAT'S how the war would have gone.
IDIOT!
Ask the children born of the Japanese men who came home from
the war (rather than die in the land invasion) if we should have
used the bomb or not.
Ned
Hidden Draggin
This is one of the biggest examples of unmitigated bullshit I
have ever heard.
--
Hidden Draggin - Gilbert Hansford
Don't join dangerous cults, practice safe sects!
http://twitter.com/hiddendraggin
http://hiddendraggin.posterous.com/
Hidden Draggin
This is what ideologically driven 3rd and 4th hand historical
education produces. I spent last night reading about the Battle of
Peleliu. It was a little island which took over two months to
subdue (and 29 Japanese soldiers held out until 1947 and it
took an Admiral shipped from Japan to get them to surrender.)
The Marines, many of them with a great deal of experience from
Guadacanal and New Britain took over 6,000 killed and wounded
and were so mauled, they were pulled out and replaced by the
Army. Okinawa was Peleliu writ large and that was a province,
not Japan per se. The US military was genuinely afraid of the
consequences of Operation Olympic and later research reveals
they underestimated the Japanese resources being created to
oppose them.
Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation
of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present
date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following
the end of World War II-including the Korean and Vietnam Wars-
have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of
these Purple Heart medals in stock. There are so many in surplus
that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts
on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Love
ned...@ix.netcom.com says...
- residential schools
- "tea parties"
- proving God
- disproving God
- playing with ouija boards
--
Love
May Shai-Hulud clear the path before you.
Ned Ludd
"Love" <pho...@address.for.spam> wrote in message
news:9c9ce$4b063388$4038ecbe$10...@PRIMUS.CA...
>
>> Here they are, pretty much as they came up, except of course
>> I moved the Eruv to the top of the list. - Ned
>> THE STUPID THINGS WE DO WHEN WE DO RELIGION LIST
>> (the STWDWWDR list)
>>- Flying kamikaze planes into battleships.
>
> - residential schools
>
> - "tea parties"
>
> - proving God
>
> - disproving God
>
> - playing with ouija boards
>
Hhhhhhh... Saboteur!
Ned
bonfils
I know I will offend some people here - but I have to throw prostrations
in as well - especially when viewed as an act that accumulates merit.
--
bonfils
http://kim.bonfils.com
To send me a massage, please remove your.underwear
Lee Rudolph
I never realized that prosti... oh, wait. Sorry. Never mind.
Lee Rudolph
Beerlet Dhiblang
You forgot two:
- Enumerating the stupid things that are done in the name of religion.
- Forgetting that God doesn't kill people, people do.
Just kidding!!! :-)
Religion seems to encourage people to the extremes either good, bad or
ridiculous. If I had to pick two ....
Ignore the sanctimonious narrative, it's fascinating to watch people
get slain in the spirit ... like the lady at 1:00.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auCD64dyohg
Mass trance induction.
/l
Beerlet Dhiblang
> "Benjamin" <eggplantonto...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
LOL.
You baaaaaaad man, you.
/l
Ned Ludd
"bonfils" <k...@bonfils.your.underwear.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9CC95FBD...@94.75.244.51...
I can certainly add it. But it takes the list down a path that
makes it more and more like "The 94 Hang-ups of Buddhism".
Bobbing your head at the Wailing Wall, genuflecting to the graven
image of Christ or Mary, and bowing to Mecca would then of course
qualify for the list. A complete enumeration of all religious rituals -
even if restricted to only those rituals done for personal gain - would
require more bytes than the current available mass storage on earth.
Perhaps a single, inclusive entry for 'ritual', but stated in such
a way as to highlight its meaninglessness and futility, would be
sufficient?
Ned
Ned Ludd
"Beerlet Dhiblang" <dodeca...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a361bc0f-9fce-4273...@d10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>
> - Enumerating the stupid things that are done in the name of religion.
> - Forgetting that God doesn't kill people, people do.
> Just kidding!!! :-)
> Religion seems to encourage people to the extremes either good, bad or
> ridiculous. If I had to pick two ....
> Ignore the sanctimonious narrative, it's fascinating to watch people
> get slain in the spirit ... like the lady at 1:00.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auCD64dyohg
> Mass trance induction.
> /l
>
Man that is one scary video!
Jesus, Jesus, Joshua, Yeshua, Yehoshua... what have you done?
Ned
Ned Ludd
(the STWDWWDR list)
- The Eruv. A continuous line or perimeter around a city or part
of a city, formed of pre-existing things like walls, fences,
powerlines, etc., but if no natural thing exists, then a string
or wire which is inspected once a week, so that Orthodox Jews
can work on Saturdays.
- Demonizing the totem poles in Vancouver.
- The Mormons baptizing dead 'souls' of people in other religions
into their Mormon religion.
- The strappado - a device used for centuries to torture a heretic
by pulling his shoulder joints out of their sockets - to SAVE
HIS SOUL, of course.
- The call to prayer.
- Tearing apart a chicken while dancing with it and eventually
decapitating it.
- Ritually killing mammals as offerings to God.
- Killing our first-born children.
- The Spanish Inquisition.
- John Daido Loori's bandaged tattoo of an anchor.
- Flying kamikaze planes into battleships.
- Cutting fine distinctions between the living things that we kill
and digest so that we may live on (instead of them), and the other
things which we feel SHOULD live on and not be used for food.
- I have to throw prostrations in as well - especially when viewed
as an act that accumulates merit. [Note: A complete enumeration of
all religious rituals - even if restricted to only those rituals
done for personal gain - would require more bytes than the current
available mass storage on earth. Perhaps a single, inclusive entry
for 'ritual', but stated in such a way as to highlight its
meaninglessness and futility, would be sufficient?]
- Enumerating the stupid things that are done in the name of religion.
- Forgetting that God doesn't kill people, people do.
- Mass trance induction.
Lee Rudolph
>THE STUPID THINGS WE DO WHEN WE DO RELIGION LIST
> (the STWDWWDR list)
...
>- Mass trance induction.
But mass trance--it's *Green*!
Lee Rudolph
bonfils
> "bonfils" <k...@bonfils.your.underwear.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9CC95FBD...@94.75.244.51...
>> I know I will offend some people here - but I have to throw
>> prostrations in as well - especially when viewed as an act that
>> accumulates merit.
>
> I can certainly add it. But it takes the list down a path that
> makes it more and more like "The 94 Hang-ups of Buddhism".
>
> Bobbing your head at the Wailing Wall, genuflecting to the graven
> image of Christ or Mary, and bowing to Mecca would then of course
> qualify for the list. A complete enumeration of all religious rituals
> - even if restricted to only those rituals done for personal gain -
> would require more bytes than the current available mass storage on
> earth.
>
> Perhaps a single, inclusive entry for 'ritual', but stated in such
> a way as to highlight its meaninglessness and futility, would be
> sufficient?
I see what you mean.
I think I'm mainly after the kind of rituals whose value is supposedly
based on repetition ad nauseuam: Prostrations, rosaries, prayer wheels -
attempts at pleasing some entity who's half God and half accountant.
--
bonfils
http://kim.bonfils.com
zenworm
believe
ZN
Benjamin
We've talked about this before Ned. The common historical understanding
is that Japan surrendered because Russia declared war on them.
And I never met one person in japan who thought the bomb was a good
idea. You can't walk through Hiroshima and think that is was anything
other than a horrific immoral act of mass human depravity that degrades
us all simply by it's existence.
It may help us sleep if we demonize the entire Japanese population, but
the anti-war movement in Japan was getting bigger and bigger as the war
went on.
I might choke back your bile Ned and realize that it's probably a bit
more complex than you might imagine.
At the end of the day all we know is that over 300,000 civilians were
slaughtered by two bombs. Your conjecture is high on the list of
religious bullshit that we don't need.
Ben
Ned Ludd
>> then they were willing to kill millions of their own people to
>> prevent that.
>> Dumbass! They slaughtered THEMSELVES on Iwo Jimo rather
>> than be taken prisoner. THAT'S how the war would have gone.
>> IDIOT!
>> Ask the children born of the Japanese men who came home from
>> the war (rather than die in the land invasion) if we should have
>> used the bomb or not.
>> Ned
> We've talked about this before Ned. The common historical understanding
> is that Japan surrendered because Russia declared war on them.
> And I never met one person in japan who thought the bomb was a good idea.
> You can't walk through Hiroshima and think that is was anything other than
> a horrific immoral act of mass human depravity that degrades us all simply
> by it's existence.
> It may help us sleep if we demonize the entire Japanese population, but
> the anti-war movement in Japan was getting bigger and bigger as the war
> went on.
> I might choke back your bile Ned and realize that it's probably a bit more
> complex than you might imagine.
> At the end of the day all we know is that over 300,000 civilians were
> slaughtered by two bombs. Your conjecture is high on the list of religious
> bullshit that we don't need.
> Ben
>
No, the kind of revisionism you're talking about is not supported
by the simplest and most basic facts of situation. And the lie is
apparent in the basic assertions that you and Nobody in Particular
make.
For example, "Their only condition: Don't kill the emperor." If
you have (1) Started a war, (2) Killed hundreds of thousands of
Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking, (3) Attacked and destroyed
the entire Pacific fleet of America in a surprise attack, you DO NOT
PUT CONDITIONS on your surrender. The emperor and his entire staff
should have been executed, like many of the German high command was
executed after Nuremberg. It is a sign of extreme compassion and
real-politic common sense that the emperor was allowed to continue
to head the country and only forced to renounce his divinity.
Now this is where it gets really disgusting: (statements by NIP):
- The Japanese were done and looked for a way to end it.
Complete bullshit. They were fighting tooth-and-nail, and some
of them continued to do it for 30 more years in the islands of the
Pacific afterward.
- They [our military] knew Japan was finished.
Ridiculous. Sandy pointed out that we are TODAY still giving
out purple heart medals that had been minted for casualties expected
in the land invasion. See some added comments below about the
certainty of those deaths.
- The Japanese came back, ready to surrender [after Hiroshima].
In fact, they did NOT surrender after Hiroshima. This is the
single most damning fact to your revisionism. And if we had taken
one of our only two atomic bombs and done a 'demonstration' (as
some of your co-revisionists suggest), they would of course NOT
have surrendered, and, in light their actual decision after Hiroshima,
NOT have surrendered after a city was destroyed, leaving us with
no atomic weapons to continue the attack, until more were fabricated.
- We let them have their damned emperor.
No, we forced their emperor to renounce his divinity and allowed
him to remain a figurehead so the country could be ruled by us
more efficiently after the war.
As for your "You can't walk through Hiroshima and think that is
was anything other than a horrific immoral act of mass human depravity
that degrades us all simply by it's existence." Walk through Dresden,
fat-mouth. MORE people were killed in the fire-bombing of Dresden
than at Hiroshima. BUT, it didn't stop the war with the Germans.
They kept fighting till the Russians smashed down the door of his
bunker in Berlin.
That is EXACTLY how the Japanese would have fought, and did
fight, in every battle that we had with them. No surrender, EVER.
Till the last man, the last bullet, and then suicide.
And that brings up this last revisionist lie:
- So the myth of potential "millions of dead" was invented. There is
no credible record of this myth being mentioned anywhere before
the bombs were dropped.
WRONG! I had the good fortune to read a 50-year-old (and at one
time famous) book by John Knowles a month or so ago. Mary had come
across a reference to it, and it triggered a memory that she had read
it when she was a teenager and found it very moving. So she bought
a copy, re-read it and lent it to me.
It is called "A Separate Peace". The book concerns Knowles' junior
year at Exeter in late 1942 and early 1943. The whole school was
mobilized (as most institutions in the country were) for the war effort,
and every boy at that school knew he was being prepared for war.
Knowles specifically mentions the "millions" of expected casualties
in the impending invasion of JAPAN. This is at a time when the war
with Germany has not even been won, and they ALREADY knew that
the greatest slaughter was going to be in the Asian war.
It struck me as very pertinent to both my youth and to today's
nostalgia for the 50's (as witnessed in the weird popularity of the
cable TV show "Man Men"). Because when I had just entered my teens,
JFK decided to go to the brink with Russia over the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
I don't know why people have such cozy nostalgia for the 50's
nowadays as some kind of safe, predictable, comfortable place.
I remember it, dammit!, and as the 50's ground into the 60's the
threat of immediate nuclear annihilation was CONSTANT. There was
a time in late 1962 when my parents and their friends, talking in
the car on the way home, were CERTAIN that the ICBM's would be
launched in a matter of days, and, as we all knew, it took only
20 minutes for a Russian missile to reach Milwaukee.
THAT was the same mind-set that John Knowles had a Exeter in
l942 and '43. It was CERTAIN that you would be swept up into
a machine that would grind you and all your friends into dust, and
there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.
Ned
Love
Baugh, we all go through life performing actions that
are supposed to please the gods and get us ahead but in
the end we're still gone...nada. At least rituals are
patently empty...they don't lie to you even if you have
to lie to yourself about why you're doing them in the
first place. And if they have a cool trance quality
that allows a little escapism or ectstatic peak, all
the better.
--
Love
Benjamin
It was a good book. I had to read it in 9th grade for English class.
If you look at what I said, you'll see my point is that it's
complicated. It's largely compliated because so much of the chatter
back and forth on this one issue (should we have dropped the bomb) is
based on wild speculation. We don't know what would have happened if we
didn't drop the bomb. We can't know what would have happened. We can
speculate and make guesses, but to do that well requires an incredibly
complex and nuanced understanding of US politics, Japanese politics, and
the diplomacy that was going on at the time.
Combine the anti-japanese racism that was used as a tool to dehumanize
our enemies and it's nearly impossible to come to rational conclusions.
What strikes me as most interesting is the general consensus from
historians that the Japenese didn't surrender because of the bomb. So
where does that leave us? If the goal was surrender it didn't work.
So, we can justify it in many ways, but that one doesn't seem to hold
much water.
There was also a huge effort on the part of the Japanese govt. to tell
the world that they would never surrender. It's part of the cultural
myth of Japans homogeneity that's based on their own zenophobia and
racism. The truth is that the govt may have put on a tough face, but
the population was devastaed, demoralized, starving, grieving, and
completely exhausted with the fighting.
So then what?
We still have to ask ourselves if it ok to use a weapon of mass
destruction on civilians. Is it really any different than the
firebombings?
But we should be clear (regardless of where we fall on these questions)
that the "it saved lives" argument is impossible to prove one way or
another w/o a time machine.
Ben
Love
ned...@ix.netcom.com says...
Oh they are so close in conception. The hangups of
religion in general would've been good.
--
Love
Benjamin
I was talking to a buddhist I met at a bar a while back about sex and
marriage (among other things). He was spewing some morality stuff
around it and I said something like, "Well, sex is one of the hangups of
buddhism. I mean, it's not like the buddhists have really figured it
out very well."
He didn't like that especially.
Ben
Love
eggplan...@yahoo.co.uk says...
Heh, keep up the good work.
Come to think of it though, if you've figured sex out enough
to tell when others haven't figured it out very well, isn't
the thrill over already? ;)
--
Love
Benjamin
Eh, it's easy to tell when someone hasn't figured something out. I can
tell if a table wobbles w/o being able to build one that doesn't.
Besides, it's one of the 94 hang-ups. I think.
Déjà Flu
Complex complications...
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20091117hn.html
--
Ubi dubium ibi libertas
Wilson
Saipan. Of 31,000 Japanese military defenders on the island, 24,000
were killed as they fought to the death, there were military 5,000
suicides, and only 921 surrendered. Most striking were the 22,000
civilians who died. Most of them were suicides after the battle had
been decided. Many thousands of these people walked off of a cliff one
thousand feet high above clumps of jagged rocks after the Japanese
surrender.
Excerpt from the book Goodbye,
Darkness:(http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/005445.html)
"Saito [the Japanese commander] had left a last message to his civilian
countrymen, too: "As it says in the Senjinkum [Ethics], 'I will never
suffer the disgrace of being taken alive,' and I will offer up the
courage of my soul and calmly rejoice in living by the eternal
principle." In a final, cruel twist of the knife he reminded mothers of
the oyaku-shinju (the parents-children death pact). Mothers, fathers,
daughters, sons? all had to die. Therefore children were encouraged to
form circles and toss live grenades from hand to hand until they
exploded. Their parents dashed babies' brains out on limestone slabs and
then, clutching the tiny corpses, shouted "Tenno! Haiki! Banzai!" (Long
live the Emperor!) as they jumped off the brinks of the cliffs and
soared downward. Below Banzai Cliff U.S. destroyers trying to rescue
those who had survived the plunge found they could not steer among so
many bodies; human flesh was jamming their screws. .. . But Suicide
Cliff was worse. A brief strip of jerky newsreel footage, preserved in
an island museum, shows a distraught mother, her baby in her arms,
darting back and forth along the edge of the precipice, trying to make
up her mind. Finally she leaps, she and her child joining the ghastly
carnage below. There were no survivors at the base of Suicide Cliff."
There was a show on the History Channel this week that showed people
walking off of that cliff as they were *begged* to surrender.
THAT was the mindset of the people.
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Wilson
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.1824/pub_detail.asp
"The battle for Saipan and its horrific postlude, plus the steady flow
of intelligence information from the MAGIC decrypts of Japan's
diplomatic code, convinced American civilian and military leaders that
the Japanese military leadership, supported by significant elements of
the civilian leadership, had decided on a strategy of massive attrition
in defense of Japan's war gains. It was not that the Japanese thought
they could still win the war outright; rather, the new strategy seemed
to be to engage in a suicidal defense of the islands guarding the way to
Japan, causing such a torrent of Allied blood that the Americans and
British would eventually agree to a negotiated settlement permitting
Japan to keep some of what it had seized from 1931 on. "Suicidal" is no
exaggeration, for the means included fighting-to-the-death on land and
using kamikaze aircraft against Allied naval vessels supporting Nimitz's
and Mac-Arthur's island-hopping campaigns.
These deliberately sanguinary tactics help explain the carnage that
ensued in February 1945 on Iwo Jima, an island only 5 miles by 2.5 miles
in size. There, out of a Japanese garrison of 20,000, only 200 were
captured alive, at the cost of 6,000 American deaths and 25,000 wounded
Marines. Then there was the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945, the last
stepping-stone before the Japanese home islands: 100,000 Japanese
soldiers died there, as did 150,000 Okinawan civilians, while the U.S.
Marines and Army suffered 75,000 casualties before the island was
secured in mid-June.
These were the levels of lethality from which U.S. planners extrapolated
casualty estimates for an invasion of Japan. The Pentagon ordered so
many Purple Hearts in anticipation of Operation Olympic (the invasion of
Kyushu, set for November 1945) and Operation Coronet (the invasion of
Honshu on the plains leading to Tokyo, in March 1946) that the supply
outlasted both the Korean War and Vietnam. Harry Truman is recorded as
being gravely concerned that Olympic and Coronet would result in "an
Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."
MAGIC intercepts also indicated that there was little inclination to
surrender, unconditionally or otherwise, on the part of the Japanese
leadership. Indeed, the Japanese military was planning offensive action
in late 1944 and early 1945. Some of it was imaginative, even bizarre:
balloons were sent aloft loaded with incendiaries that, after being
carried across the Pacific by the prevailing winds, were to set fire to
the forests of Canada and the United States. The balloon-borne bombs
didn't do much damage, but American officials were concerned about the
use of balloons to deliver biological weapons (which the Japanese were
known to have tested) against North American targets. After the war, it
came to light that the Japanese had even planned a suicide mission
against the Douglas and Lockheed aircraft plants in Los Angeles: a
specially trained combat team was to land near Santa Barbara and shoot
its way into the factories before being killed.
None of this suggested an adversary who, having recognized the
impossibility of his situation, was preparing to quit. On the contrary,
it suggested an adversary who still clung to the hope that, by drowning
a sufficient number of Americans in a tidal wave of their own blood, he
could force a negotiated settlement that preserved not only the Japanese
governmental system but at least some of Japan's post-1931 conquests.
The numbers of Japanese, military and civilian, killed in the pursuit of
that goal seemed of decidedly secondary interest.
MAGIC intercepts as late as July 1945 also indicated that Japanese
officials still clung to the belief that they could entice the Soviet
Union into playing honest broker vis-�-vis the Allies in the pursuit of
a negotiated settlement; some, fantastically, seemed to think that they
could, after the war in Europe, bring the Soviets into the Pacific War
on Japan's side."
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
brian mitchell
wrote:
Help me, I don't understand: how can you feel so passionately about
something that happened over sixty years ago, which means either
before you were born or so young that it was way beyond your
comprehension. What does it have to do with you?
Déjà Flu
Hidden Draggin
That was not the only reason. That was contributing factor. Keep
in mind an argument can be made that many many more lives were
saved because it brought an end to the conventional bombing
conducted by LeMay that burned out many square miles of Tokyo
and killed 80,000 in one night. Tell, me is there a common historical
understanding that there is a difference between dying in a firebomb
raid or dying in a nuclear blast?
>
> And I never met one person in japan who thought the bomb was a good
> idea. You can't walk through Hiroshima and think that is was anything
> other than a horrific immoral act of mass human depravity that
> degrades us all simply by it's existence.
Well, DUH. So was the Bataan Death March, the agressive war launched
by Japan, the slave labor of Koreans, the biological and chemical
experiments carried out on the Chinese...and so on.
> It may help us sleep if we demonize the entire Japanese population,
> but the anti-war movement in Japan was getting bigger and bigger as
> the war went on.
That does not change the fact that any nation in a "total" war is
going to use whatever is at its disposal given it will confer an
advantage. This growing peace party in Japan...did it stop the
slaughter of their own people by the thousands in the Kamakazi
raids, would it have stopped Japan from using an atomic weapon
if it had one?
>
> I might choke back your bile Ned and realize that it's probably a bit
> more complex than you might imagine.
>
> At the end of the day all we know is that over 300,000 civilians were
> slaughtered by two bombs. Your conjecture is high on the list of
> religious bullshit that we don't need.
Do a little reasearch into the number of civilians killed in the invasion
of Okinawa, the number of Japanese and US forces....multiply
that many times.
Plus while you are at it, tell Mrs. Smith from Iowa why her son
died invading Japan when you had a weapon that could shorten
the war. Tell her how you saved Japanese lives. The problem is
that you are applying modern sensibilities to a decision made in
the heat of a war and in a totally different world.
Tell me Ben, if Iran gets a nuke and uses it against Israel, should
we refrain from using nuclear weapons because the damage is
already done and it would just be a further waste of life?
--
Hidden Draggin - Gilbert Hansford
Don't join dangerous cults, practice safe sects!
http://twitter.com/hiddendraggin
http://hiddendraggin.posterous.com/
Ned Ludd
>
> We still have to ask ourselves if it ok to use a weapon of mass
> destruction on civilians. Is it really any different than the
> firebombings?
>
No, not a bit. You're just as dead. Every long war starts with
the combatants saying they will just attack military targets, and
it ends with carpet-bombing civilian populations. Why is that?
Because the war can't be made without the contribution of the
civilian population. If the civilian population would just lie
down, or run away, or kill themselves, then the war couldn't
happen. But they don't do that. They make the blankets, bombs,
uniforms, rifles, pandemic pathogens, etc. that are used as
weapons in the war.
The idea that the civilian population of a warring country gets
a 'pass' is ridiculous. Yeah, we're all just peons, obeying the
orders of the 'man', but when you make things that will kill
people for people who are killing people, you generally know
that you are contributing to the killing. (Nota Bene for all of
the USA.)
Don't bitch about the weapons. Bitch about the stupidity.
Ned
bonfils
@PRIMUS.CA:
> Baugh, we all go through life performing actions that
> are supposed to please the gods and get us ahead but in
> the end we're still gone...nada. At least rituals are
> patently empty...they don't lie to you even if you have
> to lie to yourself about why you're doing them in the
> first place. And if they have a cool trance quality
> that allows a little escapism or ectstatic peak, all
> the better.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
--
bonfils
http://kim.bonfils.com
Hidden Draggin
War is slavery. Freedom is strength. Ignorance is peace.
Wally Chapman
Boy, I din't know half the stuff I learn on here.
Wally
Lee Rudolph
Love
That doesn't even rhyme, dude.
--
Love
May Shai-Hulud clear the path before you.
Love
>
>bonfils wrote:
>> no....@from.you.bub (Love) wrote in news:8837b$4b06f049$4038ecbe$6339
>> @PRIMUS.CA:
>>
>>> Baugh, we all go through life performing actions that
>>> are supposed to please the gods and get us ahead but in
>>> the end we're still gone...nada. At least rituals are
>>> patently empty...they don't lie to you even if you have
>>> to lie to yourself about why you're doing them in the
>>> first place. And if they have a cool trance quality
>>> that allows a little escapism or ectstatic peak, all
>>> the better.
>>
>> War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
>
>War is slavery. Freedom is strength. Ignorance is peace.
Is war slavery? Is freedom strength? Is ignorance peace?
Frak, that was pretty clever!
Lee Rudolph
War is peace, freedom
is slavery, ignorance is
strength, in all seasons.
Lee Rudolph
Benjamin
That's great stuff. Thanks for putting it all together!
The Japanese also had a very very poor quality nuclear program where
they were trying to develop their own bomb. It didn't come anywhere
close to success, but it was in the works.
There was a lot confusion at the top levels of the Japanese govt. and
there are documents that came out showing huge concerns for a
population that was on the verge of revolt.
There were a few US military and govt. people who felt strongly that the
Japanese didn't have the ability to continue much longer, but they were
few and far between.
I suppose that my main point is that there was a lot of propoganda going
on from both the Japanese and the US. It was almost impossible to cut
through it and see what was actually happening on the ground.
As for the Soviets, they are largely credited with ending the war. When
on August 8th 1945 they declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria,
Hirohito asked the war council to surrender.
It's possible this wouldn't have happened without Hiroshima. But it's
also impossible to actually know.
Ben
Benjamin
And there was graffiti on walls throughout tokyo reading, "The emperor
is a traiter and his wife a whore".
There is never a mindset of "the people". They are in fact individuals
with their own thoughts.
Ben
Benjamin
Tell Mrs. Smith why her son died in Iraq. There is nothing you can tell
a mother about war that will make her feel joy at sending off her children.
As for Iran, Israel would nuke them back to the stone ages if they even
came close. Do I think it's right?
Of course not. It's never right to target civilians. It's called
terrorism.
And I'm sure you know that I'm not trying to justify anything the
Japanese did in that terrible war. You know me better than that.
Ben
Wilson
War, hah, what is it
Good for? Absolutely No
Thing. Say it again!
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Wilson
Hidden Draggin
> And there was graffiti on walls throughout tokyo reading, "The emperor
> is a traiter and his wife a whore".
>
> There is never a mindset of "the people". They are in fact
> individuals with their own thoughts.
>
> Ben
And of course, you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
Sure, some people may have written that on the walls, but
anyone of any consequence who attempted to speak out
was quickly assassinated. The unoffical hands of the Japanese
military cult killed a lot of journalists. Keep in mind, the
Emperor cult was widespread through State Shinto and
the influence of the zaibatsu cannot be underestimated.
Hidden Draggin
> Benjamin wrote:
>
>> And there was graffiti on walls throughout tokyo reading, "The
>> emperor is a traiter and his wife a whore".
>>
>> There is never a mindset of "the people". They are in fact
>> individuals with their own thoughts.
>>
>> Ben
>
> And of course, you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
> Sure, some people may have written that on the walls, but
> anyone of any consequence who attempted to speak out
> was quickly assassinated. The unoffical hands of the Japanese
> military cult killed a lot of journalists. Keep in mind, the
> Emperor cult was widespread through State Shinto and
> the influence of the zaibatsu cannot be underestimated.
http://countrystudies.us/japan/32.htm
Hidden Draggin
> Hidden Draggin wrote:
>> Benjamin wrote:
>>
>>> And there was graffiti on walls throughout tokyo reading, "The
>>> emperor is a traiter and his wife a whore".
>>>
>>> There is never a mindset of "the people". They are in fact
>>> individuals with their own thoughts.
>>>
>>> Ben
>>
>> And of course, you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
>> Sure, some people may have written that on the walls, but
>> anyone of any consequence who attempted to speak out
>> was quickly assassinated. The unoffical hands of the Japanese
>> military cult killed a lot of journalists. Keep in mind, the
>> Emperor cult was widespread through State Shinto and
>> the influence of the zaibatsu cannot be underestimated.
>
> http://countrystudies.us/japan/32.htm
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_Incident
Ned Ludd
"Hidden Draggin" <an...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:hefeh3$inb$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>>> And of course, you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
>>> Sure, some people may have written that on the walls, but
>>> anyone of any consequence who attempted to speak out
>>> was quickly assassinated. The unoffical hands of the Japanese
>>> military cult killed a lot of journalists. Keep in mind, the
>>> Emperor cult was widespread through State Shinto and
>>> the influence of the zaibatsu cannot be underestimated.
>>
>> http://countrystudies.us/japan/32.htm
>
> See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_Incident
>
Which is:
----
The Kyujo Incident was an attempted military coup d'�tat in Japan
at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of
14 August 1945 � 15 August 1945, just prior to announcement of
Japan's surrender to the Allies. The attempted coup was put into
effect by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and by
many from the Imperial Guard of Japan in order to stop the move
to surrender.
The officers, in an attempt to block the decision to surrender to
the Allies, killed Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First
Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counterfeit an order to
the effect of occupying the Tokyo Imperial Palace. They attempted
to place the Emperor under house-arrest, using the 2nd Brigade
Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern
District Army (Japan) and the high command of the Imperial
Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their
failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial
House of Japan, they ultimately committed suicide in traditional
Japanese form. As a result, the communique of the intent for a
Japanese surrender continued as planned.
----
Sure, Ben, they were 'wanting to surrender', and the Russian
entry into the war made them 'desperate' to surrender (not that
puny little A-bomb, or the second one that we had to drop in
order to get their attention).
Pfff! But the "22,000 civilians who died [at Saipan - thanks
Wilson for the URL]... Most of them were suicides after the battle
had been decided. Many thousands of these people walked off of
a cliff one thousand feet high above clumps of jagged rocks after
the Japanese surrender." shows just how horrendous the slaughter
would have been if the INEVITABLE land war had been pursued.
And...
"...children were encouraged to form circles and toss live grenades
from hand to hand until they exploded. Their parents dashed babies'
brains out on limestone slabs and then, clutching the tiny corpses,
shouted "Tenno! Haiki! Banzai!" (Long live the Emperor!) as they
jumped off the brinks of the cliffs and soared downward. Below
Banzai Cliff U.S. destroyers trying to rescue those who had
survived the plunge found they could not steer among so many bodies;
human flesh was jamming their screws. ..
Tell me that DIDN'T happen. Tell me that was all bullshit. Tell
me sailors INVENTED the stories of the suicides' bodies jamming
the propellers of the ships.
Fucking armchair revisionist history!
Ned
Hidden Draggin
>
> Fucking armchair revisionist history!
Where can I buy a fucking armchair?
Does it come in male and female models?
Keynes
>Ned Ludd wrote:
>
>>
>> Fucking armchair revisionist history!
>
>Where can I buy a fucking armchair?
>Does it come in male and female models?
Sybian. One size fits all.
Lee Rudolph
>Ned Ludd wrote:
>
>>
>> Fucking armchair revisionist history!
>
>Where can I buy a fucking armchair?
>Does it come in male and female models?
From the teaser paragraphs following the many and various hits Google
serves up in response to a search on the phrase "sex furniture", my
guess is "yes". ("Where" will also be answered, of course.)
Lee Rudolph
Hidden Draggin
Whoa...I can see it now....
"This is my fucking bed, this is my fucking bathroom,
this is my fucking table, don't trip over that fucking stool.
You want to see my fucking penis? To bad, it was pulled
off in an accident with the fucking washing machine."
Beerlet Dhiblang
It's hard for anyone to actually entertain thoughts that are truly,
originally, their own.
Guy Gabaldon at Saipan was able to single-handedly bring about the
surrender of a thousand civilians and soldiers at Saipan. He was a
shoe shiner and an ex-gang member. At first he pursued his mission as
an unauthorized emissary at risk of court martial. Using only a hand
pistol (he killed two guards) and the simple street Japanese he
learned in the Bronx from an adopted Japanese-American family.
/l
Wally Chapman
> Ned Ludd wrote:
>
>> Fucking armchair revisionist history!
>
> Where can I buy a fucking armchair?
> Does it come in male and female models?
>
I gotta know - which one do you want?
Wally
Ned Ludd
"Wally Chapman" <shel...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:jv6dnYZIU_6225HW...@bright.net...
And is it just human genitals?
Ned
DT
Well, except for KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater...
DT
Déjà Flu
Possums may have a distinct advantage here,
not to mention hyenas...
Hidden Draggin
Maybe both if I can find a willing vict...er...participant.
Benjamin
> Benjamin wrote:
>
>
>>And there was graffiti on walls throughout tokyo reading, "The emperor
>>is a traiter and his wife a whore".
>>
>>There is never a mindset of "the people". They are in fact
>>individuals with their own thoughts.
>>
>>Ben
>
>
> And of course, you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
> Sure, some people may have written that on the walls, but
> anyone of any consequence who attempted to speak out
> was quickly assassinated. The unoffical hands of the Japanese
> military cult killed a lot of journalists. Keep in mind, the
> Emperor cult was widespread through State Shinto and
> the influence of the zaibatsu cannot be underestimated.
>
All true. Well, partially true at least. The point is that the Japanese
govt. was worried about it. Especially they were worried about the
commies having influence when the war ended if they dragged it out too
long. It wasn't going to make them surrender anytime soon. But it was a
concern.
Ben
Benjamin
Heh. I haven't told you any of those things.
I'm just saying if you think the main impetus for dropping the bomb was
to save lives then your kidding yourself. The main impetus for dropping
the bomb was to kill the dastardly japs.
Truman came to office in April of 45. Learned of the tests in July and
immediatlye approved the use of the bomb against (in his words) the
"Savage, ruthelss, merciless, and fanatic" japanese.
If you see me trying to defend the attrocities of the Japanese during
the war I assure you that you're listening to yourself and not me.
What's amazing is that only 5 years after the war, the US was trying to
get Japan to remilitiarize in order to act as a line of defense against
the commies. Oh, I guess they're not evil anymore. Now that they've
been reformed and all.
Ben
Ned Ludd
>
>> Fucking armchair revisionist history!
>> Ned
> Heh. I haven't told you any of those things.
> I'm just saying if you think the main impetus for dropping the bomb was to
> save lives then your kidding yourself. The main impetus for dropping the
> bomb was to kill the dastardly japs.
> Truman came to office in April of 45. Learned of the tests in July and
> immediatlye approved the use of the bomb against (in his words) the
> "Savage, ruthelss, merciless, and fanatic" japanese.
> If you see me trying to defend the attrocities of the Japanese during the
> war I assure you that you're listening to yourself and not me.
> What's amazing is that only 5 years after the war, the US was trying to
> get Japan to remilitiarize in order to act as a line of defense against
> the commies. Oh, I guess they're not evil anymore. Now that they've been
> reformed and all.
> Ben
>
I was talking to a couple of youngsters about this last
night (20-somethings), in the context of the cultural
differences that language, and specifically literature,
can't bridge, and the simultaneous evolution of tolerance
along with inhuman, massive slaughter in devastating world
wars. And one of them said, "Can you imagine what would have
happened if they had developed the A-bomb 300 years ago?"
Leaving aside the improbability, it was agreed by all
that this weapon would have been used immediately and
widely until the possessors of it controlled the world
(or as much of it as they desired).
And it occurred to me that if Joseph Stalin had gotten
the A-bomb, he categorically would have used it for the
same purpose. (He killed 20 million of his OWN people,
including 4 million from his own province, by starvation,
while exporting wheat to fund his industrialization
programs.) Likewise Hitler - is there ANY doubt that he
would not have exploited nuclear weapons to the fullest
and widest extent for the expansion of the 'Reich'?
But we didn't.
So why are we the bad guys?
Ned
Benjamin
One of the more interesting retro-rationals for using the bomb when we
did is that it was inevitable. And since it was inevitable it's better
to have done it with a mini-bomb lik Little Boy than with what we have now.
As for your qeuestions, it's not an either or questions. Stalin and
Hitler can be bad guys too. Us being bad doesn't diminish the
attrocities the Japanese committed during the war. It doesn't excuse
anything, because at the end of the day comparing suffering isn't helpful.
That said, I struggle alot with what it means to have killed 140,000
civilians with one bomb. Because all of your arguments may true. More
people may have died without it. Does that mean it was the right thing
to do?
I don't know the answer for myself, but I'm not sure I could have
ordered it if I was in Truman's shoes. No matter what I thought might
happen.
There are times when I think our ideals (it's wrong to kill civillians)
are important enough to stand by no matter what. I feel that if we're
ever going to change the course of events we have to make decisions
based on how we want the world to be rather than how it is now.
And sometimes I'm not so sure.
Ben
Love
ned...@ix.netcom.com says...
Being not as bad as one could have been gets one some
points, one supposes. Personally I prefer to measure
myself and my peers by our own standards not the
standards of those we consider Ultimate Evil or those
we consider saints.
It'll all be moot soon anyway. Sooner or later we'll
discover some principle of physics or something that
allows even an individual to build WMD, and with 10
or 20 billion of us on the planet there should be
enough whackjobs to wipe us all out just for giggles.
--
Love
DT
Leonard Pitts, my favorite columnist, makes a similar argument for why
we need to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed; not for his benefit, but for ours.
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/1344557.html
Of course, as we used to say down here, "First, we'll give him a fair
trial. THEN we'll hang 'im!"
DT
Wilson
This will be the first time an individual captured on the field of
battle will be tried in a US civilian court. The first time *ever*.
Besides the obvious security issues, this opens up a whole host of legal
issues. For one, KSM was not read his constitutional rights when
captured as has been required under US law for a number of years. If he
is tried and convicted, does that set a new precedent?
And how exactly is he going to get a "jury of his peers"? Are we going
to import jihadists to sit in judgment?
A military tribunal would have been the most appropriate way to bring
the guy to justice. Preferably a tribunal located in the nation where
he was captured.
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Love
eggplan...@yahoo.co.uk says...
Me either but I am sure that we have to make decisions
somehow. I can't see NOT dropping the bomb if I was
fairly certain that I would be saving many more lives
than I would be causing to be lost. After years of war
one has done all the hoping for the best that one can
afford and all paths are frakking grim. I'm also sure
that I wouldn't be asking myself if it was right or
wrong in the moral sense but only in the mathematical
sense since I've already decided that a greater number
of people living as a consequence of my decision is
more right than fewer people living.
Ideals are measured by the self-sacrifice we are willing
to make to affirm them, and nothing else.
--
Love
DT
...BEFORE he was ever moved out of said country.
DT
Wilson
Makes no difference. We can fly him back just like that! :-)
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Wally Chapman
<smeep>
>> Besides the obvious security issues, this opens up a whole host of
>> legal issues. For one, KSM was not read his constitutional rights
>> when captured as has been required under US law for a number of
>> years. If he is tried and convicted, does that set a new precedent?
The only time arresting officers have to read someone their rights is if
they are going to question them about a crime they are suspected of, not
at the time of their arrest. I have been arrested multiple times, and
was never read my rights. Prolly because they didn't want to question a
slobbering drunk about anything, or because I was already shouting my
opinions of the arresting officers, their parentage, sexual habits, etc.
Wally
Wilson
Okay. Change what I wrote to, "KSM was not read his constitutional
rights before he was questioned, as has been required under US law for a
number of years. If he is tried and convicted, does that set a new
precedent?"
--
Wilson
http://puddinheadwilson.tumblr.com/
Ned Ludd
"Love" <no....@from.you.bub> wrote in message
news:74de7$4b0d87e9$4038ecbe$22...@PRIMUS.CA...
Ahh... blessed be! Give every person a nuke. Everyone.
let them detonate them, over and over again, until they
finally find a way to live with each other.
You can't be nanny to the world. Another thing these
youngsters said, the prior evening, was how stupid so many
people are in their college classes. They both were so
astounded that this supposed "cream of the crop" (ie. those
in college today), are so fundamentally ignorant, racist,
mean-spirited and out of touch.
Maybe we ARE reincarnating toads and snakes, because we
have run out of humans to fill the slots.
Ned
Wally Chapman
Hmmm.... sounds like the return of the dread Snakeist cult.
Wally
Keynes
Humans have always given toads and snakes a bad name.