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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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| Post subject: Truman and the atomic bombs |  |
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<split from 'US election' thread>
I was watching a show yesterday that involved Harry S Truman and his grandson going to Horoshima. Some Japanese reporter asked him 'How does it feel to be related to the man who was responsible for all the loss of human life"The girlfriend,who is Thai, looked bemused when I yelled at the TV. "So how does it feel to be part of the race that raped Nanking and ordered POWS and civilians to be starved,tortured and murdered you bastard".
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Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
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| ronrat wrote: |
I was watching a show yesterday that involved Harry S Truman and his grandson going to Horoshima. Some Japanese reporter asked him 'How does it feel to be related to the man who was responsible for all the loss of human life"The girlfriend,who is Thai, looked bemused when I yelled at the TV. "So how does it feel to be part of the race that raped Nanking and ordered POWS and civilians to be starved,tortured and murdered you bastard". |
"They can't handle the truth!"
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Um, nice comeback... not? Actually being directly responsible for the deaths of 200,000 people is perhaps slightly different to sharing an ethnic/cultural background with other people who committed atrocities. How does it feel to be part of the same human race who killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, RR?
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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what i hope Truman said was "actually I suppose i feel a little better than Harry S Truman probably felt when he had to authorise the disagreeable task of killing people because of a war that other people - in this case your brutal, genocidal, inhuman and militaristic people - started. I only hope that it may cleanse you forever of the desire to do it again, though i prophesy that in another fifty years you will still be unable to accept what you did, and generations later you will still be teaching your children lies and worshipping at shrines that house inhuman monsters.".
... But hopefully he just told him to eff off.
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Ah yes, the moral high ground of the murderer of 200,000 innocents.
I don't really want to go down this path again I think Hiroshima has been done to death on here but good lord, if we must frame the atomic bombs as a necessary evil, can we at least have the sobriety and humility to acknowledge the gravity of the act?
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | ^ Ah yes, the moral high ground of the murderer of 200,000 innocents.
I don't really want to go down this path again I think Hiroshima has been done to death on here but good lord, if we must frame the atomic bombs as a necessary evil, can we at least have the sobriety and humility to acknowledge the gravity of the act? |
It was indeed far too grave to be profaned by that grubby, shallow, devious question posed by the Japanese journalist on behalf of a culture that has still not apologised for its dreadful and unprovoked crimes. And as for high ground, one who performs a truly necessary evil is perfectly entitled to a moral exculpation.
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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We don't know whether the tone was accusatory or merely inquisitive; either way, you don't think that being personally responsible for the deaths of so many people might have some effect on the conscience? No matter how many gung-ho "west is best" cheerleaders were slapping you on the back for it? I would think that it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, simply out of psychological curiosity if for no other reason. You've merely presumed that, because the journalist was Japanese, it was some sort of 'gotcha' question.
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Makes sense to me. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | ^ Ah yes, the moral high ground of the murderer of 200,000 innocents.
I don't really want to go down this path again I think Hiroshima has been done to death on here but good lord, if we must frame the atomic bombs as a necessary evil, can we at least have the sobriety and humility to acknowledge the gravity of the act? |
um, who split the thread!!   
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | We don't know whether the tone was accusatory or merely inquisitive; either way, you don't think that being personally responsible for the deaths of so many people might have some effect on the conscience? No matter how many gung-ho "west is best" cheerleaders were slapping you on the back for it? I would think that it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, simply out of psychological curiosity if for no other reason. You've merely presumed that, because the journalist was Japanese, it was some sort of 'gotcha' question. |
He was not asking the man responsible for it. He was asking the grandson of the man who authorised it. So no, I do not see why the "conscience" (to use your word) of Harry S Truman's grandson might be affected in the slightest. No reasonable person would presume that it should, unless they were angling to make Japan seem a victim of the Second World War which it started and prosecuted with such barbarism. Am I certain of that ? Well, I cannot be certain that you see the same redness in an object that I do ; we cannot see into each other's minds. However, I am confident that this was what was going on behind the question.
I don't know what answer the latter Truman gave. I hope it was either of the ones I suggested. I am always awestruck at the extraordinary benchmark in far-sightedness and magnanimity which the US and Allied nations achieved after WW2. It was surely without precedent before or since.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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Some people clearly have not seen the Japanese laughing and being rude to others in places like Kanchanaburi. They even forced the Thais to change the name of the museum there.
The Japanese are worse than holocaust deniers. They continue to take in refugees, they certainly don't want anything to do with muslims and they continue to hunt whales for dubious, no criminally false, reasons and somehow they want to play the victim.
If the Truman had of been forced to send in ground troops the resulting fires caused by conventional weapons to paper and wooden houses would made 200k look like chicken feed. Although the US may have been to weary to step in in Korea and Vietnam.
Harry Truman had a greater burden than most people in history. Certainly more than anyone here. To invite his Grandson to speak and then throw a question like that at him is at best poor form, others would call it an act of bastardry.
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| ronrat wrote: | Some people clearly have not seen the Japanese laughing and being rude to others in places like Kanchanaburi. They even forced the Thais to change the name of the museum there.
The Japanese are worse than holocaust deniers. They continue to take in refugees, they certainly don't want anything to do with muslims and they continue to hunt whales for dubious, no criminally false, reasons and somehow they want to play the victim.
If the Truman had of been forced to send in ground troops the resulting fires caused by conventional weapons to paper and wooden houses would made 200k look like chicken feed. Although the US may have been to weary to step in in Korea and Vietnam.
Harry Truman had a greater burden than most people in history. Certainly more than anyone here. To invite his Grandson to speak and then throw a question like that at him is at best poor form, others would call it an act of bastardry. |
great post
and Mugwump, also brilliant posts
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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| ronrat wrote: | Some people clearly have not seen the Japanese laughing and being rude to others in places like Kanchanaburi. They even forced the Thais to change the name of the museum there.
The Japanese are worse than holocaust deniers. They continue to take in refugees, they certainly don't want anything to do with muslims and they continue to hunt whales for dubious, no criminally false, reasons and somehow they want to play the victim.
If the Truman had of been forced to send in ground troops the resulting fires caused by conventional weapons to paper and wooden houses would made 200k look like chicken feed. Although the US may have been to weary to step in in Korea and Vietnam.
Harry Truman had a greater burden than most people in history. Certainly more than anyone here. To invite his Grandson to speak and then throw a question like that at him is at best poor form, others would call it an act of bastardry. |
👍👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋
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βThe greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.β |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | We don't know whether the tone was accusatory or merely inquisitive; either way, you don't think that being personally responsible for the deaths of so many people might have some effect on the conscience? No matter how many gung-ho "west is best" cheerleaders were slapping you on the back for it? I would think that it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, simply out of psychological curiosity if for no other reason. You've merely presumed that, because the journalist was Japanese, it was some sort of 'gotcha' question. |
bold shows your bias,
it was a rude question, and as mugwump said, he wasn't personally responsible for anything, as for presuming the worst because he is Japanese, well gee whiz, i reckon that's a pretty fair conclusion! what would you assume if the conversation were the other way around?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Morrigu wrote: | [quote="ronrat"]Some people clearly have not seen the Japanese laughing and being rude to others in places like Kanchanaburi. They even forced the Thais to change the name of the museum there.
The Japanese are worse than holocaust deniers. They continue to take in refugees, they certainly don't want anything to do with muslims and they continue to hunt whales for dubious, no criminally false, reasons and somehow they want to play the victim.
If the Truman had of been forced to send in ground troops the resulting fires caused by conventional weapons to paper and wooden houses would made 200k look like chicken feed. Although the US may have been to weary to step in in Korea and Vietnam.
Harry Truman had a greater burden than most people in history. Certainly more than anyone here. To invite his Grandson to speak and then throw a question like that at him is at best poor form, others would call it an act of bastardry.[/quote]
👍👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋 |
That seems like quite a lot. |
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