GMG Classical Music Forum

February 14, 2008
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
By PATRICIA COHEN-NY Times

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from "American Idol," appearing on the Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: "Budapest is the capital of what European country?"

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. "I thought Europe was a country," she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. "Hungry?" she said, eyes widening in disbelief. "That's a country? I've heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I've never heard of it."

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of "The Age of American Unreason," up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.

Ms. Jacoby, whose book came out on Tuesday, doesn't zero in on a particular technology or emotion, but rather on what she feels is a generalized hostility to knowledge. She is well aware that some may tag her a crank. "I expect to get bashed," said Ms. Jacoby, 62, either as an older person who upbraids the young for plummeting standards and values, or as a secularist whose defense of scientific rationalism is a way to disparage religion.

Ms. Jacoby, however, is quick to point out that her indictment is not limited by age or ideology. Yes, she knows that eggheads, nerds, bookworms, longhairs, pointy heads, highbrows and know-it-alls have been mocked and dismissed throughout American history.
Anti-intellectualism (the attitude that "too much learning can be a dangerous thing") and anti-rationalism ("the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion") have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don't think it matters.

She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don't think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.

Ms. Jacoby, dressed in a bright red turtleneck with lipstick to match, was sitting, appropriately, in that temple of knowledge, the New York Public Library's majestic Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue. The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day's horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

"This is just like Pearl Harbor," one of the men said.

The other asked, "What is Pearl Harbor?"

"That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War," the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, "I decided to write this book."

Ms. Jacoby doesn't expect to revolutionize the nation's educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off "American Idol" and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism. After all, "the empire of infotainment doesn't stop at the American border," she said, yet students in many other countries consistently outperform American students in science, math and reading on comparative tests.

In part, she lays the blame on a failing educational system. "Although people are going to school more and more years, there's no evidence that they know more," she said.

Ms. Jacoby also blames religious fundamentalism's antipathy toward science, as she grieves over surveys that show that nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution.

Ms. Jacoby doesn't leave liberals out of her analysis, mentioning the New Left's attacks on universities in the 1960s, the decision to consign African-American and women's studies to an "academic ghetto" instead of integrating them into the core curriculum, ponderous musings on rock music and pop culture courses on everything from sitcoms to fat that trivialize college-level learning.

Avoiding the liberal or conservative label in this particular argument, she prefers to call herself a "cultural conservationist."

For all her scholarly interests, though, Ms. Jacoby said she recognized just how hard it is to tune out the 24/7 entertainment culture. A few years ago she participated in the annual campaign to turn off the television for a week. "I was stunned at how difficult it was for me," she said.

The surprise at her own dependency on electronic and visual media made her realize just how pervasive the culture of distraction is and how susceptible everyone is — even curmudgeons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6W3T7MTh4M

Why use your own brain when there is Google?  ;D

ROFL

"How many eiffel towers are there in Paris?"

"....um...I'd say ten."

While I don't object to the finding that an air of anti-intellectualism is spreading, but why must it be an American phenomenon?
There is no comparison offered to citizens of other countries, so why would the article not bear the title "Are People hostile to knowledge?"

hilarious and sad at the same time....... maybe this is what 30 years out of school does to people's brains?
anyways, that couldn't possilbly be EVERYONE they interviewed, obviously it must've been edited to get the bizarre effect that it has- by only including the dumber people.
they even had an old guy say there have been 3 World Wars and couldn't say what Hiroshima and Nagasaki were famous for. You'd expect someone his age to know that stuff....

the 10 Eiffel Towers was possibly the funniest.....

I can cite too many instances of amazing ignorance I've encountered.  One that stands out in my mind was when I went to my bank in downtown Nashville in early 2007 before my trip to New Zealand.  The teller had to get the manager to help me to get some bank cards for me that I could use overseas.  It was bizarre & I had to restrain from laughing, but they were both freaking out that New Zealand has ATM (EFTPOS) machines.   ::)  (this is all the more ironic considering that direct deposit was pretty much mainstream in NZ in the early 80s, while it is still not been picked up by a lot of businesses (I've had direct deposit only at one other place of employment since the early 90s and the place I work at now only got direct deposit three months ago). 

Of all the people I've spoken to in the past 3 years at various places I've worked or met, many of them don't even know where New Zealand is located.  And sometimes pointing out that its next to Australia doesn't even help.  The other frequent question is "Do they speak English there?"  The sad thing is, I'm amazed now when someone DOES know where New Zealand is located.  Sad.

I am quoting myself from another thread. This happened in the UK about 30 years ago.

"A long time ago, when I was a young manager, I had a group of people three of whom happened to be called John Smith. Sitting working, I happened to hear the daftest of the trio, and frankly, it was a close run race, say; 'So that's why they called the month October.' I then asked what they were chatting about.

JS the Egregious 'Well, hundreds of years ago, there was this plague of octopus. They called it the year of the octopus. But once the year was ended, they were so sad, they decided to rename one of the months, so they would never forget the plague. So they ended up with October.'

I pointed out that October was the eighth month of the Roman calender. Immediately JS shot back; 'Nah, it is the 10th month, so that's rubbish....look, Octopus the word starts, O-C-T-O. October, the word starts O-C-T-O.......I rest my case.

I decided that such stupidity was almost treasureable, I just smiled; we all got back to the task and for all I know John Smith The Egregious still believes his fairy story. No one on the entire team thought the octopus explanation unlikely.

There are some people you cannot help.

I rest my case."

Mike

Quote from: Iago on February 17, 2008, 10:32:38 AM
Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don't think it matters.

Thankfully, most people are NOT ignorant about classical music ......

Quote from: Dm on February 17, 2008, 07:59:41 PM
Thankfully, most people are NOT ignorant about classical music ......

;D ;D ;D
i remember listening to my headphones on the school bus a few years ago and people would try to talk to me about it.
some of them would invite me to join them in the woods at night, to do whatever they do. They're like, "we do just what you do, we play guitar, drink Kool-Aid and listen to classical music"...... (yeah right)..... "And which composers would we listen to? I don't know any of them." (i give him a few names, can't believe he can't even think of Beethoven or something)..... :P

then someone else keeps on saying stuff like, "you got that mafia music today?" (he called classical "mafia" music). Cool, but not cool at the same time lol.

I had a few similar experiences.


"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Berlin."
"Is that in Russia?"


"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Berlin."
"So you are French?"


"Mike, I hear you are from Germany."
"Yes."
"Do people there speak a different language?"
"Yes. It is called German".
"Oh."

and on another ocasion:

"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Germany."
"Do people there speak a different language?"
"No, they also speak English, but with a German accent, like in the movies."
"Oh, interesting."


All of the above are true.

We spent 2 months in Canada and USA a year ago.

It struck me that the television in the USA had ONLY shows from the USA. Also, news programs featured ONLY stories from the USA (and I think you will agree that stories about Iraq are actually stories about the USA).

Canada was marginally better in its global coverage, but not a lot, unless you tuned in to the Government subsidised stations.

In Australia, we get TV shows from (of course) Australia, and (of course) USA, but also England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and there are is one national (free to air) TV station that broadcasts TV shows (series and movies, with subtitles) from everywhere around the world - in fact it is uncommon to have an English-speaking show on that channel.

Not only that, our News shows (especially the Australian ABC and SBS channels) feature stories from all around the world - usually the first 10 minutes is dedicated to Australian news, the next 10-15 minutes on international news and the final few minutes are sport and weather.

Maybe we were tuning to the wrong channels in the USA, but while we were there, it seemed like the rest of the world simply did not exist!

cheers
Rob

Quote from: admin on February 17, 2008, 09:19:27 PM
We spent 2 months in Canada and USA a year ago.

It struck me that the television in the USA had ONLY shows from the USA. Also, news programs featured ONLY stories from the USA (and I think you will agree that stories about Iraq are actually stories about the USA).

Canada was marginally better in its global coverage, but not a lot, unless you tuned in to the Government subsidised stations.

In Australia, we get TV shows from (of course) Australia, and (of course) USA, but also England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and there are is one national (free to air) TV station that broadcasts TV shows (series and movies, with subtitles) from everywhere around the world - in fact it is uncommon to have an English-speaking show on that channel.

Not only that, our News shows (especially the Australian ABC and SBS channels) feature stories from all around the world - usually the first 10 minutes is dedicated to Australian news, the next 10-15 minutes on international news and the final few minutes are sport and weather.

Maybe we were tuning to the wrong channels in the USA, but while we were there, it seemed like the rest of the world simply did not exist!

cheers
Rob

well, it depends on which channels you get.....
If you have cable or satellite, they do have channels with news from other countries, i used to watch news about Japan (in English) all the time. The newscasters had some pretty thick accents, too, and one of them i felt sorry for since he'd trip up nearly every other sentence when speaking.  ;D (he seemed embarrassed and nervous all the time) They also had German news, too, possibly others though i don't remember what since i haven't had satellite tv in a few years.

As for regular channels, you're normally not going to get much coverage of international news. And if they do cover that stuff, the average person isn't going to watch that when they can watch American Idol instead. Regular news channels mainly cover local news and wouldn't ever have time for other stuff (how could they, when every day there's so much crime to report- drive by shootings, bank robberies, murder, to much to mention...)

Quote from: admin on February 17, 2008, 09:19:27 PM
It struck me that the television in the USA had ONLY shows from the USA. Also, news programs featured ONLY stories from the USA...

Generally that's true (on the open airways) but the one worthwhile exception is PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). My home town station (Dallas) goes in for a lot of British television, starting with a nightly viewing of the BBC World News. There's also an eclectic mixture of comedy (all sorts, Black Adder is a fave), drama (Mystery!), and variety (Antiques Roadshow), etc... 

PBS is probably how most of the US got to know Monty Python.

I can't recall if they've ever programed anything from Australia, though...

oh yeah, can't forget the BBC channel!
(which you get only if have cable/satellite, of course)

also, there's the History Channel & several others on cable

But I think that normally if people have cable they watch MTV instead. Never understood why.

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 17, 2008, 12:22:21 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6W3T7MTh4M

Ephemerid, thanks a lot for the big morning laughter!  :D :D :D

It really makes me sad how dumb many of my fellow Americans can be.  :'( Just watching Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" proves this fact. ::) I then heard the other day the results of a geography quiz given to some American high school students around the country and 8 out of 10 of these students could not find Canada on a map. How sad is that?  :-[

Quote from: M forever on February 17, 2008, 08:35:35 PM
I had a few similar experiences.
"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Berlin."
"Is that in Russia?"

In 1983 I returned to the States after three years in Germany. I was driving through Arkansas in a car that still had army-issued license plates. I pulled into a Burger King. The kid behind the counter saw my car through the plate glass. He wanted to know where I was from.
"Germany," I said. "I'm a soldier. I was stationed there."
"Were you in the war?" he asked.

He was serious.   :D

Sarge

Laughters and fun aside, I don't think Americans are a priori "stupid" or "hostile to knowledge". I believe those people in the video have never been offered an opportunity to have knowledge and value it in the first place, thanks to the relentless war on reason, education and authority fought by a (sadly) enormously influential leftist intelligentsia (not only in US but in Europe as well). Furthermore, the natural isolation of the US, making possible for the average American to live her / his whole life without meeting a single foreign citizen, plays no small part. I suspect also that the US mainstream visual media (just like virtually any mainstream visual media everywhere) is dedicated to infotainment and crap and a serious coverage of international affairs, be they political, economic or cultural is conspicuously missing.

A few years ago, a Romanian TV hosted a similar weekly show, asking people in the street to answer questions about history, geography, literature etc. I can assure you that the answers were no better than those in the above video. (Of course, later the producers admitted they broadcasted only the hilarious and wrong answers, but not the right ones). I'm sure that today people in the streets of Bucharest would fare only slightly better than the Americans. (I remember some people being asked "Where is Argentina?" and answering "Near Spain").

I lived in France for almost two years and met there people whose knowledge of French geography was fragmentary, to say the least. Not to mention that a lot of people there confound Bucharest (the capital city of Romania) with Budapest (the capital city of Hungary) and are convinced that Romanian (a Latin language closely related to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French) is a Slavic language. (Not surprisingly, I also found out that leftism is rampant in colleges and campuses; IMHO, there is a direct connection between cultural leftism and decadence of education)

So this ignorance is, I believe, more or less a general phenomenon. The Europeans fare better, but not that much, than the Americans due to their history, which forced them to come in close contact with foreign peoples, languages and cultures.

Quote from: M forever on February 17, 2008, 08:35:35 PM"Mike, I hear you are from Germany."
"Yes."
"Do people there speak a different language?"
"Yes. It is called German".
"Oh."

and on another ocasion:

"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Germany."
"Do people there speak a different language?"
"No, they also speak English, but with a German accent, like in the movies."
"Oh, interesting."


All of the above are true.

Cannot be true. ;) The americans I knew didn't answer "Oh", or "Oh, interesting", but rather like: "Wow, that's faaaantassticcc!!!", "This is hillarious!!!!!" "lets start some fireworks on this" ;)... So, a positive answer after their failing in the end...

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 12:01:31 AM
I lived in France for almost two years and met there people whose knowledge of French geography was fragmentary, to say the least.

I'd elaborate a bit this one, since it's so funny. I was having a beer with some young folks who were going to ski next day.

Me: "What's the name of the resort?"
One of them: (names the resort)
Me: "Where is that?"
They look at each other in astonishment. After a minute or two or silence, the smart guy of the group answers: "Up there in the mountains!"

:D

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 12:01:31 AM
Laughters and fun aside, I don't think Americans are a priori "stupid" or "hostile to knowledge". I believe those people in the video have never been offered an opportunity to have knowledge and value it in the first place, thanks to the relentless war on reason, education and authority fought by a (sadly) enormously influential leftist intelligentsia (not only in US but in Europe as well).

Do you even realize how stupid this sounds?  The "leftist intelligentsia" has no affect on how stupid the American public is.  It has no effect on the American public period.  Zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  Either you are pulling our chain, or this is some kind of studied obtuseness on your part.

Quote from: Daverz on February 18, 2008, 01:39:49 AM
Do you even realize how stupid this sounds?  The "leftist intelligentsia" has no affect on how stupid the American public is.  It has no effect on the American public period.  Zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  Either you are pulling our chain, or this is some kind of studied obtuseness on your part.

When you'll have time and will to think, I'll be glad to talk to you. Until then, cheers!

You can always put the blame on the jews. After all, they are guilty of everything on Earth. You can say that they control education and don't leave nothing to the rest. Ignorance of the youth is a jewish-marxist-leninist-maoist plot,financed by the islamic terrorism. What about that, as an idea to sell to the Republicans?

Quote from: Daverz on February 18, 2008, 01:39:49 AM
Do you even realize how stupid this sounds?  The "leftist intelligentsia" has no affect on how stupid the American public is.  It has no effect on the American public period.  Zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  Either you are pulling our chain, or this is some kind of studied obtuseness on your part.

I'll chime in with Daverz here.

A far more probable influence is the narrow US focus on all things international provided by the American right. Not to mention the science critical Bible Belt.

Another one, from a show in Canada: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4EDZNlTPpg

(I cannot find a similar clip except the people interviewed are university students and even a few professors)

I think another disturbing aspect of this is not merely ignorance, but a giving into so-called "authority"-- if you have a microphone and a camera, you can spout anything and they won't question any nonsense you spout (except for the kid at the 5 minute mark, who does say "Hey, wait minute, Canada has provinces, not states!"  :D )  You can say Canada just recently got electricity for its Parliament building.  You can also say "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, Saddam has ties to Osama bin Laden, and we do not torture."  How many people will actually QUESTION it when they don't even know any better?

I have no time to dig up the statistics now (perhaps someone could oblige?) but the US's educational standards are somewhere at the low end of the scale compared to other OECD nations.  Hostility to science is certainly one factor.  Sports doesn't even need to be in the high school curriculum IMO & you get civics class (one of the most important classes to be taught!) with a coach for a teacher. 

The fact that we are physically isolated from a huge part of the world plus the lack of questioning plus the ACCEPTABILITY of ignorance make invading a country on the other side of the world more abstract, more acceptable.  Its easier to lie to people ignorant of history, geography and science.  Keep 'em stupid.  Hey, it worked in the dark ages...

Quote from: admin on February 17, 2008, 09:19:27 PM
We spent 2 months in Canada and USA a year ago.

It struck me that the television in the USA had ONLY shows from the USA. Also, news programs featured ONLY stories from the USA (and I think you will agree that stories about Iraq are actually stories about the USA).

Canada was marginally better in its global coverage, but not a lot, unless you tuned in to the Government subsidised stations.

In Australia, we get TV shows from (of course) Australia, and (of course) USA, but also England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and there are is one national (free to air) TV station that broadcasts TV shows (series and movies, with subtitles) from everywhere around the world - in fact it is uncommon to have an English-speaking show on that channel.

Not only that, our News shows (especially the Australian ABC and SBS channels) feature stories from all around the world - usually the first 10 minutes is dedicated to Australian news, the next 10-15 minutes on international news and the final few minutes are sport and weather.

Maybe we were tuning to the wrong channels in the USA, but while we were there, it seemed like the rest of the world simply did not exist!

cheers  Rob

Quality news reporting is obtainable in the US if you look for it; how many people watch it is another question.  PBS shows a half hour of BBC World News every night on either side of the Jim Lehrer News Hour, except on Friday, when the first showing is replaced by Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria.  CSPAN is another great source for news.  On weekends, BookTV has authors of books making detailed presentations of their new offerings and taking questions from people in the audience.  Every Thursday morning, CSPAN carries Question Time in the British House of Commons.  And the History Channel is always there to give folks some perspective.

How many people watch?  I don't know.  But it is available for those who want it.

Now, my favorite personal stupid story.

Sometime in the early 1990's, I was browsing in a small video store on Belmont near Clark, in Chicago,  where I lived at the time.  There were two female clerks at the checkout desk.  The younger one, about 17, was on the phone talking with a potential customer.

"I don't know, I'll ask," she said.
She turned to the other clerk, obviously the supervisor who was maybe in her early twenties, and asked, "Do we have a movie called 'Stalin'?"
"Yes, we do," said the second clerk.
"How do you spell that?" asked the 17 year old.

As far as anti-intellectualism in the US goes, people may recall the common trope in 2000 of how Gore was portrayed as a boring intellectual egghead and Bush was portrayed as a down to earth good ol' boy, the kind of man you'd like to have a beer with. 

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 04:30:44 AM
As far as anti-intellectualism in the US goes, people may recall the common trope in 2000 of how Gore was portrayed as a boring intellectual egghead and Bush was portrayed as a down to earth good ol' boy, the kind of man you'd like to have a beer with. 

A lie if there ever was one: isn't he the guy who haven't been drinking alcohol ever since he was born again?  :D

Clearly, then, it is not just Americans as all of us can cite examples from our own country.

It was recently reported that Network Rail in the UK had faced increased costs for bridge maintenance and repair in recent years because of HGV drivers relying on satnavs to guide them under or through low or narrow bridges.

We still receive 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' and one of my favourite answers, from a female university student, to the question 'The Archbishop of Canterbury is also known as the '....... of All England?'

Given a choice between Primate and Marsupial she opted for the latter.

Personally, I think she should have asked the audience ;D

This one's from Canada and happened to me about 16 years ago. 

Cop: Hey! You're not allowed to cross the driveway here.
Me: Sorry, I just arrived from Germany and don't know my way around here.
Cop: I don't care if you're from Germany or from Tiran [pronounced tie-ran], you can't cross here.
Me: [cracking up]
Cop: There IS a Tiran!

This is a conversation my sister had during a visit to San Diego (whereupon she promptly decided not to follow her older brother to college in the US):

Stupid person: So you're from Germany?
Sis: yes.
SP: What do people eat there?
Sis: Errm... food.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 12:01:31 AM
I believe those people in the video have never been offered an opportunity to have knowledge and value it in the first place, thanks to the relentless war on reason, education and authority fought by a (sadly) enormously influential leftist intelligentsia (not only in US but in Europe as well).

...

IMHO, there is a direct connection between cultural leftism and decadence of education.

F, that is nonsense on a Sean & Saul level. Go wash those fingers you typed that with!

Quote from: O Mensch on February 18, 2008, 06:51:37 AM
F, that is nonsense on a Sean & Saul level. Go wash those fingers you typed that with!

Come on, OM, you can do better than that. Prove me wrong.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:03:40 AM
Come on, OM, you can do better than that. Prove me wrong.

You'd have to define your terminology first. WTF is this ominous "influential leftist intelligentsia" that has conspired to make everyone stupid? Name its members and explain its manifesto.

Bush  today announces he wants to renew  the war on AIDS.
How stupid can one be.
this is a  clear indication of the trickle down theory. Stupidity starts at the top goes into the middleclassses and the lower classes gets to eat what's left of the stupidity pie.

Russia is not much better, abysmal record of stupidity. Many russians thought then and still do think Stalin was the greatest leader to ever live.

Quote from: M forever on February 17, 2008, 08:35:35 PM
"Mike, where are you from?"
"From Germany."
"Do people there speak a different language?"
"No, they also speak English, but with a German accent, like in the movies."
"Oh, interesting."

Actually, that's consistent with my experience in a recent trip to Germany.
;)

It mostly depends on who you interview..... my dad and I used to talk a lot of history, at least when i had history class, since it was interesting. My stepdad loves watching anything involving WWII (i guess since his dad did, too). Then there's my pastor, who has extensively studied Greek and Hebrew, but also knows a few other languages, one being Hungarian since he's lived and preached in Hungary for awhile. So if they asked him about Hungary, he'd know and they wouldn't have put him in the video.

The "intellectual elite" is the sort of propagandistic jargon heard from the right, not the left, in the US.  You can see this stereotype bandied about easily by watching 15 minutes of any Fox News programme.

"Liberals" (such as they are in the US, I find them to be too conservative myself) are often painted with the "intellectual" brush, because, as all Americans "know," intellectualism is a bad thing.  If anyone is anti-intellectual in the US, its not people on the left, but on the right.

Gore being ridiculed as an egghead, people making all too much of the fact that Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar, etc.  Compare this to Reagan and the Bushes trying to come off as down to earth good ol' boys.  Conservativism in the US relies heavily on populism, which is the classic anti-intellectual moevement.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 18, 2008, 07:06:43 AM
You'd have to define your terminology first. WTF is this ominous "influential leftist intelligentsia" that has conspired to make everyone stupid? Name its members and explain its manifesto.

Correction: I did not use anywhere the word "conspiracy".

I call "cultural leftism" that school of thought which subscribes to the following tenets:

1. There is no such thing as truth, just opinions.
2. All cultures are equal.
3. All Western religious, cultural, political, economical and social traditions are opressive schemes devised by white European males and need to be discarded.
4. Traditional teaching methods are obsolete. There is no need for discipline, hard work and learning. There are no good or bad students.
5. If it feels good, just do it.

etc, etc, etc ad nauseam. I'm sure you can add more to the list.

Now, two questions.

Does it sound like Marx, Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, The New Left, The School of Frankfurt and their followers, i.e. the Leftist intellectuals? (I use Leftist as distinct from Left: Foucault was Leftist, Francois Furet was Left.)

Are these not the prevalent ideas along which the educational system moves?

(For the record: I believe the American Right as embodied in Bush et Co. has been the most destructive, dumb and anti-intellectualist US administration ever.)

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:22:32 AM
Are these not the prevalent ideas along which the educational system moves?

They are not.

Maybe many up there thinks that you don't need to be educated;
just to be powerful; and that to be good at sports or very "popular" is much more important that to be studious.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:22:32 AM

Does it sound like Marx, Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, The New Left, The School of Frankfurt and their followers, i.e. the Leftist intellectuals? (I use Leftist as distinct from Left: Foucault was Leftist, Francois Furet was Left.)

Not really.

Mind you, put Foucault in a bathhouse and you might have a point ...

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:22:32 AM
5. If it feels good, just do it.

Don't forget governments are against the people.
but
whaddaRUgonnadoboutit ;D

Quote from: paulb on February 18, 2008, 10:08:24 AM
Don't forget governments are against the people.
but
whaddaRUgonnadoboutit ;D

Well, in a democratic republic, the government *IS* the people-- even when they no longer seem to want that responsibility. 

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 10:39:43 AM
Well, in a democratic republic, the government *IS* the people-- even when they no longer seem to want that responsibility. 

No, no, the government is the government. It is what it is. $:)

Quote from: BorisG on February 18, 2008, 11:29:12 AM
No, no, the government is the government. It is what it is. $:)

But it can be held accountable, if people want it to be.  That's the whole point of a democratic republic.  If people collectively renounce their civic responsibility, they have no one to blame but themselves.  "We the people" and all that jazz.  Cynically blaming the government only gives the government the tacit nod to continue with its abuses.  You snooze, you lose.

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 10:39:43 AM
Well, in a democratic republic, the government *IS* the people-- even when they no longer seem to want that responsibility. 

yes you are correct
The idiotic gov wasting money of stupid programs and  running up enormous debts, is typical of most american lives.
You certainly called that one right.
A Confederacy of Dunces.
a coalition of stupidity.
a consortium of knuckleheads
NASA >:(
WAR on Drugs  >:(
War on AIDS >:(
ad nauseum

    Perhaps people believe Americans are dumb because of all the TV shows produced here that feature dumb Americans. Other countries have such shows, too, but they are less likely to travel around the world and be seen in 27 different languages. We're being victimized by our own popular culture. So people in other countries who watched The Beverly Hillbillies or The Munsters had deep thoughts about the "crisis in American education". Not that we're particularly well educated, mind you, it's just that it wouldn't matter if we were.
   
   Other countries have just as many dumb people, but what sense does it make to complain about dumb Uruguayans or Belgians? We'll never hear about them, so they don't count.

Quote from: drogulus on February 18, 2008, 12:19:47 PM
Other countries have just as many dumb people, but what sense does it make to complain about dumb Uruguayans or Belgians? We'll never hear about them, so they don't count.

Strange answer!  ??? I'm not particularly fond of "stupid Belgians or dumb Uruguayans", but I do try to learn about other "cultures" - even American culture...
I've visited the US several times . Once beyond the large cities, "the rest of the world" seems to disappear. Knowledge of other languages is poor or non -existand.

BUT i do confess : I have no idea what's happening in Kansas City, or San Diego or Wichita....In spite of all the electronics and scientific wizardry, the world is just too large.

Quote from: drogulus on February 18, 2008, 12:19:47 PM
   Perhaps people believe Americans are dumb because of all the TV shows produced here that feature dumb Americans. Other countries have such shows, too, but they are less likely to travel around the world and be seen in 27 different languages. We're being victimized by our own popular culture. So people in other countries who watched The Beverly Hillbillies or The Munsters had deep thoughts about the "crisis in American education". Not that we're particularly well educated, mind you, it's just that it wouldn't matter if we were.
   
   Other countries have just as many dumb people, but what sense does it make to complain about dumb Uruguayans or Belgians? We'll never hear about them, so they don't count.

Good post.
We in the 60's we're brought up to watch stupid HolloW-wood , instead we should have been reading.
Even today, Most of the pop culture continues to  take the emphasis away from learning. Play, play play,
Girls just wanna have fun un
Thats all they wannna
Gir-a irls just wanna have fun..
Cindy Lauper

True other countries have their share of low educational masses.
I'd say germany, france, switzerland, australia all have a  higher % of educated class, more astute public as to culture and the arts. japan also has a  higher average intelligence than most western countries.
The USA is really pretty low on the scale.
especially here in New Orleans, as yall already know.
New Orleans, last in the best of things, first in the worst. ::)

Quote from: pjme on February 18, 2008, 12:43:00 PM
Strange answer!  ??? I'm not particularly fond of "stupid Belgians or dumb Uruguayans", but I do try to learn about other "cultures" - even American culture...
I've visited the US several times . Once beyond the large cities, "the rest of the world" seems to disappear. Knowledge of other languages is poor or non -existand.

BUT i do confess : I have no idea what's happening in Kansas City, or San Diego or Wichita....In spite of all the electronics and scientific wizardry, the world is just too large.

Belgians or Uruguayans have the luxury of sitting around talking about how the US is full of stupid people and has screwed up the world, and how if only the Americans were as wise and as cosmopolitan as they were, everything would be better.  That is well and good, because Belgians or Uruguayans have no influence on the world, and their smug opinions will never be put into effect and we will never know how much more screwed up the world would be if it were.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:22:32 AM
Does it sound like Marx, Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, The New Left, The School of Frankfurt and their followers, i.e. the Leftist intellectuals? (I use Leftist as distinct from Left: Foucault was Leftist, Francois Furet was Left.)

No. It does sound like you haven't really understood what they were saying, though. Thus you present a grotesque caricature of what you think is their philosophy and then overstate its importance.

Quote from: head-case on February 18, 2008, 12:51:18 PM
Belgians or Uruguayans have the luxury of sitting around talking about how the US is full of stupid people and has screwed up the world, and how if only the Americans were as wise and as cosmopolitan as they were, everything would be better.  That is well and good, because Belgians or Uruguayans have no influence on the world, and their smug opinions will never be put into effect and we will never know how much more screwed up the world would be if it were.

Ain't American exceptionalism grand?   

Quote from: head-case on February 18, 2008, 12:51:18 PM
Belgians or Uruguayans have the luxury of sitting around talking about how the US is full of stupid people and has screwed up the world, and how if only the Americans were as wise and as cosmopolitan as they were, everything would be better.  That is well and good, because Belgians or Uruguayans have no influence on the world, and their smug opinions will never be put into effect and we will never know how much more screwed up the world would be if it were.

    Combine dumb with rich and powerful and it becomes interesting.

    I'm from the Midwest originally. If you want to understand what this means, watch Fargo 200 times, and pretend it's your life.

    It's also good to remember that no one appreciates this more than people from the American Midwest. We read Sinclair Lewis, watch Coen Bros. films, and in many other ways celebrate the Great American Dumbth. The Simpsons is an American family, so they probably watch The Simpsons, right?

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 12:58:52 PM
Ain't American exceptionalism grand?   

I'm not generally a subscriber to that philosophy.  The US should follow the same rules as every other country.  But if you are a tiny country, none of your mistakes or injustices will be noticed.   And even a citizen of one of the most stifling dictatorships in the history of civilization can presume to lecture us on how we should conduct ourselves.  That's fine.

Study: Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die http://www.theonion.com/content/news/study_iraqis_may_experience
:P

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 01:11:49 PM
Study: Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die http://www.theonion.com/content/news/study_iraqis_may_experience
:P

that site is soooo funny......
i just caught this one:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/kobayashi_retires_from_eating

Quote from: paulb on February 18, 2008, 12:14:42 PM
yes you are correct
The idiotic gov wasting money of stupid programs and  running up enormous debts, is typical of most american lives.
You certainly called that one right.
A Confederacy of Dunces.
a coalition of stupidity.
a consortium of knuckleheads
NASA >:(
WAR on Drugs  >:(
War on AIDS >:(
ad nauseum

Paulb has a constant urge to dump on the USA.  Does he offer anything that constitutes an improvement?

Quote from: Don on February 18, 2008, 02:31:48 PM
Paulb has a constant urge to dump on the USA.  Does he offer anything that constitutes an improvement?

He apparently prefers Russia. Each to his own :D

Quote from: Don on February 18, 2008, 02:31:48 PM
Paulb has a constant urge to dump on the USA.  Does he offer anything that constitutes an improvement?

Where ever he thinks is better, I wish he'd go there.   >:(

Quote from: Don on February 18, 2008, 02:31:48 PM
Paulb has a constant urge to dump on the USA.  Does he offer anything that constitutes an improvement?

The problem of ignorance is not an epidemic limited to the USA, its a  world wide phenomenon.
Russia has always suffered from a  very bad case of the stupids.
This disease of the mind is most acutely manifesting its life sucking power  among the muslim populations.
Every one here with a  modicum of insight can see where this myth is taking us, there's no turning back.
This thing is driving itself and no one has any quick solutions that offer permanence.
Bandaids on a  deep fatal wound only buys the patient some extra moments.

Call me a  doomsday-er. I tend to look at things from the widest perspective. If you want to paint life as a   lovely spring flower arrangement in the vase, its your free will, your free imaginations.
Now do i have any constructive positive ideas that will deliver man from his ever growing dangers that threaten from every side?
Can't think of any. Sorry.

Sure there are pockets of life in this country. they exist, i know they do, somewhere. ::)

btw New orleans is going under. And there's not anything anyone can do to stop this process. Nothing.
It will happen.
well there is something, but i do not think that something will intervene. Anything is possible, but the probability is about as much as the probability factor for  peace bewteen Israel and the islamics.
And we all here know how much a  possibility that is. ::)

Quote from: paulb on February 18, 2008, 03:36:54 PM
The problem of ignorance is not an epidemic limited to the USA, its a  world wide phenomenon.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/printable838207.shtml

http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7126562.stm

http://www.reason.com/news/show/33014.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2922875820071129?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

http://oneutah.org/2007/07/28/how-stupid-are-americans/

Quote from: paulb on February 18, 2008, 03:36:54 PM
The problem of ignorance is not an epidemic limited to the USA, its a  world wide phenomenon.

We weren't aware of that ........

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 07:22:32 AM

I call "cultural leftism" that school of thought which subscribes to the following tenets:

1. There is no such thing as truth, just opinions.

But, as the Times article points out, this is exactly the deconstructionist argument used by evengelicals on the right, and some of their intellectual sympathizers (eg., Stanley Fish) to call science into question and create room for their God. The argument goes something like this, though it is rarely stated so bluntly: Science cannot know everything, its theories are mental constructs, and it relies on assumptions that cannot be proven within its own system. (Nature behaves consistently everywhere and at all times. Changes in the fossil record may be linked together in a form of narrative.) Such assumptions must be accepted on faith. The scientific interpretation of reality is, by extension, a form of religion. And since no faith can be proven, all of them are equivalent, and the scientific world view is no more valid than worldview based on Biblical literalism.  One might might as well believe one thing as another.  This argument became a theological necessity once anti-evolutionists on local school boards began losing court cases. Theology is highly adaptable in such circumstances. It's strange, of course: religion used to be a foundation of reality. We knew the world existed and that men would be judged fairly, because God exists and He remembers everything perfectly. Now, His very existence is a matter of assumptions. Even more strangely, evangelicals still talk of God as the source of eternal moral laws, not realizing their positions are not compatible. Someone said it better than I: Epistemological relativism became the basis of moral absolutism.

More to the point: One reason we are seen as anti-intellectuals around the world, in my view, is that we persist in electing ignoramuses to high office. Anti-intellectualism certainly infects American politics, if not our life as a whole, and politicians are among our most visible representatives abroad. Someone with genuine intellectual gifts, like, say, Al Gore, is ridiculed for them in the press, while an amiable-seeming dunce (to coin a phrase) like Bush, who can barely put a coherent sentence together, is seen as a regular guy, someone you'd like to have a beer with, as if it were a qualification.  (Much like the girl on the game show, Bush once called Africa a country.) We're democrats (with a small "d") in this country, and as such, we don't like to believe our leaders are smarter than we are. You could pass it off in 2000, when the election was arguably stolen, but we as a nation chose Bush on 2004, and we did it out of spite.


And yeah, it was embarrassing that the girl on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? never heard of Hungary, but we should keep in mind these contestants are screened, and no one who is too bright will be selected. A friend of mine tried out for Tic Tac Dough years ago, and he was turned down simply because he knew too much. On Jeopardy, Budpest would have been a $100 question. 


As for some of the anecdotes in this thread about ignorance, a favorite counterexample of mine comes from one of my editors, who liked to retell it as proof you can't judge by appearances. She was in a roadside diner one night, seated not too far from a couple of greasy looking trucker types. They had tattoos, long, stringy hair topped with baseball caps, and a few days' stubble, and they were arguing about which conductor had recorded the greatest performance of Brahms' First Symphony.

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 18, 2008, 04:06:08 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/printable838207.shtml

http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7126562.stm

http://www.reason.com/news/show/33014.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2922875820071129?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

http://oneutah.org/2007/07/28/how-stupid-are-americans/

Gosh i havn't looked through all the links, but the first 2 are great reads.
Nice work.
The only thing each of us can do is study, understand  and sow seeds  of knowledge along the path of life.
Its obvious the herds will have to make out the best they can.
Now should we intervene in The Sudan and Kenya and other places in which ethnic cleansing/tribal wars  are taking place?
The governments say that foriegn intervention will not work, and should  stay out.
So the world can only anxiously look on at the horrors.
The United Nations has not proven up to the task to police the world.

Quote from: Joe Barron on February 18, 2008, 04:45:03 PM
And yeah, it was embarrassing that the girl on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? never heard of Hungary, but we should keep in mind these contestants are screened, and no one who is too bright will be selected. A friend of mine tried out for Tic Tac Dough years ago, and he was turned down simply because he knew too much. On Jeopardy, Budpest would have been a $100 question. 

This reminds me something Steven Wright said several years ago (paraphrasing):

Have you ever noticed the difference between different contestants on different game shows?  For example, look at Jeopardy: "Here's our contestant Mike.  Mike is a computer programmer for NASA and in his spare time he likes to build brains!"  Then flip over to Wheel of Fortune: "Here's our contestant Jan.  Jan likes small shiny objects." 

(OK, its a lot funnier to hear him say it in that deadpan delivery of his, but you get the idea LOL)

Quote from: Joe Barron on February 18, 2008, 04:45:03 PM
But, as the Times article points out, this is exactly the deconstructionist argument used by evengelicals on the right

The extremes touch each other.  :)

Quote from: Joe Barron on February 18, 2008, 04:45:03 PMSomeone said it better than I: Epistemological relativism became the basis of moral absolutism.

Word.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 18, 2008, 12:54:12 PM
No. It does sound like you haven't really understood what they were saying, though. Thus you present a grotesque caricature of what you think is their philosophy and then overstate its importance.

OM, you seem to me an intelligent and rational man and your posts are always interesting. Moreover, I wholeheartedly agree with some of your stances. But it also seems that we are irreconcilably at variance about some issues. Let us not get into a polemic on them. I'm sure I won't convince you and you won't convince me. Furthermore, knowing me (and you), that could easily escalate into an entirely useless flamewar. We can live peacefully on this virtual dinner-room even if our philosophies are antagonistic. I am not a rigid ideologue: I've always thought that the qualities of a flesh-and-blood person are more valuable than her / his ideas (and this includes me, of course). So, let us give three cheers to Obama and be friends!  :-*  :)

Now back on-topic, I am really interested to learn what you think are the true causes of this amazing ignorance of average Americans.

Quote from: head-case on February 18, 2008, 12:51:18 PM
Belgians or Uruguayans have the luxury of sitting around talking about how the US is full of stupid people and has screwed up the world, and how if only the Americans were as wise and as cosmopolitan as they were, everything would be better.  That is well and good, because Belgians or Uruguayans have no influence on the world, and their smug opinions will never be put into effect and we will never know how much more screwed up the world would be if it were.

Actually, the Belgians ruled what was once Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was then known as the Belgian Congo from 1908-1960.  The present state of that country does not speak well for the Belgian case.

The Philippines were ruled by the United States from about 1900-1946, with time off for the Japanese occupation.  While they have had their share of problems, ask yourself this:  If you had to live in either Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, or Manila, which would you choose?

Quote from: RebLem on February 18, 2008, 11:16:33 PM
Actually, the Belgians ruled what was once Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was then known as the Belgian Congo from 1908-1960.  The present state of that country does not speak well for the Belgian case.

The Philippines were ruled by the United States from about 1900-1946, with time off for the Japanese occupation.  While they have had their share of problems, ask yourself this:  If you had to live in either Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, or Manila, which would you choose?

You have a point here, but the things are not so straight-forward.

You seem to completely forget the history of both those countries. The Philippines as they are today were not created ex nihilo by the United States. They took it from the Spaniards who ruled there a few hundred years before the Americans. Moreover, another very important factor was the native people of these islands itself. The present state of the affairs in Philippines, admittedly better than that in Congo, is thus the result of the interplay of all these forces.

Same analysis for Congo: it's not only the Belgians, but also the native peoples who shaped the Congo of today.

Saying that Belgians are bad because of nowadays Congo and Americans are better because of nowadays Philippines is a gross oversimplification.

Quote from: RebLem on February 18, 2008, 11:16:33 PM
Actually, the Belgians ruled what was once Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was then known as the Belgian Congo from 1908-1960.  The present state of that country does not speak well for the Belgian case.

The Philippines were ruled by the United States from about 1900-1946, with time off for the Japanese occupation.  While they have had their share of problems, ask yourself this:  If you had to live in either Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, or Manila, which would you choose?

That means nothing. Africa is just most succeptible to massive corruption at the moment. Look at Zimbabwe pre and post colonialism.

Quote from: Joe Barron on February 18, 2008, 04:45:03 PM
But, as the Times article points out, this is exactly the deconstructionist argument used by evengelicals on the right, and some of their intellectual sympathizers (eg., Stanley Fish) to call science into question and create room for their God. The argument goes something like this, though it is rarely stated so bluntly: Science cannot know everything, its theories are mental constructs, and it relies on assumptions that cannot be proven within its own system. (Nature behaves consistently everywhere and at all times. Changes in the fossil record may be linked together in a form of narrative.) Such assumptions must be accepted on faith. The scientific interpretation of reality is, by extension, a form of religion. And since no faith can be proven, all of them are equivalent, and the scientific world view is no more valid than worldview based on Biblical literalism.  One might might as well believe one thing as another.  This argument became a theological necessity once anti-evolutionists began on local school boards began losing court cases. Theology is highly adaptable in such circumstances. It's strange, of course: religion used to be a foundation of reality. We knew the world existed and that men would be judged fairly, because God exists and He remembers everything perfectly. Now, His very existence is a matter of assumptions. Even more strangely, evangelicals still talk of God as the source of eternal moral laws, not realizing their positions are not compatible. Someone said it better than I: Epistemological relativism became the basis of moral absolutism.

    It's funny...the Stanley Fish position comes out of pragmatism. Pragmatists used to believe that the success of scientific models counted as evidence in their favor. Now they've come around to the view that this is just another faith. I think that's a self-thwarting position, since the same thing could be said about radical pragmatism, and it builds no successful models, period.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 11:01:11 PM
OM, you seem to me an intelligent and rational man and your posts are always interesting. Moreover, I wholeheartedly agree with some of your stances. But it also seems that we are irreconcilably at variance about some issues. Let us not get into a polemic on them. I'm sure I won't convince you and you won't convince me. Furthermore, knowing me (and you), that could easily escalate into an entirely useless flamewar. We can live peacefully on this virtual dinner-room even if our philosophies are antagonistic. I am not a rigid ideologue: I've always thought that the qualities of a flesh-and-blood person are more valuable than her / his ideas (and this includes me, of course). So, let us give three cheers to Obama and be friends!  :-*  :)

Fair enough, though I'd like to point out two things: 1. it is you who has fallen prey to a certain set of right wing polemics on this issue, which mostly emanates from people who have never read the people they criticise (as a simple anecdotal counterexample to your claim, the only people I know who have actually read the deconstructionists and the Frankfurt School - e.g. my wife, who is an expert in both and is now teaching some of this at college level - are among the most educated people I know and don't subscribe to any of the absurd tenets you allege they do). 2. I don't think you quite understood the point of Joe Barron's intelligent post above.

Quote from: Florestan on February 18, 2008, 11:01:11 PM
Now back on-topic, I am really interested to learn what you think are the true causes of this amazing ignorance of average Americans.

I don't think there is one single cause, nor am I sure that I have an adequate grasp of what is causing it. There are a number of factors, I think. One being America's geographic isolation and relative safety from external aggression which has allowed a certain blissful ignorance of the outside world to go relatively unpunished. That's something the peoples of most other continents cannot afford, living as they do virtually on top of each other with little or no natural barriers between them. Secondly, there is a very strong myth of a sort of rural ideal, where inherently good folk persist simply on having a good heart and working hard, without the requirement of advanced education. It's sort of a frontier myth that anyone who works hard can succeed and you don't need the credentials of good education etc. It's one aspect of the American dream that differentiates it from socially immobile old European society where if you didn't come from the right families or go to the right schools you were screwed. Except, oops, modern America looks so much more like that these days. Finally, America has this very schizophrenic love-hate relationship with its own government: it thinks its system of government is so ingenious that it should be spread across the world, by force if necessary, but not at home where instead it should be cut down to an unworkable dysfunctional shadow of itself. In its most extreme libertarian ideal, government basically shouldn't exist. Problem is, without central government there are no reliable national education standards, no adequate public school funding etc. Part of the pain of applying to college in the US and undergoing a silly rigmarole of standardized testing is that, by just looking at your high school credentials, a college admissions officer can't tell anything at all about how educated you are. The high schools are too dissimilar. An A in one might be worse than a D in another in the same subject. When it comes to general public education, there is something to be said for the European model of highly educated central government technocrats setting a national curriculum and national standards, vs. the American model where every community can make it up as they go along, leaving the poorer, less educated communities with lower quality of education than more affluent, better educated ones.

The most astounding thing to me is - apart from not learning much useful knowledge - US school kids seem to get very bad training in setting their thoughts to paper in a coherent fashion. My wife now happens to be teaching at the college I attended as an undergrad. When I entered college, there was a requirement to attend a sort of "basic composition" class that was a sort of remedial writing to teach kids to write a coherent college paper. Even though English was my third language, I placed out of this requirement simply on the basis of the quality of my application essays, thanks to the quality of my German public school education (and that wasn't that great either, let me tell you). My wife is now grading a lot of papers of the current generation of college kids, and the variation in the quality of the writing - I don't mean their grasp of the subject - is astounding. Supposedly all of these showed the same aptitude on standardized tests etc., but some of them write as if they had never written anything longer than a paragraph.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 07:38:52 AM
I don't think you quite understood the point of Joe Barron's intelligent post above.

Then please explain it to me.

Quote from: Joe Barron on February 18, 2008, 04:45:03 PM
As for some of the anecdotes in this thread about ignorance, a favorite counterexample of mine comes from one of my editors, who liked to retell it as proof you can't judge by appearances. She was in a roadside diner one night, seated not too far from a couple of greasy looking trucker types. They had tattoos, long, stringy hair topped with baseball caps, and a few days' stubble, and they were arguing about which conductor had recorded the greatest performance of Brahms' First Symphony.

That reminds me: Carl Haas has a huge following among truck drivers for his exploring classical music radio show.

Quote from: Florestan on February 19, 2008, 07:51:52 AM
Then please explain it to me.

I'll let him do that. But the example he cites shows that the caricature of a supposed extreme leftist intelligentsia is one used by the right wing exclusively. That they then fall prey to using precisely the sort of relativism they accuse the left of espousing as a method of justifying absolutism is all the more amusingly ironic. But let me just add that it is precisely this unfounded accusation of leftist intellectual moral relativism that is used all the time as an attack against anything that smells of education. It is in fact one of the contributing causes of anti-intellectual predispositions in the US.

I think those trying to blame the poor state of American education on some inherent cultural element pertaining the whole country might want to explain just how is it that they were number one both in term of general education and scientific production only a few decades ago. Something doesn't add up.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 19, 2008, 08:57:57 AM
I think those trying to blame the poor state of American education on some inherent cultural element pertaining the whole country might want to explain just how is it that they were number one both in term of general education and scientific production only a few decades ago. Something doesn't add up.

Oh, don't mistake my point for arguing anything about "inherent" cultural deficiencies. None of this is fixed. At the beginning of the Cold War, the US made a considerable push in improving public education, as it was perceived to be falling behind the Soviets. But as the Soviet threat subsided, so did support for public education. As to your stats. I'd like to see them. I don't know that the US was ever number one in terms of general eduction, but am willing to be proven wrong. As to scientific production, that's easy when you keep importing talent from outside.

Reminds me of a remark, the origin of which I can't recall, that the US has the worlds dumbest 18 year olds but the worlds smartest 30 year olds (judging by the fact that US workers have the highest productivity in the world).

Academia and labor are worlds apart. ;D

Quote from: head-case on February 19, 2008, 09:09:44 AM
Reminds me of a remark, the origin of which I can't recall, that the US has the worlds dumbest 18 year olds but the worlds smartest 30 year olds (judging by the fact that US workers have the highest productivity in the world).

That statistic is misleading. It is true that US workers are most productive in total per year. But the workers of many European countries are more productive per hour worked than US workers. The difference is that US workers work a lot longer hours and have less vacation time and public holidays, which ends up putting them ahead. That, BTW, is another reason for the US's backwardness in education. School alone can't do the job. If families don't have time together during which the elders can mentor their kids because both parents are working long hours and commuting long distances, the school teachers will be fighting an uphill battle. The commuting goes back to this myth of rural utopia. Americans will rather build a brand new house out in the boonies and commute two hours than invest in reviving a neighborhood closer to the city. You end up with completely dead dormitory cities bereft of any intellectual stimulation for its younger population.

"Hostile" is such a peculiar word to use in the header question.

Oh! And look who initiated the thread!  All is now clear  8)

Quote from: karlhenning on February 19, 2008, 09:30:07 AM
Oh! And look who initiated the thread!  All is now clear  8)

;D

Can't believe we all missed that.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 19, 2008, 09:30:07 AM
"Hostile" is such a peculiar word to use in the header question.

Oh! And look who initiated the thread!  All is now clear  8)

Crystal   :D

An addendum to my earlier post

Here is the official version of the highway story, fresh from my editor:

Once upon a time, my husband was tending bar at what was then a Holiday Inn in East Stroudsburg [Pennsylvania]. It wasn't far from Route 80 and Route 611, so there were a lot of truckers among the clientele. Two gentlemen walked in to the bar, clearly truck drivers, with the stereotypical facial hair, CAT ball caps, one had a pack of cigarettes rolled in the sleeve of his T-shirt.

Jim automatically reached for the beer tap and two glasses, but one ordered a perfect Rob Roy, the other ordered a martini and both resumed their discussion of which conductor recorded the better version of Brahms' Fourth Symphony.

As a teacher of various subjects through nearly 4 decades, and as somebody whose income - because of benighted allegiance to religious education - has often placed me in contact with the illiterati, allow me to comment.

America has always had its share of morons, but consider that there is no monopoly on moronic behavior: every continent on the planet suffers from it.

America has always admired the person of tangible accomplishment: the Wright Brothers might not have written PhD theses on aeronautics for a university, but they built an airplane that worked!  Which would you prefer?

On the other hand:

Read the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were spoken in front of Illinois bumpkins who could not have had more than an 8th grade education, if that.

Note the correctness and depth of their grammar, the rather high vocabulary, and the style, which has a certain music in it.

Note that these were REAL debates, where someone might argue his points for 20-30 minutes straight, and then one would hear the rebuttal for an equal amount of time.  Lincoln and Douglas expected their "bumpkin" audience to pay attention to two men speaking straight for an hour. 

No camerawork or whispering commentators to make things more interesting!

Has there been a deterioration?  The deterioration - if it exists - would seem to be primarily at the top, not at the bottom, which would seem to have been stable and waiting for a challenge to raise it up.  The people at the top have lowered themselves rather than expecting the bottom to push themselves upward, and more and more make excuses for the bottom for staying there.

"If it exists"...highly debatable!

Quote from: karlhenning on February 19, 2008, 09:30:07 AM
"Hostile" is such a peculiar word to use in the header question.

Oh! And look who initiated the thread!  All is now clear  8)

    It's meant to be an indictment, I guess. Still, there's something to it. By European standards this country leaves people to fend for themselves to a remarkable degree, for good or ill. Part of the problem is local/state control of education, which leaves those states which are both poor and culturally suspicious of the educated to set as low a standard as they can get away with, while the richer states generally take the high road. The pattern goes all the way back to colonial days, and the best thing I ever read on the subject is The Cousins' Wars by Kevin Phillips.

Quote from: Cato on February 19, 2008, 09:58:06 AM
America has always admired the person of tangible accomplishment: the Wright Brothers might not have written PhD theses on aeronautics for a university, but they built an airplane that worked!  Which would you prefer?

But that's part of the myth of the Wrights as ordinary country folk. The Wrights weren't just going on gut instincts and hunches. They spent a lot of time painstakingly researching the effectiveness of different wing profiles on small models attached to a bicycle before they went ahead and built the first Flyer. That is empricism in action. Also, remember that the field of aeronautics didn't exist at universities at that time.

   

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 03:00:19 PM
But that's part of the myth of the Wrights as ordinary country folk.

     It's part of the myth about ordinary country folk that they couldn't produce the Wright brothers, or Thomas Edison, or Henry Ford. So when it happens, the intellectuals decide capitalism isn't such a good thing. Nothing can be really good that doesn't require an expert with a degree to supervise it.

Quote from: drogulus on February 19, 2008, 03:26:29 PM
     It's part of the myth about ordinary country folk that they couldn't produce the Wright brothers, or Thomas Edison, or Henry Ford. So when it happens, the intellectuals decide capitalism isn't such a good thing. Nothing can be really good that doesn't require an expert with a degree to supervise it.

Both myths are of course nonsense.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 09:02:18 AM
Oh, don't mistake my point for arguing anything about "inherent" cultural deficiencies. None of this is fixed. At the beginning of the Cold War, the US made a considerable push in improving public education, as it was perceived to be falling behind the Soviets. But as the Soviet threat subsided, so did support for public education. As to your stats. I'd like to see them. I don't know that the US was ever number one in terms of general eduction, but am willing to be proven wrong. As to scientific production, that's easy when you keep importing talent from outside.

You know what, I've actually heard about this before.
I actually feel smart.  :P
(and it might've been a video in school)

Quote from: M forever on February 17, 2008, 08:35:35 PM
I had a few similar experiences.
All of the above are true.

I had exactly the same experience with Russia instead of Germany, apparently.

But I loved the question about triangle. And, damn, the girl is right, it has no sides, because it is a triangle. ;)

However, I think the fault is not theirs. If school or college (my evidence!) teachers say that Arabic numbers (1,2,3, etc.) are American and USA won the WWII...then students believe instructors and do not verify the information. They can't even imagine it's not true. They are misled, by the American government? Easier for them to keep people unaware of...well, I'd better stop here.

PS: I like the journalist's accent. By the way, how did he form the question about World Wars? "How many World Wars...." and then I didn't catch the ending. Heeelp! If I were one of them, I probably wouldn't be able to name the currency of the UK, I know it only in Russian. Translated, my answer would be "pounds of sterlings," which is similar but not exact.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 07:38:52 AM
Part of the pain of applying to college in the US and undergoing a silly rigmarole of standardized testing is that, by just looking at your high school credentials, a college admissions officer can't tell anything at all about how educated you are. The high schools are too dissimilar. An A in one might be worse than a D in another in the same subject. When it comes to general public education, there is something to be said for the European model of highly educated central government technocrats setting a national curriculum and national standards

Well, in Romania there is a board of government technocrats, a national curriculum, national standards and national standardized tests. But the situation is exactly as you described it in the first part of the above paragraph. And when a government initiative to drop completely the college admission test and to select candidates only by their high-school credentials was announced, a huge scandal broke out. The professors in virtually all prestigious university pointed out that this is going to be a disaster. There are a lot of high-schools where you can get an A just by either simply showing up in classes, or bribing or intimidating (nay, bullying) the teachers. And there are a few high-schools where educational standards are high and it's much more difficult to get an A there absent hard work and discipline. Dropping admission tests is a recipe for getting into college mostly ineducated, undisciplined and intellectually inert freshmen. Finally, the government decided to withdraw the proposal and let each university manage its own admission system.

    Is Romania in France or Italy? It's one of those, right? Or is it in Europe?

Quote from: drogulus on February 20, 2008, 08:18:27 AM

    Is Romania in France or Italy? It's one of those, right? Or is it in Europe?

Its next to Hungry I think.  LOL

Quote from: Sarastro on February 19, 2008, 09:31:49 PM
PS: By the way, how did he form the question about World Wars? "How many World Wars...." and then I didn't catch the ending. Heeelp!

"How many world wars have there been?"


Sarge

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 20, 2008, 08:50:54 AM
"How many world wars have there been?"


Sarge

Understandbly, some people might have been confused as a result of neocon propaganda and terminology permeating the airwaves these days. According to neocon counting, we are fighting number IV right now.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 09:09:41 AM
Understandbly, some people might have been confused as a result of neocon propaganda and terminology permeating the airwaves these days. According to neocon counting, we are fighting number IV right now.

I missed III ...or was that the Cold War?

Sarge

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 20, 2008, 09:16:26 AM
I missed III ...or was that the Cold War?

Yes.

Don't forget Grenada!!!!

well whats also so stupid about the USA  is the fact how over paid are doctors and lawyers, and lately insurance co's are also making too much money.
Should they be wealthy for their 8 yrs of sacrificing studies? Yes.
But when in an economy of falling middle class wealth, their incomes should be adjusted too.
This is a  side issus of how much fraud goes on in the insurance, medical, judicial industry.
Of course each of these 3 industries have taken some hit in the recent crash of Sept 07, but they will quickly recover, they will devise new schemes to find new sources.

Doctors and lawyers whose income rises above $2 million, the above 2 million part should be taxed at a  whopping 75%. Loopholds closed.

This way  big lawyers may not take on cases which they stand to only make 25% income.

Quote from: Iago on February 20, 2008, 09:28:36 AM
TO IDIOTS, Henning, O Mensch and Chambernut.

Hey Mr. Teacherman. That no be complete grammaturific sentence. What sez u?

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 03:00:19 PM
But that's part of the myth of the Wrights as ordinary country folk. The Wrights weren't just going on gut instincts and hunches. They spent a lot of time painstakingly researching the effectiveness of different wing profiles on small models attached to a bicycle before they went ahead and built the first Flyer. That is empricism in action. Also, remember that the field of aeronautics didn't exist at universities at that time.

As a former Daytonian I can agree: the point was that they went ahead and applied their theories, rather than trying to gather academic credentials.

Drogulus is quite correct in his assessment as well.

Class-warfare taxation rates will shoot themselves in the foot: you will actually receive less money via taxes with that rate.  This has been proven definitively again and again: when John Kennedy and the Democrats cut (?????) tax rates in the early 1960's, revenue actually increased with lower rates, because more people were more prosperous with more money to invest and spend, rather than sending it to D.C. to be wasted and/or redistributed by bureaucrats.  It has been proven again with the Reagan tax cuts, and most recently with the W. Bush cuts.

When England had a Robin Hood tax rate of 90% per million (we will teach you to be a success!) in the 1960's, the Beatles - not being dullards in economics - filtered all their new overnight wealth via Switzerland to avoid having the British government take most of it away.  Result: less money for the British government.

General rule of economics: when something is taxed, especially at an unreasonable rate, you will end up with less of it.  If you want fewer doctors, business people, lawyers, scientists, inventors, etc. tax them at 95%: why stop at 75%?   It really is unfair to the great unwashed that these people were born with so many talents: they probably do need to be humbled and taught a lesson that life is unfair.

TO IDIOTS, Henning, O Mensch and Chambernut.
Certainly, I started this thread. But I didn't name it.
However ANY excuse to take a cheap shot at me is pounced on by the three idiots named above.
I reprinted the article (complete with title) as it appeared in the NY Times on Feb 14. The author of the article is Patricia Cohen,to whom I gave full credit
If you putzs don't like the title, argue with her.

Quote from: Iago on February 20, 2008, 09:51:17 AM
TO IDIOTS, Henning, O Mensch and Chambernut.
Certainly, I started this thread. But I didn't name it.
However ANY excuse to take a cheap shot at me is pounced on by the three idiots named above.
I reprinted the article (complete with title) as it appeared in the NY Times on Feb 14. The author of the article is Patricia Cohen,to whom I gave full credit
If you putzs don't like the title, argue with her.

Rather hostile and impolite!   0:)

Despite all of America's defects, the country has been able to end slavery, defeat German militarism, Russian Communism, advance to the moon and beyond, and show that even hicks and hillbillies can indeed create a free country which many people risk their lives to enter, legally and illegally, because the life here is better and freer than elsewhere.

Gosh. It means so much when Cuddles calls anyone an "idiot."

Quote from: Cato on February 20, 2008, 09:58:55 AM
Rather hostile and impolite!   0:)

Despite all of America's defects, the country has been able to end slavery, defeat German militarism, Russian Communism, advance to the moon and beyond,

I will give you everything you said except able to end slavery. You are not suppose to pat yourself on the back for putting an end to something that is wrong. That's like if are German and saying how you ended Nazism.

Well, and the Russians had something to do with the defeat of German militarism and Russian Communism, too.

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 10:12:21 AM
I will give you everything you said except able to end slavery. You are not suppose to pat yourself on the back for putting an end to something that is wrong. That's like if are German and saying how you ended Nazism.

Ditto. Also, it's not like other countries hadn't already abolished slavery earlier.  ::)

Quote from: karlhenning on February 20, 2008, 10:17:16 AM
Well, and the Russians had something to do with the defeat of German militarism and Russian Communism, too.

And ditto to that, plus add a few million Eastern Europeans into the equation who weren't exactly meaningless for the defeat of Communism either.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 10:18:38 AM
Ditto. Also, it's not like other countries hadn't already abolished slavery earlier.  ::)

Exactly my point. I am not a history buff but I think slavery ended in European countries like Britain at least 50 years before it ended in the U.S.. It is not like the US was a pioneer in the quest to end bondage of fellow human beings.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 10:18:38 AM
Ditto. Also, it's not like other countries hadn't already abolished slavery earlier.  ::)

A good point;  and yet, a lot of countries which abolished slavery did so under conditions which did not make that change in social policy an extreme economic upheaval.

Similarly, it was probably no great exercise in economic sacrifice for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to abolish slavery;  extending that policy to parts of the country which depended on that source of cheap labor, was another matter, and of course, the cause of a fierce and internally disruptive war.

And what kind of putz doesn't know how properly to pluralize putzes?

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 10:22:53 AM
Exactly my point. I am not a history buff but I think slavery ended in European countries like Britain at least 50 years before it ended in the U.S.. It is not like the US was a pioneer in the quest to end bondage of fellow human beings.

Slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1834.  There were a small number of slaves held in Canada until this time.  The slave trade was halted by the British in 1807.  Slavery was abolished in Massachussetts in 1783, in New York in 1827.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 20, 2008, 10:28:07 AM
And what kind of putz doesn't know how properly to pluralize putzes?

Putzi?

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 10:40:06 AM
Slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1834.  There were a small number of slaves held in Canada until this time.  The slave trade was halted by the British in 1807.  Slavery was abolished in Massachussetts in 1783, in New York in 1827.

When did the US halt the slave trade?

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 20, 2008, 10:43:47 AM
Putzi?

I think it is simply puzzie, rhymes with a female body part.

Quote from: Ephemerid on February 20, 2008, 10:43:47 AM
Putzi?

Why am I thinking Anjelica Hustn and Jack Nicholson?

Putzi's Honor?

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 10:44:15 AM
When did the US halt the slave trade?

The British ban effectively ended the import of slaves to North America, so no explicit US action was necessary.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 20, 2008, 10:17:16 AM
Well, and the Russians had something to do with the defeat of German militarism and Russian Communism, too.

Well, the Russians defeated Adolf Hitler, losing 27 million people, and made their way to Berlin, expanding the influence on Eastern Europe and becoming a superpower. However, everything is over.
And the only present superpower in the World is USA. With millions of immigrants working for its wealth.

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 10:12:21 AM
I will give you everything you said except able to end slavery. You are not supposed to pat yourself on the back for putting an end to something that is wrong. That's like if are German and saying how you ended Nazism.

In fact I would think the Union soldiers deserve a pat on the back, along with the Germans in the anti-Nazi underground, and, as Karl Henning points out, the Russians working against Communism in their underground, etc.

I should have been more specific about "slavery" i.e. in America itself.  British reformers certainly led the way against the slave trade internationally.

Concerning Russian losses in WWII, a good percentage can be laid at the feet of Gensek Stalin: one broad estimate has him killing 6-14 million Ukrainians in the 1930's.  But "history by body count" leads to a trivialization of evil.

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 10:56:42 AM
Well, the Russians defeated Adolf Hitler, losing 27 million people, and made their way to Berlin, expanding the influence on Eastern Europe and becoming a superpower.

I'm not sure what this number has to do with the defeat of Nazi Germany.  To quote General George S. Patton, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

A more relevant statistic, of the 7 million Germans killed in the war, 4.3 million were killed on the eastern front.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 10:40:06 AM
Slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1834.  There were a small number of slaves held in Canada until this time.  The slave trade was halted by the British in 1807.  Slavery was abolished in Massachussetts in 1783, in New York in 1827.

And the US banned the slave trade the same year as Britain (it went into effect the following year)

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 11:12:59 AM
I'm not sure what this number has to do with the defeat of Nazi Germany.  To quote General George S. Patton, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

Well, the number was mentioned in by-the-way manner.

What about the arrogant statement...Maybe Mr.Patton is right, but sometimes people die for their fatherland having no time to think of strategies, especially when the enemy is treading the land and killing women and children.
I wonder how the Japanese felt when Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombarded with nuclear weapons. "Poor dumb bastards" are still struggling with consequences.

Stalin was evil, true.

I don't find the statement arrogant.  It was the practical philosophy that Patton wanted to instill in his troops.  I find it more relevant that the Red Army inflicted more casualties on the Nazi regime than the western allies.  However, the huge losses by the Soviet Union indicate the brutality of the Nazi regime and the extent to which the Soviets were unprepared (which is presumably related to Stalin's pact with Hitler).

Regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear attacks were made because military planners thought a quick end to the war would circumvent the enormous bloodshed that would come from an invasion of Japan itself.  Given the numbers that were slain by the Japanese in Asia before and during the war (and their treatment of prisoners of war) I don't see that they are in a position to complain about the numbers lost in these attacks.

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 12:50:19 PM
Well, the number was mentioned in by-the-way manner.

What about the arrogant statement...Maybe Mr.Patton is right, but sometimes people die for their fatherland having no time to think of strategies, especially when the enemy is treading the land and killing women and children.
I wonder how the Japanese felt when Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombarded with nuclear weapons. "Poor dumb bastards" are still struggling with consequences.

Stalin was evil, true.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 01:25:46 PM
Regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear attacks were made because military planners thought a quick end to the war would circumvent the enormous bloodshed that would come from an invasion of Japan itself.  Given the numbers that were slain by the Japanese in Asia before and during the war (and their treatment of prisoners of war) I don't see that they are in a position to complain about the numbers lost in these attacks.

Mmmm... almost... The actual reason was that they sought to prevent the entry into the Pacific Theater by the Soviet Union, which was regrouping afte finishing off Hitler and had already entered the Korean peninsula. The Japanese were toast already. Think about it. If you want someone to surrender, do you drop a second bomb before the enemy even has a chance to consider surrender? Fact of the matter is that the Japanese cabinet was just in the process of approving the uncondictional surrender as the Nagasaki bomb was being dropped. These were dropped to end the war before the Soviets entered and in order to impress the Soviets to keep their distance.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 01:53:50 PM
Mmmm... almost... The actual reason was that they sought to prevent the entry into the Pacific Theater by the Soviet Union, which was regrouping afte finishing off Hitler and had already entered the Korean peninsula. The Japanese were toast already. Think about it. If you want someone to surrender, do you drop a second bomb before the enemy even has a chance to consider surrender? Fact of the matter is that the Japanese cabinet was just in the process of approving the uncondictional surrender as the Nagasaki bomb was being dropped. These were dropped to end the war before the Soviets entered and in order to impress the Soviets to keep their distance.

Your argument doesn't make a lot of sense.  Whether they were concerned with avoiding an invasion or preventing the Soviets from getting involved, their goal was still to induce a quick Japanese surrender.  The strategy would have been the same in either case.  The alleged rushing of the second bomb doesn't distinguish between the two motivations (which seem equally valid, in any case).  The rushing of the second bomb may have been to create the impression that there was a limitless supply of these devices at our disposal, when there were only two available.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 02:04:13 PM
The rushing of the second bomb may have been to create the impression that there was a limitless supply of these devices at our disposal, when there were only two available.

Exactly. Which is far more important an impression to make on the Soviets than on an enemy that is basically crushed already.

In any case, the issue isn't whether the Japanese behavior in Asia is such that they are in "no position to complain" about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's again Sau'ls two-wrongs-make-a-right logic. The point is that these bombs were dropped on civilian populations. The question of what crimes the Japanese military committed in Asia is irrelevant to the moral culpability of those who decided to drop the bomb.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:11:44 PM
Exactly. Which is far more important an impression to make on the Soviets than on an enemy that is basically crushed already.

In any case, the issue isn't whether the Japanese behavior in Asia is such that they are in "no position to complain" about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's again Sauls two wrongs make a right logic. The point is that these bombs were dropped on civilian populations. The question of what crimes the Japanese military committed in Asia is irrelevant to the moral culpability of those who decided to drop the bomb.

Yeah but in the context of previous firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden (each of which killed more people than either A-bomb) dropping another nuke or two on Japan was not something in the context of the war that should have been a moral quandry for anyone involved.  The Japanese had a chance to surrender after Hiroshima and they declined to do so.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:11:44 PM
Exactly. Which is far more important an impression to make on the Soviets than on an enemy that is basically crushed already.

In any case, the issue isn't whether the Japanese behavior in Asia is such that they are in "no position to complain" about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's again Sau'ls two-wrongs-make-a-right logic. The point is that these bombs were dropped on civilian populations. The question of what crimes the Japanese military committed in Asia is irrelevant to the moral culpability of those who decided to drop the bomb.

They were in no position to complain because their society had been transformed into a genocidal death machine which had to be stopped at all costs.   I see no distinction between civilian and non civilian here.  The US soldiers who would have had to participate in an invasion of Japan would have like to have been civilians, they didn't have a choice.  In the end, the number lost in the nuclear attacks is dwarfed by the number of civians the Japanese slaughtered throughout Asia and would have continued to slaughter if not confronted by the US.  I have no problem with the people who made that decision.  I feel sorry for them for having been given that responsibility.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 20, 2008, 02:15:35 PM
Yeah but in the context of previous firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden (each of which killed more people than either A-bomb) dropping another nuke or two on Japan was not something in the context of the war that should have been a moral quandry for anyone involved.  The Japanese had a chance to surrender after Hiroshima and they declined to do so.

That is factually untrue. The Japanese cabinet was in the process of making precisely that decision when the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitously dropped. In fact there were even diplomatic overtures prior to Hiroshima, but their precise intent is unclear. But the Japanese certainly did not have much time to first comprehend what had happened in Hiroshima and then react appropriately before the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.

Besides, that is a truly morally warped argument to say that because the allies had already firebombed Dresden and Tokyo another nuke or two won't make a difference, we're all going to meet Satan anyway.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 02:22:48 PM
They were in no position to complain because their society had been transformed into a genocidal death machine which had to be stopped at all costs.   I see no distinction between civilian and non civilian here.  The US soldiers who would have had to participate in an invasion of Japan would have like to have been civilians, they didn't have a choice.  In the end, the number lost in the nuclear attacks is dwarfed by the number of civians the Japanese slaughtered throughout Asia and would have continued to slaughter if not confronted by the US.  I have no problem with the people who made that decision.  I feel sorry for them for having been given that responsibility.

The highlighted bits are the problems with your moral logic here. Your failure to see the distinction between civilians who have done nothing except being born into the wrong society at the wrong time makes you no better than your presumed enemy. (BTW, re: genocidal death machine? Are you sure you're talking about Japan here, not Germany? Which genocide precisely?) Playing the numbers game is a Stalinist exercise (one death a tragedy, a million a statistic) and puts you squarely in Saul-land. You seem to think two wrongs make a right. You don't understand that by stooping to your enemy's moral level you lose the high ground. The fundamental issue here is that there was no military need to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki, two militarily irrelevant targets (except that the river delta in which Hiroshima was located made an excellent testing ground for measuring the devastation wrought by nuclear bombs).

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 01:25:46 PM
a quick end to the war

Great! Let's drop bombs on each other to end wars and make peace in the World! :D If they don't want to surrender, let's drop more!

But what about the consequences? What would be left from the World? What about humanism, at last?

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:33:31 PM
That is factually untrue. The Japanese cabinet was in the process of making precisely that decision when the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitously dropped. In fact there were even diplomatic overtures prior to Hiroshima, but their precise intent is unclear. But the Japanese certainly did not have much time to first comprehend what had happened in Hiroshima and then react appropriately before the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.

That may be clear now, but certainly was not at the time

QuoteBesides, that is a truly morally warped argument to say that because the allies had already firebombed Dresden and Tokyo another nuke or two won't make a difference, we're all going to meet Satan anyway.

The point is that why does everyone make a big deal about Hiroshima if Tokyo and Dresden were worse?  I am not necessarily defending either, other than the generic defence that war is hell.  But I do not think the Allied Command made a big distinction between a nuke or firebombing

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:33:31 PM
The highlighted bits are the problems with your moral logic here. Your failure to see the distinction between civilians who have done nothing except being born into the wrong society at the wrong time makes you no better than your presumed enemy. (BTW, re: genocidal death machine? Are you sure you're talking about Japan here, not Germany? Which genocide precisely?) Playing the numbers game is a Stalinist exercise (one death a tragedy, a million a statistic) and puts you squarely in Saul-land. You seem to think two wrongs make a right. You don't understand that by stooping to your enemy's moral level you lose the high ground. The fundamental issue here is that there was no military need to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki, two militarily irrelevant targets (except that the river delta in which Hiroshima was located made an excellent testing ground for measuring the devastation wrought by nuclear bombs).

I did not say, imply, nor do I think that "two wrongs make a right."  The number slaughtered by the Japanese in China and their subsequent conduct indicate that the people who were in control of Japan had no respect for human life, including the lives of their own citizens.  The only way to end the war was to make it impossible for them to continue.   The nuclear attacks accomplished that goal, probably with significantly smaller loss of life than would otherwise be the case.

Again, your distinction about these being civilian targets is semantic.  The members of the Japanese armed forces had no more choice than the civilians.  Neither did members of the US armed forces.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 20, 2008, 02:42:46 PM
That may be clear now, but certainly was not at the time

Yes, that is if you accept the bomb first, ask questions later logic. How about giving them some time to react? This wasn't the age of the internet. Tokyo's first notice of Hiroshima came only 16 hours after the event. BTW, there is also indication that the urgency to act on the Japanese side had at least as much to do with the Soviet entry into the war, not the bomb in and of itself.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 20, 2008, 02:42:46 PM
The point is that why does everyone make a big deal about Hiroshima if Tokyo and Dresden were worse?  I am not necessarily defending either, other than the generic defence that war is hell.  But I do not think the Allied Command made a big distinction between a nuke or firebombing

If it didn't make that distinction, then why not firebomb Hiroshima? Your argument is nonsense because if there is no distinction then one woudln't use the bomb. The reason to use it is precisely that it is so powerful and much more deadly. There is also a categorical moral difference between outright killing a bunch of people vs. killing people and poisoning the survivors and their offspring for years to come.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 02:46:59 PM
I did not say, imply, nor do I think that "two wrongs make a right."  The number slaughtered by the Japanese in China and their subsequent conduct indicate that the people who were in control of Japan had no respect for human life, including the lives of their own citizens.  The only way to end the war was to make it impossible for them to continue.   The nuclear attacks accomplished that goal, probably with significantly smaller loss of life than would otherwise be the case.

You deny that you implied that two wrongs make a right, then you say it again in the next sentence! It is irrelevant whether the Japanese administration had disregard of human life. The point is the US killed a bunch of civilians. That is disregard of human life. Targeting civilians is a war crime. Civilians are what is known as "hors de combat", outside of combat, not fair game. End of story. You can't criticize others for disregarding human life when you do the same in turn. That is two wrongs making a right. You are saying because of what they did in China they diserve what they got. Nonsense!

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 02:46:59 PM
Again, your distinction about these being civilian targets is semantic.  The members of the Japanese armed forces had no more choice than the civilians.  Neither did members of the US armed forces.

And lack of choice makes them fair targets? What sort of warped morality is this? If anything, choice is a prerequisite for culpability. How can civilians (and mind you there were 20,000 Koreans killed in Hiroshima who were there against their will) who have no choice in the matter be held accountable by punishment of death for the crimes of military commanders during Japan's occupation of China? That is guilt by association, my friend. The same exact logic practiced by those who were on the wrong side of that war.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:59:06 PM
You deny that you implied that two wrongs make a right, then you say it again in the next sentence! It is irrelevant whether the Japanese administration had disregard of human life. The point is the US killed a bunch of civilians. That is disregard of human life. Targeting civilians is a war crime. Civilians are what is known as "hors de combat", outside of combat, not fair game. End of story. You can't criticize others for disregarding human life when you do the same in turn. That is two wrongs making a right. You are saying because of what they did in China they diserve what they got. Nonsense!

You are not paying attention.  There was nothing "right" about causing civilian deaths.  The US did not exhibit a disregard for human life, they did human life arithmetic.  They decided that to prevent the deaths of an enormous number of people they would have to cause the deaths of a smaller number of people.  The leaders of Japan also had the option of saving all of those people by surrendering unconditionally, which they did not do, and which they were not planning to do when the second bomb was dropped.  According to  your logic the US would be required to allow Hitler to take over the world, lest we kill an innocent civilian in deploying our armed forces.  And I don't think the life of an 18 year old who got drafted into the army and will be part of the invasion force is worth any less than that of a civilian (hors de combat or no hors de combat, whatever that means).

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 03:12:59 PM
You are not paying attention.  There was nothing "right" about causing civilian deaths.  The US did not exhibit a disregard for human life, they did human life arithmetic. 

This is the arithmetic: two negatives make a positive. Man, you're slow today. Human life arithmetic IS exhibiting disregard for human life. I am not a number. Neither is a cobbler in Nagasaki AD 1945.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 03:12:59 PM
They decided that to prevent the deaths of an enormous number of people they would have to cause the deaths of a smaller number of people. 

No. Some of them did. A number of high ranking military officers had serious doubts about the necessity of dropping the bomb at all, let alone on civilian targets, among them Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William D. Leahy, General Carl Spaatz and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 03:12:59 PM
According to  your logic the US would be required to allow Hitler to take over the world, lest we kill an innocent civilian in deploying our armed forces.

That, my friend, is called a false dilemma and is a logical fallacy. Hitler has nothing to do with this. And no bombs ended the war in Germany. There is no logic by which that nonsensical sentence follows from what I said.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 03:12:59 PM
And I don't think the life of an 18 year old who got drafted into the army and will be part of the invasion force is worth any less than that of a civilian.

The difference, morally speaking, is that the soldier, whether drafted or not, has a weapon, whereas the civilian does not. The soldier is part of the combat, the civilian is not. You cannot count lives against each other. If you've elected to fight, you must fight. But fight the fighters, not mothers, children, elderly and cripples.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 03:19:07 PM
This is the arithmetic: two negatives make a positive. Man, you're slow today. Human life arithmetic IS exhibiting disregard for human life. I am not a number. Neither is a cobbler in Nagasaki AD 1945.

Two negatives make a positive in multiplication, not in addition.  It's still worse to kill two cobblers than one cobbler.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 03:12:59 PM
You are not paying attention.  There was nothing "right" about causing civilian deaths.  The US did not exhibit a disregard for human life, they did human life arithmetic.  They decided that to prevent the deaths of an enormous number of people they would have to cause the deaths of a smaller number of people.  The leaders of Japan also had the option of saving all of those people by surrendering unconditionally, which they did not do, and which they were not planning to do when the second bomb was dropped.  According to  your logic the US would be required to allow Hitler to take over the world, lest we kill an innocent civilian in deploying our armed forces.  And I don't think the life of an 18 year old who got drafted into the army and will be part of the invasion force is worth any less than that of a civilian (hors de combat or no hors de combat, whatever that means).

Civilian deaths were not unusual during that era--destroying cities was commonplace with conventional bombing, and not so conventional bombing, such as V1s and V2s.

There is much evidence to suggest that Japan was on its last legs, that neither an invasion or atomic bombs were necessary.

There is also much evidence to suggest that the estimated US fatalities in a Japan invasion would have been 30,000 to 40,000. Not the figure of 500,000 easily thrown about by bomb zealots.

And there is also much evidence to suggest that the atomic bombs were used for long-term political gain, which would involve Russia.

Interesting point about Truman. After he gave the order (July 25, 1945), he wrote in his diary that the atomic bombs would be used against military targets, not civilian.  Soon after August 6, 1945, he told the American people that Hiroshima base had been bombed.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 03:19:07 PM


The difference, morally speaking, is that the soldier, whether drafted or not, has a weapon, whereas the civilian does not. The soldier is part of the combat, the civilian is not. You cannot count lives against each other. If you've elected to fight, you must fight. But fight the fighters, not mothers, children, elderly and cripples.

Hitler , Stalin, Jap leaders, and of late  Al Qaeda all have the mind set that civilians are nothing more than human shields.
If ever the world comes to another conflagration, I fear many muslim's will be killed. many civilians have adopted this  attitude , to die for Allah is a supreme honor.  Though they are not armed with a  gun, their attitude is militaryistic.
Now in the 2 japenese cities that suffered the effects of the bomb, i am not sure what the attitude was of these civilians. Whatever position the population  took about war was of little consequence, as the majority of leaders had made the decision that these people would all be soldiers.
Think about muslim women who are committed to hating and despising Israel and the west. The blood of their children rests on their heads.

It's perfectly sensible the US would use the bomb to end the war. The Japanese military had become increasingly erratic in their behavior (kamikaze) and who knows what lie in store had the war been drawn out even one more day.

All this latter-day theorizing about the health and intentions of Japan's military is interesting but it doesn't change the fact they were still a living, breathing entity.

And the Japanese army had a well-deserved reputation for getting the job done.

To let them catch their breath for even one second might potentially spell disaster.

When two championship boxers go at it tooth and nail for fifteen rounds the last thing the victor thinks about is "now why didn't I just let my hobbling opponent think it over for a second or two before I delivered the knockout punch". It's the height of imprudence to ease up at crucial stages in any conflict, no matter how weak your opponent may appear - too much chance for the unexpected...like a sucker punch. Wait for the final bell, then assess. Otherwise it might be you on the mat and not the other guy.

The fact that Japan finally seemed about to crack after many grueling years of conflict only meant it was time to deliver the knockout blow. Not back off and hope for the best.

And I have to say, from our present-day perspective it's much easier to pick decisions like this apart. But from the perspective of a worn-out, war-weary nation (world!), a well-defined end to such a barbaric conflict must've seemed perfectly sensible...

Donwyn
great post. You nailed it.
Can we draw a  comparison with the kamakazies of japan and the muslims as suicide bombers?

I think its a  fair comparison and so  most likely will have similar results.
If you read the recent AP article about the hopelessness of many egyptian youths, one can understand why  many muslims  take on a   reckless suicidal behavoir.

Quote from: paulb on February 20, 2008, 07:52:56 PM
Donwyn
great post. You nailed it.
Can we draw a  comparison with the kamakazies of japan and the muslims as suicide bombers?

I think its a  fair comparison and so  most likely will have similar results.
If you read the recent AP article about the hopelessness of many egyptian youths, one can understand why  many muslims  take on a   reckless suicidal behavoir.

Maybe, maybe not. In any case, you problems with writing in and spelling your own language and your very fragmentary knowledge of basically all the things you comment on are a nice illustration of this thread's title.

Quote from: donwyn on February 20, 2008, 07:25:21 PM
And the Japanese army had a well-deserved reputation for getting the job done.

To let them catch their breath for even one second might potentially spell disaster.

When two championship boxers go at it tooth and nail for fifteen rounds the last thing the victor thinks about is "now why didn't I just let my hobbling opponent think it over for a second or two before I delivered the knockout punch". It's the height of imprudence to let up at crucial stages in any conflict, no matter how weak your opponent may appear - too much chance for the unexpected...like a sucker punch. Wait for the final bell, then assess. Otherwise it might be you on the mat and not the other guy.

The fact that Japan finally seemed about to crack after many grueling years of conflict only meant it was time to deliver the knockout blow. Not back off and hope for the best.

In other words, the US military was not confident that they could handle the Japanese army with conventional methods, so they had to use the genocidal ones that had just been made available to them. Which makes sense if you look at the history of US wars and how surprisingly ineffective the US military has always been when (more or less) on their own. Korea, Vietnam, the wat they handled the still nogoing war in Iraq - all cases of "dumb and dumber" in a military sense, too?

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 08:08:46 PM
In other words, the US military was not confident that they could handle the Japanese army with conventional methods, so they had to use the genocidal ones that had just been made available to them. Which makes sense if you look at the history of US wars and how surprisingly ineffective the US military has always been when (more or less) on their own. Korea, Vietnam, the wat they handled the still nogoing war in Iraq - all cases of "dumb and dumber" in a military sense, too?

So I guess it's a lack of confidence now that prompts armies to develop better technologies??

So, what, should we go back to the musket to fight our wars so as to not seem overly timid?!? :D

What else should we jettison?? Aircraft Carriers? Bazookas? Billy clubs? How about we just go back to biting each other and pulling hair to fight our wars?? That'll make us real men!

Civilization has grown technologically since the dawn of the arrowhead. Gadgets permeate everything - from the microwave oven to the computer. And warfare will ALWAYS be in line for its share of gadgets...

But only the timid nations, right?? :D :D :D

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 08:08:46 PM
In other words, the US military was not confident that they could handle the Japanese army with conventional methods, so they had to use the genocidal ones that had just been made available to them. Which makes sense if you look at the history of US wars and how surprisingly ineffective the US military has always been when (more or less) on their own. Korea, Vietnam, the wat they handled the still nogoing war in Iraq - all cases of "dumb and dumber" in a military sense, too?

There is nothing "genocidal" about an nuclear weapon, it's just an unusually big bomb.  Genocide is an attempt to annihilate an entire racial group.  The Americans were quite generous with the Japanese and other axis powers after the war was over.  Among the developed nations, only the Germans have practiced genocide (that I am aware of).

Attempted genocides, racial, ethnic, religious etc "cleansings" happened (and even still happen today) more often in history than we can count, both among "developed" and "undeveloped" nations. That you don't know that refers us back to the title of the thread.

You have a point though that the atomic bomb can probably not be called a "genocidal" weapon - it even goes a step beyond that. While genocide typically targets the members of a somehow defined group of people, the atomic bomb simply wipes out everybody and everything within range in a matter of seconds, and haunts many of the survivors and even their descendants with unpleasant genetic side effects. As we have seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the bombs didn't just kill Japanese, but also a large number of non-Japanese people, including POWs from several nations and Japanese American citizens. Oops. But then it had already been decided in the US that Americans of Japanese heritage weren't "real Americans" anyway, so they probably didn't mind them evaporating.

Saying that the atomic bomb is "just an unusally big bomb" may be technically correct, but it is actually an attempt at relativizing the fact that in no moment in history were as many people indiscriminately killed by anyone as in these few seconds. That's like saying the holocaust matters less because there were many other genocides, just not as well organized and industrialized. But it all matters. Violence against people always matters, especially, but not exclusively, on that scale.

Quote from: donwyn on February 20, 2008, 08:55:27 PM
So I guess it's a lack of confidence now that prompts armies to develop better technologies??

No, but it was certainly the reason for the actual use of these WMDs, and it is also the reason why today, one can often hear Americans say "let's just nuke the entire Middle East".

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 09:21:47 PM
No, but it was certainly the reason for the actual use of these WMDs...

So if a military develops new technologies they shouldn't actually use them...because it's a sign they lack confidence. Got it.

Quoteand it is also the reason why today, one can often hear Americans say "let's just nuke the entire Middle East".

So because America is so lacking in confidence we go around proclaiming we're going to nuke everyone...with the Middle East as a ground zero. Got it.

(Pure fantasy...)

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 10:56:42 AM
Well, the Russians defeated Adolf Hitler, losing 27 million people, and made their way to Berlin, expanding the influence on Eastern Europe and becoming a superpower.

I think you mean the Soviet Union brutally forcing Communism down the throat of reluctant Eastern Europe peoples and becoming a beacon of tyranny.

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 10:56:42 AMHowever, everything is over.

Fortunately!

Quote from: Florestan on February 20, 2008, 10:47:37 PM
the Soviet Union brutally forcing Communism down the throat of reluctant Eastern Europe peoples and becoming a beacon of tyranny.

Well, you are right. I'm happy that everything is over, too. Can't imagine myself growing up in Soviets with "father Lenin" and "uncle Stalin" posters everywhere. :o But that is History...

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 10:55:59 PM
Well, you are right. I'm happy that everything is over, too. Can't imagine myself growing up in Soviets with "father Lenin" and "uncle Stalin" posters everywhere. :o

I substituted "Soviet Union" for "Russians" on purpose. I believe Russians as a people have suffered enormously under Communism.

You modified your initial reply, but let me tell you this: the Nazis and the Communists (I'm talking here about party high-rank officials, not simple members) were alike in their disdain for human life.

Quote from: Florestan on February 20, 2008, 11:07:47 PM
the Nazis and the Communists (I'm talking here about party high-rank officials, not simple members) were alike in their disdain for human life.

That's why I modified it, because my statement didn't make any sense.
Europe had no other choice - only to help Stalin defeat Hitler...or to stay under the Nazis. :(

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 11:19:05 PM
That's why I modified it, because my statement didn't make any sense.
Europe had no other choice - only to help Stalin defeat Hitler...or to stay under the Nazis. :(

There's a Romanian proverb which reads: You escape the devil and encounter his father.  :(

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 08:08:46 PM
so they had to use the genocidal ones

Genocide is when the people don't ask for it. The japanese asked. Just as the muslims are begging to get clobbered. One day someone will do it. And it will not be the USA.

IMHO, Truman didn't used the atomic to save american lives. At that time, Japan was finished, didn't had more aeroplanes nor AA.
Two more weeks of saturation bombardments and Tokyo would be burned completely. Truman used the bomb to show Stalin and the rest of his "allyes" that he had the ultimate weapon, and was ready to use it against who and where he choose. Death of Innocent civilians was only an acceptable collateral.

Quote from: Florestan on February 20, 2008, 11:41:26 PM
There's a Romanian proverb which reads: You escape the devil and encounter his father.  :(

Folk wisdom of the ages!   0:)

How true in the case of Hitler/Stalin!

Carlos: which historians have found evidence for your claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were actually an atomic message to Stalin?

Quote from: Florestan on February 20, 2008, 11:41:26 PM
There's a Romanian proverb which reads: You escape the devil and encounter his father.  :(

Interesting! In US Southron, the proverb is, The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.

The same in Britain, give or take the odd verbal flippage (Better the devil you know....). But what I want to know is, how do you know....?  ;D

Leave it to Luke to blow the lid off demonic epistemology  ;D

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 09:21:47 PM
You have a point though that the atomic bomb can probably not be called a "genocidal" weapon - it even goes a step beyond that. While genocide typically targets the members of a somehow defined group of people, the atomic bomb simply wipes out everybody and everything within range in a matter of seconds, and haunts many of the survivors and even their descendants with unpleasant genetic side effects. As we have seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the bombs didn't just kill Japanese, but also a large number of non-Japanese people, including POWs from several nations and Japanese American citizens. Oops. But then it had already been decided in the US that Americans of Japanese heritage weren't "real Americans" anyway, so they probably didn't mind them evaporating.

The nuclear weapon has enormous destructive power, but its effect isn't different than the cumulative effect of an attack with many conventional weapons.   Genocide is when, over the course of ten years, you make lists of every supposedly sub-human creature you need to kill and then you go down that list, collecting them in concentration camps and killing them until there are none left (unless someone stops you first).

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 07:14:59 AM
The nuclear weapon has enormous destructive power, but its effect isn't different than the cumulative effect of an attack with many conventional weapons.   Genocide is when, over the course of ten years, you make lists of every supposedly sub-human creature you need to kill and then you go down that list, collecting them in concentration camps and killing them until there are none left (unless someone stops you first).

Not to mention that the "unpleasant side effects" weren't exactly intentional either - that is applying knowledge we have now to a time which did not have it.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 01:25:05 AM
Genocide is when the people don't ask for it. The japanese asked. Just as the muslims are begging to get clobbered. One day someone will do it. And it will not be the USA.

Paul, I don't know how many Muslims you have come to know in your life time, but believe me, for I was born and raised in a predominantly Muslim country, when I say your crusade against a couple of billion people on the grounds of a few thousand militant extremists is not only ignorance, but blind ignorance which is one of the worst qualities a human can have. I know that you will agree with me on this because you see the same blind ignorance in those Islamic militant extremists, and they are still at a better place morally AFAIC, because they are only pawns with very limited resources on which to enlarge their world view. On the other hand, you are free to learn about those people that you think deserve to be nuked, but you choose to hate them instead.

I stand against a lot of things in Islam (if not everything the religion stands for actually), without even going into the violence related aspect of things. I think that the religion needs a major reform which is essentially what is lacking to make those people come to terms with the reality of the times we live in. But what is being forgotten is that Islam came into existence 7 centuries later than Christianity. What you have to do is think of Christianity in the 1300s and you will have a somewhat better idea about where Islam currently stands. It is not a new religion by any means, but don't forget that Muslim people have been closed to outside influences almost all through their history.

I  am actually optimistic that with the advent of the information age this will eventually change. You see some rage in some Muslim people because they have lived according to what their religion and their leaders told them and they see an outside world now where there are people from different faiths (or no faith at all) who have better and easier access to resources. They are immediately instructed (and ready) to accept the role of the victim, those people who have done whatever their God told them to, but they have been stripped of their rewards because infidels have taken control of wealth. SO they feel betrayed in a way. But people are people wherever you go. You can oppress them as much as you want and you may have Ahmadinejad tell you that there are no gays in Iran, but then you have this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex

orbital, you have very gently and reasonably answered one of Paul's more dunderheaded and uncharitable remarks. My hat's off to you.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 21, 2008, 07:39:00 AM
orbital, you have very gently and reasonably answered one of Paul's more dunderheaded and uncharitable remarks. My hat's off to you.

Yep, ditto here.  I'll add, "...and with grace, too."

--Bruce

Has anyone notice that "Paul" rhyme with "Saul"?  ;)

Quote from: orbital on February 21, 2008, 07:27:55 AM
Paul, I don't know how many Muslims you have come to know in your life time,. On the other hand, you are free to learn about those people that you think deserve to be nuked, but you choose to hate them instead.

I admit, known very few. maybe 2 or 3.
Its not my personal opinion that they *deserve to be nuked*, nor do i *hate them*. Hate is not a  good thing in anyone's life.
Though Christ did say something to the effect: "if you do not *hate* your brothers, sisters ...you cannot be my diciple"
I know what Christ means to say here, but will not go into.
Islam is in its death throes, there is nothing that can stop this process. The fascists of russia and germany are all gone, these destructive movements have perished in a  horrific conflagration.
Islam has similar characteristics and will also perish. Its a  psychological law, has nothing to do with what I believe.

Don't believe me, go do your own research on who Mohamed was, and what his *religion* has become.
then come back and we can talk.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 07:55:02 AM
The fascists of russia and germany are all gone

Maybe you mean the Russian Communists and the German Nazis. Fascism is quite another thing, capisci?

Quote from: Florestan on February 21, 2008, 08:00:12 AM
Maybe you mean the Russian Communists and the German Nazis. Fascism is quite another thing, capisci?

yes the nazis and communists who were set against the people, all in the name of lust for power.
At least thats how I see the fascist mind. Which islam shares a  common trait. Read the koran, look up mohamed;s like story.
pure fascism, lust for power.
"well you see Mohamed was doing a  good deed by uniting all the warring tribes, he brought lasting peace to a  war torn region and later his religion went on to establish schools and universities of the highest learning *

Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HF18A8YQL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511YQ8HWKTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X2B702BBL._AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MMWA7T8SL._AA240_.jpg)

These are basically the memoirs of a Hiroshima survivor in manga form. Harrowing stuff. The English translation of Volume Five is due out some time this year.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 08:25:01 AM
Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

And who exactly would those be?  The only argument I have seen put forward is that using nukes was a lesser evil than an invasion and continued firebombing

Where are the Nanjing or Death Railway Manga Comics BTW?

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 08:31:28 AM
And who exactly would those be?  The only argument I have seen put forward is that using nukes was a lesser evil than an invasion and continued firebombing

It's interesting that you thought my innocent post was a personal attack on you.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 08:31:28 AM
Where are the Nanjing or Death Railway Manga Comics BTW?

OK, so now a Hiroshima survivor should be blamed for the absence of those?

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 08:35:33 AM


OK, so now a Hiroshima survivor should be blamed for the absence of those?

No, just shows the level of denial in Japanese culture about WW2. 

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 08:37:21 AM
No, just shows the level of denial in Japanese culture about WW2. 

You might want to read those comics before making such harsh judgments. Again, not all members of a group are the same. That comic series is anti-militarist as they get.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 08:25:01 AM
Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

I have the first volume, it's striking indeed - focusing on "normal" life for almost the entire 250 pages before the bomb drop in the final few. I wasn't aware that there were any followup volumes though, thanks.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 08:25:01 AM
Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HF18A8YQL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511YQ8HWKTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X2B702BBL._AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MMWA7T8SL._AA240_.jpg)

These are basically the memoirs of a Hiroshima survivor in manga form. Harrowing stuff. The English translation of Volume Five is due out some time this year.

those are some bizarre covers  :o ;D

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 08:25:01 AM
Some recommended reading for everyone on this thread, particularly those who seem to think that Japanese civilians were just an extension of the military and deserve no human rights:

Mr. Self-righteous, no one has expressed the view that Japanese civilians deserve no human rights.

In the battle of Iwo Jima, just a few months before the end of the war, the US needed to attack an island defended by 21,000 japanese troops with 100,000.  The Japanese did not relent until more than 20,000 were dead or captured.  Okinawa was only captured in June after more than 60,000 Japanese killed.  The notion that the war was essentially over when the bombs were dropped is ludicrous, in my view.  Japanese resistance to an invasion of its main island would likely have been equally tenacious and the losses (especially on the Japanese side) would likely have been extremely high.

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 09:20:23 AM
Mr. Self-righteous, no one has expressed the view that Japanese civilians deserve no human rights.

Ya' think?:

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 01:25:05 AM
Genocide is when the people don't ask for it. The japanese asked. Just as the muslims are begging to get clobbered. One day someone will do it. And it will not be the USA.

Quote from: head-case on February 20, 2008, 02:22:48 PM
I see no distinction between civilian and non civilian here.

'Nuff said.

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 09:20:23 AM
In the battle of Iwo Jima, just a few months before the end of the war, the US needed to attack an island defended by 21,000 japanese troops with 100,000.  The Japanese did not relent until more than 20,000 were dead or captured.  Okinawa was only captured in June after more than 60,000 Japanese killed.  The notion that the war was essentially over when the bombs were dropped is ludicrous, in my view.  Japanese resistance to an invasion of its main island would likely have been equally tenacious and the losses (especially on the Japanese side) would likely have been extremely high.

Yes, that's the standard mantra. But if you look more closely, you will see (as I mentioned a few pages ago) that several of the top brass disagreed with the assessment and so no need whatsoever to use the bomb, among them McArthur and Nimitz. Also, the above is a false dilemma. You present it as if the only two options were to invade at a great cost and loss of life or to drop the bomb on civilian targets. One could have likewise a) left it to the Russians to finish them off, b) dropped a bomb on an uninhabited island as a demonstration (favored by many scientists and some of the military commanders) and many other possibilities.

Look, plain and simple: there is no morally defensible case that can be made for the first use of a nuclear weapon on a civilian target. Give it up. Whatever heinous crimes the Japanese military leadership may have committed, the crimes of others never excuse your own. And due to the fact that a nuclear weapon is an extremely imprecise and blunt instrument and does not distinguish between civilian and military personnel and leaves poisonous radiation behind for generations to come (including the military occupiers - you forget that tens of thousands American soldiers occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki and suffered the consequences, except that the military doesn't want to talk about that), a nuclear weapon is inherently unuseable in a tactical military scenario. It's only practical purpose can be as a strategic deterrent.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 09:02:18 AM
Oh, don't mistake my point for arguing anything about "inherent" cultural deficiencies. None of this is fixed. At the beginning of the Cold War, the US made a considerable push in improving public education, as it was perceived to be falling behind the Soviets. But as the Soviet threat subsided, so did support for public education.

So what you are saying here is that Americans are capable of academic achievement only when competing with others? Interesting notion there.

I wonder though, how did they manage to push for an improvement in education then but are seemingly incapable (or unwilling?) to do so today? What were the means for their success, and how aren't they being employed today?

Quote from: O Mensch on February 19, 2008, 09:02:18 AMAs to scientific production, that's easy when you keep importing talent from outside.

It's also easy when your institutions are functional and well equipped, which is one of the reasons why foreign talents keep flooding into American laboratories and universities in the firs place, right? Somehow, i'm hard pressed believing that Americans could build such institutions while remaining cultural inimical to education or science, barring a couple of brief decades during the cold war, of course.  ::)

The truth of the matter is that there is no such aversion towards science in America, at least not until recently (and the US is by far not the only victim of this trend so i'd be careful to blame it on them alone). To the contrary, it seems to me that science (and technology) have always been part of the American cultural landscape much more than what everybody gives them credit for this days, and this isn't isolated to the academies either, as can been seen by the sheer popularity of science fiction among the "general" population.

BTW, do you have any statistic that shows how many among the most prominent of American scientists and inventors were all foreign born and imported from abroad?

Quote from: Sarastro on February 20, 2008, 10:56:42 AM
And the only present superpower in the World is USA. With millions of immigrants working for its wealth.

What nonsense. After working in the states for so many years, the most enduring impression i received of Americans is that they are the most hard working and determined people i've ever seen. Most of the immigrants i've met pale in comparison, that including myself and all the lazy bums i've left behind since i'm moved out of Italy. Talk to anybody who has been living in the states for any number of years (Europeans in particular) and the most common complain is that American culture is too work obsessed. Always. You don't think that may be a factor? But hey, the world must surely look interesting when looked down upon from an ivory tower, huh?

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 10:02:55 AM
So what you are saying here is that Americans are capable of academic achievement only when competing with others? Interesting notion there.

I never said anything of the sort. Any nation can do well when they get their act together. I provided an example of the US getting its act together.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 10:02:55 AM
It's also easy when your institutions are functional and well equipped, which is one of the reasons why foreign talents keep flooding into American laboratories and universities in the firs place, right? Somehow, i'm hard pressed believing that Americans could build such institutions while remaining cultural inimical to education or science, barring a couple of brief decades during the cold war, of course.  ::)

Sure, but that's not peculiarly American. Any power that was a dominant power in the world system politically and economically was able to attract foreign talent to its shores, whether it's late 20th century America or the Ottoman empire at its peak, or in musical terms late 19th century Vienna. The point is, there is nothing peculiarly American to scientific success paid with large wads of money and a lot of talent from outside (where would the Apollo program have been without Wernher von Braun, or the aforementioned nuclear weapons without Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam? None of them was native).

You are also disregarding the main thrust of the article in the original . Nobody doubts that America has some of the finest academic and scientific institutions in the world that are so illustrious that they attract foreign talent (that's why I came here, after all). But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap. Which means that the majority of the population is underaducated compared with other nations that - while perhaps not having as illustrious elite institutions - do a much better job at providing general education. The latter is important, for it also determines the quality of the jobs that the majority of the population can hold and therefore their producitivity and ability to survive in a global market.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 10:20:44 AM
What nonsense. After working in the states for so many years, the most enduring impression i received of Americans is that they are the most hard working and determined people i've ever seen. Most of the immigrants i've met pale in comparison, that including myself and all the lazy bums i've left behind since i'm moved out of Italy. Talk to anybody who has been living in the states for any number of years (Europeans in particular) and the most common complain is that American culture is too work obsessed. Always. You don't think that may be a factor? But hey, the world must surely look interesting when looked down upon from an ivory tower, huh?

I'd wager that you've not met many people, let alone a representative sample of the American populace. Again, purely anecdotally, by far the most hardworking people I have ever met anywhere on the planet are Korean immigrants in America. So there.  :-*

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AM
But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap.

No, the point is that Americans are stupid. Duh.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AMAgain, purely anecdotally, by far the most hardworking people I have ever met anywhere on the planet are Korean immigrants in America. So there.  :-*

Well, you surely must have met more people then me, since i have yet to come across a single Korean. :P

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 09:43:47 AM
Yes, that's the standard mantra. But if you look more closely, you will see (as I mentioned a few pages ago) that several of the top brass disagreed with the assessment and so no need whatsoever to use the bomb, among them McArthur and Nimitz. Also, the above is a false dilemma. You present it as if the only two options were to invade at a great cost and loss of life or to drop the bomb on civilian targets. One could have likewise a) left it to the Russians to finish them off, b) dropped a bomb on an uninhabited island as a demonstration (favored by many scientists and some of the military commanders) and many other possibilities.

In this case the "standard mantra" is correct.  Whatever war strategy you use there will be someone who disagrees.  The opinion of "many" unnamed "scientists" is irrelevant.  Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Fermi recommended immediate military use of the weapon.  Letting the Soviet Union "finish off" Japan would be more cruel to the Japanese than the nuclear attack. 

Quote
Look, plain and simple: there is no morally defensible case that can be made for the first use of a nuclear weapon on a civilian target. Give it up. Whatever heinous crimes the Japanese military leadership may have committed, the crimes of others never excuse your own. And due to the fact that a nuclear weapon is an extremely imprecise and blunt instrument and does not distinguish between civilian and military personnel and leaves poisonous radiation behind for generations to come (including the military occupiers - you forget that tens of thousands American soldiers occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki and suffered the consequences, except that the military doesn't want to talk about that), a nuclear weapon is inherently unuseable in a tactical military scenario. It's only practical purpose can be as a strategic deterrent.

Your unequivocal statements are unjustified and don't prove anything.  The nuclear weapon was no less precise than the conventional weapons of the day, and the complications resulting from radiation exposure were not fully anticipated.  Conventional weapons can have equally appalling side effects, which were better understood at the time.  The most effective conventional attacks on Tokyo (which were critical to the war since they degraded Japans manufacturing capability) killed more civilians than the nuclear attacks.   The fact that the bombs produced an immediate unconditional surrender (which even more deadly convention attacks failed to do) makes your statement that the weapon is "inherently unusable" quite puzzling.  They were a tactical and strategic success.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AM
I never said anything of the sort. Any nation can do well when they get their act together. I provided an example of the US getting its act together.

No, what you did is twist an example of America doing well and pin it down on less then flattening terms: base competition. It seems that no matter what they do Americans just can't come out clean. Double talk at it's finest.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AM
Sure, but that's not peculiarly American. Any power that was a dominant power in the world system politically and economically was able to attract foreign talent to its shores, whether it's late 20th century America or the Ottoman empire at its peak, or in musical terms late 19th century Vienna. The point is, there is nothing peculiarly American to scientific success paid with large wads of money and a lot of talent from outside (where would the Apollo program have been without Wernher von Braun, or the aforementioned nuclear weapons without Oppenheimer, Teller and Ulam? None of them was native).

The point is that's not all there is to it, which is pretty much your argument here. The implication is that without their wealth and power Americans would have never been able to achieve as much as they did. The problem is that Americans are as wealthy and powerful today as they were then, which was my point to begin with! Unless America had some form of cultural or societal predisposition for scientific progress it's hard to imagine they would have ever achieved as much as they did, regardless of how wealthy and powerful they were at the time. To argue that wealth and power (and foreign aid) was the only reason for their success is to belittle their achievements, which to me is not only unwarranted but it's a clear sign of personal bias. 

Of course, the fact that Americans were culturally and socially predisposed for scientific progress at one point (and well before the cold war i might add) it means that there's nothing intrinsically inherent to their society about their current academic woes, which is the general opinion today.   

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AM
You are also disregarding the main thrust of the article in the original .

The original article was rubbish. For one, the main claim that two thirds of Americans want to have creationism taught in schools is a bit suspect, if not deceiving (do those same Americans also want evolution out of schools?). As well, the idea that the left has relegated "African-American and Women's studies" to an academic ghetto instead then integrating them to the core curriculum is beyond idiotic. Neither are fit to be considered "core curriculum" and if anything the imperative to mingle politics with education is one of the real reasons for the general decline of education not only in America but in the west in general.

Most of all, her claim that Americans have a culture of anti-rationalism and anti-intellectuality is ludicrous. I did all my schooling in Italy and the level of anti-intellectualism was exactly the same. We also had our share of nerds and bookworms.

All in all, the author is just repeating old stereotypes while bringing nothing new to the table. She doesn't mention how for instance decline in scientific interest is as prevalent in the US as it is in certain European nations, like Britain. That alone is sufficient to buck any claim that America is facing a trend unique to their way of doing things. 

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 10:29:40 AM
Nobody doubts that America has some of the finest academic and scientific institutions in the world that are so illustrious that they attract foreign talent (that's why I came here, after all). But the point is that besides a small handfull of really elite institutions the rest is abysmal crap.

Why are they so bad though? Not enough money? Bad teachers? Leftist intelligencia? What?

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 11:43:45 AM
In this case the "standard mantra" is correct.  Whatever war strategy you use there will be someone who disagrees.  The opinion of "many" unnamed "scientists" is irrelevant.  Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Fermi recommended immediate military use of the weapon.  Letting the Soviet Union "finish off" Japan would be more cruel to the Japanese than the nuclear attack. 

I refer you once again to my earlier post (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,6084.msg146322.html#msg146322). Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William D. Leahy, General Carl Spaatz and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz are not "unarmed scientists"!

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 11:43:45 AM
Your unequivocal statements are unjustified and don't prove anything.  The nuclear weapon was no less precise than the conventional weapons of the day, and the complications resulting from radiation exposure were not fully anticipated.  Conventional weapons can have equally appalling side effects, which were better understood at the time.

OK. Let's try it your way. Under what circumstances is the first use of a nuclear bomb justified against a civilian population. Please explain.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
No, what you did is twist an example of America doing well and pin it down on less then flattening terms: base competition. It seems that no matter what they do Americans just can't come out clean. Double talk at it's finest.

I did nothing of the sort. I provided one example of America getting the political willpower together to improve its education system. I never talked about "base competition". There is nothing base about it if it gets people off their bums. That was America at its finest. Now I am not even allowed to compliment America? All you want to see is hostility?

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
The point is that's not all there is to it, which is pretty much your argument here. The implication is that without their wealth and power Americans would have never been able to achieve as much as they did. The problem is that Americans are as wealthy and powerful today as they were then, which was my point to begin with! Unless America had some form of cultural or societal predisposition for scientific progress it's hard to imagine they would have ever achieved as much as they did, regardless of how wealthy and powerful they were at the time. To argue that wealth and power (and foreign aid) was the only reason for their success is to belittle their achievements, which to me is not only unwarranted but it's a clear sign of personal bias. 

I never said anywhere that wealth and power are the only reason for success. I never made such a retarded argument. Again, you have reading comprehension issues. I said that wealth and power attract foreign talent. Foreign talent helps in producing leading scientific achievements. But this isn't a good measure of overall education levels. No more no less.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
Of course, the fact that Americans were culturally and socially predisposed for scientific progress at one point (and well before the cold war i might add) it means that there's nothing intrinsically inherent to their society about their current academic woes, which is the general opinion today.  

You may have missed this, so I'll spell it out for you. I NEVER SAID THERE IS ANYTHING INHERENT ABOUT AMERICANS THAT MAKES THEM PREDISPOSED AGAINST LEARNING OR SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. Was that clear for you? You really need to work on reading comprehension. Every human being with a sufficient IQ is equally predisposed toward learning. How well society fosters that learning is a matter of the prevailing culture, political environment and economic resources. All of those are temporary things, not fixed and not inherited by blood. OK? America has indeed had better periods of higher general education levels (as compared to the standards of the time and discounting disadvantaged minorities), but the current state outside elite private institutions is abysmal.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
The original article was rubbish. For one, the main claim that two thirds of Americans want to have creationism taught in schools is a bit suspect, if not deceiving (do those same Americans also want evolution out of schools?).

Yes! Dude, have you been living under a rock for the past decade and a half? I used to date the daughter of one of those reactionary creationist flat-earthers. (What's more amazing, he is the odd one out of a litter of seven. His own father was a college professor in chemistry and all of his siblings think he's nuts.) There is a whole political movement in this country to get evolution out of schools.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
As well, the idea that the left has relegated "African-American and Women's studies" to an academic ghetto instead then integrating them to the core curriculum is beyond idiotic. Neither are fit to be considered "core curriculum" and if anything the imperative to mingle politics with education is one of the real reasons for the general decline of education not only in America but in the west in general.

You didn't grow up in the US, right? Did you go to college here? I think you misunderstand the cultural and political background. The point is that there are numerous highly worthy contributions from African-American authors and artists whose works were marginalized in the standard core curriculum if they were even thought at all (e.g. Toni Morrison). As a way to make amends, African-American studies programs were created. The author of the original article contends (and I would agree) that the effect of these programs was often couterproductive. Instead of introducing the works of African Americans into the core, they created a separate compartment, a separate set of courses, usually only attended by a few African Americans, while the general population remains ignorant of these works of literature and art.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
Why are they so bad though? Not enough money? Bad teachers? Leftist intelligencia? What?

The first two, and a lot more.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 07:57:49 AM
Don't believe me, go do your own research on who Mohamed was, and what his *religion* has become.
then come back and we can talk.

Just a quick note, as I don't want to hijack this thread which has nothing to do with Muslims.
I've been subject to Mohammed's life enough to last me 5 life times  :D Religion has been in Turkish High School curriculum as a required class since 1980. I was exempt from the class of course, but I still had to sit and listen to teachers talk about Mohammed's life and his 4 Caliphs and all that. Little we know today about Mohamed is actually factual, since Omar the Caliph basically burnt the original scriptures of Islam along with every book he could get his hands on, and basically rewrote the whole thing again. There are some dubious things about Mohammed's life (which is not the point here), but even apart from that he has ordered the deaths of hordes of people who did not convert. So I don't know if it was a case of "not practicing what he preached", but I don't have much respect for the man, nor the followers after him (perhaps with the exception of Ali the last of the four original Caliphs).

Anyway, all I wanted to say that it is important, IMO, to separate the religion itself from the people who are born under its flag by default.

Orbital, this thread has been so all over the place, there is nothing you can do to substantially derail it any further.  ;) Though, I'm not sure I get your point. Was this an indictment of Islam? If so, one could likewise point you to the numerous genocides and massacres found in the Old Testament. Neither of these are particularly useful guides for peaceful coexistence, if taken literally.

Quote from: orbital on February 21, 2008, 02:39:40 PM
Just a quick note, as I don't want to hijack this thread which has nothing to do with Muslims.
I've been subject to Mohammed's life enough to last me 5 life times  :D Religion has been in Turkish High School curriculum as a required class since 1980. I was exempt from the class of course, but I still had to sit and listen to teachers talk about Mohammed's life and his 4 Caliphs and all that. Little we know today about Mohamed is actually factual, since Omar the Caliph basically burnt the original scriptures of Islam along with every book he could get his hands on, and basically rewrote the whole thing again. There are some dubious things about Mohammed's life (which is not the point here), but even apart from that he has ordered the deaths of hordes of people who did not convert. So I don't know if it was a case of "not practicing what he preached", but I don't have much respect for the man, nor the followers after him (perhaps with the exception of Ali the last of the four original Caliphs).

Anyway, all I wanted to say that it is important, IMO, to separate the religion itself from the people who are born under its flag by default.

Sure its  shame at how many muslims are led astray about who Mohamed really was.
As i'm sure there were many germans, russians, japanese who fell under the spell cast by these evil empires in the first half of this century, and did not deserve to die a  cruel death.
Why life works out as it does with many being led astray is somewhat of a  mystery. But this same phenomenon of darkness is working in the psyche of the islamic population.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 02:52:03 PM
Orbital, this thread has been so all over the place, there is nothing you can do to substantially derail it any further. 

well actually this discussion of the ignorance working in the  islamics is more vital and crucial to america's future  than is the ignorance of much of the american population.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 02:57:13 PM
well actually this discussion of the ignorance working in the  islamics is more vital and crucial to america's future  than is the ignorance of much of the american population.

Not really. You vastly overstate the importance and power of radical Islam. Only American ignorance can harm America.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 03:22:08 PM
Not really. You vastly overstate the importance and power of radical Islam. Only American ignorance can harm America.

it will be decades before 9/11 is over and done with. much much pain still ahead my friend. At least if you are traveling by plane or by car.
Al Qaeda struck the knife deep

American ignorance plays second fiddle to islamic fascists.
I think you are the author of the topic *$100 oil*.  al qaeda is behind at least part  of that price.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 03:30:38 PM
it will be decades before 9/11 is over and done with. much much pain still ahead my friend. At least if you are traveling by plane or by car.
Al Qaeda struck the knife deep

Nonsense. We inflicted those silly civil rights restrictions entirely on ourselves and they don't make air travel one bit safer (http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/09/15/askthepilot201/). If you think that any of that silly rigmarole makes any difference in air safety, you must be enjoying some tasty kool-aid. That's all our own trauma and ignorance. TSA (=Thousands Standing Around) is a huge waste of money and an affront to human dignity. Only we can through our own trauma and ignorance turn our state into a police state and make flying more deadly for the public (http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/col/smith/2005/12/16/askthepilot166/) than it normally would be.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
American ignorance plays second fiddle to islamic fascists.

"Islamic fascists" lack the power to be real major players on the world stage. That's why they have to practice asymmetric warfare and try to hurt us in a way that is militarily insignificant but psychologically sufficiently devastating for us to start hurting ourselves as a result.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
I think you are the author of the topic *$100 oil*.  al qaeda is behind at least part  of that price.

No, I'm not. But in any case, it has nothing to do with radical Islam. It has everything to do with peak oil (increasing demand exceeding the ability of producers to supply more), our inability to wean ourselves away from our addictions to late 19th-century technologies and a truly boneheaded war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 03:45:37 PM
Nonsense. We inflicted those silly civil rights restrictions entirely on ourselves and they don't make air travel one bit safer (http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/09/15/askthepilot201/). If you think that any of that silly rigmarole makes any difference in air safety, you must be enjoying some tasty kool-aid. That's all our own trauma and ignorance. TSA (=Thousands Standing Around) is a huge waste of money and an affront to human dignity. Only we can through our own trauma and ignorance turn our state into a police state and make flying more deadly for the public (http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/col/smith/2005/12/16/askthepilot166/) than it normally would be.

"Islamic fascists" lack the power to be real major players on the world stage. That's why they have to practice asymmetric warfare and try to hurt us in a way that is militarily insignificant but psychologically sufficiently devastating for us to start hurting ourselves as a result.

No, I'm not. But in any case, it has nothing to do with radical Islam. It has everything to do with peak oil (increasing demand exceeding the ability of producers to supply more), our inability to wean ourselves away from our addictions to late 19th-century technologies and a truly boneheaded war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Good post.

yes i know the "air safety commission and procedures* are wasteful and cause more stress and harm THAN ACTUAL GOOD. you know the government is only good for big crackpot wasteful ideas. this is what washington is very best at, stupid wasteful programs that only harm americans in the end. though of course the FEDS *mean well*.
I agree al qaeda is not our real enemy, its more washington. But Washington playing as a   puppet on a string, danicing to al qaeda's music.
Meaning *the war on terror*, *lets help pakistan, lets help afganistan, lets help iraq, lets help, XYZ countries fight al qaeda* all paid for by our grand childrens money.
So Bush on his death bed can tell his grand kids, "i did it all for you, i fought al qaeda tooth and nail, all because i love you so much" ;D

Agree, america had decades to work towards other means of alternative energy, slowly weaning off TOTAL dependence on oil.
had the FEDS started some research programs back in the 70's, by now there would be some reductions on how dependent we are  on oil.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 03:59:06 PM
I agree al qaeda is not our real enemy, its more washington. But Washington playing as a   puppet on a string, danicing to al qaeda's music.
Meaning *the war on terror*, *lets help pakistan, lets help afganistan, lets help iraq, lets help, XYZ countries fight al qaeda* all paid for by our grand childrens money.

You can't be agreeing with me, because I never said Washington is the enemy.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 03:59:06 PM
Agree, america had decades to work towards other means of alternative energy, slowly weaning off TOTAL dependence on oil.
had the FEDS started some research programs back in the 70's, by now there would be some reductions on how dependent we are  on oil.

Oh, it's not just that. It's a dogmatic belief in avoiding demand side regulation and lack of central city planning. If one had discouraged the creation of suburbs and exurbs and taxed gasoline since the oil crisis (like most of Europe does), Americans would be driving much smaller, more efficient cars (and the car makers would have been incentivized to produce them, instead of moving production of lucrative gas-guzzlers to Canada where they're exempt from fleet-average MPG regulation), taking public transport, living closer to work and shopping, living in more energy-efficient smaller homes or apartments and would be generally wasting less money and resources on heating and transportation, which is where most of our oil consumption comes from.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 04:10:43 PM
You can't be agreeing with me, because I never said Washington is the enemy.

Oh, it's not just that. It's a dogmatic belief in avoiding demand side regulation and lack of central city planning. If one had discouraged the creation of suburbs and exurbs and taxed gasoline since the oil crisis (like most of Europe does), Americans would be driving much smaller, more efficient cars (and the car makers would have been incentivized to produce them, instead of moving production of lucrative gas-guzzlers to Canada where they're exempt from fleet-average MPG regulation), taking public transport, living closer to work and shopping, living in more energy-efficient smaller homes or apartments and would be generally wasting less money and resources on heating and transportation, which is where most of our oil consumption comes from.

But you did say *we inflicted those stupid high stress enforcements on air travel*.
IOW Washinton has created the belief that the *Al Qaeda Ghosts* are out to get us.
Thus *ck every american, ck even every senator and even your mother, brother, strip search even the  children, as you never know*

I need to pick up that book on intelligent surburb design.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/159726136X/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

Quote from: donwyn on February 20, 2008, 10:01:15 PM
So if a military develops new technologies they shouldn't actually use them...because it's a sign they lack confidence. Got it.

I don't think you got what I actually said, but I already explained that, so you can go back and re-read the post(s). There are other reasons not to use a WMD, and the awareness that nuclear weapons simply go one step too far no matter what the situation is luckily prevented all who have it from dropping another one. Although I am sure a lot of Americans would have liked to see a few more dropped on Vietnam rather than be defeated by a tiny, tiny underdeveloped country (or actually, just half of it), a testimony to military incompetence on a grand scale if there ever was one.

Quote from: donwyn on February 20, 2008, 10:01:15 PM
So because America is so lacking in confidence we go around proclaiming we're going to nuke everyone...with the Middle East as a ground zero. Got it.

(Pure fantasy...)

Pure fantasy? Unfortunately not. Only a couple of posts after your one:

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 01:25:05 AM
Genocide is when the people don't ask for it. The japanese asked. Just as the muslims are begging to get clobbered. One day someone will do it. And it will not be the USA.

Thanks for this impressive demonstration of what I just said. You can sit down now, Paul.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 04:44:28 PM
Although I am sure a lot of Americans would have liked to see a few more dropped on Vietnam rather than be defeated by a tiny, tiny underdeveloped country (or actually, just half of it), a testimony to military incompetence on a grand scale if there ever was one.

That is a specious comparison.  The use of nuclear weapons in WWII was conceivable because that was a war in which vital interests of the US were truly at stake; the continued independence of the US would be at risk in a world which was taken over by the axis powers.   No such threat existed in the Vietnam war, and the use of such a weapon against a guerrilla army would not be effective anyway.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 04:44:28 PM



Thanks for this impressive demonstration of what I just said. You can sit down now, Paul.

my O my.
A true german spirit in full colors.
Commands and the ye ol' *HEIL* attitude.
The past hurts doesn't it M?
Admit it.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 04:44:28 PM
Although I am sure a lot of Americans would have liked to see a few more dropped on Vietnam rather than be

fact is most americans were dead set against the viet nam war. it was a  very stupid engagement, start to finish.
Whereas most germans applauded the nazi dealings.
Right now in america the Pentagon rules, for the most part, by its own decrees.
If a  vote were taken by the american people half the pentagon budget would be cut.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 04:52:58 PM
my O my.
A true german spirit in full colors.
Commands and the ye ol' *HEIL* attitude.
The past hurts doesn't it M?
Admit it.

It only hurts when you don't process and learn from it. Which most Americans, like you and some other posters here, have never done. Which is also one thing (one more thing of many) in which we Germans as a whole are far more advanced than you guys. In Germany, the open discussion of the crimes of the past has been going on for decades. People like you, who try to find some kind of justification for horrible crimes committed by your country, are despised by most educated Germans, for good reasons.

And look at yourself. I just pointed out that you said "the Japanese asked to be nuked", a statement so horrible that it can only stand uncommented, and the only defense you can come up with is defaming me as a Nazi. Another very typical American thing, BTW, which does not reflect well on you.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 21, 2008, 02:52:03 PM
Orbital, this thread has been so all over the place, there is nothing you can do to substantially derail it any further.  ;) Though, I'm not sure I get your point. Was this an indictment of Islam? If so, one could likewise point you to the numerous genocides and massacres found in the Old Testament. Neither of these are particularly useful guides for peaceful coexistence, if taken literally.

I don't know if it is an indictment, and if it indeed is, I do not limit it to Islam by any means. My point was to answer Paul's query when he talked about what his (Mohammed's) followers had done with Islam. Mohammed, from what we were taught, was not exactly a man of peace. There are numerous wars that he himself led with the object of converting the other side to Islam which generally led to massacres. It is often said that he also uttered the famous saying, "Your religion is yours, my religion is mine." However, his actions do not seem to compliment what is attributed to him saying about tolerance and it often seems like he changed his stance on the issue depending on the situation. He is, in a way, more human than both Jesus and Moses and it is ironic that depictions of him are strictly forbidden (perhaps for this very reason).

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 04:59:30 PM
fact is most americans were dead set against the viet nam war.

The fact is, that was not true at first, Paul.  Popular discontent with the Viet Nam conflict was a late development.

You are as poor a general historian as you are a musicologist.

Say, you aren't "hostile to knowledge," are you?

I apologize if you took my *heil* smirk out of context, too personal. In no way do I intend that as *nazi*, just refering to  that little attitude you  carry  at times.

Its good to know that germany does look at its past and makes the proper adjustments in her psyche.
I agree, most americans are unaware of just how aweful the USA was in viet nam. *unforgivable sins* that must be dealt with.
Honestly there is a  theory that when a  certain country's population expands too fast, the result can be  a escalation in war efforts.
Not sure if this theory holds , but if you look at man's history of the past 8000 yrs, there  may be some validity about it.
But truthfully, most educated americans do not want war. At least all the people i know are set against the wars we are engaged in.
Why the pentagon has the power to spend future generations monetary funds, generate large debt obligations,  I for one would like to know.

Everyone knows the threats of al qaeda, but how much are we antogonizing the *enemy* by having these monsterous size war machines invade islamic countries?

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 07:14:59 AM
The nuclear weapon has enormous destructive power, but its effect isn't different than the cumulative effect of an attack with many conventional weapons.   Genocide is when, over the course of ten years, you make lists of every supposedly sub-human creature you need to kill and then you go down that list, collecting them in concentration camps and killing them until there are none left (unless someone stops you first).

So you are saying that it is better to just push a button and let a couple hundred thousand people evaporate within a few seconds than to make lists of who you want to kill? It certainly is more effective, I give you that, and it doesn't produce as much paperwork.
You don't necessarily need to make lists for genocides anyway. But in your mind, making a list is bad, just killing off a vast number of people is good? So, following your own logic, terrorists who select specific targets are bad, and those who just fly large aircraft into tall public buildings to kill as many as possible with no "lists" or planning are good? Another interesting - an surprising - point, I must give you that, too.

Quote from: head-case on February 21, 2008, 09:20:23 AM
In the battle of Iwo Jima, just a few months before the end of the war, the US needed to attack an island defended by 21,000 japanese troops with 100,000.

Are you saying that the Japanese are 5 times better fighters than the Americans? Or, given that they had the defensive advantage, maybe just 3 times better? Another surprising point from you.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 08:31:28 AM
Where are the Nanjing or Death Railway Manga Comics BTW?

Interesting that you can't find it in you to be interested in the terrible fate of a - probably - innocent civilian victim without pointing to events that person - probably - had nothing to do with. So, following your logic here, you are saying that innocent American civilians can be targeted because the US government and military have committed acts of aggression elsewhere? I am surprised to see you actually support terrorism. That's what it comes down to.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 21, 2008, 05:18:16 PM
The fact is, that was not true at first, Paul.  Popular discontent with the Viet Nam conflict was a late development.

that was because few people really knew the mechanics of the war, the hows/whys/wherefores were all in the shadows.
Its true though, it was a  late development due to more awareness of what was actually going down.
had the facts been known at the start, most would have said "ain't no way", *just what is the purpose?*
Americans are not as dumb as you think.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:28:35 PM


Interesting that you can't find it in you to be interested in the terrible fate of a - probably - innocent civilian victim without pointing to events that person - probably - had nothing to do with. So, following your logic here, you are saying that innocent American civilians can be targeted because the US government and military have committed acts of aggression elsewhere? I am surprised to see you actually support terrorism. That's what it comes down to.

what he is refering to is the aggressive spirit that captivated a  majority of japanese to commit these horrendous crimes against the chinese.
Germany , at least 50% of the population was possessed by this *evil spirit* to commit to *the cause*.
We all know that many in the cities of Japan were not committed to the war, yet the main command had made that fateful decision to go down with the ship, til the bitterest end.
As did Hitler and his cronies take the war to the very last moments.
One of Hitler's last commands was for his soldiers to shoot any german man in the street who did not carry a  gun as a traitor.
The fate of those 2 japanese cities were more in the hands of the top leaders.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:28:16 PM
I apologize if you took my *heil* smirk out of context, too personal.

Paul, it isn't a question of anyone else taking that "out of context";  that was monumentally tactless.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:30:38 PM
that was because few people really knew the mechanics of the war, the hows/whys/wherefores were all in the shadows.

Thank you for implicitly acknowledging that your initial statement was a crock.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:30:38 PM
Americans are not as dumb as you think.

Americans in general certainly not, there are many very smart Americans, just like in any other place. And also a lot really dumb ones, like you, jut like in any other place, too. The main difference between the US and the most other Western cultures is that people like you are so open and loud about proud to be idiots while not being an ignorant idiot who spouts nationalist nonsense is actually seen as a good thing these days in Germany and other European countries.

So, it must also be said that you are in no way as representative of Americans in general as you think. I know lots and lots who are way smarter and more educated than you.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:30:38 PM
that was because few people really knew the mechanics of the war, the hows/whys/wherefores were all in the shadows.
Its true though, it was a  late development due to more awareness of what was actually going down.
had the facts been known at the start, most would have said "ain't no way", *just what is the purpose?*

Same in Germany until the tide of the war turned into the opposite direction. In the first years, when spectacular military victories were served to the people richly garnished by the gigantic propaganda machinery operated by Goebbels, things were pretty quiet "at home" and so most people sisn't really want to know what's going on - until it was too late. Kind of like these days here in the US when it comes to wars in far away places.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:37:30 PM
Germany , at least 50% of the population was possessed by this *evil spirit* to commit to *the cause*.

How do you know? Why is that? Because at least 50% of Germans are inherently evil? How does that work? Is it a genetical thing?

Quote from: karlhenning on February 21, 2008, 05:39:27 PM
Paul, it isn't a question of anyone else taking that "out of context";  that was monumentally tactless.

I did apologize, and knew when I posted that smutty comment, I may regret.
it was inappropriate I confess. Yet i have seen M take things about too aggressive, like he is shadow boxing an enemy.
Relax, we are all here to learn.
things I say , its good to see someone come along and point out where I fail to see clearly.
We can all benifit from each others different, but respectful opinions.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:47:33 PM
Americans in general certainly not, there are many very smart Americans, just like in any other place. And also a lot really dumb ones, like you, jut like in any other place, too. The main difference between the US and the most other Western cultures is that people like you are so open and loud about proud to be idiots while not being an ignorant idiot who spouts nationalist nonsense is actually seen as a good thing these days in Germany and other European countries.

There you go with that superiority attitude. 
sure i am a bit rough around the edges on my history, not all of my own will. Neither of my parents were committed to education and other reasons held me back.
i have goals now i am working hard to achieve.
So even idiots like me can work for change, and not always be stupids. I want to be smart like you ;)

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:47:56 PM
Yet i have seen M take things about too aggressive, like he is shadow boxing an enemy.

People like you who see Nazis eveywhere are shadowboxing, not people like me who simply point that out.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 21, 2008, 05:39:27 PM
Paul, it isn't a question of anyone else taking that "out of context";  that was monumentally tactless.

I don't mind tactlessness as such since I can be quite tactless and direct myself. I just fin it totally boring when people who have run out of arguments can't come up with anything better than calling every German in sight a "Nazi". Which is something which, BTW, happens to me a lot, but exclusively only in one country: the US. And exclusively only from Americans. Nobody has ever given me the Hitler salute in my life before I came here, in the US that has happened at least half a dozen times. That in itself is very telling.

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:53:22 PM
There you go with that superiority attitude. 

It only took you a few minutes to fall back to your earlier behavior. So we can strike your earlier apology. I personally prefer honesty anyway. Do you want to give me the "Heil" greeting now? Go ahead.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:47:33 PM


How do you know? Why is that? Because at least 50% of Germans are inherently evil? How does that work? Is it a genetical thing?

i do not know why that spirit swept germany. maybe Nietzsche saw some things, as well as others who fled the country before things got serious.
My mothers parents were german immigrants who settled in canton ohio, had a  big farm and a  tile factory.
i never met my mother's father (or her mother, both passed before i was born), but I do *know* who he was as a  person.
I will not say any more than that.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:54:06 PM
People like you who see Nazis eveywhere are shadowboxing, not people like me who simply point that out.

wait til you read my comment just posted as you posted this. :-\

Quote from: paulb on February 21, 2008, 05:58:03 PM
i do not know why that spirit swept germany. maybe Nietzsche saw some things, as well as others who fled the country before things got serious.
My mothers parents were german immigrants who settled in canton ohio, had a  big farm and a  tile factory.
i never met my mother's father (or her mother, both passed before i was born), but I do *know* who he was as a  person.
I will not say any more than that.

That's probably better. So your insights into German culture and mentality are based on some immigrant guy you never even met? Like your views about Muslims are based on knowing - how many was it again? 2 or 3 Muslims?

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:28:35 PM


Are you saying that the Japanese are 5 times better fighters than the Americans? Or, given that they had the defensive advantage, maybe just 3 times better? Another surprising point from you.

Given that the marines on Iwo Jima killed 20,000 Japanese at the loss of 6,821 of their own - a 6.2% death rate compared to  near 100%, then they would be 16 times better, right?  Are you just trolling, or do you really believe that armies would attempt to engage with a lower number of troops than they could muster just to prove what good fighters they are?

QuoteInteresting that you can't find it in you to be interested in the terrible fate of a - probably - innocent civilian victim without pointing to events that person - probably - had nothing to do with. So, following your logic here, you are saying that innocent American civilians can be targeted because the US government and military have committed acts of aggression elsewhere? I am surprised to see you actually support terrorism. That's what it comes down to.

Interesting that you would extrapolate a side comment referring to the well known cultural denial in Japan regarding wartime atrocities into such twisted logic.  What difference did it make to that innocent Japanese civilian whether they died from an A-Bomb, a conventional bomb, starvation or disease from the naval blockade or from a protracted invasion?  Any course of action that conceivably would have occured in August 1945 would have resulted in comparable numbers of Japanese civilians being killed.  The atomic bombs ended the war sooner and more decisively than any other option available at the time. 

I've been teaching High School students for 15 years. The trend is clear - people are getting more and more stupid. My latest bunch of students is what I call "the post-literate generation". They scoff at anything even remotely resembling learning - books, art, documentaries, self-education, etc. They exist in a kind of digital netherworld, forever connected to internet/mobile phone/playstation/xbox/dvd/chatrooms/etc. Of course there are exceptions, and I don't mean to group all young people together, but it seems that the vast majority of young people are addicted to celebrity culture. Trashy, self-obsessed, materialistic and meaningless.

Something to read:

http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/trashculture.html

Quote from: Jupiter on February 21, 2008, 06:55:45 PM
I've been teaching High School students for 15 years. The trend is clear - people are getting more and more stupid. My latest bunch of students is what I call "the post-literate generation". They scoff at anything even remotely resembling learning - books, art, documentaries, self-education, etc. They exist in a kind of digital netherworld, forever connected to internet/mobile phone/playstation/xbox/dvd/chatrooms/etc. Of course there are exceptions, and I don't mean to group all young people together, but it seems that the vast majority of young people are addicted to celebrity culture. Trashy, self-obsessed, materialistic and meaningless.

Something to read:

http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/trashculture.html

having a daugher in elementary school, I can say that the curriculum is far more advanced than what either my wife or I received in the 1970s in comparable public schools.

Quote from: Jupiter on February 21, 2008, 06:55:45 PM
addicted to celebrity culture. Trashy, self-obsessed, materialistic and meaningless.

I'll deliver it to my stepfather*, who is always saying I must be ashamed not to know American football and basketball celebrities and where they live, what they eat and whom they have already violated (well, wait, I'm not a lost one, I know Paris Hilton! :D :D). "This unawareness would outcast you from the American society."
He also repeats that classical music wouldn't help me to make good money. I wonder why he tells me that, I'm not even a musician. That hobby, however, won't prove my image either, he says.

In some ways he is right, my mates in college classes do not have a slightest idea what opera is, and I can't talk about video games. Well, they are probably wiser than I am, opera wouldn't help me in making money, it wouldn't feed me nor buy new pair of shoes...so what is it for??




* (note: he is Russian)

Quote from: Sarastro on February 21, 2008, 07:30:08 PM
In some ways he is right, my mates in college classes do not have a slightest idea what opera is, and I can't talk about video games. Well, they are probably wiser than I am, opera wouldn't help me in making money, it wouldn't feed me nor buy new pair of shoes...so what is it for??

It's so that you can spend money on CDs and tickets and feel enriched nonetheless.  ;D

Well, I'm beginning to mock myself nonetheless. :-\

Quote from: Jupiter on February 21, 2008, 06:55:45 PM
I've been teaching High School students for 15 years. The trend is clear - people are getting more and more stupid. My latest bunch of students is what I call "the post-literate generation". They scoff at anything even remotely resembling learning - books, art, documentaries, self-education, etc. They exist in a kind of digital netherworld, forever connected to internet/mobile phone/playstation/xbox/dvd/chatrooms/etc. Of course there are exceptions, and I don't mean to group all young people together, but it seems that the vast majority of young people are addicted to celebrity culture. Trashy, self-obsessed, materialistic and meaningless.

Something to read:

http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/trashculture.html

WOW the 60's all over again, repeating themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTO7WVxjz3A&feature=related

*Shapes of things before my eyes
just teach me to despise*


http://www.lyricstime.com/the-yardbirds-shape-of-things-lyrics.html

I dare any of the mods here to walk in the pub and yell.
Rockers Suck  :D

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 04:44:28 PM
I don't think you got what I actually said, but I already explained that, so you can go back and re-read the post(s). There are other reasons not to use a WMD, and the awareness that nuclear weapons simply go one step too far no matter what the situation is luckily prevented all who have it from dropping another one.

So nukes are one gadget too many for a military? If you really want to get into the ethical and moral argument about what is right and what is not right in warfare you'll just end up chasing your tail.

Take that nasty little weapon the hand-grenade. It's function is to maim as much as it is to kill. But no one questions its use. But by your moralistic logic such devices should be banned from warfare (wouldn't mind it, of course). But it'll never happen. The point of gadgetry is to preserve manpower while inflicting as much death and destruction on the other guy as possible. Throw grenade first, ask questions later. The same can be applied to a nuke. It's not fun to imagine such a horrific thing but there it is...

But the difference here is that the use of nukes on Japan wasn't indiscriminate and thoughtless.

It ended a war. A bloody, vile, evil war.

A war thrust upon half the world by fanatical aggressors who didn't give a hang for human life other than their own and proved it by butchering life after life after life after life......I don't see how ANYONE could forget that.

It's interesting that you do...

QuoteAlthough I am sure a lot of Americans would have liked to see a few more dropped on Vietnam rather than be defeated by a tiny, tiny underdeveloped country (or actually, just half of it), a testimony to military incompetence on a grand scale if there ever was one.

More fantasy...

QuotePure fantasy? Unfortunately not. Only a couple of posts after your one:

LOL!...it fits you'd use the "human hyperbole machine" to bolster your purely hyperbolic fantasy claim!! :D

You might as well throw in the towel now.

Nary an American within earshot of this writer has EVER made such a claim.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 06:35:11 PM
What difference did it make to that innocent Japanese civilian whether they died from an A-Bomb, a conventional bomb, starvation or disease from the naval blockade or from a protracted invasion?  Any course of action that conceivably would have occured in August 1945 would have resulted in comparable numbers of Japanese civilians being killed.  The atomic bombs ended the war sooner and more decisively than any other option available at the time. 

Undeniably true on all counts.

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 08:10:28 PM
So nukes are one gadget too many for a military? If you really want to get into the ethical and moral argument about what is right and what is not right in warfare you'll just end up chasing your tail.

Take that nasty little weapon the hand-grenade. It's function is to maim as much as it is to kill. But no one questions its use. But by your moralistic logic such devices should be banned from warfare (wouldn't mind it, of course). But it'll never happen. The point of gadgetry is to preserve manpower while inflicting as much death and destruction on the other guy as possible. Throw grenade first, ask questions later. The same can be applied to a nuke. It's not fun to imagine such a horrific thing but there it is...

But the difference here is that the use of nukes on Japan wasn't indiscriminate and thoughtless.

It ended a war. A bloody, vile, evil war.

A war thrust upon half the world by fanatical aggressors who didn't give a hang for human life other than their own and proved it by butchering life after life after life after life......I don't see how ANYONE could forget that.

It's interesting that you do...

I am not forgetting anything, in fact, I am constantly repeating how aware people are where I come from how nasty the 3rd Reich was. I repeated that several times over in this thread alone. If you want to be taken seriously, you can't just ignore what people actually said. Since you are American, I give you the benefit of the doubt, but only to a certain point. You are after all slowly getting closer. What stands between you and the next steps in understanding this subject is your naive and one-sided "good guys - bad guys" view which in itself is more than latently racist, but you can't see that yet, so I am not going to hold that against you.

I am even going to help you a little: you said yourself If you really want to get into the ethical and moral argument about what is right and what is not right in warfare you'll just end up chasing your tail. Think about that some more. Try to look beyond decades of naive nationalist and isolationist upbringing (yes, I know, it is difficult, but you can do that). Think your own point through. Like you said it yourself, you are chasing your own tail in your efforts to justify the use of the atomic bomb. Keep going in that direction.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 06:35:11 PM
Given that the marines on Iwo Jima killed 20,000 Japanese at the loss of 6,821 of their own - a 6.2% death rate compared to  near 100%, then they would be 16 times better, right?  Are you just trolling, or do you really believe that armies would attempt to engage with a lower number of troops than they could muster just to prove what good fighters they are?

No, I am just playing with you guys and your naive nationalism and your inability to reflect the history of your own country critically.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 06:35:11 PM
Interesting that you would extrapolate a side comment referring to the well known cultural denial in Japan regarding wartime atrocities into such twisted logic.  What difference did it make to that innocent Japanese civilian whether they died from an A-Bomb, a conventional bomb, starvation or disease from the naval blockade or from a protracted invasion?  Any course of action that conceivably would have occured in August 1945 would have resulted in comparable numbers of Japanese civilians being killed.  The atomic bombs ended the war sooner and more decisively than any other option available at the time. 

So you are saying that Japanese civilians should be grateful to the people who dropped the atomic bomb on them for putting them out of their misery?

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 08:22:03 PM

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 06:35:11 PM
What difference did it make to that innocent Japanese civilian whether they died from an A-Bomb, a conventional bomb, starvation or disease from the naval blockade or from a protracted invasion? Any course of action that conceivably would have occured in August 1945 would have resulted in comparable numbers of Japanese civilians being killed. 

Undeniably true on all counts.

Unfortunately, false. It is already proven above.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 20, 2008, 02:59:06 PM
There is also a categorical moral difference between outright killing a bunch of people vs. killing people and poisoning the survivors and their offspring for years to come.

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 08:22:03 PM

Quote from: bwv 1080 on February 21, 2008, 06:35:11 PM
The atomic bombs ended the war sooner and more decisively than any other option available at the time. 

Undeniably true on all counts.

That was also commented somewhere above. Implicitly. ::)


I suggest you to read the topic, or at least last 4 pages of it. (ps: Isn't it essential?)

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:28:35 PM
So you are saying that it is better to just push a button and let a couple hundred thousand people evaporate within a few seconds than to make lists of who you want to kill? It certainly is more effective, I give you that, and it doesn't produce as much paperwork.

Yes, it is worse to decide to systematically exterminate an entire people from the earth (who had no hostile intent) than it is to make an aggressive attack on a country in an effort to force them to capitulate and halt their brutal military campaign.   I don't doubt that the primary motivation of the US attack was to force Japan to surrender as quickly and with as little further loss of life as possible.  I find that a legitimate goal.  That the war could have been ended with less bloodshed with different tactics is possible.  You can argue all you want, but we will never know whether more or less innocent people would have died in a different scenario.

Quote
But in your mind, making a list is bad, just killing off a vast number of people is good? So, following your own logic, terrorists who select specific targets are bad, and those who just fly large aircraft into tall public buildings to kill as many as possible with no "lists" or planning are good? Another interesting - an surprising - point, I must give you that, too.

To execute a genocidal plan over a decade, methodically exterminating millions of people, as Germany did through 1945, is worse than any evil that the human race has ever exhibited in its history and probably in its pre-history.  Evil done in a premeditate manner is more horrible than evil done in an impulsive fashion.  That precept is the basis of all civilized systems of justice and I find it valid.

I never said any kind of violence was good, but sometimes it is necessary to use violence to prevent an even greater level of violence.

Quote
Are you saying that the Japanese are 5 times better fighters than the Americans? Or, given that they had the defensive advantage, maybe just 3 times better? Another surprising point from you.

Let's not make jokes about serious matters.  At Iwo Jima the US attacked 21,000 Japanese troops with 100,000.  The US lost 6,000, the Japanese lost 20,800.   At Okinawa, the US attacked 100,000 with 500,000, lost 12,000, the Japanese lost 60,000.  The decision to deploy nuclear weapons was made immediately after the horrible losses at the battle at Okinawa.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 08:47:26 PM
I am not forgetting anything, in fact, I am constantly repeating how aware people are where I come from how nasty the 3rd Reich was.

Nasty is an understatement. Pure sadism. Rancid. Putrid love affair with murder and genocide.

And the Japanese at the time were right up there with the Nazi's.

QuoteI repeated that several times over in this thread alone. If you want to be taken seriously, you can't just ignore what people actually said. Since you are American, I give you the benefit of the doubt, but only to a certain point. You are after all slowly getting closer. What stands between you and the next steps in understanding this subject is your naive and one-sided "good guys - bad guys" view which in itself is more than latently racist, but you can't see that yet, so I am not going to hold that against you.

There's nothing racist about wanting unsolicited murder to end! :D :D :D :D :D

QuoteI am even going to help you a little: you said yourself If you really want to get into the ethical and moral argument about what is right and what is not right in warfare you'll just end up chasing your tail. Think about that some more. Try to look beyond decades of naive nationalist and isolationist upbringing (yes, I know, it is difficult, but you can do that). Think your own point through. Like you said it yourself, you are chasing your own tail in your efforts to justify the use of the atomic bomb. Keep going in that direction.

Err...no one's saying America deserves to wear the white wedding dress. There's blood on her hands, no doubt about it. But to try to put this spin on the bomb disagreement is petty and stupid.

And more than useless...

Quote from: Sarastro on February 21, 2008, 08:51:28 PM
Unfortunately, false. It is already proven above.

So what would've been your solution?

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 09:10:38 PM
Nasty is an understatement. Pure sadism. Rancid. Putrid love affair with murder and genocide.

And the Japanese at the time were right up there with the Nazi's.

Plus, if we go by American WWII popaganda, "the Japanese" weren't even real human enemies, they were little rats in uniforms, with huge rodent teeth and small, mean eyes because of which Americans thought that they couldn't see very well and therefore they were really surprised at Pearl Harbor that the Japanese, in the words of one high British general in East Asia, "subhuman specimens", could actually pilot mplanes and target bombs. That shock still seems to sit very deep, and so you need to repeat already much discussed facts about their meanness like a mantra, just to somehow avoid discussing the subject at hand. Well, after all, as Paul put it, "they asked for it", didn't they?

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 09:10:38 PM
There's nothing racist about wanting unsolicited murder to end! :D :D :D :D :D

OK, now I can't figure out if you are kidding or if you actually don't know that the war in the Pacific was not fought for humanitarian reasons, but to protect Western colonial and quasi-colonial interests in East Asia.

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 09:10:38 PM
Err...no one's saying America deserves to wear the white wedding dress. There's blood on her hands, no doubt about it. But to try to put this spin on the bomb disagreement is petty and stupid.

And more than useless...

Reflecting the past critically is never useless. It is great practice for reflecting our present critically. You were quite close, but now you went off in another direction again. But again, I understand how difficult it is to overcome the pseudo-moralist conditioning you have been subjected to.

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 09:13:52 PM
So what would've been your solution?

Your statement is a logical fallacy, again. It's called "ad hominem" - rejecting opposing views by attacking the person who holds them. I learned it here, in American college, by the way.
If you want an answer, here it is: "I do not know." I can only say that was not right, and making up military solutions is not my prerogative.

Quote from: Jupiter on February 21, 2008, 06:55:45 PM
I've been teaching High School students for 15 years. The trend is clear - people are getting more and more stupid. My latest bunch of students is what I call "the post-literate generation". They scoff at anything even remotely resembling learning - books, art, documentaries, self-education, etc. They exist in a kind of digital netherworld, forever connected to internet/mobile phone/playstation/xbox/dvd/chatrooms/etc. Of course there are exceptions, and I don't mean to group all young people together, but it seems that the vast majority of young people are addicted to celebrity culture. Trashy, self-obsessed, materialistic and meaningless.

Something to read:

http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/trashculture.html

I agree with you Jupiter.

Something to view:

http://openflv.com/watch?v=Mzk3MDA=&p=0

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 09:53:26 PM
. Well, after all, as Paul put it, "they asked for it", didn't they?

Just as the islamics are asking for IT.

Donwyn , Head-case, great postings!
From others too in this topic.

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 09:10:38 PM


Err...no one's saying America deserves to wear the white wedding dress. There's blood on her hands, no doubt about it.

What have we done to the american natives here, the Indians. Just look at what we've done to their culture over the past 250 yrs :'( :'( :'(

I have 2 scholarly friends in Baton rouge.
one sides with the indians the other sides that in fact our hands are not so bloody after all.

Now more than ever we need the wisdom of the indians. But alas, they have left us. Now we are in deep doo-doo.
Instead we get absolute knuckleheads like Bush, Clinton and Obama ( i happen to like some of MCCain) to lead our country to greener pastures, safer waters ::) ???
There was a  saying that went around the streets of New orleans just before Katrina struck, taken from a  ancient chinese oracle
*what goes around comes around*
The faces now on the streets post Katrina 2 yrs later :  :-\ :-X ??? ::) :o :'( :-[ :( >:(

Quote from: Sarastro on February 21, 2008, 09:57:12 PM
Your statement is a logical fallacy, again. It's called "ad hominem" - rejecting opposing views by attacking the person who holds them. I learned it here, in American college, by the way.
If you want an answer, here it is: "I do not know." I can only say that was not right, and making up military solutions is not my prerogative.

No ad hominem intended, Sarastro. I honestly wanted to know your thoughts on a alternative course of action for the US.

My side of it is that a conventional invasion had no guarantee of success. And such a thought obviously weighed on the minds of the US military as well. At the very least a conventional invasion might have led to a stalemate which would've potentially exhausted the US's resources. And Japans. Which is a recipe for disaster.

Not to mention the cost in human life would have been enormous. On both sides. Very likely far exceeding the tally in a limited nuclear attack.

The long-term effects of nuclear fallout had tragically not been anticipated by the US. That was an unforeseen oversight and it's a very sad and regrettable thing that it happened.

But ultimately the choice was made.

So I'm curious as to just what the US should actually have done.

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 09:53:26 PM
Plus, if we go by American WWII popaganda, "the Japanese" weren't even real human enemies, they were little rats in uniforms, with huge rodent teeth and small, mean eyes because of which Americans thought that they couldn't see very well and therefore they were really surprised at Pearl Harbor that the Japanese, in the words of one high British general in East Asia, "subhuman specimens", could actually pilot mplanes and target bombs. That shock still seems to sit very deep, and so you need to repeat already much discussed facts about their meanness like a mantra, just to somehow avoid discussing the subject at hand. Well, after all, as Paul put it, "they asked for it", didn't they?

OK, now I can't figure out if you are kidding or if you actually don't know that the war in the Pacific was not fought for humanitarian reasons, but to protect Western colonial and quasi-colonial interests in East Asia.

Reflecting the past critically is never useless. It is great practice for reflecting our present critically. You were quite close, but now you went off in another direction again. But again, I understand how difficult it is to overcome the pseudo-moralist conditioning you have been subjected to.

I now dub you the Human Strawman Machine...

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on February 21, 2008, 10:20:44 AM
What nonsense. After working in the states for so many years, the most enduring impression i received of Americans is that they are the most hard working and determined people i've ever seen.

yeah, my dad once worked 93 hours in a week....

i'm not sure that's a good thing for the mind, though.....

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on February 22, 2008, 06:54:10 AM
yeah, my dad once worked 93 hours in a week....

i'm not sure that's a good thing for the mind, though.....

I work so hard, don't you understand,
Making maple syrup for the pancakes of our land;
Do you have any idea
What that can do to a ma-a-a-n?

Quote from: karlhenning on February 22, 2008, 07:04:36 AM
I work so hard, don't you understand,
Making maple syrup for the pancakes of our land;
Do you have any idea
What that can do to a ma-a-a-n?

where's that rhyme from?  :)

Quote from: donwyn on February 21, 2008, 08:10:28 PM
So nukes are one gadget too many for a military? If you really want to get into the ethical and moral argument about what is right and what is not right in warfare you'll just end up chasing your tail.

Take that nasty little weapon the hand-grenade. It's function is to maim as much as it is to kill. But no one questions its use. But by your moralistic logic such devices should be banned from warfare (wouldn't mind it, of course). But it'll never happen. The point of gadgetry is to preserve manpower while inflicting as much death and destruction on the other guy as possible. Throw grenade first, ask questions later. The same can be applied to a nuke. It's not fun to imagine such a horrific thing but there it is...

donwyn, sorry you're disqualified from making moral judgments if you don't see the fundamental categorical difference between nukes and hand grenades. A hand grenade (intended for use in close combat) has a very small radius of lethality and can be directed against a member of the opposing armed forces. In a war it is perfectly legitimate to target the soldiers of the opposing side. A nuclear weapon lacks such limited precision. It just eradicates everything within an enormous radius and then poisons it for years to come. It does not distinguish between military and civilian. It's a doomsday weapon. It has no conceivable morally justifiable use. Any use of one is pretty much per se a war crime.

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on February 22, 2008, 07:06:25 AM
where's that rhyme from?  :)

Zappa and the Mothers, Fillmore East

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 07:30:29 AM
donwyn, sorry you're disqualified from making moral judgments if you don't see the fundamental categorical difference between nukes and hand grenades.

Sorry, I must have missed the memo which appointed you as the arbiter of who is allowed to make moral judgments. 

Had Japan been invaded the civilian death toll would have been far worse.  Furthermore the widespread lasting damage and postwar fatalities from land mines, unexploded munitions, damaged infrastructure would have been at least comparable to the very localized radiation damage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Civilian deaths as a percentage of the pre-war population was nearly triple for Germany, which was invaded, than it was for Japan (and the pre-war populations were comparable in size - 70 mil for Germany, 71 mil for Japan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 07:58:26 AM
Sorry, I must have missed the memo which appointed you as the arbiter of who is allowed to make moral judgments. 

You also missed the post where I asked you to explain under what scenario the first use of a nuclear weapon against a civilian target could possibly be morally justifiable. Your failure to respond is glaring.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 08:44:46 AM
a civilian target

Japan, like germany,  some  were actual *innocent civilians*, many other were not so innocent.
Just as when the militant islamic nations get dealt with, the many who die will be *soldiers to a  cause*.
They say with with mouth *but we really don't want to be part of the radical elements of islam, we are caught up in it*.
yet what's actually in the hearts is another matter.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 08:44:46 AM
You also missed the post where I asked you to explain under what scenario the first use of a nuclear weapon against a civilian target could possibly be morally justifiable. Your failure to respond is glaring.

I have addressed this point already.  I can't imagine a situation where it would be justified today.  I have already given my reasons for believing it may have been justified in 1945.

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 10:38:27 AM
I have addressed this point already.  I can't imagine a situation where it would be justified today.  I have already given my reasons for believing it may have been justified in 1945.

I didn't see anything even romtely approaching a successful moral justification. Please refer me to any post where you did provide such a moral justification, I must have missed it.

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 10:38:27 AM
  I can't imagine a situation where it would be justified today. 

What planet do you live on?

Now i admit most of the poorest islamics cannot read the history books, but those that can had better read up on what happened to germany russia and japan. And these more educated ones can bring up to date the others who are unaware of the fate of these 3 countries.
of course i doubt if it will do much good. They acn see for themeselves the results of a  bad attitude in syria, iraq, and many other mideast nations.
they had fair warning. Doesn't takea   genius to connect the dots, when the complete color picture is right in front of their eyes..

My perspective has  nothing to do with my christian POV.

Quote from: paulb on February 22, 2008, 11:15:30 AM
My perspective has  nothing to do with my christian POV.

You have a Christian POV?  :o

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 11:05:34 AM
I didn't see anything even romtely approaching a successful moral justification. Please refer me to any post where you did provide such a moral justification, I must have missed it.

I don't consider whether you agree to be the criteria for whether something is morally justified.  Honestly, I don't see any reason to continue this pointless argument.

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 12:53:44 PM
I don't consider whether you agree to be the criteria for whether something is morally justified.  Honestly, I don't see any reason to continue this pointless argument.

Well then it stands at the following: you think that it is morally right to condemn a civilian population to firey death and years of poisoning just because doing so might save a few lives of an army bent on invading said country. You think that is morally correct?

Quote from: M forever on February 21, 2008, 05:54:06 PM


I don't mind tactlessness as such since I can be quite tactless and direct myself. I just fin it totally boring when people who have run out of arguments can't come up with anything better than calling every German in sight a "Nazi". Which is something which, BTW, happens to me a lot, but exclusively only in one country: the US. And exclusively only from Americans. Nobody has ever given me the Hitler salute in my life before I came here, in the US that has happened at least half a dozen times. That in itself is very telling.

     I don't suppose a European would think it appropriate to give a NAZI salute to a German. After all, many Europeans have family members who fought alongside the Germans in the war. Others fought on the other side, or both sides, and even with all the ethnic cleansing that happened during and after the war it's not a safe assumption that the person you're saluting shares your attitudes about what happened.

    After the first day at Pearl Harbor the war took place far from where Americans lived. That's doesn't excuse such boorishness but it serves as a partial explanation. You're probably aware that Americans with German names get this treatment, too.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 01:17:07 PM
Well then it stands at the following: you think that it is morally right to condemn a civilian population to firey death and years of poisoning just because doing so might save a few lives of an army bent on invading said country. You think that is morally correct?

The fact that you would claim that this statement follows from anything I've posted here indicates how pointless it would be to continue this so-called discussion.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 01:17:07 PM
Well then it stands at the following: you think that it is morally right to condemn a civilian population to firey death and years of poisoning just because doing so might save a few lives of an army bent on invading said country. You think that is morally correct?

     It's strange that you imagine that the U.S. Army was bent on invading Japan. Isn't it clear that they would do anything that would force a Japanese surrender, but that the option of invasion was contemplated with horror after Iwo Jima and Okinawa? If a Japanese surrender could be forced at a lower cost in lives than an invasion it had to appear to be the better option. The question that concerns me is whether bombing was a better option for the Japanese as well in terms of lives saved. Very likely it was, though that was not the reason the decision was made.

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 02:56:33 PM
The fact that you would claim that this statement follows from anything I've posted here indicates how pointless it would be to continue this so-called discussion.

Unknowingly, you may have stumbled upon something. As with most lunatical threads, I have noticed several reasonable assertions that have been totally ignored.

Quote from: drogulus on February 22, 2008, 03:12:17 PM
     It's strange that you imagine that the U.S. Army was bent on invading Japan. Isn't it clear that they would do anything that would force a Japanese surrender, but that the option of invasion was contemplated with horror after Iwo Jima and Okinawa? If a Japanese surrender could be forced at a lower cost in lives than an invasion it had to appear to be the better option. The question that concerns me is whether bombing was a better option for the Japanese as well in terms of lives saved. Very likely it was, though that was not the reason the decision was made.

Oh, it's not that I imagine that. Head-case somehow thinks he's presented a coherent, morally defensible case for dropping the bomb on H & N, when ihn fact he didn't.

Quote from: head-case on February 22, 2008, 07:58:26 AM
Sorry, I must have missed the memo which appointed you as the arbiter of who is allowed to make moral judgments. 

There was no memo, but he actually *explained* his point.

Quote from: drogulus on February 22, 2008, 01:38:56 PM
I don't suppose a European would think it appropriate to give a NAZI salute to a German. After all, many Europeans have family members who fought alongside the Germans in the war. Others fought on the other side, or both sides, and even with all the ethnic cleansing that happened during and after the war it's not a safe assumption that the person you're saluting shares your attitudes about what happened.

After the first day at Pearl Harbor the war took place far from where Americans lived. That's doesn't excuse such boorishness but it serves as a partial explanation. You're probably aware that Americans with German names get this treatment, too.

I have never seen that, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Many Americans still are openly racist, and mighty proud of it. Like you. That has nothing to do with how far away the war was. For most of us today, it is just as far away in time. Only a few of those who lived through those times are still with us.

Your first paragraph also contains some elements of more than latent racism and primitive tribal group thinking. What someone's family members may have done 2, 3 generations ago has little or nothing to do with what a person is or does today. Several members of my family were actually openly opposed to the Nazi regime and paid for that with their lives (my mother's uncle and his son) - that doesn't make me or any other member of my family resistance heroes. Besides, many Americans, among them rather prominent personalities, shared the Nazis' views - after all, it was a country which had had a very long history of racial legislation - which they kept for even almost a quarter of a century after Hitler put the pistol in his mouth. Depending on how old you are, you may even have witnessed and tolerated that yourself. How old are you?

Quote from: paulb on February 22, 2008, 09:40:35 AM
Japan, like germany,  some  were actual *innocent civilians*, many other were not so innocent.
Just as when the militant islamic nations get dealt with, the many who die will be *soldiers to a  cause*.
They say with with mouth *but we really don't want to be part of the radical elements of islam, we are caught up in it*.
yet what's actually in the hearts is another matter.

Sure and you provincial, uneducated idiot who "has met 2 or 3 "islamics"", you know what's "in their hearts". You make me really sick.

Quote from: paulb on February 22, 2008, 11:15:30 AM
Now i admit most of the poorest islamics cannot read the history books

That is actually something you share with those people. It is therefore not surprising that you have much more in common with them than you even realize.

Quote from: paulb on February 22, 2008, 11:15:30 AM
My perspective has  nothing to do with my christian POV.

Which "Christian POV" is that? The one about love, forgiveness and tolerance? Refresh my memory, again where did Jesus say "if they suffer, that's because they asked for it"?

Quote from: O Mensch on February 22, 2008, 07:30:29 AM
donwyn, sorry you're disqualified from making moral judgments if you don't see the fundamental categorical difference between nukes and hand grenades. A hand grenade (intended for use in close combat) has a very small radius of lethality and can be directed against a member of the opposing armed forces. In a war it is perfectly legitimate to target the soldiers of the opposing side. A nuclear weapon lacks such limited precision. It just eradicates everything within an enormous radius and then poisons it for years to come. It does not distinguish between military and civilian. It's a doomsday weapon. It has no conceivable morally justifiable use. Any use of one is pretty much per se a war crime.

You're letting your tunnel vision get the best of you, O Mensch. You're forgetting a key element: context.

You act as if the US decision to drop the bomb sprang from soulless, heartless entities without a care for the consequences. That's not true. You said it yourself: there were those in the top US ranks who forwarded dissenting votes. So it obviously wasn't an easy decision. Obviously.

And the need to even contemplate committing such an act sprang from concerns over war. Not some arbitrary, harmless scenario.

And besides, there are any number of weapons that lack "limited precision" (so I'm not sure what you're driving at). Blanket, high-altitude firebombing among them. And that's what the Japanese were facing in the wake of the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Endless barrages of night and day air raids - aimed at both military and civilian targets alike with bombs being scattered all over the place. I don't see any advantage or lessening of Japan's misery with this tactic. In reality, the casualties would undoubtedly have been much GREATER seeing as the timetable for such an operation would have spanned months if not years. Yet somehow being conventional means it's all right. I simply don't understand this...

On top of all this, add the monumentality of a full-scale invasion. Shudderrrrrr.... Bodies piled on bodies on both sides. Gruesome.

You simply can't blame any military for not wanting to subject their already weary forces to such a lethal slug-fest. And one that might not even be successful too boot. And that's a reality. It's safe to say the lessons and black eyes of 'Island Hopping' were not lost on the top US commanders. Broaden the scope to include an entire country - one full of the staunchest of defenders - and the outlook isn't very pretty.

And as far as picking civilian targets for the two bombs: how is that different than the widespread conventional tactic of blanket firebombing? It's a valid military ploy to bomb-out civilian targets for one very important reason: to sink moral. No secret in that. It's a way to bypass the military hierarchy and get to the mindset of the population. Especially when said military has proven itself fanatical and suicidal. Lengths the more levelheaded (and populous) denizens might not be willing to stoop to.

So obviously it was hoped that the two bombs would cause such an outcry amongst the civilian population that the regime would be forced to listen. And it worked. Just as months or years of firebombing and invasion eventually would have done.

And as I said, it was a very unfortunate oversight that no one knew about the long-term consequences of nuclear fallout. No one could have guessed it. The bomb had never been deployed on humans before. And dropping it in an open, vacant expanse would have netted zero. There had to be something for the Japanese high-ups to look at. Sad as it is to say...

I hate to posit numbers on casualties like it's a debit chart or something but I can't help but believe the lesser of the two evils - for BOTH sides - were the bombs. Even though it leaves a terribly bad taste in my mouth to put it in those terms...

**And a postscript to those who feel all us Americans are blind and such: it thrills me to no end that Custer got his comeuppance at Little Big Horn. It was a beautiful thing. The only regrettable thing is that the Native American population back then lacked a nuke with which to ward off the white aggressors. That would have given us pause!   

I've just finished watching the HBO documentary "White Light - Black Rain. The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki"  (it is available on stage6.com for anyone interested), and there are two things (apart from the aftermath of course) that impressed me the most. The first one is Truman's address after the first bomb was dropped. It is either that the American government really had no idea  how much damage these bombs would inflict, or that they have committed one of the biggest atrocities ever recorded. The way he talks about the bombing, and that this is just a beginning and more powerful ones are coming makes me want to believe that the first was the case  :-\ But on the other hand his comment about how "the Japanese have now paid for Pearl HArbor-manyfold" makes me think otherwise.
The second is how the Japanese people, not the government and the army, but the people affected took the tragedy and basically that they blamed their own government more than they did USA.

It is a very powerful documentary, but not for the faint of heart.
Here is the link:
http://www.stage6.com/History---World-War-II/video/2158981/White-Ligh-Black-Rain

Quote from: M forever on February 22, 2008, 08:05:33 PM


Which "Christian POV" is that? The one about love, forgiveness and tolerance? Refresh my memory, again where did Jesus say "if they suffer, that's because they asked for it"?

amazing , the ones who  know about history, read all the books, are the ones who can;'t really understand what happened.
That takes psychology to do that, but not the kind they teach in the universities.
"The Christ who preaches love, blah, blah, blah"
Give me a  break, as a  german you more than  all of us here should know better than painting Jesus in such pastel/pinkish colors.
Go back and re-read your history books.
Afterwards go preach the message to the islamics, apparently they did not get the message either.

Quote from: M forever on February 22, 2008, 08:00:46 PM
Many Americans still are openly racist, and mighty proud of it. Like you. That has nothing to do with how far away the war was. For most of us today, it is just as far away in time. Only a few of those who lived through those times are still with us.

Your first paragraph also contains some elements of more than latent racism and primitive tribal group thinking. What someone's family members may have done 2, 3 generations ago has little or nothing to do with what a person is or does today. Several members of my family were actually openly opposed to the Nazi regime and paid for that with their lives (my mother's uncle and his son) - that doesn't make me or any other member of my family resistance heroes.

     You have a very acute understanding of your own dilemma but tend to jump to conclusions about others. I was trying to put in context one reason why it would be less likely for Europeans to react in an ignorant manner. There is nothing racial about it. They are closer to where the history happened and had family members who lived through it. Like your family, for instance.

    So tell me exactly what was racist about my remarks, or leave the implication that you just lash out whenever the mood strikes you.

Quote from: drogulus on February 23, 2008, 09:25:11 AM
     You have a very acute understanding of your own dilemma but tend to jump to conclusions about others. I was trying to put in context one reason why it would be less likely for Europeans to react in an ignorant manner. There is nothing racial about it. They are closer to where the history happened and had family members who lived through it. Like your family, for instance.

    So tell me exactly what was racist about my remarks, or leave the implication that you just lash out whenever the mood strikes you.

The answer to this question is already contained in the text portion you quoted. Please read it again, this time more carefully!

Quote from: paulb on February 23, 2008, 05:37:07 AM
amazing , the ones who  know about history, read all the books, are the ones who can;'t really understand what happened.
That takes psychology to do that, but not the kind they teach in the universities.

Well, you probably don't know what "kind of psychology" they teach at universities anyway. What really is pretty amazing and probably also allows a lot of insight of the psychological kind is how someone like you who obviously doesn't have much of an education *of any kind* constructs his own autistic reality from the little distorted bits and pieces of information he has snapped up here and there, and how you even have a justification for being that ignorant, and for disregarding more thouroughly informed viewpoints based on actual information. In your mind, not being able to read "the history books" allows you more insights than actually informing yourself, just like you think you know what is "in "the islamics'" hearts" even though you admit you don't even know more than 2 or 3 people with that kind of background. even more amazing is how someone can be so stupid that he manages to completely discredit everything he says himself...

I do know that it will take germany 100 yrs before a  deep realization of change in their collective unconscious.
The jews too are in desparate need of a  transformation into a  higher consciousness.
The islamic's, well that right now is a  lost cause.We can't even begin about talking of a  higher consciousness.
They will meet with destruction first.

Quote from: M forever on February 23, 2008, 12:33:40 PM
The answer to this question is already contained in the text portion you quoted. Please read it again, this time more carefully!

     No, there is nothing pertaining to race, positive or negative, anywhere in that paragraph. As I suspected, you goofed and won't admit it. Hey, it doesn't cost you anything to make a baseless charge like that. It certainly can't hurt your reputation, can it?

Quote from: drogulus on February 23, 2008, 09:25:11 AM
     You have a very acute understanding of your own dilemma but tend to jump to conclusions about others.

omg, this post is the most full of sh*t post ever written!
M never jumps to conclusions about anyone, go jump off a building, you racist!

Quote from: paulb on February 23, 2008, 05:37:07 AM
amazing , the ones who  know about history, read all the books, are the ones who can;'t really understand what happened.
That takes psychology to do that, but not the kind they teach in the universities.
"The Christ who preaches love, blah, blah, blah"
Give me a  break, as a  german you more than  all of us here should know better than painting Jesus in such pastel/pinkish colors.
Go back and re-read your history books.
Afterwards go preach the message to the islamics, apparently they did not get the message either.

Paul, I have no idea what you're talking about...... could you explain a bit more?

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on February 23, 2008, 05:00:43 PM
omg, this post is the most full of sh*t post ever written!
M never jumps to conclusions about anyone, go jump off a building, you racist!

Paul, I have no idea what you're talking about...... could you explain a bit more?

But M does mkae assertions from things I never intended to say.

What i was trying to get across is that M believes he knows so much about what Christ really taught.
Read the book of Revelation, see how Christ appears to you.
Also what i mean to say is that of all people the germans should be aware that when any nation/people  is out of line, the end result will be a  correction.
happens in individuals lives and ocurrs in the fates of a  nation or people.
The islamics are not acting in *good faith* and will meet up with some disaster in their fate.

Quote from: drogulus on February 23, 2008, 03:28:05 PM
No, there is nothing pertaining to race, positive or negative, anywhere in that paragraph. As I suspected, you goofed and won't admit it. Hey, it doesn't cost you anything to make a baseless charge like that. It certainly can't hurt your reputation, can it?

Here:

Quote from: M forever on February 22, 2008, 08:00:46 PM
Your first paragraph also contains some elements of more than latent racism and primitive tribal group thinking. What someone's family members may have done 2, 3 generations ago has little or nothing to do with what a person is or does today.

You certainly exhibit a lot of that primitive tribal group thinking which is the same as being racist and which is very obvious in all your "collective guilt" thinking exhibited in the post I replied to.

Quote from: paulb on February 23, 2008, 06:52:00 PM
But M does mkae assertions from things I never intended to say.

What i was trying to get across is that M believes he knows so much about what Christ really taught.
Read the book of Revelation, see how Christ appears to you.

The Book of Revelation isn't about the teaching of Christ, no matter what these may have been. Just going by the gospels, there is no evidence of the kind of "they asked for it, so they deserve what they got" thinking you exhibit here. But there is a lot about forgiveness and not judging people, as groups or as individuals.

Quote from: M forever on February 23, 2008, 10:09:58 PM
The Book of Revelation isn't about the teaching of Christ, no matter what these may have been. Just going by the gospels, there is no evidence of the kind of "they asked for it, so they deserve what they got" thinking you exhibit here. But there is a lot about forgiveness and not judging people, as groups or as individuals.

You like to talk, but you don't know much do you?

Quote1: And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,
2: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
3: And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.
4: Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.
5: But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:
6: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.
7: But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
8: Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
9: Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
10: So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.
11: And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
12: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
13: Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
14: For many are called, but few are chosen.

That's what I said: while the gospels may or may not have much to do with the original substance of Jesus' teachings (we don't really know, but it's the closest we can get in any case), Revelations is already an obvious case of later interpretive literature. In any case, we do know that values such as forgiveness and not judging people appears to be a more originally "Christian" idea than "they got what they asked for".

Quote from: head-case on February 23, 2008, 10:43:28 PM
You like to talk, but you don't know much do you?

Well it's M, what do you expect?

Quote from: M forever on February 23, 2008, 10:09:58 PM
The Book of Revelation isn't about the teaching of Christ, no matter what these may have been.

Quote from: M forever on February 23, 2008, 10:54:27 PM
That's what I said: while the gospels may or may not have much to do with the original substance of Jesus' teachings

i hate to be picky.....



it does start off like this:

Quote1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

but i also see what you mean to say, M. You just have in mind the contrast between how Revelations is more about prophesy and how earlier books like Matthew, etc. are about the LIFE of Jesus. So in your first post, it'd be more accurate if you would've written "life" instead of "teachings".

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on February 23, 2008, 05:00:43 PM
omg, this post is the most full of sh*t post ever written!
M never jumps to conclusions about anyone, go jump off a building, you racist!

??

What just happened, here? Did you just call Drogulus a racist, Greg?? If so, you need to stuff a sock in it.

If it was your intention to make a joke it didn't come off at all.

Nothing of what Drog said is even remotely racist.

I, myself, have been a victim of M's false accusations right here on this thread. So your conception of events is in error...


   

Quote from: M forever on February 23, 2008, 10:07:28 PM


You certainly exhibit a lot of that primitive tribal group thinking which is the same as being racist and which is very obvious in all your "collective guilt" thinking exhibited in the post I replied to.

      I don't subscribe to collective guilt ideas. If Europeans don't want to joke about the war, I can think of reasons why that don't involve me thinking they're guilty of something. It's more a matter of attitudes Europeans have about the past than my ideas about them. They have no reason to care much about what Americans think. It's far more important what they think of each other.

      If you want to castigate a country in your "collective guilt" manner for an obsession with NAZIs and WWII pick on the British. They're the world champions at that sort of thing.

Quote from: drogulus on February 24, 2008, 07:16:15 AM
     
      If you want to castigate a country in your "collective guilt" manner for an obsession with NAZIs and WWII pick on the British. They're the world champions at that sort of thing.

Oh; the sound of another clunking generalisation hitting the floor. I really don't believe at all that you intend to be offensive; despite which, you have a rare talent for it.

Mike

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 07:21:21 AM
Oh; the sound of another clunking generalisation hitting the floor. I really don't believe at all that you intend to be offensive; despite which, you have a rare talent for it.

Mike

Well, now hold on, Mike...

M has opened the door to all kinds of generalizations on this thread and it's a bit late to be pointing fingers now.

We Americans have been taking it on the chin from him all through this thread.

Of course, two (or a dozen) wrongs don't make a right but you gotta hand it to M for setting a mighty big precedent, here... ;D

I don't disagree with you at all there. I am just entering at the point where I feel there was really no reason to drag the UK into it and denigrate it. I am not patriotic, I do not feel; my country right or wrong...but the generalisation meant sweeping me and people I know up in the categorisation and it is not accurate.

By all means pick others up on their generalisations: I am always happy to see them challenged and nailed.

As an aside; M makes provocative generalisations and has a method of mixing fact with his opinion and putting it all across as fact. I have assumed it is part of his method of getting people to challenge him....he enjoys a good scrap.

Mike

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 07:21:21 AM
Oh; the sound of another clunking generalisation hitting the floor. I really don't believe at all that you intend to be offensive; despite which, you have a rare talent for it.

Mike

      Don't be silly. The British are entitled to their WWII preoccupations. I'm not casting aspersions on them, and I enjoy the Monty Python and Fawlty Towers sketches as much as anyone. It's a bigger deal for them than for Americans.

      No, I don't intend on giving offense, but I think you intend on taking it at the drop of a hat.

Quote from: drogulus on February 24, 2008, 07:51:23 AM
      Don't be silly. The British are entitled to their WWII preoccupations. I'm not casting aspersions on them, and I enjoy the Monty Python and Fawlty Towers sketches as much as anyone. It's a bigger deal for them than for Americans.

      No, I don't intend on giving offense, but I think you intend on taking it at the drop of a hat.

Just another generalisation; let's go look for the posts where I have been busy taking offense at the drop of a hat...best of luck.

Monty Python and Fawlty Towers are almost a generation old; they hardly display the current preoccupations or foreign concerns of this country, popular though those old programmes may be. We also still listen to the Beatles; but they are not still alive to us.

Mike

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 07:44:01 AM
I don't disagree with you at all there. I am just entering at the point where I feel there was really no reason to drag the UK into it and denigrate it. I am not patriotic, I do not feel; my country right or wrong...but the generalisation meant sweeping me and people I know up in your categorisation and it is not accurate.

Err, well, it wasn't my generalization...but I think you know that...

EDIT: Just saw your edit...

QuoteAs an aside; M makes provocative generalisations and has a method of mixing fact with his opinion and putting it across as fact. I have assumed it is part of his method of getting people to challenge him....he enjoys a good scrap.

Then others are free to be just as liberal with their mixture of facts and opinions, too, right? ;D

Yes, I did write the wrong word, sorry, I realised it and edited. Well, if we cut out all the speculation, generalisations and inacuracy here. The board would be pretty bare.  :'(

Mike

    I don't see how you can accuse me of giving offense without taking offense, and at nothing. So my comments are outdated, referring to '70s comedies, what difference does that make? Maybe the British have lost interest in WWII in the meantime. In any case I wasn't being insulting about it. I think it's funny, and I'm not making an accusation.

    So if the British are now the former World Champions at humor about WWII and NAZIs in particular, all I can say is it was a good run while it lasted.

Quote from: Perfect FIFTH on February 23, 2008, 10:59:17 PM
Well it's M, what do you expect?

He's ina   trap//

I can't recall specifically., but have this memory that i saw this TV documentary on post WW2 europe, been too many yrs, can't recall exactly.

But during the program they showed this geramn audience watchinga  film of the concentration camps, and some in the audience were showing a  disrespectful attitude, giggling and chuckles.

Like in a  state of deep denial, "oh look how bad our parents were"

I promise i saw this image on the screen, but it was only a  short caption so i can't recall that part, and its been too long ago.
But I remember it.

After reading many of M's post, I get the feeling that what i saw was not my imagination.
I never doubted before what i saw, but eading M sort of further confirms the repression that is still *entrenched* in the german consciousness.
The german's killed their greatest prophet and set up *the false prophet* in exchange.
What other culture do we read something like this ? I wonder ::)

Saul, you got any ideas ;)

Quote from: drogulus on February 24, 2008, 08:19:07 AM
   
    So if the British are now the former World Champions at humor about WWII and NAZIs in particular, all I can say is it was a good run while it lasted.

Really what I was taking issue with was the suggestion of a world war II preoccupation in the UK. A World Cup 66 obsession in parts of the community, yes unfortunately. But WWII is in more perspective.

Mike

     While we're at it, does anyone else want to claim their country has been insulted? The last 2 feeble attempts at this claim show how pointless this is. It ends up saying more about the sensitivities of the offended than the enormity of the largely imaginary offense.

     Edit: We cross posted, Mike, so I'll just say time to move on, OK?

Quote from: drogulus on February 24, 2008, 07:16:15 AM
      I don't subscribe to collective guilt ideas. If Europeans don't want to joke about the war, I can think of reasons why that don't involve me thinking they're guilty of something. It's more a matter of attitudes Europeans have about the past than my ideas about them. They have no reason to care much about what Americans think. It's far more important what they think of each other.

      If you want to castigate a country in your "collective guilt" manner for an obsession with NAZIs and WWII pick on the British. They're the world champions at that sort of thing.

"if the geramn's want to joke about the war"

Read my post above on what reactions I saw in the german audience witnssing a  film on the concentration camps.
Masny americans' don't repress the tragedy of viet nam, or what we did to the american indian culture, mainly because many are not not up on the facts, nor are they concerned about either tragedy.
Few americans have any books on either war on their shelves, so its not a  matter of repression, its just ignorance.
germany is alot smaller country that the US and most  germans have better acess to being informed about the truth in schools.
Though it would be a  good idea if the US school systems did begin a  HS course dealing with the Viet nam and Indian wars perpetrated by the US military. Its time  that we face up to our truths, no matter how dark they are.
We can't condemn the german's and japanese for repressing and remaining in a  state of denial,  if at the same time we are afraid to look at our shadow.

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 08:10:28 AM
Well, if we cut out all the speculation, generalisations and inacuracy here. The board would be pretty bare.  :'(

Mike

That's assuming we WANT to be on the receiving end of a poster's "provocative" generalizations... ;)

Quote from: paulb on February 24, 2008, 08:21:58 AM
The german's killed their greatest prophet and set up *the false prophet* in exchange.

May I ask you what writings of Nietzsche have you read and why his ideas attract you so much?

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 07:44:01 AM


As an aside; M makes provocative generalisations and has a method of mixing fact with his opinion and putting it all across as fact. I have assumed it is part of his method of getting people to challenge him....he enjoys a good scrap.

Mike

This helps to xplain why he interjects wild ideas.

btw Mike, you may want to let us know how the brits are dealing with their guilt on the crimes committed against the Irish.

Paul,

What are you going on about? It is long past time where Germans and Germany should be discussed and referred to without dragging the second world war into it; as some kind of below the belt debating point. M is very robust; but just about anyone else would have made complaints by now. This harking on M's home country and what some people did or did not do and relating it in a slightly indirect way to traits you perceive in him is nothing short of UNACCEPTABLE.

Now, try some proper debating points would you.

Mike

Quote from: paulb on February 24, 2008, 08:37:14 AM

btw Mike, you may want to let us know how the brits are dealing with their guilt on the crimes committed against the Irish.

Why exactly would I be wanting to open that bag of dirty potatoes? I have no interest in discussing this. I am not a spokesman for the nation.

Mike

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 08:41:12 AM
Why exactly would I be wanting to open that bag of dirty potatoes? I have no interest in discussing this. I am not a spokesman for the nation.

Mike

You are now getting a taste of what some of us have been dealing with right here on this thread (at the hands of M).

"Provocative" is what you call it... ;)

Quote from: Florestan on February 24, 2008, 08:36:04 AM
May I ask you what writings of Nietzsche have you read and why his ideas attract you so much?

I am just starting into Nietzsche.
I am finishing up Jung's discussion of Zarathustra and have all of Nietzsche's books..
I know the man had his faults, mainly because he was a  man ahead of his time, no one could reflect back to him the wisdom he had.
Thus his neurosis got so bad  that eventually no one could approach him as a  friend.
He was not the most congenial person, but that was because everyone was so far outside his range of thinking.
I love Nietzsche because he was not afraid to look at the truth and lies no matter how deep and dark they were.
Likea   true hero, he made sacrifices and was truly prophetic about the german and european consciousness.
Jung takes *more of the side* (though Jung does say Nietzsche was  a  bright light shinning in a  sea of darkness) that he did it to himself, i take more the line that everyone were dullards and were afraid of their own shadows.

Nieztsche had gripes with Plato, that is disagreeable with me. He claims Socrates had too many ideas  about the *good*, and did not allow the dark to have its place. I 'm a  big fan of Socrates.

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 08:41:12 AM
Why exactly would I be wanting to open that bag of dirty potatoes? I have no interest in discussing this. I am not a spokesman for the nation.

Mike

Use any analogy, EXCEPT always exclude the word *potatoes*.
Please.

Quote from: donwyn on February 24, 2008, 08:44:47 AM
You are now getting a taste of what some of us have been dealing with right here on this thread (at the hands of M).

"Provocative" is what you call it... ;)

EDIT, Apologies to Donwin: My comments were directed to Paul.

And quite why would it be appropriate to give me a taste of something you don't like? If you don't like the way M communicates with you: deal with it. If it goes against the rules of the board, and you have both been mud slinging, let us know. But don't just redirect the creosote sprayer.

You are fast becoming the grit in the oyster here; except you are not helping to produce a pearl; just more grit.

Mike

Quote from: paulb on February 24, 2008, 08:45:50 AM
I am finishing up Jung's discussion of Zarathustra and have all of Nietzsche's books..

So you haven't read a single line by Nietzsche himself as yet, have you?

Quote from: Florestan on February 24, 2008, 08:55:44 AM
So you haven't read a single line by Nietzsche himself as yet, have you?

Jung quotes almost the entire Zarathustra in the seminar.
I've tried to read through the entire book, its too difficult.
I pick up the understanding as Jung's discusses all the main lines, which I read in the 1600 page seminar.
As to his other books, I take Nietzsche in small doses. reason being that I am german and a  christian, so Nietzsche is quite volatile.
I'm gald i did stay far from Nietzsche until now, this way my own thoughts had a  chance to develope on its own.
Nietzsche would have overwhelmed me earlier on.

Its doubtful I'll finish all his works, I have to find my own thoughts. But certainly Niezsche has beena   god-send, a  true prophet along side any of the great prophets in the old testament.

Man , how do you think Saul is gonna take that line :D

My apologies. My remarks were really directed at Paul. Esp the Grit. I am not aware of you mudslinging.

I have never said people should or should not challenge one another and if you don't like the style of M, don't rise to the bait. People here are perfectly able to decide what they think about a post without the detail of it being spread like entrails across a bed of lettuce.

Where I have made my feelings plain; is that the almost racial slurs ought to stop. If comments breach the rules here, in the Diner, we tend not to interfere unless there is a complaint or they become unacceptable. For the record; I don't like people calling one another hopeless fools either. I was already involved on the thread today when Paul made another set of what I feel are unethical remarks. I have explained it to him.

So, if there is anything you don't like, highlight it if it breaches the rules; if not deal with it or ignore it.

But don't shout foul because bad behaviour is pointed out.

Mike

I think everyone here has been on good behavoir.
The idea of the topic is that americans are not in touch with high knowledge, even basic knowledge which leads to higher truths.

The establsihment wants to keep it that way.
Ignorant herds are much more controlable vs a  herd with knowledge.

Why just yesterday I was posting on a Health Board , giving out many of my ideas about sexual health , and the mods quickly stepped in and permanently suspended my account.
Why?
Because if the truth about natural means to health becomes known, the med establishment stands to lose
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$..
Doctors and the MEDICAL INDUSTRY want the masses to remain stupid about naturapathic methods.

Quote from: paulb on February 24, 2008, 10:01:19 AM

Why just yesterday I was posting on a Health Board , giving out many of my ideas about sexual health

What are those ideas?

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 09:50:56 AM
My apologies. My remarks were really directed at Paul. Esp the Grit. I am not aware of you mudslinging.

OH!! Apologies for my part, too! :-[ :)

QuoteWhere I have made my feelings plain; is that the almost racial slurs ought to stop.

Yes, that was my angle, too!

All the racial stuff from M and Greg got under my skin...

QuoteBut don't shout foul because bad behaviour is pointed out.

Indeed.

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 09:50:56 AM
Where I have made my feelings plain; is that the almost racial slurs ought to stop. If comments breach the rules here, in the Diner, we tend not to interfere unless there is a complaint or they become unacceptable.

I wonder if it would be possible to inact bans on posting in forum specific sections (such as the Diner) if a user transgresses too far?

Donwyn, Thanks very much.

Lethe, I think it is theoretically possible. We do have more liberal attitudes to the robustness of how we deal with one another on the Diner, but of course there are limits. Rob is reluctant to put the handcuffs on anyone. But really; if there is behaviour that breaches the rules, do let us know. I have sometimes wondered if I am over-reacting when I have done something, yet it surprised me there was no complaint.

Don....Why did you ask that? I will go get the high pressure water hose ready.

Cheers one and all,

Mike

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 10:11:35 AM

Don....Why did you ask that? I will go get the high pressure water hose ready.

Just thought that Paulb's notions on the subject might be interesting.

Quote from: Don on February 24, 2008, 10:18:03 AM
Just thought that Paulb's notions on the subject might be interesting.

LOL

Mike

Quote from: Don on February 24, 2008, 10:04:50 AM
What are those ideas?

I cannot reveal the specific questions that were asked.
My comments included ideas about excercise, diet, certain herbs and amino acids.

I posted a  link to GABA.
This may have ticked the mods off.
But mostly what made them upset is the fact that I showed these women their problem and how to deal with it aside from the medical industry's offerings.
Pills, the majority at least,  do not work due to the numerous side affects.
The body/mind is not so stupid as to be "tricked"
One woman asked the question as to why her sexual libido has lower after taking a  anti-depressant for 4 yrs.
She wants her sexual libido back to health.
I gave her a  few of my ideas, which included the suggestion that another poster made about how anti-depressants interfer with sexual function.
There are certain herbs(high quality extracts) and free form amino acids + other supplements  that can work together to assist almost any health issue. Provided the case is not too far gone.
But even late stage cancer can be treated with my ideas with successful results.
I include acupuncture treatments as part of the naturapathic therapy.

now if you will excuse me I havea   cold to take care of :-X

Quote from: paulb on February 24, 2008, 10:30:40 AM
I cannot reveal the specific questions that were asked.
My comments included ideas about excercise, diet, certain herbs and amino acids.

I posted a  link to GABA.
This may have ticked the mods off.
But mostly what made them upset is the fact that I showed these women their problem and how to deal with it aside from the medical industry's offerings.
Pills, the majority at least,  do not work due to the numerous side affects.
The body/mind is not so stupid as to be "tricked"
One woman asked the question as to why her sexual libido has lower after taking a  anti-depressant for 4 yrs.
She wants her sexual libido back to health.
I gave her a  few of my ideas, which included the suggestion that another poster made about how anti-depressants interfer with sexual function.
There are certain herbs(high quality extracts) and free form amino acids + other supplements  that can work together to assist almost any health issue. Provided the case is not too far gone.
But even late stage cancer can be treated with my ideas with successful results.
I include acupuncture treatments as part of the naturapathic therapy.

now if you will excuse me I havea   cold to take care of :-X

Reading Paul's other postings here inspires nothing but confidence in accepting his medical advice on treating potentially life-threating conditions

I'm par for the course

Booted off , *rejected by the elders* the following chat forums
Jungian, lasted 2 weeks. made mention of christianity, once too often.
Christian, have had several warnings and one more may result in suspension. (and i hardly said anything offensive)
Healthboards.com, lasted less than 12 hours. They do not want the truth to be known.
Classical music, I may have been, yes in fact i think I have been booted from GMG. Hopefully I'll be a  *good boy* and stay out of trouble here.
This is the last public forum I get the chance to open my big fat mouth. ;)

Paul, about your sig: didn't Wagner write 7 great operas, even from a conservative POV?

Quote from: Lethe on February 24, 2008, 01:44:05 PM
Paul, about your sig: didn't Wagner write 7 great operas, even from a conservative POV?

Very well could be.
i only heard clips  ;) of Miestersinger, Lohengrin, Tannhauser, Hollander. that was quite some time ago.
Can you tell me which os these offer similar modern style phrasing, chromatic beauty as Tristan and Parsifal.
I'm open minded , but don't care for that heavy early style. And the libretto has to be interesting.

Meistersinger is a fully mature work, although obviously dramatically different as it's a comedy. The earlier three are all very good, but not on the same inspired level of the last seven.

Quote from: drogulus on February 24, 2008, 07:16:15 AM
      I don't subscribe to collective guilt ideas. If Europeans don't want to joke about the war, I can think of reasons why that don't involve me thinking they're guilty of something. It's more a matter of attitudes Europeans have about the past than my ideas about them. They have no reason to care much about what Americans think. It's far more important what they think of each other.

      If you want to castigate a country in your "collective guilt" manner for an obsession with NAZIs and WWII pick on the British. They're the world champions at that sort of thing.

I am not interested in that sort of "castigating a country". That is all you. Like I sad above. And like here:

Quote from: donwyn on February 24, 2008, 07:33:53 AM
M has opened the door to all kinds of generalizations on this thread and it's a bit late to be pointing fingers now.

We Americans have been taking it on the chin from him all through this thread.

"We Americans"? I thought we are individuals here discussing individual view points. I don't think you can speak for "all Americans". Especially since I happen to live in the US presently, and I know a lot of Americans who have a very critical attitude towards their country's history and who don't feel themselves collectiely attacked - like you and some other people here - when these topics come up.

Besides, I never had the impression "the British" were nearly as obsessed about WWII as many Americans (like you guys here) still are. The wound of Pearl Harbor still is very deep and one can tell that from many tearful documentaries about that event. It is obvious it simply is too much for many Americans even today to process the fact that they were totally caught with their pants down by the evil Japanese. Which is easy to understand about a nation which still glorifies military subjects as much as the US does to this very day. And which still wants to define itself by military glory and power while most other Western nations have long moved on to a more complex understanding of the relationships of nations and how to solve the problems between them. Especially since after WWII, the US military has delivered mostly spectacular failures. But since it is such a large economical and internal power factor, its mythological justification has to be upheld.
And we all know that the real reason for dropping the atomic bombs was not strategical, but emotional. They just had to "get back" spectacularly for Pearl Harbor somehow.

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 07:44:01 AM
As an aside; M makes provocative generalisations and has a method of mixing fact with his opinion and putting it all across as fact. I have assumed it is part of his method of getting people to challenge him....he enjoys a good scrap.

Right, while what everyone else says is all facts with no element of personal opinions.

Quote from: Lethe on February 24, 2008, 02:17:20 PM
Meistersinger is a fully mature work, although obviously dramatically different as it's a comedy. The earlier three are all very good, but not on the same inspired level of the last seven.

As I intuited.
I'm really not after anything humorous at this point in Wagner. I'm sure Miester is a  very fine opera.
But I have yrs of study ahead on the 4 Ring and Tristan and Parsifal.
"not on the same inspired level".
I had a  hunch this was so.
i love immensely Wagner for his chromatic modern style phrasing. Anything that has that *heavy element* I find dull.
I have a  few historic Tristan's on wish list, + one or 2 Parsifal historic. can't wait til I have some $'s :)

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 08:25:46 AM
Really what I was taking issue with was the suggestion of a world war II preoccupation in the UK. A World Cup 66 obsession in parts of the community, yes unfortunately. But WWII is in more perspective.

A good comparison, since the British obsession with football ("soccer") is just as tragic as the American obsession with military power and glory. After all, its been a long time for either obsession to be actually supported by reality.

BTW, the ball was NOT in.

Quote from: knight on February 24, 2008, 08:37:33 AM
Paul,

What are you going on about? It is long past time where Germans and Germany should be discussed and referred to without dragging the second world war into it; as some kind of below the belt debating point. M is very robust; but just about anyone else would have made complaints by now. This harking on M's home country and what some people did or did not do and relating it in a slightly indirect way to traits you perceive in him is nothing short of UNACCEPTABLE.

Now, try some proper debating points would you.

I don't really mind. I know how feeble many people's individual and collective self-confidence is, and how easily they are deeply offended when their "nation" is criticized in any way. Since I come from a background in which extremely critical reflection of our own history is seen as a good thing, and since most of the rest of this very forum is filled with discussions about products of our culture - usually with very little understanding of that culture attached to it though - I can only laugh about how provincial a lot of people are in their primitive tribal thinking and glaring envy of other nations' cultural density and products.

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:23:28 PM
Especially since after WWII, the US military has delivered mostly spectacular failures.

Viet nam was an absolute disaster on every level.
The first Iraqi war had some good, as it  kept Sadamm and his 2 henchmen sons from totally dominating much of the mideast with terror.
But this 2nd current war may have opened up a  Pandora's Box.
I have to say the offensive was spectatular, the grinding of the iraqi military and the fact the US tracked down Sadamm.
but now its time to pull out and leave the iraqi's to make of their country as they will.
Another positive thing about this 2nd Iraqi war is that the Pentagon has been stretched to the limits and now have no reserves to go into Pakistan.
That would be a  blunder worse than  our fiasco in Viet Nam.

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:36:24 PM
Since I come from a background in which extremely critical reflection of our own history is seen as a good thing

This might be true, if so then i apologize.
obviously neither you nor I can speak for all of germany.
That shadow germany created in WW2 does not just go *pooff*. That shadow remains for generations.
What M is saying *critical self reflection* and the fact that he projects the shadow more often than NOT,  makes dubious his postulate.

you do realize there are still nazi's in this world. I knew 2 who ran a   bakery here in New Orleans.

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:23:28 PM
Especially since after WWII, the US military has delivered mostly spectacular failures.

Mostly? Really? Let's see:

WON                                                                                   
Grenada                                                                                 
Panama
The Gulf War, leading to the liberation of Kuwait
Serbia, leading to the independence of Kosovo
Afghanistan, Taliban defeated, leading to the creation of a new Afghan government
The Iraq War, leading to the the creation of a democratic Iraq

LOST
Vietnam*

TIED
Korea**

AS YET UNDECIDED
Iraq insurgency
Afghan insurgency
War on Terror


*There was no political or national will to win at any price (unlike WWII) but there were no "spectacular military failures" in Vietnam either. We won every battle and finally forced North Vietnam to sign the Paris Peace Accords, in which they promised to end hostilities and allow for a peaceful reunification process. The last of the American troops went home with South Vietnam intact and independent. Two years later North Vietnam violated the peace accords and invaded the south with an armored bliztkrieg. The American government did absolutely nothing at that point to help South Vietnam (beyond evacuating a few people)...and it ceased to exist. Not an American military failure...an American political failure.

** Since America fought the Chinese, Russians, and North Koreans to a stalemate that preserved the independence of South Korea and the prewar status quo; and since South Korea has flourished while the North has been reduced to one of the poorest nations on earth, one could say the Korean War actually ended in a victory...certainly a victory for the South Korean people.

Sarge

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:23:28 PM
"We Americans"? I thought we are individuals here discussing individual view points. I don't think you can speak for "all Americans". Especially since I happen to live in the US presently, and I know a lot of Americans who have a very critical attitude towards their country's history and who don't feel themselves collectiely attacked - like you and some other people here - when these topics come up.

Thanks for assuring me other Americans aren't so touchy. I feel better now.

Now go back and reread my remarks on Custer. And find yourself a good reading tutor...

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
WON                                                                                   
Grenada                                                                                 
Panama

You'd count as US wars deserving to be recorded the invasion of two countries that, taken together, are to USA what a fly is to an elephant?  :D

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
The Iraq War, leading to the the creation of a democratic Iraq

You're kidding, aren't you?

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:24:32 PM
Right, while what everyone else says is all facts with no element of personal opinions.

Show me where I said that.

I am not too sure whether others deliberately try to get a rise out of people; you have said you do. But I am not surprised at all that people get angry with you.

Nor am I concerned whether or not the racial slurs upset you. The point is; they should not be there and may upset others on the board who stay silent; or deter new posters from staying. Some posters feel your remarks also tend towards racial stereotyping and insult.

So folks..please be careful what you say to one another.

Mike

Quote from: Lethe on February 24, 2008, 02:17:20 PM
Meistersinger is a fully mature work, although obviously dramatically different as it's a comedy. The earlier three are all very good, but not on the same inspired level of the last seven.

Comedy is it? Yeah, right! Show us one joke from it and the overture doesn't count ;D

Quote from: donwyn on February 24, 2008, 07:09:31 AM
??

What just happened, here? Did you just call Drogulus a racist, Greg?? If so, you need to stuff a sock in it.

If it was your intention to make a joke it didn't come off at all.

Nothing of what Drog said is even remotely racist.

I, myself, have been a victim of M's false accusations right here on this thread. So your conception of events is in error...


   

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
wow, sorry if i scared you there, i thought it was obvious I was joking around.

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
Mostly? Really? Let's see:

WON                                                                                   
Grenada                                                                                 
Panama
The Gulf War, leading to the liberation of Kuwait
Serbia, leading to the independence of Kosovo
Afghanistan, Taliban defeated, leading to the creation of a new Afghan government
The Iraq War, leading to the the creation of a democratic Iraq

LOST
Vietnam*

TIED
Korea**

AS YET UNDECIDED
Iraq insurgency
Afghan insurgency
War on Terror


*There was no political or national will to win at any price (unlike WWII) but there were no "spectacular military failures" in Vietnam either. We won every battle and finally forced North Vietnam to sign the Paris Peace Accords, in which they promised to end hostilities and allow for a peaceful reunification process. The last of the American troops went home with South Vietnam intact and independent. Two years later North Vietnam violated the peace accords and invaded the south with an armored bliztkrieg. The American government did absolutely nothing at that point to help South Vietnam (beyond evacuating a few people)...and it ceased to exist. Not an American military failure...an American political failure.

** Since America fought the Chinese, Russians, and North Koreans to a stalemate that preserved the independence of South Korea and the prewar status quo; and since South Korea has flourished while the North has been reduced to one of the poorest nations on earth, one could say the Korean War actually ended in a victory...certainly a victory for the South Korean people.

Sarge

Grenada! Yeah, right, what a great victory that was. Clint Eastwood won it for you. I know, I saw the film and films, like newspapers, never lie.

Panama?

I think you had a little help from the best army in the World in Serbia and without us they would still be under Commie control instead the current crop of neo-Fascist bastards that run the country (country? - it's falling apart as we speak!).

Also, they have less chance of entering the EU than Uszbekistan and I made the last country up...I think ;D

Quote from: Hector on February 25, 2008, 06:04:16 AM
I think you had a little help from the best army in the World in Serbia and without us they would still be under Commie control instead the current crop of neo-Fascist bastards that run the country (country? - it's falling apart as we speak!).

Could you be more specific about the bold parts?

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on February 25, 2008, 05:58:52 AM
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
wow, sorry if i scared you there, i thought it was obvious I was joking around.

Ah, okay!

I should have guessed!

Mea culpa! ;D

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
You act as if the US decision to drop the bomb sprang from soulless, heartless entities without a care for the consequences. That's not true. You said it yourself: there were those in the top US ranks who forwarded dissenting votes. So it obviously wasn't an easy decision. Obviously.

The fact that some back and forth was going on doesn't change the result that a morally wrong decision was made in the end.

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
And besides, there are any number of weapons that lack "limited precision" (so I'm not sure what you're driving at). Blanket, high-altitude firebombing among them. And that's what the Japanese were facing in the wake of the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Endless barrages of night and day air raids - aimed at both military and civilian targets alike with bombs being scattered all over the place. I don't see any advantage or lessening of Japan's misery with this tactic. In reality, the casualties would undoubtedly have been much GREATER seeing as the timetable for such an operation would have spanned months if not years. Yet somehow being conventional means it's all right. I simply don't understand this...

You're missing the issue completely. Over centuries, people have tried to figure out morally proper rules of conducting war (for when you absolutely have to). One central tenet is to differentiate between people who are combatants, and therefore proper targets, and people who are outside of combat - hors de combat, to use the technical term - i.e. civilians, medical staff, POWs, etc. A nuclear weapon scorches and poisons a vast area for years to come. Not only is its radius of death so enormous as to make it inevitable that a large number of civilians would die, but the aftereffects are primarily felt by civilians. It cannot ever be used purely against a military target (with the possible theoretical clinical exception of an isolated military base in the desert - but even so, fallout will reach civilians). This is not at all the same as bombing using conventional weapons. With conventional weapons the question is always how accurate is your targeting. That issue is irrelevant with nukes, because of the vast radius of destruction and because of the fallout that follows, which can go anywhere the wind blows.

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
On top of all this, add the monumentality of a full-scale invasion. Shudderrrrrr.... Bodies piled on bodies on both sides. Gruesome.

False dilemma. As discussed, a number of high ranking military officials disagreed that the only two options were to nuke or face a devastatingly costly invasion.

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
You simply can't blame any military for not wanting to subject their already weary forces to such a lethal slug-fest. And one that might not even be successful too boot. And that's a reality. It's safe to say the lessons and black eyes of 'Island Hopping' were not lost on the top US commanders. Broaden the scope to include an entire country - one full of the staunchest of defenders - and the outlook isn't very pretty.

It is morally wrong to sacrifice the lives of cilvilians to save the lives of soldiers. You are condemning non-combatants to death who have done nothing to you. You can't say, 'oh I don't want to sacrifice my soldiers in fighting the enemy soldiers, instead let's sacrifice the mothers and children of the enemy soldiers.' That is immoral. The civilians didn't pick a fight with you.

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
So obviously it was hoped that the two bombs would cause such an outcry amongst the civilian population that the regime would be forced to listen. And it worked. Just as months or years of firebombing and invasion eventually would have done.

One bomb would have done that trick, if one had waited to allow the Japanese some time for assessment and reaction. If Hirohito and others are to be believed, the Russian entry into the Pacific Theater was in any case a more impressive reason to surrender than the nukes themselves, whose impact effects hadn't yet been fully understood.

Quote from: donwyn on February 22, 2008, 08:47:43 PM
And as I said, it was a very unfortunate oversight that no one knew about the long-term consequences of nuclear fallout. No one could have guessed it. The bomb had never been deployed on humans before. And dropping it in an open, vacant expanse would have netted zero. There had to be something for the Japanese high-ups to look at. Sad as it is to say...

Lots of flawed information and logic here. The devastating capabilities of the first nuclear weapon detonated at Alamogordo was not at all lost on those who were present and watching. There is *zero* reason why Japanese military leaders should have been immune to seeing the self-evident, had a demonstration been made over a non-human target. In fact, it could have made an even bigger impression than Hiroshima, since nobody from the Japanese military leadership was present to witness the blast. They didn't fully understand what happened there until weeks after. As to no one being able to guess the fallout consequences, that isn't correct either. There were serious concerns, but the military leadership brushed them under the table and didn't allow sufficient testing.

Quote from: Hector on February 25, 2008, 06:04:16 AM
... Serbia ... (country? - it's falling apart as we speak!).

This seems to happen quite a lot lately in the places the US of A choose to invade, bomb or otherwise disrupt around the world.

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
Mostly? Really? Let's see:

WON                                                                                   
Grenada                                                                                 
Panama
The Gulf War, leading to the liberation of Kuwait
Serbia, leading to the independence of Kosovo
Afghanistan, Taliban defeated, leading to the creation of a new Afghan government
The Iraq War, leading to the the creation of a democratic Iraq

LOST
Vietnam*

TIED
Korea**

AS YET UNDECIDED
Iraq insurgency
Afghan insurgency
War on Terror

Sarge, you can't be serious! Grenada so doesn't count. That was Reagan wanking off. A busload of tourists could have taken over the place without a single shot fired. The whole thing was a pretext for showing off. There wasn't even a real reason to do anything in Grenada. Counting that as a war should be embarrassing, not a matter of pride, and certainly not a victory. That's like Hillary counting Florida and Michigan as victories. It was no contest. Panama is likewise debatable. Do you count it as a victory if you in the first place trained and created the regime you're removing?

You can't count Iraq in two columns at the same time. The ojective in Iraq was regime change and creating a stable country. Remember that regime change involves not just removing the existing one but also setting one up that has control over its country. The latter hasn't happened. There is no control over the country and therefore the war isn't over. It was fought with inadequate means, with a boneheaded strategy and no plan for the occupation. Whatever it turns out to be in the end, it is no victory. Eisenhower and Patton must be turning in their graves looking at that mess. The war on terror doesn't count as a war. Fighting terrorism is an intelligence and law enforcement operation, not a military one. That is a completely wrongheaded approach to the problem. The "Global War on Terror" is nothing more than a label used by neoconservatives to conflate fears of terrorism with regional wars they would like to fight (Iraq - Syria and Iran next), which have nothing whatsoever to do with 9-11. That isn't an actual war, and certainly not if you are counting Afghanistan and Iraq as three wars separate from the GWOT.

Whether the independence of Kosovo is a victory or a whole new can of worms remains to be seen. Militarily, certainly it was reasonably well executed (if you ignore some of the larger booboos like the bombings of refugee convoys and the Chinese embassy in Belgrade).

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
*There was no political or national will to win at any price (unlike WWII) but there were no "spectacular military failures" in Vietnam either. We won every battle and finally forced North Vietnam to sign the Paris Peace Accords, in which they promised to end hostilities and allow for a peaceful reunification process. The last of the American troops went home with South Vietnam intact and independent. Two years later North Vietnam violated the peace accords and invaded the south with an armored bliztkrieg. The American government did absolutely nothing at that point to help South Vietnam (beyond evacuating a few people)...and it ceased to exist. Not an American military failure...an American political failure.

You've fallen prey to a sort of reverse mission creep for the purpose of saving face. The objective was to kick out the Commies completely. That failed, even if you stop counting at the Paris accords, for North Vietnam continued to exist as an independent political unit. The ultimate failure here was twofold. Firstly, failure to understand that the primary struggle was anti-colonial and that the population didn't so much care about communism as it cared not to be occupied by anyone, not the Chinese, not the French, not the Americans, and that they were going to fight tooth and nail toward that end. Secondly, the mistaken belief that in such a situation anything could be accomplished militarily in the first place. You can look at lots of battles "won", except that none of them mattered. Every battle "won" set the US cause back by increasing the antagonism among the population. This goes back to the Hiroshima question. In all its East Asian conflicts, the US military showed a remarkable racism in how it treated the Asian civilian population, very different from how WWII was fought in Europe. From dropping nukes on Japan, to bombing civilian dams and dropping Napalm on towns in Korea, to napalm, agent orange and My Lai in Vietnam.

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM
** Since America fought the Chinese, Russians, and North Koreans to a stalemate that preserved the independence of South Korea and the prewar status quo; and since South Korea has flourished while the North has been reduced to one of the poorest nations on earth, one could say the Korean War actually ended in a victory...certainly a victory for the South Korean people.

But remember that that victory was not at all a given and that it came very late. Syngman Rhee's regime was a cruel right-wing military dictatorship populated by cronies and former collaborators with the Japanese occupiers (that's why, by way of contrast, Kim Il-Sung's resistance fighter credentials carried considerable weight for quite some time). The South committed numerous atrocities with the US either giving its explicit OK or closing both eyes (notably the Cheju massacre). What the South did do, what the North didn't, was that it left the handful of very wealthy families and their holdings intact. They became the owners of the chaebols, the huge Korean corporate conglomerates that fueled the postwar growth of Korea, albeit at the great expense of significant political corruption. But remember: South Korea didn't become a democracy until 1988. Even after the military regime was in disarray after the assassination of Park Chung-Hee in 1980, they brutally surpressed a popular uprising in Kwangju that differed from Tienanmen only in scale. The single event that marked a turnaournd for South Korea towards democracy was, of all things, the 1988 Seoul olympics. The student democracy movement took the opportunity while the world's attention was focussed on Korea in the run up to the olympics to embarrass the regime at a time when it could not afford to be heavyhanded. But South korean society remains very stratified, with a small number of chaebol families still controlling virtually the entire economy.

PS: you forgot to mention Lebanon, Haiti and Somalia, all of which are still a disaster.

Quote from: Hector on February 25, 2008, 05:56:23 AM
Comedy is it? Yeah, right! Show us one joke from it and the overture doesn't count ;D

;D I can cheat - opera tends to consider everything that doesn't end in tragedy as comedy :P

Quote from: M forever on February 24, 2008, 02:23:28 PM
I am not interested in that sort of "castigating a country". That is all you. Like I sad above. And like here:

"We Americans"? I thought we are individuals here discussing individual view points. I don't think you can speak for "all Americans". Especially since I happen to live in the US presently, and I know a lot of Americans who have a very critical attitude towards their country's history and who don't feel themselves collectiely attacked - like you and some other people here - when these topics come up.

Besides, I never had the impression "the British" were nearly as obsessed about WWII as many Americans (like you guys here) still are. The wound of Pearl Harbor still is very deep and one can tell that from many tearful documentaries about that event. It is obvious it simply is too much for many Americans even today to process the fact that they were totally caught with their pants down by the evil Japanese. Which is easy to understand about a nation which still glorifies military subjects as much as the US does to this very day. And which still wants to define itself by military glory and power while most other Western nations have long moved on to a more complex understanding of the relationships of nations and how to solve the problems between them. Especially since after WWII, the US military has delivered mostly spectacular failures. But since it is such a large economical and internal power factor, its mythological justification has to be upheld.
And we all know that the real reason for dropping the atomic bombs was not strategical, but emotional. They just had to "get back" spectacularly for Pearl Harbor somehow.

    It doesn't seem to me that I was castigaing a country when I noted that the British are (or were) obsessed with WWII to a greater extent than Americans. I just recently watched one of those historical drama series about the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the war. And then there's Foyles War, the series about a police inspector who chases German spies. It didn't end in the '70s. American occasionally make war films, war based TV series, and war comedies, but on the whole the British are more expert at all of these.

    It's no more illegitimate for me to refer to these phenomena than it is for you to mention American reaction to Pearl Harbor. Are we supposed to consider all such posts as racism? That's a pretty low standard, I would think, besides the fact that no actual racism is involved.

     The charge that the bombings of Japan amounted to "getting back" at them is true. The question I raised goes to what else justified them. There's a lot of getting back in war. Announcing that we got back at the Japanese is a bit like the stunning revelation that real ammunition was used as well.

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 24, 2008, 05:43:40 PM


LOST
Vietnam*

TIED
Korea**

AS YET UNDECIDED
Iraq insurgency
Afghan insurgency
War on Terror



Sarge

     Sarge, I want to isolate this part of your post to show how these particular conflicts may be related. Korea was a stalemate that in retrospect became a huge victory, though nothing that happened at the time made clear that this would be the case. Vietnam was a defeat, and a bitter one that diminished our influence.

     Now take a look at the other conflicts. Will they be more like Korea or like Vietnam? Opponents are betting that Vietnam is the correct model, that insurgencies and terror movements are like wars of national liberation, and we play the role of oppressor/colonial power. But is that the way it will be seen in the future, or are we in a new era where the colonialist/anticolonialist paradigm is replaced by something that does a better job of reflecting what people actually want than the old Marxist model, or even the new quasi-Marxist revolutionary jihadism? Those focussing on the Vietnam paradigm may be missing something big, the Korean model, which took decades to develop. If Iraq and Afghanistan have any chance at all, it will come because we encourage and protect them, and don't get scared off by Vietnam analogies.

Quote from: drogulus on February 25, 2008, 01:44:00 PM
     Sarge, I want to isolate this part of your post to show how these particular conflicts may be related. Korea was a stalemate that in retrospect became a huge victory, though nothing that happened at the time made clear that this would be the case. Vietnam was a defeat, and a bitter one that diminished our influence.

     Now take a look at the other conflicts. Will they be more like Korea or like Vietnam? Opponents are betting that Vietnam is the correct model, that insurgencies and terror movements are like wars of national liberation, and we play the role of oppressor/colonial power. But is that the way it will be seen in the future, or are we in a new era where the colonialist/anticolonialist paradigm is replaced by something that does a better job of reflecting what people actually want than the old Marxist model, or even the new quasi-Marxist revolutionary jihadism? Those focussing on the Vietnam paradigm may be missing something big, the Korean model, which took decades to develop. If Iraq and Afghanistan have any chance at all, it will come because we encourage and protect them, and don't get scared off by Vietnam analogies.

Good post.

The philosophy running rampant in this building is totally obsolete. The ugliest sight in america is this building.

Quote from: drogulus on February 25, 2008, 01:44:00 PM
     Sarge, I want to isolate this part of your post to show how these particular conflicts may be related. Korea was a stalemate that in retrospect became a huge victory, though nothing that happened at the time made clear that this would be the case. Vietnam was a defeat, and a bitter one that diminished our influence.

     Now take a look at the other conflicts. Will they be more like Korea or like Vietnam? Opponents are betting that Vietnam is the correct model, that insurgencies and terror movements are like wars of national liberation, and we play the role of oppressor/colonial power. But is that the way it will be seen in the future, or are we in a new era where the colonialist/anticolonialist paradigm is replaced by something that does a better job of reflecting what people actually want than the old Marxist model, or even the new quasi-Marxist revolutionary jihadism? Those focussing on the Vietnam paradigm may be missing something big, the Korean model, which took decades to develop. If Iraq and Afghanistan have any chance at all, it will come because we encourage and protect them, and don't get scared off by Vietnam analogies.

I'm not sure the philosophical dichotomy you propose is appropriate. Marx didn't invent colonialism, nor anti-colonialism. The struggle of occupier vs. occupied is an ancient one. What differs is the method of collective identification of the occupied (faith, nationality, language, culture or political movement). But even that isn't necessarily relevant. Korea was very different from Vietnam in that the Koreans had comparatively little say in the conflict, plus the regime in the South relied on very old existing family networks. That is very different from the Vietnam model where a critical mass of the population had been fighting whatever current occupiers for generations and where the regime in the South had no popular legitimacy and no hold on power without US weaponry to back it up. Another difference is that Vietnam was a collapsing French colony, while Korea was a Japanese colony that was divvied up between the Soviets and the US. The invasion of the US half by the North had little to do with any underlying animosity of the Korean people towards the US occupiers. The two are very different and for that reason Korea is very different from Iraq. Korea as a territory also was an existing medieval kingdom whereas Iraq is the brainfart of a British colonial map designer without any direct historic precedent as a state. Plus neither Vietnam nor Korea is the multiethnic multi-confessional mess that you have in Iraq, with irredentist groups with pretensions to chunks of neighboring countries and the largest ethnic/confessional group under the sway of a neighboring regional power. This is a completely different dynamic. Where Iraq resembles Vietnam very closely is in the boneheaded decision to pursue ideological aims by military means with total disregard for the local conditions at hand or the greater strategic implications of intervening. But the difference between Marxist concepts of anti-colonial struggle and other defintional approaches to insurgent vs. occupier scenarios have nothing to do with it.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 25, 2008, 02:30:10 PM
  with irredentist groups with pretensions to chunks of neighboring countries and the largest ethnic/confessional group under the sway of a neighboring regional power.

I did not understand the first part of the sentence, could you amplify. Are you refering to egyptians , syrians, amd others that go iraq to fight the US?
The last part is reference to Iran.
How influential is Iran in politics/religious unrest inside Iraq?

     No, I think these frameworks do influence both Americans and Iraqis, as well as others who try to figure out what should happen, or what is likely to. I'm not saying this paradigm is true, and that one is false, just that the national liberation one is not the exclusive possesion of the worst elements that wield it.

     We do have some choice about which paradigm is permitted to prevail by the course we pursue. I don't see why we should support the paradigm that says Iraqi butchers are somehow authentic, so what they want is legitimate, and the Iraqis who want us to stay and help somehow aren't, so they should be abandoned. Such a narrative, very commonly advanced here, is not one I think that helps Iraqis or Afghans or anyone for that matter other than the people we are fighting.

Quote from: paulb on February 25, 2008, 02:55:14 PM
I did not understand the first part of the sentence, could you amplify. Are you refering to egyptians , syrians, amd others that go iraq to fight the US?
The last part is reference to Iran.
How influential is Iran in politics/religious unrest inside Iraq?

Irredentist group = Kurds. They also live in Turkey and Iran. Some of them have ideas of a unified Kurdish state that has the Turks extremely jittery. Largest ethnic/confessional group = Shiites, whose political leaders are very much under the influence of Iran, Iran being that neighboring regional power. Sorry for the abstractions. Hope this clarifies it.

Quote from: drogulus on February 25, 2008, 02:56:48 PM
     No, I think these frameworks do influence both Americans and Iraqis, as well as others who try to figure out what should happen, or what is likely to. I'm not saying this paradigm is true, and that one is false, just that the national liberation one is not the exclusive possesion of the worst elements that wield it.

     We do have some choice about which paradigm is permitted to prevail by the course we pursue. I don't see why we should support the paradigm that say Iraqi butchers are somehow authentic, so what they want is legitimate, and the Iraqis who want us to stay and help somehow aren't, so they should be abandoned. Such a narrative, very commonly advanced here, is not one I think that helps Iraqis or Afghans or anyone for that matter other than the people we are fighting.

Sorry, but none of this stuff applies. The principal problem is the inapplicability of the "national liberation" paradigm because there is no agreed concept of "nation" among Iraqis. This silly national liberation nonsense was projected upon a lot of the post-colonial third world (especially in Africa) where also in most cases none of this applied, because the post-colonial national borders rarely reflected the borders between ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural groups.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 25, 2008, 03:12:37 PM


Sorry, but none of this stuff applies. The principal problem is the inapplicability of the "national liberation" paradigm because there is no agreed concept of "nation" among Iraqis. This silly national liberation nonsense was projected upon a lot of the post-colonial third world (especially in Africa) where also in most cases none of this applied, because the post-colonial national borders rarely reflected the borders between ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural groups.

     It only doesn't apply if it has no influence. Do you really want to go tell all these Iraqis who're obviously patriotic and want to join the army and police to fight the killers, and die in the process, that their patriotism is phoney because the borders were drawn by some Englishman? This is exactly the sort of unhelpful framework that produces all these "the war is lost" predictions. It treats efforts to improve the situation as doomed to failure, because the critics are operating from a script that says that's what's supposed to happen.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 25, 2008, 03:12:37 PM
Irredentist group = Kurds. They also live in Turkey and Iran. Some of them have ideas of a unified Kurdish state that has the Turks extremely jittery. Largest ethnic/confessional group = Shiites, whose political leaders are very much under the influence of Iran, Iran being that neighboring regional power. Sorry for the abstractions. Hope this clarifies it.

yes, thanks for explanations.
You have good sense for international politics /history/conflict situations.

I look forward to your insights on the Pakistan Dilemma, once that starts to heat up later this yr.
i havea   topic on pakistan, i think this is where the most potentially explosive conflict may erupt.
The pakistani's are not like iraq with a  strict division between the 2 major islamic setcs.
they are more or lessa   unified group.
And they are like hornets when the nest is disturbed.
And Osama may have been re-unifying his army in that area, and when Musharraf falls, Osama may have some breathing room to work up his fiendish schemes.

Where is the Information Minister? He was my favorite character of the Bush War.
(http://www.crashcribbage.com/images/iraqmoi.bmp)

Quote from: O Mensch on February 25, 2008, 06:49:07 AM
The fact that some back and forth was going on doesn't change the result that a morally wrong decision was made in the end.

Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least it paints the US brass as far less callous than you'd have us believe.

QuoteYou're missing the issue completely. Over centuries, people have tried to figure out morally proper rules of conducting war (for when you absolutely have to). One central tenet is to differentiate between people who are combatants, and therefore proper targets, and people who are outside of combat - hors de combat, to use the technical term - i.e. civilians, medical staff, POWs, etc.

Was Sherman's march through the Confederate south in any way a portrait of military etiquette you just described?

Yes, the two Japanese cities took it on the chin more than any civilian population in history but to say civilian populations get all the respect they deserve from attacking armies is wishful thinking. No matter WHERE you throw the dart in history.

Besides, "rules of combat" are forever subject to situational improv. Nothing is set in stone. No matter for the defender nor the attacker (much more below...).

QuoteA nuclear weapon scorches and poisons a vast area for years to come. Not only is its radius of death so enormous as to make it inevitable that a large number of civilians would die, but the aftereffects are primarily felt by civilians. It cannot ever be used purely against a military target (with the possible theoretical clinical exception of an isolated military base in the desert - but even so, fallout will reach civilians). This is not at all the same as bombing using conventional weapons. With conventional weapons the question is always how accurate is your targeting. That issue is irrelevant with nukes, because of the vast radius of destruction and because of the fallout that follows, which can go anywhere the wind blows.

Yes, you've played this card many times and yes I do honestly understand your angle. But in 1945 weapons were not near as accurate as they are now. Especially aerial bombing. That was my angle. So a course of aerial attacks (scattered firebombing) lasting several months or perhaps even years would've been much more costly in lives. Do the math.

QuoteFalse dilemma. As discussed, a number of high ranking military officials disagreed that the only two options were to nuke or face a devastatingly costly invasion.

Military and civilian councils alike often disagree on a course of action but ONE must ultimately be chosen. So one was chosen...

QuoteIt is morally wrong to sacrifice the lives of cilvilians to save the lives of soldiers. You are condemning non-combatants to death who have done nothing to you. You can't say, 'oh I don't want to sacrifice my soldiers in fighting the enemy soldiers, instead let's sacrifice the mothers and children of the enemy soldiers.' That is immoral. The civilians didn't pick a fight with you.

No army in its right mind just arbitrarily proclaims civilian lives should be swapped for military lives. No matter how many hoards of civilians are killed off. There's still an opposing army to consider. You'd be wasting a ton of manpower and material on basically sheep while the opposing army is left completely unchecked and on the prowl.

This simply wasn't the scenario at all.

As I said earlier on in this thread, if the Japanese were on the verge of cracking (and it seemed so) the knockout blow had to be delivered. And decisively. Else the war could've dragged on for who knows how much longer. The toll from a protracted war would've without question been much greater than had the US put a quick end to the war. Civilian instillations had already been the targets of intense bombing in order to disrupt the civilian infrastructure - which of course has a ripple effect on everything else (military and beyond...). Not to mention military production and manufacture is manned by civilians in civilian surroundings. So civilians were already targets - in both the European and Japanese theaters.

And to build on what I mentioned above: in past wars it was impossible to get 'behind the lines' to such a degree to even touch a nation's war production - nor its civilian (and thus military) infrastructure. This is a clear indication of a change in the "rules of war". For the first time in WWII targets (military and eventually civilian) NOT on the front lines were easily accessible. So the 'rules' got a bit of tweaking...for better or worse.

AT THE TIME it all seemed perfectly logical. The two bombs became a natural extension of this new philosophy. Ultimately it proved more devastating than perhaps was warranted. But war has a way of  making the soundest of decisions - on paper - look awfully bad after the fact. And morally sound decision-makers can get caught up in the lurch.

QuoteOne bomb would have done that trick, if one had waited to allow the Japanese some time for assessment and reaction. If Hirohito and others are to be believed, the Russian entry into the Pacific Theater was in any case a more impressive reason to surrender than the nukes themselves, whose impact effects hadn't yet been fully understood.

You don't wait in war!!!! It's that simple!!! If you have the means to deliver the punch, you punch. The US had two bombs and they went with their choice to use them.

The Christmas time "Battle of the Bulge" (in Europe) is testament to the disastrous effects of pausing. The allied machine in northern Europe required a short period of time to collect itself and shore up its overextended lines. There was sound tactical reasoning for this pause - you simply can't outrace your supply lines - but aerial bombardments in the heartland of Germany were cut back as well. Germany seized on this opportunity to ramp up its manufacturing output and by the time of the Christmas time counter-offensive it was a (relatively) well supplied army again. Not to mention there was a morale boost amongst the German soldiers...and, so, they were off an running. (The battle might have cost eastern Europe its chance at western liberation as it severely slowed the western allied advance).

So no successful student of warfare even considers 'pause' unless conditions absolutely warrant it. The US had the, err..."luxury" (:P) of the two bombs and used them.

QuoteLots of flawed information and logic here. The devastating capabilities of the first nuclear weapon detonated at Alamogordo was not at all lost on those who were present and watching. There is *zero* reason why Japanese military leaders should have been immune to seeing the self-evident, had a demonstration been made over a non-human target. In fact, it could have made an even bigger impression than Hiroshima, since nobody from the Japanese military leadership was present to witness the blast. They didn't fully understand what happened there until weeks after. As to no one being able to guess the fallout consequences, that isn't correct either. There were serious concerns, but the military leadership brushed them under the table and didn't allow sufficient testing.

This exact scenario had been considered by the US brass and rejected. "Witnesses" to such an event would have proved far less convincing than an actual attack. "Self-evident" to a witness is not necessarily self-evident to someone receiving a story second-hand. That's a given...

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
This exact scenario had been considered by the US brass and rejected. "Witnesses" to such an event would have proved far less convincing than an actual attack. "Self-evident" to a witness is not necessarily self-evident to someone receiving a story second-hand. That's a given...

I can imagine the invitation.  "Dear Emperor.  You and your top military commanders are cordially invited to a remote island in the Pacific, where we will detonate a huge bomb for your edification.  Black tie optional.  (We promise you will be unharmed, really!)  Sincerely, Harry S. Truman."

Quote from: drogulus on February 25, 2008, 03:29:10 PM
Do you really want to go tell all these Iraqis who're obviously patriotic and want to join the army and police to fight the killers, and die in the process, that their patriotism is phoney because the borders were drawn by some Englishman?

I don't think that is why they are joining the army/police. That's a little too simplistic.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least it paints the US brass as far less callous than you'd have us believe.

Nuance is lost on you. I never called the "US brass ... callous". I said the decision to nuke Hiroshima and especially Nagasaki was morally wrong. Since I (not you) was the one who pointed out that certain members of the brass disagreed with the view that nuking was necessary, it is clearly I (not you) who is differentiating between those who made a morally correct evaluation and those who didn't.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Was Sherman's march through the Confederate south in any way a portrait of military etiquette you just described?

WTF does that have to do with anything? The fact that others have committed war crimes at other times in other wars does not excuse the one we are presently discussing.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Yes, the two Japanese cities took it on the chin more than any civilian population in history but to say civilian populations get all the respect they deserve from attacking armies is wishful thinking. No matter WHERE you throw the dart in history.

You are once again confused. I never said that the civilian populations in fact always do "get all the respect they deserve" (whatever that formulation is supposed to mean). I said that proper conduct of warfare exempts persons who are hors de combat and focusses on fighting actual combatants. There is a difference between fighting that ends up hurting some civilians in the process because they were caught between the lines, vs. the deliberate targeting of civilian targets with no military significance. The latter is what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Besides, "rules of combat" are forever subject to situational improv. Nothing is set in stone. No matter for the defender nor the attacker (much more below...).

No, they are not. Any self-respecting army has a manual, a code of conduct of what is proper and what isn't. You can be court-marshalled for not following it.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Yes, you've played this card many times and yes I do honestly understand your angle. But in 1945 weapons were not near as accurate as they are now. Especially aerial bombing. That was my angle. So a course of aerial attacks (scattered firebombing) lasting several months or perhaps even years would've been much more costly in lives. Do the math.

donwyn, there are two things that you still fail to get here. One is that there is serious disagreement that the invasion necessarily would have cost more civilian lives. Secondly, "doing the math" is what is immoral here. You cannot a priori take a group of civilians who are not proper targets for combat and condemn them to death by deciding that they are to be sacrificed in order to save some other combatants and civilians. They simply aren't a fair target. Nobody was holding a gun to Truman's head and forcing him to drop these nukes on these two particular civilian population centers. There simply wasn't the immediate necessity that you claim.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
Military and civilian councils alike often disagree on a course of action but ONE must ultimately be chosen. So one was chosen...

Yes, but it was the morally wrong choice.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
No army in its right mind just arbitrarily proclaims civilian lives should be swapped for military lives. No matter how many hoards of civilians are killed off. There's still an opposing army to consider. You'd be wasting a ton of manpower and material on basically sheep while the opposing army is left completely unchecked and on the prowl.

You live in a fantasyland of purely rational actors who also never make mistakes that they are later unwilling to admit. People don't work that way and the military certainly doesn't. All wars, and WWII particularly, abound with truly idiotic targeting choices of things an people that had no military objective whatsoever (cue again Dresden; another nice one was the bombing of Belgrade by allied bombers for no apparent reason after Yugoslavia had been occupied by the Nazis). More examples: From a cost-benefit analysis point of view the V-1 and V-2 were a glorious waste of money that accomplished little to nothing militarily but tied up resources that could have been used for more tanks and fighters. Stalingrad? Yeah, that was really rational.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
As I said earlier on in this thread, if the Japanese were on the verge of cracking (and it seemed so) the knockout blow had to be delivered. And decisively. Else the war could've dragged on for who knows how much longer. The toll from a protracted war would've without question been much greater than had the US put a quick end to the war. Civilian instillations had already been the targets of intense bombing in order to disrupt the civilian infrastructure - which of course has a ripple effect on everything else (military and beyond...). Not to mention military production and manufacture is manned by civilians in civilian surroundings. So civilians were already targets - in both the European and Japanese theaters.

I highlighted the bits that are based on totally flawed logic. Either you aren't reading (and processing) what I have been writing for the past few pages, or you feel so emotionally threatened by the idea that the US of A could have committed one of the worst war crimes in history that you're tossing logic out of the window (it might be that you believe in the appropriateness of collective guilt, I don't know). Rebuttal in brief:

A. It is not accurate that the toll from a "protracted war" would have "without question" caused more fatalities. You use "could've" and "would've" way too much to allow yourself the use of "without question". As mentioned several times now, several of the most successful military leaders of WWII disagreed on that assessment and thought that Japan could not keep the war effort up much longer one way or another. Also note that Hirohito expressly mentioned the Russian entry into the Pacific theater as a reason for surrendering and did not mention the nukes. Also: regarding "more fatalities", there is a difference in kind between killing a few thousand soldiers outright in battle versus poisoning an area for years to come with the resulting fatalities due to cancer and birth defects, which raised the death toll over the following decades. You can't even compare the two.

B. You are still confused about civilians and targeting. The fact that other civilian centers (Dresden, Tokyo etc.) had been targeted before (which is also a war crime, technically) doesn't excuse the one we are discussing. If you are accused of murder in a court of law, it won't help your defense one bit to point out that there are other murderers around. Munitions factories are proper targets for warfare. Civilians who get in the way take that risk by working there expressely for the war effort. Civilian housing units are not proper targets. The fact that some of those civilians there might potentially be working directly for the war effort doesn't change that. And you're wrong about civilian infrastructure. The infrastructure that was targeted (railways, ports, bridges etc.) were of the nature that are essential in the military resupply effort. That is why purely civilian infrastructure, e.g. irrigation systems, hydroelectric dams, are especially listed in war crimes statutes as in appropriate targets, the deliberate targeting of which is considered a war crime as such. (BTW, those are some interesting underpublicized war crimes as well: in WWII the British had a dedicated bomber squadron - the Dambusters - that specialized in destroying dams in Germany that would then flood the valley below killing thousands of civilians and rendering cropland unuseable. In Korea, the US did the same with some dams in the North.)

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
And to build on what I mentioned above: in past wars it was impossible to get 'behind the lines' to such a degree to even touch a nation's war production - nor its civilian (and thus military) infrastructure. This is a clear indication of a change in the "rules of war". For the first time in WWII targets (military and eventually civilian) NOT on the front lines were easily accessible. So the 'rules' got a bit of tweaking...for better or worse.

AT THE TIME it all seemed perfectly logical. The two bombs became a natural extension of this new philosophy. Ultimately it proved more devastating than perhaps was warranted. But war has a way of  making the soundest of decisions - on paper - look awfully bad after the fact. And morally sound decision-makers can get caught up in the lurch.

Once again, this is utterly wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing whatsoever to do with getting "behind the lines" and disrupting war production. It had everything to do with stopping the Soviets in their tracks. A civilian Japanese population was sacrified to prevent a strategic situation from worsening. The bomb is ridiculous overkill for destroying a factory. It invariably takes the town with it.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
You don't wait in war!!!! It's that simple!!! If you have the means to deliver the punch, you punch. The US had two bombs and they went with their choice to use them.

This is the donwyn school of impatient warfare I suppose, where you first fire off all your ammo at once and you only start asking questions once you've fired your last bullet. Brilliant! The point that escapes you is that your argument that the bomb was needed as a devastating demonstration of American power to get the Japanese to surrender is undercut by the fact that they didn't understand what hit them until much later. The fact that the second bomb was dropped as deliberations about surrender were proceeding and that the second bomb's effects weren't understood by the time of surrender negates completely the claim that the second bomb was necessary. Once again, this was a demonstration first and foremost to the Soviets.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
The Christmas time "Battle of the Bulge" (in Europe) is testament to the disastrous effects of pausing. The allied machine in northern Europe required a short period of time to collect itself and shore up its overextended lines. There was sound tactical reasoning for this pause - you simply can't outrace your supply lines - but aerial bombardments in the heartland of Germany were cut back as well. Germany seized on this opportunity to ramp up its manufacturing output and by the time of the Christmas time counter-offensive it was a (relatively) well supplied army again. Not to mention there was a morale boost amongst the German soldiers...and, so, they were off an running. (The battle might have cost eastern Europe its chance at western liberation as it severely slowed the western allied advance).

Did I ever say pausing is the answer to all questions in war? Have fun with your straw men. Meanwhile, intelligent military leaders have the acumen to make correct decisions appropriate for each tactical situation. Thus Nimitz, McArthur and Eisenhower, e.g., who had won many successful battles in WWII determined that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was militarily unnecessary.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
So no successful student of warfare even considers 'pause' unless conditions absolutely warrant it. The US had the, err..."luxury" (:P) of the two bombs and used them.

The US at that point also had the "luxury" of total air and naval supremacy, thus there was militarily absolutely no urgency whatsoever to finish off the Japanese immediately without waiting another day or two for them to figure out what hit them in Hiroshima.

Quote from: donwyn on February 25, 2008, 09:41:58 PM
This exact scenario had been considered by the US brass and rejected. "Witnesses" to such an event would have proved far less convincing than an actual attack. "Self-evident" to a witness is not necessarily self-evident to someone receiving a story second-hand. That's a given...

You seem to think the above paragrah is logical and coherent? You are once again ignoring the fact that none of the Japanese leadership actually saw the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. They were getting all that info "second hand" as well. Which is why for quite a while initially they thought a munitions depot in Hiroshima had blown up. Information was very slow to come out of there. The precise problem was that there weren't witnesses (who you think are somehow less reliable than having no witnesses at all - trial lawyers would be curious to hear your ideas about that one). So the shock effect of the nukes for the Japanese leadership never actually materialized in the way that you claim a demonstration bombing wouldn't have.

http://www.researchchannel.org/asx/uw_danz_takaki_250k.asx

open with Window Media Player

New York, N.Y.: Prof. Takaki,

What kind of research did you do for your most recent book? What was the most shocking thing you learned from your research? Thanks!

Ronald Takaki: My most recent book, "Double Victory: A Multicultural History of World War II," led me to understand that our military leaders believed there was no military necessity to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This included General Eisenhower and General MacArthur, as well as our Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson.


From Washington Post's 2001 Live Online

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/01/authors_takaki0515.htm

Quote from: O Mensch on February 26, 2008, 07:33:43 AM
Nuance is lost on you. I never called the "US brass ... callous".

No, you just called the ones who voted yes criminals! I find zero 'nuance' in that charge! :D

QuoteWTF does that have to do with anything? The fact that others have committed war crimes at other times in other wars does not excuse the one we are presently discussing.

Exactly! Armies with "the war manual" tattooed on their collective foreheads can and do occasionally go awry. As Sherman exemplified, what might look good at the time might only in hindsight be deemed unsavory.

QuoteYou are once again confused. I never said that the civilian populations in fact always do "get all the respect they deserve" (whatever that formulation is supposed to mean). I said that proper conduct of warfare exempts persons who are hors de combat and focusses on fighting actual combatants. There is a difference between fighting that ends up hurting some civilians in the process because they were caught between the lines, vs. the deliberate targeting of civilian targets with no military significance. The latter is what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"No military significance"? Not in the minds of some of the top brass.

QuoteNo, they are not. Any self-respecting army has a manual, a code of conduct of what is proper and what isn't. You can be court-marshalled for not following it.

See above...

Quotedonwyn, there are two things that you still fail to get here. One is that there is serious disagreement that the invasion necessarily would have cost more civilian lives. Secondly, "doing the math" is what is immoral here. You cannot a priori take a group of civilians who are not proper targets for combat and condemn them to death by deciding that they are to be sacrificed in order to save some other combatants and civilians. They simply aren't a fair target. Nobody was holding a gun to Truman's head and forcing him to drop these nukes on these two particular civilian population centers. There simply wasn't the immediate necessity that you claim.

No, I'm sorry. Entirely false no matter how you slice it. Listen up: the Japanese had just enacted policy to inscript everyone between the ages of thirteen and sixty into a People's Volunteer Corps. Which meant a new army. A sure sign that they intended to defend their homeland down to the very last teenager.

If that's not clear evidence hoards of casualties were forthcoming I don't know what is...

Look it up.

QuoteYes, but it was the morally wrong choice.

You throw this around far too easily...

QuoteYou live in a fantasyland of purely rational actors who also never make mistakes that they are later unwilling to admit.

On the contrary...I'm attempting to shed light on the irrationality of war and how its decision-makers can get mixed up in it all. It's all spelled out in my previous posts (and in my Sherman analogy) but as I said your tunnel vision is inhibiting your ability to understand me.

QuotePeople don't work that way and the military certainly doesn't. All wars, and WWII particularly, abound with truly idiotic targeting choices of things an people that had no military objective whatsoever (cue again Dresden; another nice one was the bombing of Belgrade by allied bombers for no apparent reason after Yugoslavia had been occupied by the Nazis).

Now you're coming around to MY way of thinking. I have great regard for "the war manual" but it's an inherent complication of war that the manual gets tweaked from time to time as circumstances present themselves. And not always for the better. As I said, a wartime decision might look good on paper but after the fact can leave the decision maker(s) pretty red-faced.

QuoteI highlighted the bits that are based on totally flawed logic. Either you aren't reading (and processing) what I have been writing for the past few pages, or you feel so emotionally threatened by the idea that the US of A could have committed one of the worst war crimes in history that you're tossing logic out of the window (it might be that you believe in the appropriateness of collective guilt, I don't know). Rebuttal in brief:

A. It is not accurate that the toll from a "protracted war" would have "without question" caused more fatalities. You use "could've" and "would've" way too much to allow yourself the use of "without question". As mentioned several times now, several of the most successful military leaders of WWII disagreed on that assessment and thought that Japan could not keep the war effort up much longer one way or another.

Of course, it was also the assessment of "several of the most successful military leaders of WWII" that the decision to drop the bombs was the right one.

Fact: Truman and American military planners had feared something like a million US casualties stemming from a ground invasion. Hardly the twiddling numbers you posit.

Look it up.

QuoteAlso: regarding "more fatalities", there is a difference in kind between killing a few thousand soldiers outright in battle versus poisoning an area for years to come with the resulting fatalities due to cancer and birth defects, which raised the death toll over the following decades. You can't even compare the two.

"A few thousand soldiers"? Where does that assessment come from? See my related remarks above. Truman et al disagreed with you...

QuoteOnce again, this is utterly wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing whatsoever to do with getting "behind the lines" and disrupting war production. It had everything to do with stopping the Soviets in their tracks. A civilian Japanese population was sacrified to prevent a strategic situation from worsening. The bomb is ridiculous overkill for destroying a factory. It invariably takes the town with it.

Again, wrong on all counts. Look up your facts before you unfairly accuse US planners.

The facts as they are laid down are: Russia, at the behest of Roosevelt (at Yalta), had already made an accord with the US to enter the war against Japan. Territorial concessions had to be granted to Russia but the alliance had been been drawn up and agreed upon.

So let's put that bizarre conspiracy notion to bed once and for all.

Again, look it up.

QuoteThis is the donwyn school of impatient warfare I suppose...

Perhaps, but at least the facts are on my side.

Anyway, it's not my mission to change your mind about all this, O Mensch. Only to show that 'fog of war' decisions cannot automatically be equated with criminality.

In closing, I offer a quote of mine from way back on this thread:

Quote from: donwyn on February 20, 2008, 07:25:21 PM
And I have to say, from our present-day perspective it's much easier to pick decisions like this apart. But from the perspective of a worn-out, war-weary nation (world!), a well-defined end to such a barbaric conflict must've seemed perfectly sensible...

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
No, you just called the ones who voted yes criminals! I find zero 'nuance' in that charge! :D

Yes. That is nuanced. I am holding indivuals accountable, not the whole nation as you insinuated previously.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Exactly! Armies with "the war manual" tattooed on their collective foreheads can and do occasionally go awry. As Sherman exemplified, what might look good at the time might only in hindsight be deemed unsavory.

OK, now read that sentence again, carefully. You'll note that even you used the word "awry". So we agree that there is a propwer way of doing things and an improper one. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the improper one.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
"No military significance"? Not in the minds of some of the top brass.

Well, what was the significance? And if there was significance to those particular two targets, explain why the objective couldn't have been accomplished by other means.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
No, I'm sorry. Entirely false no matter how you slice it. Listen up: the Japanese had just enacted policy to inscript everyone between the ages of thirteen and sixty into a People's Volunteer Corps. Which meant a new army. A sure sign that they intended to defend their homeland down to the very last teenager.

If that's not clear evidence hoards of casualties were forthcoming I don't know what is...

I am not going to argue with an emotionally insecure closed brick wall anymore on this. The most successful generals and admirals of WWII disagreed on the military necessity. I'll go with their judgment over your uninformed, emotional groping for straws to keep your lofty ideas about US morality intact. PS, I looked it up:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Memoirs)

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

""Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." US Strategic Bombing Survey

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
You throw this around far too easily...

Very much unlike the fact that in all your argumentation you completely avoid the issue of morality. Your entire set of arguments amount at best to an excuse. Not once do you say that dropping the bomb was morally right, nor do you ever explain the moral tenets underlying your thinking. Your argument amounts to: "sorry dear citizens of H & N, you happened to be the easiest targets and we just had to do it, we had no choice." That is an amoral argument. You seek to represent the US as an actor that did not have freedom of choice and acted out of necessity, thus making moral considerations secondary. Conveninently, by doing so you completely disregard the fact that A) there was in fact a choice made, other options were indeed available and there was in fact no immediate necessity to end the war just then, as evidenced by the many dissenting voices, and B) you completely avoid making any statements about the use of nuclear weapons altogether. Your argumentation at best exempts H & N from moral consideration but doesn't lay out how a government should act in war time when faced with the option of using nukes.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
On the contrary...I'm attempting to shed light on the irrationality of war and how its decision-makers can get mixed up in it all. It's all spelled out in my previous posts (and in my Sherman analogy) but as I said your tunnel vision is inhibiting your ability to understand me.

Now you're coming around to MY way of thinking. I have great regard for "the war manual" but it's an inherent complication of war that the manual gets tweaked from time to time as circumstances present themselves. And not always for the better. As I said, a wartime decision might look good on paper but after the fact can leave the decision maker(s) pretty red-faced.

No, see, here is the problem with your thinking. You're essentially saying, war is hell and all rules go out the window in war and such is life, you can't hold people morally accountable for that. I am saying there are rules, even in war, and whether or not we observe them even in such extreme circumstances is what really separates the morally upstanding actor from the one who easily succumbs to the temptation of making an immoral choice for the sake of expediency. The general immorality of war does not excuse the immoral choices of individuals. It's weird. On the one hand you seem to agree that war is irrational and very messy and bad. But some emotional barrier holds you back from identifying the individuals who are responsible for some of those immoral acts that make war so irrational, messy and bad. That right there is the barrier between us in this argument.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Of course, it was also the assessment of "several of the most successful military leaders of WWII" that the decision to drop the bombs was the right one.

No, not really. Truman and Leslie Groves don't really qualify for that. Few among the group that were pushing for this were responsible for winning significant battles in the war.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Fact: Truman and American military planners had feared something like a million US casualties stemming from a ground invasion. Hardly the twiddling numbers you posit.

What "twiddling numbers" did I posit? Are you sure you're arguing with me? The million is pure fiction. I'd like you cite a source for that one.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
"A few thousand soldiers"? Where does that assessment come from? See my related remarks above. Truman et al disagreed with you...

That was an abstraction of the choice made. No assessment that I have seen (leaving aside exaggerations by politicians, the highest of which that I know is 500,000) posited that more US soldiers would be killed by invasion than the number of Japanese civilians that were actually killed by the bomb. The largest number I have seen from military planners was up to 200,000 which was nearly the number of US personnel killed in all of WWII by that point, which is just an absurd number as against an exhausted enemy. Even that is less than a conservative estimate of the total number of civilians killed in H & N plus aftereffects. My point is that a larger number of civilians was traded to save a smaller number of military personnel, i.e. a large numbers of noncombatant persons who are not proper targets for warfare were slaughtered to save a smaller number of combatants. That is an immoral choice.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Again, wrong on all counts. Look up your facts before you unfairly accuse US planners.

The facts as they are laid down are: Russia, at the behest of Roosevelt (at Yalta), had already made an accord with the US to enter the war against Japan. Territorial concessions had to be granted to Russia but the alliance had been been drawn up and agreed upon.

So let's put that bizarre conspiracy notion to bed once and for all.

Again, look it up.

There is no conspiracy here and it is in fact very well documented. Truman disagreed with FDR over inviting the Russians into the Pacific theater and the Russian entry into the Pacific Theater was the driving factor in the timing and decision to drop the bombs on Japan. Consider that the US military was in fact planning more bombs to be dropped on Japan, but had only two ready. Now, why do you go out of your way to rush this thing if there is no urgency in the military situation with Japan, since you have total air and naval supremacy and the Japanese can't harm you where you are at the moment? If the Russians have nothing to do with it, please explain the timing.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Perhaps, but at least the facts are on my side.

You are so emotional about this that you don't even recognize your selective amnesia. You pick one example and by mistaken induction create a rule from an unrepresentative sample.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
Anyway, it's not my mission to change your mind about all this, O Mensch. Only to show that 'fog of war' decisions cannot automatically be equated with criminality.

Elements of a crime: act + mens rea (state of mind) + absence of mitigating factors that affect state of mind. Act = attack of civilian targets. Mens rea = deliberate, conscious decisions by certain military leaders to drop the bomb. Absence of mitigating factors = no gun was being held to their head, nobody forced them to make that choice, they weren't involuntarily intoxicated, insane or minors incapable of comprehending the effects of their actions. The mere fact that others, looking at the same facts, made different conclusions and dissented proves that there was no "fog of war" that should have prevented a better decision from being made. If indeed everyone had made the same choice based on some mistaken set of data that couldn't have been proven wrong with a modicum of diligence prior to the act, only then could you make a "fog of war" argument that could possibly excuse the decisionmakers because supposedly they couldn't have known better. The fact that others did in fact know better and told them so negates and disqualifies that entire line of reasoning. Your argument is exactly the same Hillary makes about her decision to vote for the Iraq war: we had flawed intelligence and couldn't have known better. Except it's wrong, because millions of people all over the globe did in fact know better and told her so quite vocally.

Quote from: donwyn on February 26, 2008, 07:51:51 PM
In closing, I offer a quote of mine from way back on this thread:

Quote
And I have to say, from our present-day perspective it's much easier to pick decisions like this apart. But from the perspective of a worn-out, war-weary nation (world!), a well-defined end to such a barbaric conflict must've seemed perfectly sensible...

My friend, you're once again missing the point. It is indeed irrelevant what we think from our perspective today. The point is the contrast between those contemproraries who, looking at the same facts, i.e. from the same exact historic perspective, made morally correct choices, while others made immoral choices, wrongly condemning a civilian population to a fiery death and decades of poisoning.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 27, 2008, 08:17:51 AM
The mere fact that others, looking at the same facts, made different conclusions and dissented proves that there was no "fog of war" that should have prevented a better decision from being made. If indeed everyone had made the same choice based on some mistaken set of data that couldn't have been proven wrong with a modicum of diligence prior to the act, only then could you make a "fog of war" argument that could possibly excuse the decisionmakers because supposedly they couldn't have known better. The fact that others did in fact know better and told them so negates and disqualifies that entire line of reasoning.

This is the sort of stupid invalid reasoning which makes this entire thread a waste of time.  The fact that different people made different judgments in the same situation supports the "fog of war" idea.  If there was no reliable information at all then peoples conclusions would be random and some of them would reach the "right" conclusion even though it was without basis.  (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.)  This doesn't prove that the people who reached the "wrong" conclusion should have known better. 

Quote from: head-case on February 27, 2008, 11:08:47 AM
This is the sort of stupid invalid reasoning which makes this entire thread a waste of time.  The fact that different people made different judgments in the same situation supports the "fog of war" idea.  If there was no reliable information at all then peoples conclusions would be random and some of them would reach the "right" conclusion even though it was without basis.  (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.)  This doesn't prove that the people who reached the "wrong" conclusion should have known better. 

OK, head-case, let's think about this one. If this was a "fog of war" situation, shouldn't the other people at least have conceded the potential validity of the opposite view, given uncertainty of information? The point is they didn't. Because the information wasn't unclear. The difference between Eisenhower, Nimitz et al. on the one side and Truman, Groves et al. on the other, is that the two were pursuing different strategies. Eisenhower/Nimitz were thinking only about ending the war with Japan. Whereas Truman/Groves were thinking of stopping the Russians in their tracks and impressing upon them the new extent of America's military might (which is also why Truman mentioned the existence of the bomb to Stalin at Potsdam).

Your sort of contorted logic is precisely what all bad leaders use to justify their errors. From Truman to Hillary it's the same story: we couldn't have known better. Except that others did and told you so, but you didn't listen!

Quote from: O Mensch on February 27, 2008, 08:17:51 AM
Yes. That is nuanced. I am holding indivuals accountable, not the whole nation as you insinuated previously.

I didn't insinuate anything of the sort. I merely reacted to your referencing of the bomb usage as a war crime.

QuoteOK, now read that sentence again, carefully. You'll note that even you used the word "awry". So we agree that there is a propwer way of doing things and an improper one. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the improper one.

I agree with the first part. That's what I've been trying to get you to understand. But there are different levels of impropriety. Criminal ones, and less severe ones - like friendly fire and cowardice under fire, for instance. Reprehensible acts in war conditions but hardly immoral. But both borne out of reactions to pressure-cooker situations.   

QuoteI am not going to argue with an emotionally insecure closed brick wall anymore on this.

I know how you feel... ;D

QuoteThe most successful generals and admirals of WWII disagreed on the military necessity.

This is gross hyperbole. "Most successful"? You're leaving out "The Boss": Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall. Here's what he had to say about the bomb:

"The bomb stopped the war; therefore it was justifiable. I think it was very wise to use it."

I could end it there with a 'nuff said...but let's have a look at what else George Marshall accomplished in his lifetime:

"During the war he was Chief of Staff of the Army, a key strategist in Allied plans on all fronts, and an important adviser to Roosevelt and Truman on the Manhattan Project. After his retirement from the Army, he became Secretary of State in 1947. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for the Marshall Plan, which helped to revive the economies of Western Europe."

Brimming with credentials, was Marshall, and widely respected by his peers (like Eisenhower). Not to mention much admired as one of the greatest military minds the US ever produced. And, of course, an all-around nice guy. Hardly the moral miscreant you seem bent on tagging he and his ilk.

QuoteI'll go with their judgment over your uninformed, emotional groping for straws to keep your lofty ideas about US morality intact. PS, I looked it up:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Memoirs)

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

""Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." US Strategic Bombing Survey

You forgot this quote:

"You have asked us to comment on the initial use of the new weapon. This use, in our opinion, should be such as to promote a satisfactory adjustment of our international relations. At the same time, we recognize our obligation to our nation to use the weapons to help save American lives in the Japanese war.

We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use."  J. R. Oppenheimer, June 16, 1945

I'll add this one for good measure:

"At no time, from 1941 to 1945 did I ever hear it suggested by the President, or any other responsible member of the government, that atomic energy should not be used in the war." Henry Stimson, Secretary of War (1940-1945)

So groping? Hmm...err...nah....

QuoteVery much unlike the fact that in all your argumentation you completely avoid the issue of morality. Your entire set of arguments amount at best to an excuse. Not once do you say that dropping the bomb was morally right, nor do you ever explain the moral tenets underlying your thinking.

Of course it was morally right...for those who voted to use it. And they certainly weren't pea-brains unable to see right from wrong.

As for what I would've chosen, I simply can't say. I wasn't there.

Under the pressure-cooker one might say the irrationality of war got to them and the wrong decision was made. But hardly immoral.

QuoteYour argument amounts to: "sorry dear citizens of H & N, you happened to be the easiest targets and we just had to do it, we had no choice."

This is a gross misrepresentation of my side of the argument...I mean, WHAT??!!!???!!! Talk about emotionally insecure closed brick wall..........

QuoteThat is an amoral argument. You seek to represent the US as an actor that did not have freedom of choice and acted out of necessity, thus making moral considerations secondary. Conveninently, by doing so you completely disregard the fact that A) there was in fact a choice made, other options were indeed available and there was in fact no immediate necessity to end the war just then, as evidenced by the many dissenting voices, and B) you completely avoid making any statements about the use of nuclear weapons altogether.

It would be an immoral argument if that was what I actually meant. But it's not. So let's give you the strawman of the post award, here...

QuoteYour argumentation at best exempts H & N from moral consideration but doesn't lay out how a government should act in war time when faced with the option of using nukes.

Well, that was obviously a one-off as at no other time had nukes been used in war. So from their perspective as first-time users of such a weapon they had no precedent with which to go by. Can't hold that against them. As I said, the the devastation had been woefully underestimated. By half - or even one-tenth - I've read. 

So knowing what we know now I'd say it's best to keep nuclear weapons in sleep mode.

Also, I think the absence of any subsequent usage speaks for itself...

QuoteNo, see, here is the problem with your thinking. You're essentially saying, war is hell and all rules go out the window in war and such is life, you can't hold people morally accountable for that. I am saying there are rules, even in war, and whether or not we observe them even in such extreme circumstances is what really separates the morally upstanding actor from the one who easily succumbs to the temptation of making an immoral choice for the sake of expediency. The general immorality of war does not excuse the immoral choices of individuals. It's weird. On the one hand you seem to agree that war is irrational and very messy and bad. But some emotional barrier holds you back from identifying the individuals who are responsible for some of those immoral acts that make war so irrational, messy and bad. That right there is the barrier between us in this argument.

Again, painting this decision as an "immoral indiscretion" is false.

You're trying to paint the decision to use the bomb as a heartless act of inhumanity. It wasn't. War played a part...

QuoteWhat "twiddling numbers" did I posit? Are you sure you're arguing with me? The million is pure fiction. I'd like you cite a source for that one.

A spot Google finds the one million estimate fairly easily. Although Google wasn't my source. If you Google for yourself and are unsatisfied with what you find let me know and I'll attempt a .jpg of my source for you.

QuoteThat was an abstraction of the choice made. No assessment that I have seen (leaving aside exaggerations by politicians, the highest of which that I know is 500,000) posited that more US soldiers would be killed by invasion than the number of Japanese civilians that were actually killed by the bomb. The largest number I have seen from military planners was up to 200,000 which was nearly the number of US personnel killed in all of WWII by that point, which is just an absurd number as against an exhausted enemy. Even that is less than a conservative estimate of the total number of civilians killed in H & N plus aftereffects. My point is that a larger number of civilians was traded to save a smaller number of military personnel, i.e. a large numbers of noncombatant persons who are not proper targets for warfare were slaughtered to save a smaller number of combatants. That is an immoral choice.

It wasn't an exhausted ground army (as opposed to air and sea). Estimates I've read claim upwards of two million men still battle-ready. So, again, a very real threat.

QuoteThere is no conspiracy here and it is in fact very well documented. Truman disagreed with FDR over inviting the Russians into the Pacific theater and the Russian entry into the Pacific Theater was the driving factor in the timing and decision to drop the bombs on Japan. Consider that the US military was in fact planning more bombs to be dropped on Japan, but had only two ready. Now, why do you go out of your way to rush this thing if there is no urgency in the military situation with Japan, since you have total air and naval supremacy and the Japanese can't harm you where you are at the moment? If the Russians have nothing to do with it, please explain the timing.

The Russian factor was not the "driving factor". Please provide documentation that it, in fact, was THE driving factor. That no other considerations held near as much weight. And I mean first-hand accounts from the actual decision-makers themselves at that exact moment in time leading up to the bombs usage. Not any subsequent hearsay.

I certainly don't read anything of the sort in the Oppenheimer quote above.

QuoteYou are so emotional about this that you don't even recognize your selective amnesia. You pick one example and by mistaken induction create a rule from an unrepresentative sample.

Elements of a crime: act + mens rea (state of mind) + absence of mitigating factors that affect state of mind. Act = attack of civilian targets. Mens rea = deliberate, conscious decisions by certain military leaders to drop the bomb. Absence of mitigating factors = no gun was being held to their head, nobody forced them to make that choice, they weren't involuntarily intoxicated, insane or minors incapable of comprehending the effects of their actions. The mere fact that others, looking at the same facts, made different conclusions and dissented proves that there was no "fog of war" that should have prevented a better decision from being made. If indeed everyone had made the same choice based on some mistaken set of data that couldn't have been proven wrong with a modicum of diligence prior to the act, only then could you make a "fog of war" argument that could possibly excuse the decisionmakers because supposedly they couldn't have known better. The fact that others did in fact know better and told them so negates and disqualifies that entire line of reasoning. Your argument is exactly the same Hillary makes about her decision to vote for the Iraq war: we had flawed intelligence and couldn't have known better. Except it's wrong, because millions of people all over the globe did in fact know better and told her so quite vocally.

I would go along with this except for the (perhaps bitter) fact that conscientiously aware folks are capable of coming to conclusions not in league with other conscientiously aware folks. Even with the same data in front of them. You did see my Marshall and Oppenheimer quotes above, yes? So it's natural for there to be disagreement in the ranks. This is an inherently human characteristic. It's dogged us throughout time!! Nothing new about that.

You're simply on one side of the debate claiming 'others' just don't get it.

QuoteMy friend, you're once again missing the point. It is indeed irrelevant what we think from our perspective today. The point is the contrast between those contemproraries who, looking at the same facts, i.e. from the same exact historic perspective, made morally correct choices, while others made immoral choices, wrongly condemning a civilian population to a fiery death and decades of poisoning.

I'm not sure why you keep using the same argument over and over. Please see above.

My answer to this is: it's dependent on whether or not one thinks the usage of the bomb was an immoral act.

You (and others) do. I (and others) don't.

Mench knows alot about war history, but he seems to hang on to this persistent blind spot as to the hows/whys it was necessary  the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You know as a  american you can go to either city and feel no animosity from the locals. They do not hold anything against the US.
So why are you carrying on this way?
If the islamics want to push their agenda, eventually they also may run into issues with someone along the way.
may not be the US, may not be in our lifetimes.
but one day......thats if they keep trying to push their agenda. This is a  basic psychological law.

Quote from: O Mensch on February 27, 2008, 06:03:11 PM
OK, head-case, let's think about this one. If this was a "fog of war" situation, shouldn't the other people at least have conceded the potential validity of the opposite view, given uncertainty of information? The point is they didn't. Because the information wasn't unclear. The difference between Eisenhower, Nimitz et al. on the one side and Truman, Groves et al. on the other, is that the two were pursuing different strategies. Eisenhower/Nimitz were thinking only about ending the war with Japan. Whereas Truman/Groves were thinking of stopping the Russians in their tracks and impressing upon them the new extent of America's military might (which is also why Truman mentioned the existence of the bomb to Stalin at Potsdam).

You portray Eisenhower as being staunchly opposed to the attack, which is misleading.  The material I have come across simply says that Eisenhower thought that Japan could be induced to surrender if better terms were offered, including a promise to maintain the Emperor.  In fact Japan refused less generous but humane terms offered in the Potsdam declaration, which promised that "We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation...Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established" and threatened that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."  If that one additional article had been included in Potsdam declaration Eisenhower's expressed reservation would have negated.

You also brush over the fact that Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Arthur Compton and Ernest Lawrence (all but Oppenheimer Nobel Prize winners) all unequivocally recommended immediate military use of the weapon.

Responsibility for the horror Japan suffered rests at the feet of its militaristic leaders, who refused an offer of cessation of hostilities, presumably to resist virtually to the last man, as they did at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  I don't see that the level of destruction would be less if the US had pursued conventional aerial bombardment and eventual invasion.  (Your claims that the effects of the nuclear weapons are unspeakably worse are than those of conventional warfare are contradicted by the fact that today Hiroshima and Nagasaki are prosperous cities with populations much larger than they were before the attacks.)

I didn't know where i should post this ona   current topic, so i figured this *Dumb/even dumbER* topuc was just the spot for this latest from the *White* House.

Bush Speaks:
http://neworleans.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D8V3EM1O1&_action=validatearticle

Read my comments on Bush I made today over at the Obama topic, *Bush is a  zombie* , I made that post PRIOR to reading these headlines. Not bad eh?  :)

i would love to get in on this debate but there is no way in hell i am reading all of this

Quote from: c#minor on February 28, 2008, 07:12:53 PM
i would love to get in on this debate but there is no way in hell i am reading all of this

oh , you are not required to read any of this topic.
just post us a story from your local newspaper or something you know about how your community is governed.
What everyone is trying to do is outdo the other on stories that show  dumbER than the other guy. The *dumbest of the dumbest* ;D

What I can tell is: If someone comes into a meeting as the only foreigner amongst 20 other people and starts speaking in his language straightforwardly; if someone starts speaking in his language on the phone without any excuse or respect: it's most likely an american. No respect. Seen that often enough. Like the germans in the netherlands ;) At least people should try to give their best, it's a matter of respect. I'm the last not to show understanding if americans don't speak a foreign language.

Quote from: Wurstwasser on March 04, 2008, 10:34:06 PM
What I can tell is: If someone comes into a meeting as the only foreigner amongst 20 other people and starts speaking in his language straightforwardly; if someone starts speaking in his language on the phone without any excuse or respect: it's most likely an american. No respect. Seen that often enough. Like the germans in the netherlands ;) At least people should try to give their best, it's a matter of respect. I'm the last not to show understanding if americans don't speak a foreign language.

Both french and spanish should be required starting in 4th or 5th grades, going all the way through high school.
I agree.
But when you consider the facts, most americans have only a  3rd-5th grade education,(public HS grads in the US, equal about a  5th grader status in japan or europe's finer HS's) its too much to consider adding a  foreign language.
Thats not going to happen.
I know alittle spanish due to a  good HS professor. I always regret(hind sight) not studying french as well.
But i had problems in HS.

Its is very rude of foreigners not to speak English.  It is much more efficient for everyone else to learn English.  After all, there are hundreds of foreign languages - who could keep track of them all?. Every foreigner just has to learn one additional language - English - to spare us the inconvienence of learning thousands of weird dialects. 

Quote from: bwv 1080 on March 05, 2008, 04:57:01 AM
Its is very rude of foreigners not to speak English.  It is much more efficient for everyone else to learn English.  After all, there are hundreds of foreign languages - who could keep track of them all?. Every foreigner just has to learn one additional language - English - to spare us the inconvienence of learning thousands of weird dialects. 

most forigners do speak some to excellent  english, + some even  speak 3 languages.
most americans do not know a  foreign language. many of the poor just barely get by with their level of englsih.
You can go to poor places in africa and they may speak some french along with their native tongue + alittle english.

I see nothing rude about foreigners not speaking english.
I see its rude that americans go to paris and do not speak one word of french.

america is cut off from the rest of the world, like a  island slowly sinking into the sea.

Quote from: Wurstwasser on March 04, 2008, 10:34:06 PM
What I can tell is: If someone comes into a meeting as the only foreigner amongst 20 other people and starts speaking in his language straightforwardly; if someone starts speaking in his language on the phone without any excuse or respect: it's most likely an american. No respect. Seen that often enough. Like the germans in the netherlands ;) At least people should try to give their best, it's a matter of respect. I'm the last not to show understanding if americans don't speak a foreign language.

Quote from: paulb on March 05, 2008, 04:17:36 AM
Both french and spanish should be required starting in 4th or 5th grades, going all the way through high school.

I agree 100% with this one, and really hate the fact that it isn't like this.
Though people who already know Spanish well enough (what, 1/4 of the kids at my old schools) shouldn't be forced to take the class, then it's just pointless (and some of them actually did take Spanish class at school!  :o )  So they should just take French. And the rest could decide between either, or both. (And then there should be smaller classes for whatever other languages for everyone as an elective).
America is so isolated that you never need to know any other language besides English- and are never exposed to anything else. The only time a second language is really useful is when you're at work and get some Mexican who can't speak English too well (yet). Or maybe you want to talk to a friend in their language. But overall, not needed in daily life.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on March 05, 2008, 04:57:01 AM
Its is very rude of foreigners not to speak English.  It is much more efficient for everyone else to learn English.  After all, there are hundreds of foreign languages - who could keep track of them all?. Every foreigner just has to learn one additional language - English - to spare us the inconvienence of learning thousands of weird dialects. 

yeah, luckily they usually do. There has to be a language that people all around the globe learn, instead of random ones, and it's not gonna be Esperanto  ;D

Quote from: paulb on March 05, 2008, 05:42:14 AM
many of the poor just barely get by with their level of englsih.

Paul, i think you should edit this post  0:)






( ;D ;D ;D)

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on March 05, 2008, 05:44:19 AM
Paul, i think you should edit this post  0:)






( ;D ;D ;D)

:D

yes but i got all my other spelling correct, and my ideas are pretty insightful.
Don't you think I should get a  B on spelling, but an A on content.

"the USA is like unto an island slowly sinking into the sea" :)

Quote from: paulb on March 05, 2008, 05:47:37 AM
:D

yes but i got all my other spelling correct, and my ideas are pretty insightful.
Don't you think I should get a  B on spelling, but an A on content.

"the USA is like unto an island slowly sinking into the sea" :)

sure, sounds good to me.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on March 05, 2008, 04:57:01 AMIts is very rude of foreigners not to speak English.  It is much more efficient for everyone else to learn English.  After all, there are hundreds of foreign languages - who could keep track of them all?. Every foreigner just has to learn one additional language - English - to spare us the inconvienence of learning thousands of weird dialects.

Except that you're trolling you didn't read what I wrote. I was talking about the american as a foreigner in other countries.

Quote from: bwv 1080 on March 05, 2008, 04:57:01 AM
Its is very rude of foreigners not to speak English.  It is much more efficient for everyone else to learn English.  After all, there are hundreds of foreign languages - who could keep track of them all?. Every foreigner just has to learn one additional language - English - to spare us the inconvienence of learning thousands of weird dialects. 

Does that mean efforts will be made by the citizens of the USA to learn English and I am not referring to the ever-increasing Hispanic population?

interesting to see what books are on obama and clinton's shelf.
HA!
and what books are their favs
HA!
and also ask thema  few questions about Plato and Jung
HA!
Ignorance (to ignore both forms, common and special  knowledge) has made its home here and there's no end inisght.

Quote from: Wurstwasser on March 05, 2008, 06:13:21 AM
Except that you're trolling you didn't read what I wrote. I was talking about the american as a foreigner in other countries.

Yeah I meant foreigners in other countries.  If we Americans do you the favor of traveling to your land, then it is just good customer service to learn English.  ;D

Quote from: bwv 1080 on March 06, 2008, 05:01:15 AMIf we Americans do you the favor of traveling to your land

;D
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2344/2073602939_58061ef8e4.jpg?v=0)
(http://www.stadtwanderer.net/blog/media/Knoblauch_20top.jpg)

     I understand there are billions of people all over the world who don't speak English. This seems like an extravagance to me. What are they all for?

(http://www.kimrichter.com/Blog/uploaded_images/let_them_eat_cake-710301.jpg)

https://slippedisc.com/2021/02/us-composer-classical-music-is-segregationist/

Black Scholars Confront White Supremacy in Classical Music (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/21/black-scholars-confront-white-supremacy-in-classical-music?irclickid=U5DXgQyhbxyLRGhwUx0Mo36bUkETuYXMe2FpwU0&irgwc=1&source=affiliate_impactpmx_12f6tote_desktop_Bing%20Rebates%20by%20Microsoft&utm_source=impact-affiliate&utm_medium=2003851&utm_campaign=impact&utm_content=Logo&utm_brand=tny)

Quote from: Alex Ross...I am a white American who grew up with the classics, and I am troubled by the presumption that they are stamped with whiteness—and are even aligned with white supremacy, as some scholars have lately argued. I cannot counter that suggestion simply by gesturing toward important Black figures who cherished this same tradition, or by reeling off the names of Black singers and composers. The exceptions remain exceptions. This world is blindingly white, both in its history and its present.

Classical music came from a western European tradition.  It canonized white men, but it doesn't exclude listeners or artist of any race or gender.  We wouldn't say that blues excludes Caucasians or Asians, so why attack classical music?  I'm not a fan of political correctness being weaponized to create strife where none is needed.  And calling out classical music because "the music is old" is silly. 

Primephonic has curated content for black history month.  Finding constructive ways to be more inclusive is great, but attacking the entire genre is not useful.

Quote from: DavidW on February 21, 2021, 11:29:36 AM
I'm not a fan of political correctness being weaponized to create strife where none is needed.

Gotta divide the non-rich class somehow, though...
If middle and lower class people of all backgrounds are united, how else are our rightful elite masters going to have more control over our lives?  :P

As early as the late 18th century there were  colored performers in classical music, like the Chevalier de St-Georges or George Bridgetower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bridgetower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges

I recall an incident when in around 2000 or so a black presenter during some award ceremony at the MET or some similar place made the totally uninformed joke that he probably was the first black man on that stage without a mop, blissfully ignoring many black opera singers since the 1950s. (So some dumbing down and ignorance is the precondition for further dumbing down. Right now they are placing random black characters into historical british TV series, maybe in another generation kids won't believe that this was faking history, just like some people think that an armored knight needed a crane to get onto his horse.)

The problem here was the naivité of people clinging to some remnants of enlightenment thinking. They thought that reason, enlightenment, human rights etc. were universal things that had only accidentally been established first in Western Europe (or the US by people of such descent). Such universality should and would override parochial identities. They were wrong in many respects. It is of course not accidental but the product of around 2000 years of a rather particular historical development that modern western individualist + universalist thinking was established. (Of course this does not prove their non-universality, like the fact that some maths theorem was discovered first in India or Russia is irrelevant, but it is much easier to make such universalist claims for maths than for enlightenment political values.)
It was even more naive to think that because of its success in some parts of the world from the 18th to the late 20th century it could be established everywhere within a generation or two. And not to expect that some people would happily revert to and promote clannish and parochial consciousness, if it helped their goals, e.g. making a career out of some special identity or keeping some power structures in place by an identity-based "divide et impera"-strategy.

Quote from: Jo498 on February 21, 2021, 11:01:00 PM
As early as the late 18th century there were  colored performers in classical music, like the Chevalier de St-Georges or George Bridgetower.

Colored?  Seriously?  Are you trying to be an "edgy" troll?

Quote
I recall an incident when in around 2000 or so a black presenter during some award ceremony at the MET or some similar place made the totally uninformed joke that he probably was the first black man on that stage without a mop,

That was Chris Rock.   It was a historically inaccurate joke (oh, the humanity!),  but let's not pretend that black singers have had anything close to proportional representation at the MET.

This might be relevant to this thread:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/fake-news-media-attention.html

The NY Times thinks we shouldn't use critical thinking when reading stuff online. Just use better sources.

Quote
People learn to think critically by focusing on something and contemplating it deeply — to follow the information's logic and the inconsistencies.

That natural human mind-set is a liability in an attention economy. It allows grifters, conspiracy theorists, trolls and savvy attention hijackers to take advantage of us and steal our focus.

YES.
I AGREE.
THE NY TIMES IS OFFICAL. IT CAN'T BE WRONG. BEEP BOOP.

Quote
"Whenever you give your attention to a bad actor, you allow them to steal your attention from better treatments of an issue, and give them the opportunity to warp your perspective," Mr. Caulfield wrote.

This is literally your parents telling you not to hang out with the bad kids.

I don't live with my parents anymore, but I can't wait until people with these opinions get into power so I can have new parents again to tell me what not to do!  :)

Quote from: Daverz on February 22, 2021, 07:38:13 PM
Colored?  Seriously?  Are you trying to be an "edgy" troll?

No. I am not a native speaker, I cannot keep track on the actually acceptable anglo-expressions. (You know, we lag a bit behind the angloavantgarde, like with popular music. When I was a kid in the 80s "farbig" was for a while more PC than "schwarz" and really forgot that it became verboten for lightly black (how can one even express that one is lightly colored and not black?) Should I have used the word "mulatto" as Beethoven did wrt Bridgetower?

Quote
That was Chris Rock.   It was a historically inaccurate joke (oh, the humanity!),  but let's not pretend that black singers have had anything close to proportional representation at the MET.

When did white (pale?, pink? non-Poc?) basketball players last have a "proportional representation" in the NBA or the US national team? In the 4x100m relay team? What about Blues or Rap artists?
Why is one disproportionality a problem to be addressed in sad tones or with fake history (which is of course admissible for the greater good, unlike using a word that was pc a few decades ago but considered bad now) and the other ones completely acceptable? They should both be acceptable unless there is obviously foul play to get more whites into opera singing and more blacks into basketball, and actually better singers or players are excluded because of spurious quota or cabals. I don't think that this is the case in either basketball nor opera, but you are welcome to prove me wrong once you've untwisted your knickers after my wrongspeak.

BTW, many Europeans guess that 30% or so of Americans are black, when it is closer to 13%, probably because they are clearly overrepresented in internationally visible positions in showbiz, music and sports.

Quote from: Jo498 on February 23, 2021, 11:29:09 PM
I cannot keep track on the actually acceptable anglo-expressions.

Yeah they change. Old people here have got into trouble for using what is no longer correct. It's best not to talk about race really, leave it to the professionals.

Quote from: greg on February 23, 2021, 09:24:12 PMThe NY Times thinks we shouldn't use critical thinking when reading stuff online. Just use better sources.

There is truth to this.  For instance, The Graun is a rag and can be dismissed out of hand. 

Quote from: steve ridgway on February 24, 2021, 08:13:51 AMIt's best not to talk about race really, leave it to the professionals.

Indeed.  Fortunately, GMG has several professionals who post here regularly.  See above.

Quote from: greg on February 23, 2021, 09:24:12 PM
This might be relevant to this thread:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/fake-news-media-attention.html

The NY Times thinks we shouldn't use critical thinking when reading stuff online. Just use better sources.

I agree with the article mostly because opinion and speculation are frequently intermingled with factual reporting when historically they would be kept separate.  If something is important it is worth checking that it is widely reported and accurately reported instead of hyperfocusing on that one article.

Critical thinking is needed to evaluate which sources are good.

Quote from: DavidW on February 24, 2021, 08:31:57 AM
I agree with the article mostly because opinion and speculation are frequently intermingled with factual reporting when historically they would be kept separate.  If something is important it is worth checking that it is widely reported and accurately reported instead of hyperfocusing on that one article.

Quote from: 71 dB on February 24, 2021, 10:03:54 AM
Critical thinking is needed to evaluate which sources are good.

There's truth to both of these statements.

Checking different sources is just a default good thing to do, but it can't end there.

First, do all of the sources that you are reading have the same opinion on something that is actually divisive (like politics)? Well then at that point, reading ten different sources doesn't amount to that much. You have to vary your types of sources at that point.

After that, you have to critically think.

As for checking "better" or more trustworthy sources, that is important to focus on them as a general rule of thumb (and deciding what is trustworthy in the first place is a whole other game to play), but also there are scenarios where unreputable sources can reveal some truth- less likely, of course, but it happens.

It's important to keep all perspectives, even extreme ones, left/right, up/down/whatever available at some place. If you really want to understand their unhealthy perspectives, you can't understand until you are reading from the primary sources- themselves. Not what some more "reputable" news source says about them.

So just from an idealistic standpoint, maximizing amount and variety of resources, and also maximizing critical thinking time directed towards all of those resources is the most ideal. Also, critically think your own assumptions and test in them in the real world, if you can.

This type of strategy actually has helped me learned mixing, and I'm seeing (or "hearing") results, instead of having to attend classes, so yeah, I'd recommend it.
(maybe not the best comparison in the world to news, but just comparing in a general sense, yeah)