[Vision2020] Subject change to "Was it Necessary to Use the AtomicBombs on Japan?" Former title Presidential Rankings
lfalen
lfalen at turbonet.com
Mon Feb 23 12:34:38 PST 2009
Sue
The mentality behind issuing a dare is harmful, just as is the mentality of casting shame on being an snitch, or stoolie. A dare is a challenge to some ones bravery, like you are a coward if you don't accept. This can get kids in a lot of trouble and should be something teachers are fighting against. In reality rejecting a dare takes more courage than accepting one.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Sue Hovey" suehovey at moscow.com
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:03:25 -0800
To: "lfalen" lfalen at turbonet.com, donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Subject change to "Was it Necessary to Use the AtomicBombs on Japan?" Former title Presidential Rankings
> I sent this to Donovan. I didn't dare you to do anything....I don't care
> whether you read Hershey's book or not...And why, pray tell, is it shameful
> for me to issue a dare to him? Are your standards for teachers somewhat
> more skewed than for other such ordinary folk? He didn't respond anyway, so
> we'll never know whether he decided to read it. And the word is
> bearing.....
>
> Sue H.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "lfalen" <lfalen at turbonet.com>
> To: "Sue Hovey" <suehovey at moscow.com>; <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>;
> <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 9:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Subject change to "Was it Necessary to Use the
> AtomicBombs on Japan?" Former title Presidential Rankings
>
>
> > Shame on you Sue as a teacher for issuing a dare. I may or may not read
> > Hershey's book. A dare would have absolutely no baring on it.
> > Roger
> > -----Original message-----
> > From: "Sue Hovey" suehovey at moscow.com
> > Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:12:03 -0800
> > To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
> > Subject: [Vision2020] Subject change to "Was it Necessary to Use the
> > AtomicBombs on Japan?" Former title Presidential Rankings
> >
> >> 1. I agree, it did end the war quickly--in a matter of days.
> >> 2. And if the bombs hadn't been dropped, how much less intact would have
> >> Japan been on Sep 1, 1945?
> >> 3. It did that. And we had committed to the goal of unconditional
> >> surrender.
> >> 4. No, no, no....it did not.
> >> 5. But they didn't back out of Germany....And they were already
> >> developing nuclear weapons.
> >> 6. Well you got me there & I was living in Texas then, but Bentson
> >> wasn't the U.S. Senator from Texas until quite a bit later, so I really
> >> don't believe this happened. During the Korean war I think our senators
> >> were LBJ and Tom Connally.
> >> 7. Maybe so, maybe not.
> >>
> >> Go ahead and read Hershey's book. I double dare you. You may not be
> >> convinced, but you will have another perspective to chew on.
> >>
> >> Sue H.
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: Donovan Arnold
> >> To: vision2020 at moscow.com ; Sue Hovey
> >> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:45 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Presidential Rankings (2009)
> >>
> >>
> >> Sue,
> >>
> >> It was necessary to drop the bomb for several reasons.
> >>
> >> 1) It brought a quick end to the war
> >> 2) It kept the rest of Japan intact
> >> 3) It gave us an unconditional surrender, which is what the
> >> Allies swore to do
> >> 4) It limited Casualties on both sides of the war
> >> 5) It showed Russia that we have the bomb, and will use it, so
> >> back out of Germany and Western Europe.
> >> 6) The aftermath of the A-Bomb, its horrible impact on people,
> >> helped Senator Benston-D Texas, convince the Senate to block General
> >> MacArthur's attempts to end the Korean War by dropping 50 A-Bombs on
> >> China.
> >> 7) It has prevented anyone from using a nuclear bomb again
> >>
> >> So, I have read the arguments. I don't think your friend,
> >> Hershey, had any greater insight than Truman or his advisers. Hershey was
> >> just 31, Truman was President, he had more information and a bigger
> >> picture of the issues at the time.
> >>
> >> The consequences of not dropping the bomb would have been worse.
> >> Hard to believe, but it would have been.
> >>
> >> Best Regards,
> >>
> >> Donovan
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --- On Thu, 2/19/09, Sue Hovey <suehovey at moscow.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> From: Sue Hovey <suehovey at moscow.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Presidential Rankings (2009)
> >> To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
> >> Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 8:10 PM
> >>
> >>
> >> Donovan,
> >>
> >> For an interesting and opposing view, you might take a look at
> >> John Hershey's Hiroshima, the Aftermath, published in the 1980s. It's
> >> one thing to have had to make that call, as Truman did, for a nation
> >> weary of war, and quite another to quote as fact today the idea that the
> >> dropping of the atom bombs was necessary to save a million lives.
> >>
> >> Sue H.
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: Donovan Arnold
> >> To: vision2020 at moscow.com ; Kenneth Marcy
> >> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 4:27 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Presidential Rankings (2009)
> >>
> >>
> >> People that were against the dropping of the atom bombs
> >> on Japan in WWII were obviously ignorant of the larger number of
> >> causalities it would have cost both Japan and the US in its place, and
> >> were insensitive to massive suffering and loss of life that the US and
> >> others had already endured.
> >>
> >> Truman only had two options. 1) To kill one million
> >> more people, both Japanese and Americans, or 2) Kill 100,000 Japanese
> >> that started the war and end it.
> >>
> >> To me, the choice is obvious. I am sure Truman would
> >> have dropped 12 billion roses instead if it ended the war, but it
> >> wouldn't, so he did what had to do to end the war. And dropping the bomb
> >> barely did end the war as Japan still didn't want to surrender initially
> >> after that.
> >>
> >> Best Regards.
> >>
> >> Donovan
> >>
> >> --- On Thu, 2/19/09, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at verizon.net>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> From: Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at verizon.net>
> >> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Presidential Rankings
> >> (2009)
> >> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> >> Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 12:45 PM
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wednesday 18 February 2009 14:03:26 Kai Eiselein wrote:> Sooooo, would
> >> this apply to those who condemn the use of nuclear bombs on> Japan?Yes. I
> >> think that the Allies, and the Americans specifically, were war-weary
> >> from large social and industrial reorganizations to support a war effort
> >> then beyond all those previous. The prospect of any necessity of taking a
> >> land war from the Allies into Asia implied such huge additional losses
> >> that any way to end the Nipponese war, and prevent its spread more
> >> generally to Asia, was seen as a useful effort.More so than any
> >> subsequent major conflict, World War II was seen as a just war; the
> >> Allied cause was worth winning for good reasons, and all efforts toward
> >> that end were justified.Yes, the atomic destruction was horrific, no
> >> doubt about it, and on sight of the test blast, the
> >> decision makers all knew it. Oppenheimer said in New Mexico "I am become
> >> death." And the chain of command, from Groves upto Marshall and then to
> >> Truman, presumably had some idea of the much larger magnitude of the atom
> >> bombs, so the decision to use them was in service of ending the Nipponese
> >> war sooner rather than later.> Or the fire bombing of Germany?Without
> >> reviewing the technical details, I will just say that after the U.S.
> >> joined the Allied cause then underway, there was a strong determination
> >> to see the war effort through to a victorious decision. No one doubted
> >> the justness of the Allied cause, nor did anyone doubt that the awful
> >> destruction was beneath the dignified preferences of civil societies.
> >> However, the Axis aggression had to be stopped, and the prosecution of
> >> the European efforts continued until that goal was reached. Whether the
> >> goal could have been achieved more
> >> optimally with less destruction was a judgment call; second guessing and
> >> arm-chair quarterbacking more than half a century later won't change
> >> their determination then to get the job done with what was available.>
> >> Or, the actions Europeans took in the Americas after stumbling upon the>
> >> contintents?Considering that Europeans first began attempting permanent
> >> North American settlements centuries ago, it is even more important for
> >> us not to impose our mind-set on their attitudes and motivations. Some of
> >> the earliest were explorers, somewhat later they were escaping religious
> >> differences. Yes, they had racist attitudes. Yes, they felt their
> >> technologies and their old-world civilization gave them a sense of
> >> entitlement to what they saw before them. There was no North American
> >> parliament with proportional representation of the indigenous peoples,
> >> and if anyone had been so foolish as
> >> to suggest one, they would have been laughed, or worse, out of the
> >> colony.>From our contemporary understandings we can easily and glibly say
> >> that the Europeans should have accepted the natives as human equals. But
> >> not all of them were willing to accept the "savages" as fully human. They
> >> didnot have the advantage of knowing about Darwinian science, Mendelian
> >> genetics, and contemporary molecular biology that illustrates our closer
> >> human kinship than their observations of skin color, physiognomy, and
> >> social culture allowed. Even today not all of us have learned these
> >> lessons sufficiently well, so who are we to suggest that those early
> >> colonists were incompletely informed?> After all, there are those who do
> >> the same in those instances.> My comment wasn't so much anti-war as it
> >> was historical fact. For some> reason Vietnam and Kennedy are kept
> >> conspicuously separated in
> >> history> textbooks, even though Kennedy's actions led the U.S. directly
> >> intothe> Vietnam war.Yes, it is true that many Americans are a
> >> soft-hearted bunch, preferring polite conversation and gentle
> >> reminiscences of how nice the Kennedy family looked, how cute and
> >> adorable the children were, and on and on. Oh my, wouldn't it be fun to
> >> sail with Jack and the boys, or ride English side-saddle with Jackie and
> >> the ladies? How wonderful we could feel about ourselves, fantasizing
> >> ourselves into a far-away Camelot!As the older generations fade into
> >> memory, younger generations of historians will probably have sharper
> >> things to say about how close we came to a Soviet American war near Cuba,
> >> and how lucky we were for back-channel communication between the
> >> nonagenarian English Lord Russell and Nikita Khrushchev, and some other
> >> fortunate military command communications incidents that
> >> forestalled active engagement.> On another note, it was Kennedy who
> >> signed legislation allowing U.S.> companies to set up shop in foriegn
> >> countries without having to pay U.S.> income taxes on their profits from
> >> those units. The idea was that by> bringing jobs into countries that were
> >> at risk of falling to the commies,> it would make communism less
> >> appealing. It was a logical move.There probably were multiple reasons for
> >> allowing tax-free foreign commerce by American organizations. Profits
> >> likely were a part of it, as was the opportunity to extend the de facto
> >> American intelligence network abroad, but outside of the usual military
> >> and diplomatic channels. And I would not be surprised to learn that the
> >> administration found it convenient to allow certain organizations to
> >> operate profitably without any necessity for their books to be examined
> >> by anyone in an official sphere. The
> >> darker corners of commercial activity can benefit more than just
> >> capitalists, as many have noted since then.> Unfortunately, an unintended
> >> consequence has been the wholesale migration> of U.S. companies
> >> abroad.Companies have been operating for profit internationally since
> >> ancient trading times, so international business is nothing new.
> >> Consequences, unintended or not, can be changed if the courage and
> >> collective will are marshalled to change laws and behaviors to more
> >> desirable patterns. This is a question of needed leadership, not of the
> >> horses irrevocably having escaped the barn.> How much howling from big
> >> biz do you think there would be if the law was> repealed and they had to
> >> pay taxes on their foreign income?How much howling is there over any
> >> contentious tax issue? Capital gains, for example? Too often, the
> >> lobbyists and the committee chairmen decide their
> >> answer, and that's that. Powerless citizens may howl all they wish, to
> >> little avail. Powerful interests need not howl at all; they pay their
> >> agents and their will is carried out via gallons of ink printed on paper
> >> mountains.Fundamental tax reform, as opposed to rearrangement of
> >> regulations, is relatively rare in the United States. For example, the US
> >> does not have a national property tax on large holdings of private
> >> property, specifically land. Why do not corporations and individuals who
> >> own millions of acres of land pay no federal property taxes on those
> >> large holdings? Exemptions for a few thousand acres of actively farmed,
> >> or recently fallowed, land could easily be arranged, so working farm
> >> families would be exempted. So, for the remaining land hoarders, why
> >> should they not pay some small rate of property tax to help offset the
> >> government expenses of their national defense and liberties
> >> preservation? Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase from the French to
> >> enlarge the United States. Don't we all have an obligation to
> >> periodically re-examine who owns what land, and to re-evaluate how to
> >> keep that land optimally productive, financially and
> >> environmentally?Ken=======================================================
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> >> communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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> >>
> >>
> >>
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