One’s heroic stance is another’s ‘subversion’ as we all see it

It’s all a matter of perspective, the way we view certain actions. The nincompoop acts of some people come off as rational in others’ mindsets.
 

Isn't the military in and of itself a political statement?

The things some people see sense in get denounced as acts of subversion by others – to the point where I think the things people complain about probably say more about the individuals doing the ranting than they do about the people who supposedly did wrong.

IN MY MIND, I already can hear the rants of those people who will take offense to President Barack Obama (just because he’s Obama is their real reason) and the fact that he’s going to make an official visit to Hiroshima in Japan.

That, of course, is one of only two cities that ever actually got “nuked” as U.S. military personnel, at the direction of commander in chief Harry S. Truman, went ahead and used the atomic bomb.

That act brought about the end of the Second World War, and I’m not about to entertain a debate over whether use of the bomb was appropriate. It happened is about all that really matters.

But I’m sure Obama’s critics are going to complain that he shouldn’t be taking part in any ceremony that might view the Japanese residents of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in a favorable light – one that would give credence to the Japanese perspective of the Second World War that they were the ultimate victims because they were the targets of the atomic bomb.

WHICH AS I see it, is about as ridiculous a perspective as those who try to claim the U.S. civil war was solely about the concept of state’s rights and a tyrannical U.S. nation overstepping of bounds against what is mildly referred to as the Southern way of life.

I’m already braced for the hostility that will be spewed, probably all too similar to those people who are complaining about the black female cadets from the military academy at West Point who claim the photograph of them with clenched fists was a statement of solidarity with the subversive elements of the Black Lives Matter movement.

 

OBAMA: On verge of offending ideologues yet again?

Although if you change “Black Lives Matter” to “Black Panther Party” then it shows the argument hasn’t changed one bit during the past decades. Some people are determined to believe the Anglo approach to our society truly is the only one appropriate.

Which probably also means the rest of us ought to accept that we don’t really belong in this nation and ought to leave. Even though I’m positive I ain’t going nowhere, and I doubt many others are planning to leave as well.

THEN, OF COURSE, there’s the plight of Mel Reynolds, the one-time member of Congress who is being held in jail in Kankakee County because of the pending charges against him that he went several years without filing income tax returns.

That’s the argument federal prosecutors plan to make against him. Although Reynolds says he now plans to plead guilty. Not because he admits he did anything wrong. He wants to view himself as the victim because his incarceration restricts the amount of time he can spend with an attorney preparing his defense.

I’m sure in Mel’s mind, he’s undergoing an ordeal that would make Ghandi or Nelson Mandela sympathize. Although I’m also sure the vast majority of people would not think twice about rooting against Reynolds.

REYNOLDS: Victim? Or whiner?

I also couldn’t help but notice news reports where Reynolds claimed he was a target for assassination by gang members because of some of his actions back when he served in Congress – which supposedly was the reason then-President Bill Clinton gave him that pardon back in 2000 before leaving office.

DOES CLINTON NOW wish he could take that act back? Could it be something that comes up during the current presidential campaign for use against wife Hillary?

Or will there now be some people who secretly will wish for the gang members to “finish the job” that Reynolds claims they were given?

  -30-

Harry Truman - 2; Rest of World - 0

That hedline was a phrase used by a professor of mine back when I was in college.


Admittedly, this particular history professor was not a fan of the man who happened to be in office as U.S. president at the point when World War II came to an end.


LARGELY BECAUSE OF the actions that took place 70 years ago this weekend that were authorized by Harry S. Truman. He gave permission for the atomic bomb to be used, first in a test so Japanese authorities could see for themselves what hell could be wrought upon themselves.


Then, 70 years ago Thursday, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Followed up by the one dropped 70 years ago Sunday on Nagasaki.


In theory, U.S. officials were prepared to keep "nuking" Japanese cities until an unconditional surrender was reached. It only took the two cities to be destroyed before that happened -- which was fortunate because it would have taken some time for the U.S. military to come up with more atomic devices.


Now the point my old history professor was trying to get at was despite all the rhetoric of the cold war and the tensions between the United States and Soviet Union (and the near bombings of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962), nuclear weapons were never used.


NO MATTER HOW much some people wanted to think of the U.S.S.R as a warmonger and evil state, they never actually gave the "go" order to unleash nuclear war.


Not on the United States. Not on anyone.


Truman was the only one who ever gave the order to unleash the terror and destruction that goes along with nuclear devices -- where it may be that the most fortunate people are the ones who are killed instantly by the blast.


The lasting radiation that contaminates all the resources necessary for life and causes more death and destruction in future years is worse.


IT TOOK MANY decades before we truly realized how many people were "killed" on those days 70 years ago this weekend. It certainly wasn't something anybody appreciated at the time.


Now I know some people are going to want to rant and rage at this point. The more irrational will get all worked up over "dirty little Japs" (or whatever slur they prefer to use) and claim they got what they deserved.


There also is the argument about how the militaristic mentality that took hold in Japan in the 1930s (and turned Emperor Hirohito into a virtual puppet) would have had the Japanese people fight to the death -- resulting in millions more casualties of U.S. soldiers and sailors if an invasion of Japan had been required.


There probably are people who are only dying now whose lives would have been lost 70 years ago!


BUT PERHAPS WE should remember that the reason those scientists worked for a time under the grandstand at the old Stagg Field at the University of Chicago was the fear that German scientists were coming up with an identical weapon that could have been used against the United States.


There actually is a novel entitled "Fatherland" that purports to offer an alternate history of World War II, one in which it ends as a draw between a Nazi German government and the U.S. (when the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Adolf Hitler retaliated by dropping his bomb on New York, according to that story line).


There are those who think the ultimate war victims were the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although those places as targets were all so accidental. This was a weapon designed for use on Berlin.


And when we debate the soundness of nuclear weapons and the desire to keep them out of the hands of Iran, perhaps we can wonder what would have been if they had never come into play anywhere on this planet.


  -30-