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Monsters at the End of a War
August 15 was the end of World War II in Asia, 69 years ago, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.I could not find a single reference to the bombings, or to the end of the war itself, anywhere in the American media. Even the Yazidis in Iraq, a big story a week ago, had yielded to the death of Robin Williams, who gave up his place at the top of the news to the shooting of a young African-American man in Missouri. There may be something else dominating the national agenda by the time you read this.
We get Japanese TV at my house, NHK, their version of public television, and the news shows from Japan on August 15 were dominated by stories about the war. Maybe it was because Japan hadn’t gone to war again since 1945, or maybe because the country was so devastated by the war, it wasn’t clear, but there was only the briefest of news recaps about global events other than the end of World War II. It mattered a lot to them.
In addition to all the expected black and white footage, there was a live talk show, featuring a well-known entertainer talking about her childhood experiences during the war. The entertainer, born male, identifies as female and was on the talk show in women’s clothing and a feminine hairstyle, the hair dyed honey bee yellow. Her looks were purposefully garish, at first distracting, and it is doubtful that the next Ken Burns documentary on PBS would feature a trans person in such a serious setting, but Japan is a different place as they say.
Here are two stories she related.
She remembers going with her mother to the train station to see her older brother off to war. He was a reluctant soldier, a draftee near the end of the conflict. His mom was waving goodbye as the train pulled away, and suddenly shouted “Come back, come back to me.” Such sentiments were to be unspoken in wartime Japan; a soldier was to expect to die in battle, sacrificing himself for the nation, the Emperor, something. It was late enough in the war then that no one expected the soldiers to come home victorious, the only other acceptable outcome, though that was not spoken of out loud either.
They were expected to die, and the mother’s spontaneous cry was an affront. Her son, ashamed? embarrassed? afraid? ducked his head inside the train and was blended into the mass of other soldiers. He would indeed die in battle, maybe fighting on Guam, maybe Saipan, maybe somewhere else, it was unclear in the chaos of things. At the train station was the last time he would see his mother, and she him.
The day was not over. The entertainer on modern TV explained that almost simultaneously with his mother’s outcry to her son to come home, a police officer grabbed her and slammed her into a telephone pole, opening a gash on her head that bled into her eyes. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you for sedition, old woman, he said. You are a disgrace, go home.
The entertainer lost her mother in the Nagasaki atomic bombing. She claims her mother died hunched over an even younger sibling, shielding him from the firestorm. The entertainer claims she saw her mother’s flesh in ribbons. That was the last time she would see her mother, and perhaps the mother had a last glance at another of her children before she was consumed, again, by the war.
Entertainers are of course in the business of being, well, entertaining, so one must always reserve a bit of skepticism about the fullness of any story so neatly told.
But we’ll be generous to the entertainer in her recollections.
Many terrible things happen in wars, and whether every detail the entertainer shared was true, or embellished, or just made up, matters little. There are real horrors in war, some so terrible that no one could believe they were true, or that they were not embellished, or that some horrible mind did not make them up.
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Rich Bauer said...
1” You’re lucky I don’t arrest you for sedition, old woman, he said. You are a disgrace, go home.”
Hey, Peter, isn’t that what the DS Flying Monkeys told you?
08/18/14 12:17 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2Speaking of criminal acts, who’s the criminal here?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/world/europe/saudi-princes-convoy-attacked-by-gunmen-in-paris.html
08/18/14 12:35 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3If Hillary is elected, that photo will be a common sight in the Big Apple:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/16/hillary-hawk-flies-again
08/18/14 1:19 PM | Comment Link
jim hruska said...
4WMW,
I find it amazing that Americans find mass destruction weapons as a source of national defense, and yet we never used them defensively.
Japan was defeated , but yet we atomic bombed them, and then called it an act of war rather than a war crime.
We helped create Terror bombing, but yet we oppose Terrorism.
jim hruska
08/18/14 2:14 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
5Japan is lucky China did not have the A-bomb in 1945.
08/18/14 2:49 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6China does have the bomb today and a long memory:
http://www.nanking-massacre.com/RAPE_OF_NANKING_OR_NANJING_MASSACRE_1937.html
08/18/14 2:55 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
7I’ll comment on this post later.
Right now, I just came across this..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/yemeni-victims-of-us-military-drone-strike-get-more-than-1million-in-compensation/2014/08/18/670926f0-26e4-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html?tid=recommended_strip_3
There’s so much to say regarding this, I have to think about it. But here’s what the State Department, care of the lying bitch talking head, Caitlin Hayden said..
“Although we will not comment on specific cases, were non-combatants killed or injured in a U.S. strike, condolence or other ex gratia payments, such as solatia, may be available,” said Caitlin Hayden, who went on to say..
“..the U.S. government takes seriously all credible reports of non-combatant deaths and injuries” and seeks “to ensure that we are taking the most effective steps to minimize such risk to non-combatants.”
right.
Rumor has it she had every mirror removed within her sphere at State. whudda thunk.
bartender..that calls for a bottle of Michigan cult beer. Give me a TwoRollingEyes.
08/19/14 12:38 AM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
8ps, anyone know if this bitch is related to Michael Hayden? Their stench is similar.
08/19/14 12:39 AM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
9NEWS FLASH! Groundshaking revelation in Jewel vs NSA
As much as I hate to post unrelated information on Peter’s current thread,(yeah right) sometimes I feel there are current events of such magnitude, that I dare being perceived as a troll. This is one of those times. Although I’m sure Peter would have something to say about it, I know his plate is pretty full with vacations and all that. In that light, you REALLY need to read this as this revelation that just occurred in “Jewel vs NSA”, is so far beyond anything within my memory of groundshaking blatant government attempt at tyranny, it’s barely comprehensible….
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140813/23203228207/unsealed-jewel-v-nsa-transcript-doj-has-nothing-contempt-american-citizens.shtml#c248
Frankly, had the Judge acquiesced to the DOJ’s “request” we WOULD be falling free fall speed into the abyss. Fortunately for us, SOME US Judges ain’t as stupid as the DOJ thinks they are. Thank god.
08/19/14 2:33 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
10Pitch,
You have to give the NSA Domestic Spy Program some credit: it has finally united US at least on one issue -its elimination.
08/19/14 11:31 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
11War is an addiction, and the US is the biggest pusher in the world:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/30/world/meast/iraq-crisis/index
08/19/14 2:27 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12http://news.yahoo.com/us-plans-largest-ever-sale-hellfire-missiles-iraq-230153985.html
08/19/14 2:28 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
13@Rich.. indeed. Too many links..so little time. That doesn’t mean I’m negligent. I appreciate your contributions to my own journey here.
08/19/14 10:52 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
14Hiroshima was just devastated by mudslides after getting 9 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe canceled the rest of his summer vacation to deal with the crisis from Tokyo.”
http://rt.com/news/181504-japan-landslide-hiroshima-rescue/
08/20/14 8:39 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
15Peter ain’t on vacation. He’s working on his acceptance speech.
Peter Van Buren – 2016
http://11oclocknews.typepad.com/the_11_oclock_news/2014/08/vote-for-hillary-the-hawk-so-we-can-impeach-the-bitch.html
08/20/14 4:43 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
16quote”Peter ain’t on vacation. He’s working on his acceptance speech.”unquote
Why, that sly fox. Skipping out on work to work. Of all the nerve. 🙂
YES WE VAN!!
Peter Van Buren – 2016
08/20/14 6:27 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
17quote”Hiroshima was just devastated by mudslides after getting 9 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.”unquote
At least it’s not nuclear rain. If that’s any condolence. But holy moly..9″? Too bad they can’t export it to California. 🙁
08/20/14 6:33 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
18err..consolation..not condolence. Damn..whatta dunce.
08/20/14 6:38 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
19Monsters at the End of War? No, it’s just the beginning of “Breaking Bad”:
The only thing that explains our total incompetence in the Global War on Terror is we intentionally fuck up the region and create new monsters like ISIS so that Iraq et al are dependent on US to sell them weapons forever.
08/21/14 4:50 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
20“Rich Bauer said…
Monsters at the End of War? No, it’s just the beginning of “Breaking Bad”:”
One of the crazy things about “Breaking Bad-DC edition” is that while our side is busy culling innocent and surveilling ordinary Americans’ electronic communications, they can’t properly use these resources to find where Foley and the other hostages were and missed out on rescuing them.
Of course, sending arms that winds up in the hands of these guys may not have been the brightest course to begin with, like when arming the most wacko wing of the Syrian ‘opposition’, but hey that would require knowing something about such groups. Not that these guys’ killing innocent civilians or burning the churches of the first Christians would be a hint of some kind maybe we need to find a better bunch to get into the proverbial political bed with???
08/21/14 10:24 PM | Comment Link