I noticed this story, mentioned several other locations. In an interview, Jon Stewart said that Harry Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians. In the video linked in that article, Jon Stewart apologized for saying that.
Official State propaganda is "Harry Truman made a heroic decision to use the atomic bomb and end World War II. A US President never makes bad decisions!"
It's important to maintain the illusion of State omnipotence and omniscience and omnibenevolence. If people start questioning "Was it right to use the atomic bomb?", then other aspects of the State start to be questioned.
Saying "Japanese people deserved to die for supporting a corrupt government!" is very close to saying "Americans deserve to die for the bad decisions that politicians in the USA make!" History is written by the winners. Murdering Japanese civilians is heroic, but murdering American civilians is terrorism.
When a mainstream media personality contradicts State propaganda, he is forced to apologize. If Jon Stewart refused to apologize, he would have been fired and lost his cushy job. If the mainstream media cartel decided to blacklist Jon Stewart, then he would never be able to find another high-paying job. The State information monopoly makes it easy to control the official State spokesmen. Anybody who deviates is not jailed; the bad guys merely fire them and ruin their career. The net effect is the same as if State police violently kidnapped anyone who speaks the truth.
Jon Stewart's apology actually seemed simultaneously sincere and sarcastic. Did he really mean it? Or, did it have the tone of "Some executive at Viacom insisted I tape this apology!"
Once, I'd like to see a mainstream media personality say "No! I'm not apologizing! There's nothing wrong with suggesting that it was wrong to use the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians!"
An apology is ultimately meaningless. You should do what you think is right and suffer any positive or negative consequences. Demanding people apologize for telling the truth is an important part of pro-State brainwashing. Via an apology, the slave acknowledges the legitimacy of the master. An apology accomplishes nothing except to reinforce people's pro-State brainwashing.
Even if I write something that you think is wrong, that doesn't mean you should stop reading altogether. If I write 99% interesting things, and 1% of things you find offensive, that doesn't mean you should stop reading. You should read if it's overall worth your time. If I start self-censoring to avoid offending people, then that leads to the same problem that the mainstream media cartel has. A mainstream media program can't afford to offend people, lest they lose advertisers and/or viewers. Plus, the mainstream media cartel overreacts whenever someone contradicts official State propaganda and points out that the rest of them are frauds. This leads to a culture of self-censorship.
Did Jon Stewart accidentally contradict official State propaganda? Or, was he cleverly pushing the limit of acceptable debate?
When writing this article, I noticed another flaw in official State propaganda regarding World War II. The USA demanded the "unconditional surrender" of Japan after World War II. Apparently, Japan had offered a partial surrender and US government insiders refused.
Given that context, the dropping of the atomic bomb seems particularly immoral. If Japan had offered a ceasefire, and the US government refused, then isn't it really a war crime to drop the atomic bomb?
Doesn't that mean the real issue of the atomic bomb was "Subjugate and dominate Japan imperialistically!" instead of "Save lives!"? If Japan offered a ceasefire, then the US could have accepted it to save lives.
What's so noble about "unconditional surrender"? What's wrong with a peace treaty and a partial surrender? "Unconditional surrender" seems like a fnord phrase designed to justify using the atomic bomb on Japan.
When people question "Was it right to drop the atomic bomb and murder Japanese civilians?", the pro-State troll response is "Dropping the atomic bomb was a complicated decision. It isn't right to judge the decisions made in context of a war. You weren't there, and you have no right to criticize."
That's a common parasite tactic. If you make things incredibly complicated, then evil is justified.
I read some people saying "'Taxation is theft!' oversimplifies the issue." That is wrong. "Taxation is theft!" simplifies the issue and states it very clearly. The arguments for "Taxation is not theft!" are complicated, because they're designed to obfuscate the truth.
Also, "You weren't President during World War II. Therefore, you have no right to criticize his decision!" is another parasite tactic. That reasoning means that State bureaucrats are absolutely immune from criticism.
As another example, "You're wrong to criticize the trillions of dollars in bailout money that was wasted/stolen. You didn't have access to economic insight like us. You have no right to criticize us." That line of reasoning means that the bad guys are absolutely immune from criticism.
Jon Stewart criticized Truman's decision to use atomic bomb. The media backlash surrounding this incident is an example of the Matrix in action.
3 comments:
On the other hand, you could make the case that dropping the nuclear bomb was a better option than the other real alternative (real used in this case as "likely" and "realistic", when considering the government that was in power and government in general). The other alternative was a systematic carpet bombing of Japan, which would have resulted in even more deaths than the nuclear bomb had (and would have also led to a landing on the Japanese islands, which would have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives).
I'm sure that accepting Japan's conditional surrender (if that is true: I don't doubt it, but neither do I endorse it, since my area of expertise is the European Theater, not the Pacific Theater) would have been a better option than the above two, but I think that the nuclear bomb was not the worst of all possibilities. It was certainly not the worst of the most likely routes the government would have taken without having the nuclear bomb at its disposal (or had Japan not agreed to surrender after the bombs were dropped).
I guess you could make a case against the above argument by claiming that the nuclear bombs did not ultimately impact the Japanese enough to catalyze the surrender. The surrender came due to other reasons. I have read this, although I don't know too much about it (or have forgotten why). And so, ultimately, a possible rejection of the above defense of the use of nuclear bombs was that they were eventually ineffective.
"Never apologize or explain. Your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't accept it anyway." -- Mark Twain
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them." -George Orwell
Post a Comment