Orphan Nagasaki
Like Nagasaki, August 9 is an orphan of history.
And in that history, new, definitive evidence has finally surfaced that the atomic bombing there was completely unjustified.
More than 80,000 human beings perished in Nagasaki three days after at least that many died in Hiroshima.
The Bomb that destroyed this historic city was made of plutonium (Hiroshima's was uranium).
Whatever the case for nuking Hiroshima, it was far weaker for Nagasaki.
The US had already shown it had this ultimate weapon. It showed it was willing to use it. And it now had time to wait for the Japanese to gather themselves and surrender, which so many believe they were trying to do.
Lingering doubts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki have only multiplied over six decades. Statements from American strategists include one to the effect that the first bomb showed we had it and were willing to use it, while the second showed we were willing to use it irrationally.
Many believe the US used the both to scare the Soviets.
And in that history, new, definitive evidence has finally surfaced that the atomic bombing there was completely unjustified.
More than 80,000 human beings perished in Nagasaki three days after at least that many died in Hiroshima.
The Bomb that destroyed this historic city was made of plutonium (Hiroshima's was uranium).
Whatever the case for nuking Hiroshima, it was far weaker for Nagasaki.
The US had already shown it had this ultimate weapon. It showed it was willing to use it. And it now had time to wait for the Japanese to gather themselves and surrender, which so many believe they were trying to do.
Lingering doubts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki have only multiplied over six decades. Statements from American strategists include one to the effect that the first bomb showed we had it and were willing to use it, while the second showed we were willing to use it irrationally.
Many believe the US used the both to scare the Soviets.
Big Star-Spangled Lies for War
A lot of people want to believe that the current war on Iraq is some
kind of aberration -- a radical departure from the previous baseline of
U.S. foreign policy. That’s a comforting illusion.
Yes, the current administration in Washington is notable for the extreme mendacity and calculated idiocy of its claims. But -- decade after decade -- the propaganda fuel for one U.S. war after another has flowed from a standard set of lies.
Some of the boilerplate lies are implicit assumptions about Uncle Sam’s benign and even noble intent. Other deceptions rely on more specific whoppers, endlessly whirling through the news media’s spin cycle. From one war to the next, certain themes are played up more than others -- but the process always involves building an agenda to start a war, trying to justify the war while it’s underway, and then claiming that the war must continue as long as the man in the Oval Office says so.
Yes, the current administration in Washington is notable for the extreme mendacity and calculated idiocy of its claims. But -- decade after decade -- the propaganda fuel for one U.S. war after another has flowed from a standard set of lies.
Some of the boilerplate lies are implicit assumptions about Uncle Sam’s benign and even noble intent. Other deceptions rely on more specific whoppers, endlessly whirling through the news media’s spin cycle. From one war to the next, certain themes are played up more than others -- but the process always involves building an agenda to start a war, trying to justify the war while it’s underway, and then claiming that the war must continue as long as the man in the Oval Office says so.
Solomon's Unspinning of War
Norman Solomon's new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," opens with a disturbing prologue. The U.S. media has refused to give serious coverage to the Downing Street Memos on the grounds that they are "old news." In the initial pages of his book, and supplemented by the rest, Solomon makes a case that both outdoes and undoes that claim.
The Incredible Blight of TV Punditry
When super-pundit Robert Novak stormed off the set of a live CNN
show Thursday -- just after uttering what the New York Times delicately
calls “a profanity” -- it was an unusual episode of TV punditry. With
rare exceptions, the slick commentators of televisionland keep their
cool. But we’d be much better off if they all disappeared.
Novak’s unscripted exit from the telecast may have been a preemptive strike -- a kind of semiconscious work stoppage -- to avoid squirming under the hot lights. “The moderator of the program, Ed Henry, later said on the air that he had warned Mr. Novak that he planned to ask him ‘about the CIA leak case,’” the Times reports. As a bottom-feeding big fish in the pond of political journalism, Novak wants control over the sunlight in his face.
It has become a cliche to complain about the cable news channels. Fox News is notorious -- or revered, depending on one’s political outlook -- for a hard-right style that sometimes resorts to shouting down dissenters or cutting off their microphones. Bombast has become professionally respectable; many TV journalists yearn to be the next Bill O’Reilly.
Novak’s unscripted exit from the telecast may have been a preemptive strike -- a kind of semiconscious work stoppage -- to avoid squirming under the hot lights. “The moderator of the program, Ed Henry, later said on the air that he had warned Mr. Novak that he planned to ask him ‘about the CIA leak case,’” the Times reports. As a bottom-feeding big fish in the pond of political journalism, Novak wants control over the sunlight in his face.
It has become a cliche to complain about the cable news channels. Fox News is notorious -- or revered, depending on one’s political outlook -- for a hard-right style that sometimes resorts to shouting down dissenters or cutting off their microphones. Bombast has become professionally respectable; many TV journalists yearn to be the next Bill O’Reilly.
Media flagstones along a path to war on Iran
On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo
chamber, and major U.S. news outlets showed that they knew the drill.
Iran’s nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in
high places in Washington said so.
It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported: “A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House.”
It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported: “A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House.”
Bill Moss
To All Who "Got Up On The Bus", and our attorneys, which includes Bill and Ruth Moss... Thank You for being an important part of my life! In the passing of Bill Moss, God gains a great worker, and we will carry on stronger with Bills memory. As for our trip on the bus, I have so many good and powerful memories. Ruth, Judith, myself and so many others were dancing and singing along with Will B in Layfayette Park. Bill speaking to the crowds about the huge injustice we were living in Ohio. I only wish I had gotten to know Bill better, knowing of him for years, knowing him personally this year.
Who's the real martyr, Judy Miller or Jim DeFede?
"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." So wrote Lord Macaulay back in 1830. With this bracing dictum in mind, let's go back to the July 28 firing by The Miami Herald of Jim DeFede.
Why was Defede fired? On Thursday, the columnist was called on the phone by former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. Defede had known him for many years. Teele had just been indicted on federal mail fraud and money laundering charges, and a male prostitute was claiming that Teele had enjoyed his sexual services and used cocaine with him.
As Defede listened to the distraught Teele, he says he realized that the man was in a very bad way. "The idea that he might be thinking suicide was in my mind. I wanted to get what he was saying down -- to preserve what he was saying -- so I pushed the record button."
Why was Defede fired? On Thursday, the columnist was called on the phone by former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. Defede had known him for many years. Teele had just been indicted on federal mail fraud and money laundering charges, and a male prostitute was claiming that Teele had enjoyed his sexual services and used cocaine with him.
As Defede listened to the distraught Teele, he says he realized that the man was in a very bad way. "The idea that he might be thinking suicide was in my mind. I wanted to get what he was saying down -- to preserve what he was saying -- so I pushed the record button."
Lawyers, guns and money: Just put down that lawsuit, pardner, and no one gets hurt
NEW YORK - There are 200 million guns in civilian hands in the United States. That works out at 200 per lawyer. Wade through the foaming websites of the anti-Semites, weekend militiamen and Republicans, and it becomes clear that many among America's well-armed citizenry have performed the same calculation. Because if there is any hope of the ceasefire that they fear, it will come out of the barrel of a lawsuit.
And that is why a shoot-to-kill coalition in the Senate, led by Wild Bill Frist (R-Tenn) and his simpering sidekick, Scary Harry Reid (D-Nev), voted yesterday to grant immunity from law suits to gun makers.
First, the score. Gunshot deaths in the US are way down - to only 88 a day. Around 87,000 lucky Americans were treated for bullet wounds last year; 32,436 unlucky ones died, including a dozen policemen by their own weapons.
For Americans, America remains more deadly than Iraq.
In one typical case, a young man, Steven Fox, described feeling pieces of his brain fly from his skull after a mugger shot him. He is permanently paralyzed.
And that is why a shoot-to-kill coalition in the Senate, led by Wild Bill Frist (R-Tenn) and his simpering sidekick, Scary Harry Reid (D-Nev), voted yesterday to grant immunity from law suits to gun makers.
First, the score. Gunshot deaths in the US are way down - to only 88 a day. Around 87,000 lucky Americans were treated for bullet wounds last year; 32,436 unlucky ones died, including a dozen policemen by their own weapons.
For Americans, America remains more deadly than Iraq.
In one typical case, a young man, Steven Fox, described feeling pieces of his brain fly from his skull after a mugger shot him. He is permanently paralyzed.
Lance Armstrong and America: Harvey Wasserman Letter in Today's NYTimes
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman has chosen the right man in pointing to Lance Armstrong as a role model ("Learning From Lance," column, July 27). Armstrong's will and brilliance in overcoming cancer and winning seven Tours de France are the stuff of legend.
But Mr. Friedman does not mention Armstrong's equally important opposition to the war in Iraq. Though a personal friend of President Bush, Armstrong has sharply and correctly criticized the war as politically wrongheaded and catastrophically expensive. "I don't like what the war has done to our country, to our economy," he said last year. "My kids will be paying for this war for some time to come."
Mr. Friedman is right to admire Armstrong as an athlete. Lance also has it right on this awful war.
Harvey Wasserman
Bexley, Ohio, July 27, 2005
Thomas L. Friedman has chosen the right man in pointing to Lance Armstrong as a role model ("Learning From Lance," column, July 27). Armstrong's will and brilliance in overcoming cancer and winning seven Tours de France are the stuff of legend.
But Mr. Friedman does not mention Armstrong's equally important opposition to the war in Iraq. Though a personal friend of President Bush, Armstrong has sharply and correctly criticized the war as politically wrongheaded and catastrophically expensive. "I don't like what the war has done to our country, to our economy," he said last year. "My kids will be paying for this war for some time to come."
Mr. Friedman is right to admire Armstrong as an athlete. Lance also has it right on this awful war.
Harvey Wasserman
Bexley, Ohio, July 27, 2005
Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?
The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often
voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in
plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering.
Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while others find him overly glib, but there’s no doubt that he is an influential commentator with inherently respectable views. When Friedman makes his case for a shift in foreign policy, the conventional media wisdom is that he’s providing a sober assessment. Yet beneath his liberal exterior is a penchant for remedies that rely on massive Pentagon firepower.
Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while others find him overly glib, but there’s no doubt that he is an influential commentator with inherently respectable views. When Friedman makes his case for a shift in foreign policy, the conventional media wisdom is that he’s providing a sober assessment. Yet beneath his liberal exterior is a penchant for remedies that rely on massive Pentagon firepower.