Comment on ‘There wasn’t enough about the horror’: Hiroshima survivors react to Oppenheimer
DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 7 months ago
That’s probably why the movie was titled Oppenheimer and not Hiroshima & Nagasaki, because the movie was focused on the man and his work and the regrets that came from that work, while nations celebrated the end of a second World War.
This movie was the type of movie that was always going to upset someone, and while it sucks that Japanese citizens were killed, their emperor’s military might was a brutally murderous raping scourge set loose on that section of the world, while also working with some of the other worst regimes of the world. Overall Japan fucked around and attacked first, did a lot of horrible shit to many different peoples, made some truly horrible friends, and then found out in one of the most devastating ways possible, I feel bad for the innocent civilians, but it was always ever going to end the way it did, if not a lot worse.
I’m just glad Japan grew to be what it is now and that it chose better ways to engage with the world than more attempts at domination, even though Anime, Manga, and more have dominated the world’s hearts.
NPR played an interview with a survivor.
He said that he hoped people in Japan would watch Oppenheimer and see the excitement when the nuclear bomb testing succeeded. He felt that it showed the American point of view and that a bomb was their ticket out of a terrible war with Japan.
He also said we should discuss these things now because by the time the century anniversary comes there will be none of “us” left.
It’s interesting how differently survivors of an event feel when compared to people who only ever learned about the event through history.
I heard there was a plot to stop the emperor from surrendering, despite the massive devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would’ve taken 10x as many losses from air raids and ground battles for them to concede.
but it was always ever going to end the way it did, if not a lot worse.
This takeaway is mythologization of America’s most reprehensible act.
We murdered 210,000 civilians because of a perceived threat to capitalism.
While I’m not defending the use of the bombs as bargaining chips, Japan would have suffered the same fate as Germany under Soviet rule. North Japan and South Japan, alongside a Tokyo Wall, would have not been just a “threat to capitalism”.
So it’s better to melt the faces off of hundreds of thousands of innocent people than to risk a two state solution?
They weren’t innocent, they were willing and eager subjects of a fascist state that had killed over 20 million Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos amongst others, and there was never a chance of it being two state solution.
If there’s a reason Truman dropped the bomb as an anti-communist measure it was to just to irredeemably prove we had them and it wasn’t propaganda.
In the real world, however, Imperial Japan was an irrational state that was trying to force a conditional surrender in a war the leaders never thought they could win in the first place.
The USA waited three days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a surrender. It didn’t happen. That alone proves there wasn’t one coming from other circumstances.
Every Purple Heart that has been given out since WW2 all come from a surplus we made in preparation for a land invasion of Japan. Think about that. Had the bombs not worked, our own estimates put the casualties at hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Just US soldiers. Not even counting Japanese soldiers or civilian lives. I don’t think the Soviets would have had a magical method to invade without similar casualties.
Were the bombs the right move? I don’t know. It was almost 80 years ago in a complicated time that none of us discussing it now can fully understand. I think it’s telling that Japan surrendered shortly after. I also think it’s telling that no nuclear weapon has been used in combat since then. Based solely on our estimates of what a land invasion, either by the US or the Soviets, would cost in terms of lives lost, I do think it’s a fair argument to say the bombs wound up costing less.
It’s like you didn’t read either of thr articles I linked to.
I don’t think the Soviets would have had a magical method to invade without similar casualties.
The USSR could invade Japan from the less populated and lightly defended north and northwest, while the US would have to invade from the heavily populated and well-defended south and east. This might have helped, but of course we can’t say anything for sure.
Switched strats to focus on a culture victory.
Yeah.
And the whole horror of the bombs devastation wasn’t truly realised until much later, and acknowledged, in the US? Quite a lot later, probably.
We’re watching it from Oppenheimer’s pov essentially, it’s not a documentary.
madcaesar@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Few people know about the barbaric shit the Japanese did during WW2. Some really… Really fucked up shit.
fishos@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Bruh, Unit 731 is a meme at this point.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 7 months ago
And yet…
scmp.com/…/abe-training-jet-photo-sparks-outrage-…
stoy@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Lions lead by donkeys podcast has an episode about that, it and a few other episodes has the following trigger warning:
“Everything”
Which is apt.
Unit 731 - It is worse than you think, and keeps getting worse.
noxy@yiffit.net 7 months ago
I’ve never had to stop reading a Wikipedia page before I read about that shit.