newcritics - Latest Comments in Grim All Over

Re: Grim All Over

Dennis Perrin — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:45:22 -0000

"Japan was a racist nation bent on subjugating the lesser peoples for its own benefit."

Well, certainly much of its nationalist leadership was racist and xenophobic. But if you watch "White Light", you'll see different attitudes by those who were civilians, including a Korean woman who survived Nagasaki, though many Koreans, forced to live in Japan or starve, did not.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of wartime Japan, Germany and the US held racist views about their enemies. I don't know how you would measure it, but one could start with a look at each country's propaganda and popular culture. All created ugly stereotypes and images which made it easier to slaughter civilians -- something that hasn't gone away, I'm afraid.

Re: Grim All Over

Tom Watson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:53:18 -0000

The justification was based on many things, inclding atrocities against civilians and our own troops (see Dresden) but of course, on the global scale, there were big economic forces at play.

But there were also political/ideological forces at play too. Impossible to consider Korea and Vietnam without 'em. Oh, and don't forget Japan's ideological framework - WWII in the Pacific was not just a reaction to big, bad America's economic policy - not by a longshot. Japan was a racist nation bent on subjugating the lesser peoples for its own benefit.

Re: Grim All Over

Dennis Perrin — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:24:46 -0000

I've never denied that imperial Japan committed mass murder and war crimes. Japan at that time was a very brutal regional power. But their brutality wasn't the reason why the US and the Brits were opposed to their aggression -- it had to do with Western access to Asian markets and resources, which the Japanese were cutting off. The oil embargo against Japan pretty much guaranteed a war, and Japan thought that if war with the US was inevitable, then they should strike first and try to throw the US off balance while consolidating their territorial gains. Thus, Pearl Harbor.

Once the US triumphed, we went on to wage war in Korea and, most destructively, against Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, killing millions. If the justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki was based on Japanese atrocities in Asia, then what punishment do we deserve?

Re: Grim All Over

Tom Watson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:13:11 -0000

"Lefty cinephile" - you and everybody else around here, it seems! Good name for a blog.

Now, on "Remember Pearl Harbor, and all that..." Well, let's not forget the mass atrocities of the Asian theater of war, either. The Japanese policy was to torture and kill POWs, and millions of Chinese civilians were murdered as well. So yeah, racist. So there was plenty of hate to go around before the bomb was dropped, horrific and geographically misguided (why civilians?) as it was.