SCRUTINIZING THE HIROSHIMA MYTH (A REPOSTING)

Hiroshima After the Bomb 

August 6th marked the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima. As has been the case on every anniversary of the bombing, the event has been commemorated by politicians, media sorts, and most Americans as being responsible for ending the war and thus negating the need for an invasion of Japan’s home islands that would have caused enormous losses on both sides. This belief has achieved numinous status in the United States; most Americans accept it as an article of faith. It has become, as historian Christian Appy put it, the most successful legitimizing narrative in American history. There’s only one thing wrong with the Hiroshima narrative: it's not factual. There is perhaps no greater myth in U.S. history than the belief that the atomic bomb was the "winning weapon" that ended World War II. It’s what I call the Hiroshima Myth.

Despite doubts about the necessity to use the bomb expressed by a number of top military and political leaders at the time (and later in their personal reflections), challenges to the traditional Hiroshima narrative by several historians, and declining overall American attraction to nuclear weapons, the Hiroshima Myth remains deeply embedded in the consciousness of the overwhelming majority of Americans. How did it get so embedded? Why didn’t the highly authoritative 1947 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which concluded that the Japanese would have surrendered "certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1 1945--even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, the Russians had not entered the war, and no invasion had been planned or contemplated," establish a different narrative?

Were the bombings instrumental in ending the war? Did they avert an invasion of the Japanese homeland and thus save lives? There’s much at stake in the answers to these questions, for if the bomb wasn't necessary to end the war, then its use on Hiroshima and, especially Nagasaki, was wrong, militarily, politically and morally, especially when one considers that these two cities were not vital military targets.

At the risk of being called unpatriotic, un-American, or worse, because the issue still touches raw emotions (Americans don't take kindly to questioning the morality of our country's purposes), I will attempt to refute the Hiroshima Myth. Fortunately I am able to draw upon information that wasn’t available when early histories of the bombings were written. This information includes a declassified paper written by a Joint Chiefs of Staff advisory group in June 1945, the personal accounts of a number of top Japanese leaders, and various bits of documentary evidence uncovered by enterprising historians. These discoveries enable a more accurate picture of bomb’s role in ending the war.

In a previous two-part essay, posted in August of 2015, I argued that Truman’s atomic bomb-use decision was not primarily motivated by a desire to end the war quickly in order to save American lives that would have been lost in a land invasion and that the use of the bomb was not the main factor inducing Japan to surrender.  I also argued in a Part III that our enduring belief in the bomb as “the winning weapon” has had a profound impact on American culture and on how we approach national security.  These essays challenged the prevailing beliefs of the overwhelming majority of Americans.  In the hope of stimulating an ongoing dialogue on the Hiroshima Myth and its implications, I’ve decided to re-post these essays as a single post on this, the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. I will re-post it every August 6.  Critical comments are encouraged.  

JULY 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx). America’s dumbest congressman is back, and on cue. I nominated the moron last month for an IGGY, not just because he was a COVID-19 denier, has been contemptuous of the dangers of the virus, and has been, as usual, eagerly embracing crackpot theories about how to cure it (what if we, like, douse everything in a fine hydroxychloroquine), but because of his comment that he would not wear a mask unless he got the virus, then “you wouldn’t see me without a mask.” He has also, as usual, been eager to call Democratic measures to contain the virus "Marxism," possibly out of genuine ignorance as to what either Marxism or infectious disease safety measures entail.

Gohmert wasn't wearing a mask for most of the day Tuesday (28^th), when he huddled with other House Republicans to discuss how best to defend Trump Attorney General William Barr during Barr's House Judiciary Committee hearing. He wasn't wearing one when he spoke to Barr outside the hearing room from just a few feet away. Gohmert has now tested positive for COVID-19.

The proud Texan has steadfastly refused to wear a mask while at the Capitol during the pandemic. He has spent ample time on the House floor during votes speaking to aides and lawmakers — without a mask or social distancing.

The moronic one had been scheduled to fly aboard Air Force One with President Trump to Midland, Texas,  where he is fundraising and touring an oil rig. He tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday morning during a pre-flight screening at the White House, a person familiar with the situation told CNN. Because of the positive test, Gohmert is not traveling with the President.

Gohmert’s positive test sent shudders throughout the capitol. So far at least four colleagues and several aides who had contact with him announced they would quarantine. Dozens more aids, reporters, and the attorney general have scrambled to get tested. News that Gohmert had returned to the Capitol to tell his aides in person of his test results (can you expect anything different?) unleashed a firestorm of terror and indignation across the House as everyone from interns to lawmakers scurried to try to retrace Gohmert’s steps.

The partisan divide that has gripped our country has played out in the response of Members to the virus, with Republicans reluctant to wear masks, socially distance, or take other sensible precautions. Perhaps this will change. In light of Gohmert’s irresponsible idiocy, Speaker Pelosi announced that lawmakers and their staff members would be required to wear masks when on the House floor or moving through House office buildings. With Republican lawmakers banned from appearing on the floor, maybe the Congress can get some things done, like providing adequate assistance to small businesses and the unemployed.

How has the country’s dumbest congressman responded to the furor he caused?

Smiling in a video recorded in his Capitol Hill office, he declared he has probably gotten the “Wuhan virus” because he had started wearing a mask over the past week or two—not despite it. So, if you want to avoid getting COVID-19, get rid of your mask. Thanks, Louie.

If there is any justice in this sordid affair, perhaps Republican coronavirus deniers will come down with the disease. Wouldn’t it be something if the president got sick?

JUNE 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Rep. Nino Vitale (R-Ohio). Vitale doesn’t think Americans should be required to wear masks because it would be violation of their “freedom.” In his words:

“I will not wear a mask . . . quite frankly, everyone else’s freedom ends at the tip of my nose. You’re not going to tell me what to do.”

Rep. Vitale’s notion of freedom is not grounded in responsibility, reason, and virtue. What Vitale advocates is not a mature construct of freedom, but a raw manifestation of license. It is not traditional “rugged individualism,” but hyper-individualism—in my view, bordering on sociopathy.

Although I have seen no surveys, I strongly believe that the brand of hyper-individualism we find in the COVID-19 anti-restriction protests emerges from the “far right” of the political spectrum—specifically from the Trumpers. These people confuse freedom with license, the throwing off of all responsibility. It is a carte blanche to do as we feel. As such it is incompatible with the communitarian principle that has coexisted in dynamic tension with individualism in America since the very founding of our republic.

This tension which has been one of the great strengths of our culture and government, ensuring that a person does not have the right to shout “fire” in a crowded theater or that people of ability are not forced to give to others according to their needs.

Donald Trump and his fellow GOP faithful have scant affinity with our communitarian traditions. Their callous lack of empathy for human suffering and their aversion to anything that promotes the general welfare have reached extremes not seen since the Gilded Age. What’s wrong with shouting fire in a theater? People should be smart enough to know when there’s real danger.

Hyper-individualism is incompatible with virtue and is destroying our community.

MAY 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Senator Tom Cotton. The abject failure of Republicanism—you cannot call it conservatism at this point, whatever that term once meant is null and void now—can be seen in nearly every detail of this nation's failed pandemic response. Scientists and public health experts ignored, or demeaned; institutional planning efforts shunned in favor of the partisan instincts of a seemingly unending list of designated incompetents; everything from testing to messaging in absolute shambles.

And so, we get travel bans, long after the virus has already travelled. We get attempts to rebrand the virus the "China virus", to give the party's ignorant yahoos something to focus their ire on while Dear Leader upturns actual government response efforts to focus instead on supplying lupus medication somebody somewhere heard good things about or muse about how maybe we should try to get the healing power of sunlight involved here, but put it inside people somehow.

That brings us to Sen. Tom Cotton, one of innumerable poster children for Republican Party decay, a man who would have to go to college for the next ten years to elevate himself anywhere near dumb as a post territory. Posts are useful. You can hang a sign from a post. You can hang a sign warning, for example, to beware the raging idiot lurking just behind the post. You cannot hang a sign from Tom Cotton. He wouldn't stand for it. It's the one goddamn thing in life he might turn out to be good at, and yet he refuses.

On Fox News this morning, actual Republican Senator Tom Cotton was not able to provide many ideas on how to make the Donald Trump Memorial Coronavirus Pandemic Response suck ever so slightly less. He was, however, eager to froth that what we really need to do around here is ban Chinese students who come to America from learning about science.

Because, you see, the "Chinese Communist Party" wants to be "the country that claims credit" for finding an eventual vaccine for the virus, and so are looking to steal that vaccine from us, if we develop it first. That plot includes science-minded Chinese Communist students, who are coming to America to "steal our property" and "design weapons and other devices that can be used against the American people."

"So, I think we need to take a very hard look at the visas we give Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. to study, especially at the postgraduate level, in advanced scientific and technological fields," says the still-unsigned Tom Cotton.

"You know, if Chinese students want to come here and study Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that's what they need to learn from America. They don't need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America.”

The Federalist Papers? I’ll bet 90% of Republicans don’t know what they are. Maybe the learning should start at home. Tom Cotton? He’s the front-runner to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024. Perfect!

APRIL 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Last prominently seen confessing to Donald Trump’s quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine on national television, with the now infamous "get over it," has done it again. This time he made his confession overseas in a U.K. visit, so maybe he thought nobody would notice. It didn't work. The Washington Post obtained a recording of Mulvaney at the Oxford Union, saying:

"My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House," he said. "The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we're a lot less interested as a party."

Until it comes time to wield the deficit as a weapon to cut the safety net, of course.

He left that part out but made another admission about why Republicans refuse to do anything about climate change, which he implicitly acknowledged as a real thing. "We take the position in my party that asking people to change their lifestyle dramatically, including by paying more taxes, is simply not something we are interested in doing." That answer got laughs in the student audience, The Post reports. One can only assume those laughs were derisive.

They never have a problem with asking poor people, senior citizens, communities of color or anyone who doesn't vote Republican to change their lifestyle dramatically by not having enough to eat, or a roof, or health care but they are absolutely not going to afflict the comfortable. Again, that's not news to anyone who has paid attention to the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan, but the self-awareness from even a not-big-thinker like Mulvaney is a little surprising. Not that it will make any difference in the long run.

You know that in a second Trump term the deficit is going be used to cut Social Security and Medicare and deepen the cuts to Medicaid. It will be used to continue decimating food and housing assistance and every other program that helps everyone who doesn't count—a time-honored GOP formula.

TRUMP’S NARCISSISM AND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS CHALLENGE

Trump’s dreadful handling of the coronavirus crisis cannot be explained as a product of his persistent attempts to shore up his cult-like base, the machinations of his peculiar conservative ideology, or even of his stupidity. It can only be understood as another example of Trump being Trump.  His behavior is a reflection of his personality. He simply cannot help himself.

We've seen it all before: Trump repeatedly lying, spitting out misinformation and disinformation, spouting contradictory messages and answers, attacking perceived enemies, demonstrating ignorance and a complete lack of empathy, and congratulating himself for alleged accomplishments. In the familiar Trump style, he has refused to accept any responsibility for missteps, falsely blaming Obama, Democrats, governors, impeachment, the “deep state,” New York, China, the WHO, and healthcare experts for his failure to ensure that the country was prepared for an infectious disease pandemic, then compounding the problem with inept leadership when faced with a real health emergency.  If there were any lingering doubts about Trump’s mental health, his handling of the Covid-19 crisis has put them to rest: the president is mentally unfit to lead this great nation.  

MARCH 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

Since most of the news this month focused on the coronavirus and its various manifestations, I decided to restrict March IGGY nominations to absurd comments made about the pandemic. There have been many. Because of an overloaded Phronesis switchboard, I have necessarily had to pare down the number of candidates to the following few.

1. Fox News’ Don Luskin and Jesse Watters. Fox News is up in arms over the coronavirus. Not because people are getting infected and some dying. Not because of the dangers it poses to humanity. And, of course, not because of the tepid Trump administration response to the crisis. No, the Fox team is pissed at China for causing the pandemic by eating bat soup and then not apologizing to the world.

Enlightened by internet rumors, Fox News resident “economist” Luskin claimed the pandemic stemmed from the Chinese “selling bats in open market-places and then have business travel and tourist travel between that country and the civilized world.”

China hater, Fox News’ Jesse Watters, went after his favorite target Monday night: Chinese people. As host of The Five, a show on which the cumulative intelligence of the panel adds up to the number 5, Watters used the coronavirus as a jumping-off point to demand an apology from China for causing the COVID-19 disease.

Watters is probably best known for his “Watters World” segments, during which he walks around making fun of people, and more specifically for the wildly racist episode in which he made fun of Chinese people in Chinatown, in a man-on-the-street sort of performance. On Monday night’s show, after the panel brought up Trump’s handling of public health concerns stemming from COVID19, Watters showed off some of his trademark scientific brilliance:

“I’ll tell you why it started in China. Because they have these markets where they eat raw bats and snakes.” He then went on to observe: “They are a very hungry people,” he says. “Their communist government cannot feed the people, and they are desperate, this food is uncooked, it’s unsafe, and that’s why scientists believe that’s where it originated from.”

As with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, the right wing sphere is full of fact-free stories that can be summed up as someone else doing something in some other country to cause the badness, and if we were all white and living right, none of this would be happening.