tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post8633506506516559083..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Shadows on the BridgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59280473233126817362014-08-07T23:09:36.520-07:002014-08-07T23:09:36.520-07:00The Proustian bon-bon box of involuntary memory ha...The Proustian bon-bon box of involuntary memory has discharged a phantasmagoric recovered salvo of dismal childhood phobias instilled by all that early hiding under the school desk, tacking up the blankets over the windows, being terrified of every night siren in the constantly siren-filled night, anxiously calculating on street maps the putative distance from epicenter (never an encouraging project, as no matter how it was computed, the West Side of Chicago never stopped looking vulnerable to instant incineration, upon the outbreak of Total War -- which was presumed inevitable -- only a matter of time). As the logic of Total War rarely arrived at pacific conclusions, one important element in all such calculations, when raised to the higher plane of military strategy, was the proximity of air raid shelter to trigger finger, "defense" to "deterrence". (As for shelters, we'd heard and seen films about but never actually seen one, in fact we didn't have those, only a few hicks from the sticks would have one, and after all what was a backyard shelter going to do for a crowded urban apartment block in any case?). In this regard I found Father Siemes' testimony altogether more useful that the contributions of, for example, the "writers" who weren't there, but came in later for the career op, and this would designate a broad arc of candidates from John Hersey to Margerite Duras. When one asks oneself who Siemes was, what he may have been doing there, and above all, what was happening to him, during the Occupation, when he was being grilled at hearings like the one represented in the scary (shudder of remembrance of things past) propaganda video, The Atom Strikes. Fr Siemes, unlike the makers of that film, appears not to have been butt-stupid. His question about the morality of Total War, at the end of his piece, answers itself. But at present, of course, the morality of Total War is no longer debated, any more than the morality of the sky being up, water wet or the Earth round. Indeed it's a question seldom explored in American "thought", historically -- though now and then there once came along, back in the mythic epoch of a half century ago, the odd provocative "comic" hypothetical like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuP6KbIsNK4" rel="nofollow">this one</a>. "Laughter blows it to rags", a poet once proposed.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-11403769352644007532014-08-07T16:42:59.664-07:002014-08-07T16:42:59.664-07:00By the by, Ed Sanders, the outstanding peace activ...By the by, Ed Sanders, the outstanding peace activist among poets of our antediluvian epoch, comments, re. the comfy little family tomb (er shelter) there in Ak-Ron, Michigan, pictured in the fourth photo:<br /><br />"Yeah, the Rockefeller family <br />had plans to make billions 'pon billions<br />from fallout shelters<br />for the Masses"<br /><br />American philanthropy, the kindest, gentlest form of profiteering ever known.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-37709354136335918942014-08-07T16:32:10.246-07:002014-08-07T16:32:10.246-07:00Thanks, Hazen and Michael, and I guess this is one...Thanks, Hazen and Michael, and I guess this is one case in which showing your age amounts to showing your stripes, as a veteran -- that is, internally traumatised survivor of the global war machine over its many campaigns and seasons, dating all the way back to the prehistoric time when the brutality was merely senseless slaughter, not yet dressed up as a video game or fronted by quite such pseudo-sophisticated armies of paid liars as are propped in place now.<br /><br />Yes, that protracted period of blind optimistic fatalism which held the carefully minimized crimes off at arm's length through routine denial and the laughably transparent sort of p.r. attempted in The Atom Strikes -- I think those must have been the good old days.<br /><br />Looking into some of the records which have been disclosed, one learns that the secret super-weapon program which had been underway for some years was completely unknown to the hat salesman Truman until FDR died and somebody had to inform the new POTUS that among the toys he had inherited was this bomb program which had already cost $2 billion. You can just see Truman's eyes lighting up, like on Christmas morning back in Kansas City. His logic was, Well, since I've got it, why not use it (memos show that he also privately feared that he might be impeached if he didn't). So the air attacks on Japan were then restricted (so as to keep things clean for the nuclear experiment) in three specific areas, designated as target options: Hiroshima, Nagoya (Nagasaki seems to have been a last-minute afterthought), Kyoto; the wife of the Secretary of Defense fancied herself an appreciator of Asian cultures, and leaned on her husband to have Kyoto struck from the list of options on grounds of its status as a venerable cultural landmark. As to the generally accepted view that the nuclear strikes ended the war, that's pure myth. The Russians were about to arrive, and no Japanese who had heard anything of the news of the past few years could be unaware that surrendering to the Americans, who after dropping their super-bombs on you would come in and hand out chocolate bars (bygones, and no hard feelings) was always going to be preferable to surrendering to the Russians, who would come in, drink the booze, rape the women, and wreck everything that wasn't already wrecked. <br /><br />Talking of the etiquette of occupying forces -- today there comes <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/palestinians-return-home-israeli-troops-faeces-graffiti" rel="nofollow">the revelation from Gaza</a> as to how the IDF occupying troops ("the most moral army in the world," as the Israeli Defense Minister called them back at the beginning of this latest campaign of wanton genocide) diverted themselves while occupying the homes of those they had displaced (perhaps this pattern of conduct is codified in the Protocols, how can an outsider know): steal anything of value, destroy the rest, use the furniture as w.c., carve vicious racist hate messages into what remains of the walls and leave the place a fetid stinking ruin of death and loss. Welcome home, villager.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13798666526153673612014-08-07T08:28:51.444-07:002014-08-07T08:28:51.444-07:00incredible personal documentation...once again Tom...incredible personal documentation...once again Tom you bear witness to the overlooked/ignored or deliberately minimized crimes against humanity...Lallyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05310472614196384595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13836906165067085512014-08-07T06:38:31.998-07:002014-08-07T06:38:31.998-07:00Merci, Tom!Merci, Tom!L'Enfant de la Haute Merhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122358316297267842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-37147949076751474002014-08-07T06:28:45.017-07:002014-08-07T06:28:45.017-07:00Merci, L'Enfant.
Here's that link:
Enola...Merci, L'Enfant.<br /><br />Here's that link:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IePeHB9_4Xw" rel="nofollow">Enola Gay: Target: Hiroshima</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73251004768163472112014-08-07T06:26:30.597-07:002014-08-07T06:26:30.597-07:00A brilliant post, Tom, for a sad anniversary. I wa...A brilliant post, Tom, for a sad anniversary. I was too early for the duck-and-cover drills, but metal dog tags had a cachet of cool among our adolescent group. Their unacknowledged purpose was to help identify the charred corpses pulled from the schoolhouse rubble; or, if you survived, to indicate your blood type so that you could be given a transfusion of by-now irradiated blood. It was, after all, a period of optimistic fatalism.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75374097757501135242014-08-07T06:04:50.235-07:002014-08-07T06:04:50.235-07:00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IePeHB9_4Xwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IePeHB9_4XwL'Enfant de la Haute Merhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122358316297267842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-53881165746512818652014-08-07T04:46:09.998-07:002014-08-07T04:46:09.998-07:00There's an edited bit (9 mins) from Fr. Siemes...There's an edited bit (9 mins) from Fr. Siemes' testimony at 16:00 of this remarkable historical document "prepared by the United States War Department":<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3DDaJIRf2s" rel="nofollow">The Atom Strikes 1945: Offizieller Propagandafilm der USA!</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com