Just when you think you'd heard the worst of it ...

[pawineguy]

Well, I'd settle for being the Daily Worker's radio critic. "Rochester vs. Mr. Benny -- The Triumph of the Proletariat over the Exploiter Class."

I'm writing a letter of recommendation right now, even with the knowledge that outside of this forum (and perhaps inside it as well), I suspect that you would hold me in contempt.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nonsense. I only hold uninteresting conversationalists in contempt.

 

[pawineguy]

Nonsense. I only hold uninteresting conversationalists in contempt.

You're quite the woman Ms. Maine and I greatly enjoy your writing. Tucker should have my email by now. I imagine the editorial meetings might get a bit uncomfortable for him when you're on board.

 

[Big J]

There were quite a few Soviet POWs who after surviving hellish conditions in German captivity found themselves in the Gulag after the war for the "crime" of having surrendered or "having allowed themselves to be captured."

A lot of the Red Army soldiers who took Berlin, along with many others that met US/UK troops as the Eastern and Western fronts converged were sent to gulags in Siberia for having become 'too westernized'.

 

[jamespowers]

A lot of the Red Army soldiers who took Berlin, along with many others that met US/UK troops as the Eastern and Western fronts converged were sent to gulags in Siberia for having become 'too westernized'.

Gee, how nice of them. :doh:

 

[pawineguy]

You're quite the woman Ms. Maine and I greatly enjoy your writing. Tucker should have my email by now. I imagine the editorial meetings might get a bit uncomfortable for him when you're on board.

I suspect my joke of changing the Daily Worker for the Daily Caller was much much too vague...

 

[Big J]

Actually, there's a lot written about the Red Army during the war, but written by a Russian who served (and hated being in the Red Army) are 'Live Until Dawn', and 'His Battalion' IIRC.
They're very good. His Battalion features a Russian officer having to fight the Germans and his own superiors, whilst being constantly second guessed by Political Officers, all the time under a pre-war death sentence for political crimes that has been commuted until the end of hostilities. It's soul destroying reading.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I suspect my joke of changing the Daily Worker for the Daily Caller was much much too vague...

I'd never heard of that site before -- but it answers something I'd long wondered about. I'd thought Coulter had long since passed on to her own particular afterlife, where she'd be locked in a room for all eternity with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

 

[Big J]

Anyway, to bring this thread back to the initial post (Japanese warcrimes memory), I'd just like to offer this;

The Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote the screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai, based on his experiences of brutal Japanese forced labor after his capture after the fall of Singapore. The brutality of his captivation had a deep effect on him, and knowing that the genre of Sci-fi literature had a tradition of acting as a medium that allowed real world issues to be discussed in an entertaining and engaging way that textbooks and manifestos could not, he wrote Planet of the Apes.

These days I think that it goes completely over audiences heads that this story of brutal animals, who see themselves to be cultured and scientific, see humans as animals (slave labor, target practice, vivisection) is really a metaphor for Japanese military occupation.

 

[Treetopflyer]

These days I think that it goes completely over audiences heads that this story of brutal animals, who see themselves to be cultured and scientific, see humans as animals (slave labor, target practice, vivisection) is really a metaphor for Japanese military occupation.

You bring up a point that I have often thought about, how these so called "advanced societies" reached the point where they could conduct such atrocities on humans.

 

[Big J]

You bring up a point that I have often thought about, how these so called "advanced societies" reached the point where they could conduct such atrocities on humans.

Absolutely. I guess it's the arrogance of thinking that because they are an 'advanced society' that they 'know better' than the people they invade.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's the essential principle of, not just Japanese imperialism, but *all* imperialism. Ask a Sioux, he'll tell you.

 

[jamespowers]

That's the essential principle of, not just Japanese imperialism, but *all* imperialism. Ask a Sioux, he'll tell you.

More generally--- all totalitarianism. They all think that the people are not to be trusted with free choice and freedom in general. They think people are too stupid to make their own choices. :doh:

 

[Stearmen]

More generally--- all totalitarianism. They all think that the people are not to be trusted with free choice and freedom in general. They think people are too stupid to make their own choices. :doh:

The people voted Hitler into power.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The people voted Hitler into power.

Not only that but most dictators came to power on the wave of some popular movement.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And usually a highly-"patriotic" nationalistic movement. Nationalism isn't the last refuge of scoundrels, it's usually the first.

 

[Big J]

And usually a highly-"patriotic" nationalistic movement. Nationalism isn't the last refuge of scoundrels, it's usually the first.

That's for sure. Over here, the government's just implemented mandatory classes in 'love of the country' in state schools. I'm glad my girls are in a private school.

 

[ChiTownScion]

And usually a highly-"patriotic" nationalistic movement. Nationalism isn't the last refuge of scoundrels, it's usually the first.

What galls me to no end are the chickenhawks: those who are the first to call for military action as a resolution to any given foreign policy conflict, but who, in their own youth, used any excuse to avoid serving in combat or even serving in the military, even during a time of declared war. Arm chair commandos who love to talk the talk, but couldn't walk the walk to save their lives. So many of the men I knew who had survived the most deplorable conditions of the battlefield were absolutely sickened by the thought of war, and hoped with every fiber of their being that others would never have to deal with what they witnessed.

Again, going back to something I have remarked upon elsewhere: the difference between the World War I and World War II generations in the US. The latter contained proportionately - in my observation, anyway- a lot less jingoism and mindless flag waving. The attitude was, do your job, shut your mouth, and spare us the crap.... because more than likely, there is someone in the room, usually the one you'd least expect, who has experienced far worse than you. That played out within the membership of the American Legion during the 1950's regarding their reactions to a certain junior senator from Wisconsin: the World War I men regarded him as an anti-Communist patriot, while the latter will never forgive him for his role in advocating leniency, for reasons of political expediency, for the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That played out within the membership of the American Legion during the 1950's regarding their reactions to a certain junior senator from Wisconsin: the World War I men regarded him as an anti-Communist patriot, while the latter will never forgive him for his role in advocating leniency, for reasons of political expediency, for the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre.

Interesting that should come up here -- it ties back to the earlier discussion of the America First movement. One of the America First Committee's founding members, Henry Regnery, established his own publishing firm after the war, specializing in "revisionist" political books -- and one of the first books he put out was "The High Cost of Vengeance," by ex-British Communist-turned-Nazi sympathizer Freda Utley -- a book which claimed that the SS men on trial in connection with the Melmedy massacre were "tortured" into confessing by their American captors, and that the Nuremburg trials were a "travesty against justice." Regnery's firm -- which still exists as a publisher of right wing literature -- specialized early on in books of this type, casting the Germans as victims and the Allies as the real oppressors in the war just past.

Interestingly, a descendent of Mr. Regnery, William Regnery II, is a noted figure in modern-day anti-Semitic/white nationalist/neo-Nazi circles. Clearly the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

 

[Big J]

Just in case no one's noticed, I think that it's highly insulting to our veterans that Japan's PM, who says that Japanese war-criminals aren't criminals under Japanese law (and denies all Japanese war-crimes), will be addressing Congress on the 29th. In Japan, it's a national holiday for Emperor Hirohito's birthday.