Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bucheon bum]

hmmm well explain this bad boy then:

[bucheon bum]

Just for kicks, here is another:

[Gopher]

[freethought]

that's brilliant... wikipedia is a 'grasp of history'. btw, there are just as many books that conclude the exact opposite about the invasion and the bomb dropping as the ones the wiki cites. There is what is called the revisionist school that made a huge leap to the mainstream back in the 60s with books by Gar Alperovitz and others. The revisionist position, though dominant for many years, is now viewed as relying on now disputed or disproven ideas due to newly available documents. I do not espouse the revisionist position, but rather the synthesis position., wherein the idea that it was a must do is too simplistic, and that the Soviets, race, and many other concerns/issues played a defining role in the decision to use the bomb.

There are all kinds of books that are good for this topic, though the only one that I consider to be worthwhile that the wiki entry lists is Richard Frank's book, which is still fairly widely respected and is an excellent starting point for the subject. The issue with regards to casualties is that they were based on the Okinawa casualty rates, and Okinawa is thought to have been more of an exception than the rule. if you use Okinawa as the basis, you get casualties of dead and wounded at about 220,000. But that's literally in taking over ALL of Japan... which would never have been necessary or possible. This also leads to the entire would Japan have surrendered debate.

As for the racism issue, I'm not saying it was THE factor, what I'm saying is that it played a role. There are all kinds of studies to this effect. Political cartoons almost always portrayed the Japanese as monkees and later in the war rats also became prevalent. This is in stark contrast to the way germans were drawn. I'm not using this is ultimate proof, but rather a single example of how racism was a part of the mentality. Along with the unconditional surrender issue(which is now debated as to whether it was a big deal or not), there were all kinds of other issues such as the Soviet entry into the war.

[Gopher]

Freethought: since the First World War, Allied propaganda consistently characterized the Germans as "Huns," or more directly, barbarians. In the aftermath of the First World War, if you recall, the French did not exactly extend the olive branch to the Germans, either.

Allied propaganda also portrayed the Japanese negatively -- without a doubt.

But this is what happens in war. People have been dehumanizing their enemies and opponents for over ten thousand years.

My issue with your position is the same one I have with most of the others here who so bitterly denounce the U.S. (and also the entire West) as you do on this thread: you seem to assume that we are the only ones who act aggressively or, at times at least, have held racist worldviews.

By doing so, you imply that everyone else in the world (the Japanese, the Latin Americans you cite on page one, and, of course, all other non-Western peoples and cultures) are all-wise, moderate, passive, and purely peaceful in their behavior and worldviews. What was, supposedly, once the Garden of Eden where everyone tolerated everyone else and lived in peace and prosperity, was decisively corrupted and soiled by the evil, racist West, which has colonized and brutally forced all women, all people of color, and all homosexuals into oppression and made them all but invisible -- and this especially applies to the United States, the Great Satan. (Sadly, this is no strawman, but merely the ultimate expression of what is usually alleged.)

And this is absurd.

This problem to which you refer and wrap the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in -- that is, "racism" -- is in fact a global, species-wide problem that we all need to work to overcome. It is not something the big, bad, cowardly, bullying United States inflicted onto the rest of the world -- and especially not the poor, innnocent, tolerant-of-all-other-races, minding-their-own-business Imperial Japanese.

You are living in South Korea and you cannot see this?

[Gopher]

[freethought]

I was going to write something to the effect of "you're an american, aren't you?" But that's not what I want to say. I'm not passing the buck and saying whitey is a racist and everyone else is great. I'm speaking of THIS INCIDENT. I've studied Chinese war propaganda, been at elite gatherings of not yet publically released Chinese War propaganda, and what I've seen is that the propaganda coming from the Chinese was also very unflattering of the Japanese, as you might expect(rape of nanjing, chemical weapons experiments etc), but the number of 'racist' cartoons was about 5% of what was going on in the US (the art was also awful and the messages not very sophisticated). But that's part of the point, is that the American racial element in this propaganda in this case was extreme. Believe it or not, it's worse than the vast majority of similar cartoons the Nazis released about Jews. This is something that should not be ignored.

All of that said, of course its more than white people who are racist. I've received the white guy's cab route on more than one occassion in Korea, I dated/slept with women who had to sneak around to be with me because their parents don't want them with a non-korean. I know of 8 year old Koreans that make monkey noises when they see pictures of black people. I've had similar experiences in the city that claims to be the most multi-cultural in the world, Toronto, where a black woman would block her number whenever she called me, because she didn;t want me to have her number in case I callled and her family found out she was going out with a white guy(well, that or maybe I am that damn ugly...). Racism is everywhere and in all peoples.

All that said, this is essentially a case study. I know people take things personally, and of course we could discuss all kinds of racial stereotypes of various cultures, but I was referring to this one particular issue, during a specific time/event. That's exactly what a case study is.

[R. S. Refugee]

[freethought]

[Gopher]

[EFLtrainer]

Why do we not do a mini comparative case study? What are the signifcant differences with respect to Iraq, NK and Iran?

[Leslie Cheswyck]

I opened a thread back in November about the would-be invasion of Japan.

Here it is, for what it's worth.

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?p=655253#655253

[bucheon bum]

[bucheon bum]

[R. S. Refugee]