Was anything Jeremiah Wright said true?

[StormyOne]

RC linked us to his blog and I think he focused on one part of the total sermon delivered... not to mention the soundbites were taken out of context.....

Here is another view, that I thought was insightful.....

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise03182008.html

[SIZE=-1]He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."[/SIZE]

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise03182008.html

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

That is a good example of the simplistic way too many people look at things. To say that it only saved American lives is very inaccurate. It also saved Japanese lives, it is the half truths that get us into so much trouble, the tendency to not understand history as anything other then an attempt to spread propaganda.

 

[StormyOne]

That is a good example of the simplistic way too many people look at things. To say that it only saved American lives is very inaccurate. It also saved Japanese lives, it is the half truths that get us into so much trouble, the tendency to not understand history as anything other then an attempt to spread propaganda.

isn't that what most attempt to do though? Reduce complexities into smaller manageable simplicities? To revise history so that it only mentions the virtues even if something was heinous?

RC isn't your statement of "it also saved Japanese lives" justifying the action of the military at that time to bomb NON military targets? Likewise as Wise pointed out:

[SIZE=-1] it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons.[/SIZE]

I will agree though that propaganda is usually partial truth and easily spread....
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]

 

[Xenon]

I was briefly watching something on the History Channel (how do they make history so interesting?) on the atomic bombs and how it was really a select few who had pushed to bomb Japanese civilians. But they also pointed out that ever since the atomic bombs were used, war deaths have dropped sharply and have stayed relatively low, where before there was a steady increase in people who died to war.

Reprehensible? Yes. Foolish? Possibly. Fortunate? Looks like it.

Should anyone ever repeat it? No.

 

[mva1985]

"Whether the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted a needless tragedy or a prudent military decision will never be certain. Those who made the decision, as well as most of the survivors, are long gone. The effects, though—the lingering scourge of radiation, the memory of the ghastly civilian casualties, the psychological impact of simply knowing that such a destructive force exists—remain. One can only hope that those who now wield the tools of armageddon will remember the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a long time to come."


http://www.infoplease.com/spot/hiroshima1.html

 

[JonMiller]

My main issue with Wright:

HIV is a conspiracy against blacks.

The reason why I think that Obama is correct is attacking him:

His statement that Obama is lying for political expediency. Of course, I am interested in knowing if this is true. However, I can understand going to churches where I don't agree with everything being said (how many of us here do that?).

As far as hiroshima goes.. please explain how the war would be ended with less loss of life and ended the suffering the Japanese were dealing in their prison camps. I would have been in favor of nuking germany also if we had nukes 10 months before the time we did. Nagasaki was maybe not necessary. We had already shown what we were capable of, that we had more available could have been shown by nuking something harmless.

Actually, the proper order should have been:
nuke something harmless
wait 10 days for surrender
nuke something harmful
wait 10 days for surrender

People make a big deal about these things because they were nuclear weapons. But in all honesty, every nation involved in that war did as much damage with 'conventional weapons' to innocents as we did with our nukes. I mean, I think the bombing of dresden or hamburg or whatever did more casualties. And the japanese and german (and russian) prison camps were added onto the damage done to innoncents.

JM
(we had prison camps also, unfortunately (and I think people will similarly look back at our current ones as black records on the US) but at least most people survived those...)

 

[StormyOne]

Wright could say whatever he wanted to say, however having said it he must "own" it.... there are things that are often said by black preachers in black churches that I am sure most white folks would find surprising....

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

Likewise as Wise pointed out:

[SIZE=-1] it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons.[/SIZE]
​

This is the big problem in a lot of the Liberal Democrats positions. They assume that America is the bad guy and then because that is the default beginning position other Liberal Democrats accept anything that follows the template. If you read Truman's Diary which is published online at the Nuclear Files website you see that Japan had not signaled its desire to end the war, at least not in a meaningful way, everyone wants wars to end just they want to win when it ends. From the diary:

Truman Diary Entry June 17, 1945
I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts.


The next day Truman met with military representatives to discuss how the war against Japan should proceed. Truman decided at that meeting to have the Joint Chiefs of Staff go ahead with plans to invade Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four major islands. The planned invasion date was Nov. 1, 1945.


Truman Diary Entry, June 18 1945
At the meeting of June 18, '45 the invasion plan for Japan was discussed. General Marshall's plan was approved.
We were approaching an experiment with the atom explosion. I was informed that event would take place within a possible thirty days.
I then suggested that after that experimental test of the fission of the atom, that we give Japan a chance to stop the war by a surrender. That plan was followed. Japan refused to surrender and the bomb was dropped on two targets after which event the surrender took place.


Following the decision referred to in the last memo, when the message arrived informing us of the successful explosion of the experimental atom bomb at Los Alamos, Sec. Stimson, Gen. Marshall, Adm. Leahy, Sec. Byrnes, Gen Arnold and one or two others came into my office at the Potsdam White House and we discussed the proposed ultimatum talked about on June 18th.


After some discussion it was decided to send the message from Potsdam. Of course Chiang had to be informed and asked to join with Pr. Min. Churchill and myself. The message was sent both by air and through Sweden and Switzerland I'm sure. We had nothing in reply but the radio statement refusing to surrender.


I am not informed at all on the last question. It is probably a Monday morning quarterback affair after the game was over.
H.S.T.




Truman Diary Entry, July 25 1945
We met at 11 A.M. today. That is Stalin, Churchill and the U.S. President. But I had a most important session with Lord Mountbattan & General Marshall before than. We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
Anyway we 'think' we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexican desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.


Privately, Truman later expressed misgivings about the mass killing of civilians in Hiroshima; see the "Didn't the Japanese Deserve It?" section in Random Ramblings on Hiroshima

.

7/25/45: Sec. of War Henry Stimson and Army Chief of Staff George Marshall approved and sent the order to drop atomic bombs on Japan





Truman Diary Entry, August 10 1945
Ate lunch at my desk and discussed the Jap offer to surrender which came in a couple of hours earlier. They wanted to make a condition precedent to the surrender. Our terms are 'unconditional'. They wanted to keep the Emperor. We told 'em we'd tell 'em how to keep him, but we'd make the terms.


8/10/45: Having received reports and photographs of the effects of the Hiroshima bomb, Truman ordered a halt to further atomic bombings. Sec. of Commerce Henry Wallace recorded in his diary on the 10th, Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, 'all those kids'.

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/truman-harry/corr_diary_truman.htm

That last little comment by the editor and the link Random Ramblings on Hiroshima show that Wright was very wrong to say that America did not bat an eye about dropping the bombs on Japan.

 

[StormyOne]

RC will you not agree that two people reading the same info can interpret what has been read differently? I would submit that is why it can be difficult for people who are liberal, conservative and all points between to engage in meaningful dialog....

For many american blacks America has been the "bad guy." Be it from slavery, to Jim Crow, to segregation to resistance to civil rights, to the Tuskegee Experiment, to institutionalized racism.... however I will concede that not everyone's experience is the same....

It is my belief that Jeremiah Wright having lived through segregation, Jim Crow and the civil rights era is stuck there, and while the landscape has changed (and is continuing to change), he and others from that time have found it difficult to move with that change... I think for most people who experience life changing trauma are like that, yes they are living, however there is a distrust of the environment in which they live... yet while some things have changed, some things seem to still be present.....

Just Monday the campaign office of Obama in one Indiana city was vandalized;

A local campaign office has been vandalized just 24 hours before election day in Indiana. An investigation is currently underway as to who is behind the destruction of Senator Barack Obama's Vincennes campaign headquarters. The vandalism occured sometime Sunday night.
Supporters at the Vincennes Obama for America office arrived Monday morning to find something disturbing. Overnight someone had vandalized Obama's Vincennes campaign site.

http://www.wthitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8274089

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

Yes Wright is stuck in the past, Obama even said that. However he has been given a church and support for his presentation of life in the past, that is the problem. That is the problem that Obama has inherited by his long history with that church.

As for the vandalizing it is a frequent part of every campaign. Clinton had one vandalized in the Seattle area not long ago as I recall. Why we even had people break glass windows at a bank here with customers in the bank during a may day march with people putting anarchist graffiti on the state capital (six arrested in the may day parade). Yes there are many people who live in another time or in an alternate reality. If they would learn how to think, how to separate propaganda from facts we would all be better off. That is why those people as well as Wright are dangerous, propaganda is their facts.

 

[sentipente]

Oh, well.