Such was not my suggestion; though you might consider cutting him some newcomer slack.
Let me try this again... [Has technology surpassed our humanity & was the Pacific war about racism?]
There are at least two ways to read Mr. Hanks’s statement and I would answer those two interpretations differently.
Option 1: The war in the Pacific was waged by the U.S. (and/or by Japan) for the purpose of demonstrating the racial superiority of the homeland.
Answer 1: Nah. It was fought for power and wealth, just as the vast majority of wars are fought. In the case of the U.S., it was much more a defensive war, partly to prevent Japan from denying access to Southeast Asia, (with its rubber plantations and other resources), and partly in retaliation for Pearl Harbor, the Philipines, and other attacks.
Option 2: During the execution of the war, regardless of the motivations to engage in it, Japan and the U.S. both demonstrated racism and engaged in acts of terror.
Answer 2: Absolutely true. Demonstating racism and engaging in terror, of course, does not mean that every single decision was racist or that every single action was based on inspiring terror, but both factors played roles in the conduct of the war by both sides.
Regarding #2 the Pacific Front of the Second World War was not a war of racism and terror against Japan. It was a war of racism and terror by Japan. Japan was just as evil as Nazi Germany and it was good they were utterly defeated. Now of course the Jap Imperialist Apologists have infected academia and currents of thinking to portray Japan as “victims”. The Germans have enough shame not to do such a disgusting, perverted, and abominable thing but the Japs apparently do not.
No…our humanity is completely intertwined with our technology, and always has been. What makes us HUMAN is our technology.
I did a Google search, but I don’t see any source for this quote, though it’s repeated fairly often. Assuming it’s true, and that he meant it, I’d say…so what? Not like the man was never wrong.
I’d have to disagree both with the general statement and with the specific statement concerning weapons, to be honest.
Sure…just like the Pacific war was a war about racism and terror by the Japanese against the US…and against the Brits, the Chinese, the French, the Aussies, etc etc. Personally, I don’t think Tom Hanks, despite having played in several war movies, is really an authority on the history of WWII, or the context of the war. I mean, it’s like expecting a TV doctor to be able to tell you something substantive concerning medicine, ehe?
-XT
I already am, since I potentially consider all the questions posited by the OP to be valid ones. It’s just that I think they’re much too messily phrased to be conductive to interesting debate.
To Regullus: please be clear in what the hell you’re talking about.
I’m blunt, but that’s because you’re bumbling along without making any clear point. I think that you might have some interesting points for debate, and I might even agree with some of them, but you have to make your case clear before I commit to either side.
BTW, for anyone interested (though why people are interested in what celebrities in Hollywood have to say is beyond me), here is an article on Hank’s quote.
-XT
Just out of curiosity: the “Jap Imperialist Apologists” you speak of are Japanese people in Japan, right?
Mostly yes but it also includes at least partially much of the liberal academia and celebrities here in the US such as Tom Hanks in this case who while not directly defending Japan seek to make America no better morally than Japan in World War II.
[QUOTE=Superfluous Parentheses]
Just out of curiosity: the “Jap Imperialist Apologists” you speak of are Japanese people in Japan, right?
[/QUOTE]
Leaving aside the racial pejorative, there is a grain of truth here. A lot of Japanese don’t look on the war or the crimes committed by their country in the same way that, say, Germany does…despite the fact that the Japanese atrocities were nearly as heinous. There is a strong thread of apologist thinking in Japan about their actions during WWII…which tends to piss off other countries in the region (like, oh, say China and Korea).
-XT
Whatever case you may wish to make that “partially much” of either liberals or academia or both are apologists for the Japanese during World War 2, you’re not helping it much by calling them “Japs.”
Now I don’t agree with Hanks, but I’m sure a) racism was part of WWII even on the US side - especially vs the Japanese. and b) you’re just trying to strawman him:
Show me where non-Japanese people did that. Not even Hanks did that.
“Japs” is not really a racist term unlike say “chink” or “nigger” or “gook”, it was used by the reputable press widely during the Second World War.
Obviously there were racism against Japan but it did not make the Americans treat Japan any worse than Germany in conducting war (in case you cite the atomic bombs, note that Germany surrendered before the A-Bombs were fully developed plus the Americans were perfectly willing to carpet bomb Germany).
See Howard Zinn’s works.
We probably weren’t, at least insofar as the prosecution of the war against Japan. Now the reason for the war – that Japan attacked the U.S. and we declared war on them in response, I have no problem with, and support fully, and would have had I been alive then.
But if you look at the U.S. propaganda for the Pacific war, and the internment of U.S. citizens within their home country, there is no question - no question at all - that it was racist.
Hank’s comments are, in my opinion, incoherent and his point is not understandable. But then, so is your continuing to hold a grudge against the Japanese occupation of Korea that ended more than 50 years before you were born.
You can’t be serious. Of course the terms used against the enemy were racist if they could be. You’re (the US are) in two wars right now. The only reason you’re not using incredibly insulting terms for the people you’re conquering (in public) is because you’re pretending you’re doing it for their own good.
Yes, I see no real difference between the two. And the Germans and Japanese were quite obviously taking their racism to an unprecedented violent level, and I’m pretty damn glad the US helped us in western Europe out even if the US were still pretty racist themselves at the time.
Who’s that and why?
I agree.
I don’t hold a grudge against Japan, I am upset at the Jap Imperialist Apologists.
Most people back than were racist.
Regarding terror, one of the tactics used in World War II was indiscriminate strategic bombing against civilian targets. Both sides did that. So, if you were the resident of a Japanese city (or a Chinese city), you had to reconcile yourself to the fact that enemy bombers would likely level your city causing chaos and death. That’s terror tactics, and in fact, one of the other names for strategic bombing during World War II was “terror bombing”.
I’ll add that the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10 killed anywhere from 88,000 to 100,000 people, men, women and children, and that on March 17, 1945, a raid on the city of Kobe killed about 9000 people.
[quote=“Regullus, post:1, topic:534836”]
Question 1:
Has our technology surpassed our humanity?
Yes, I believe it has. We have every possible type of weapon available to us yet we drag out wars for profit. I hold out hope that humanity will win out in time to reverse the current trends. If we took all the money we have spent on, ‘The War On Terror’ and used it to help our own people that would be the humane thing to do. Just think of all the lives that would have been saved as a result.
Question 2:
Was the Pacific war a war about racism and terror by the Americans against the Japanese?
No. I think it was because they refused to surrender. We used new techonolgy and it ended what would have been a large scale invasion.
The fact that the mainstream press used that word is actually evidence that the mainstream press was as racist as the rest of society.
Now, in the midst of a war, I hardly expect the press to avoid using a shortened nickname for a people with whom were were fighting, but your claim is silly.
The notion that the U.S. did not embrace racism in the war against Japan is merely revisionist nonsense foisted on us by people afraid to examine our actions. Much is made of the fact that the Japanese soldiers tended to not surrender. It is rarely reported, (although it should be), that few Japanese were permitted to surrender when they attempted to do so. The extension of racism included our treatment of our own citizens, depriving them of property and livelihood and placing them in concentration camps based solely on their ethnic identity. Germans and Italians (and Bulgarians and some others), were also interned during the war, but in those cases, individuals were interned after an examination by the FBI. In the case of ethnic Japanese, the entire population of several states was locked up with no investigation of any kind.
You have failed to name or quote a single one, so you will have to allow us to believe that your claims, based in ignorance and expressed in contradiction to the facts, are rooted in some sort of antipathy toward the people.
Yes, the U.S. had decided to stop aiding and abetting Japanese actions like The Rape of Nanking. Japan “desperately” needed to use its military to bypass America’s embargo; otherwise it would have had to give up its part of the Axis dream of world conquest.
The idea that FDR deliberately sacrificed America’s Pacific battleship fleet is illogical and has been thoroughly debunked.
By the way, when I hear people complain specifically about the Hiroshima bomb I find it hard to believe those people have reviewed casualty statistics from other WW II episodes, like the Nanking Massacre, Okinawa invasion, etc.