2001: year of the bad movie

Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> by bombing innocent people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. What's
> revisionist about that, good lord??
> Is any point that mentions victims on the "other" side
> revisionist? Whew...

Since the Japanese were the aggressors throughout Asia and the Pacific, I don't think they can be labelled "victims" or "innocent". And I don't buy the arugment that the Japanese people (or the Germans) were the pawns of their leaders.

> hmm. What would you prefer if you live in San Francisco: a big
> earthquake, or a H-bomb?

I was referring to those poor souls who died in firebombing campaigns. 85,000 died in the firebombing of Toyko; 135,000 died in Dresden. Both those totals are higher than that of Nagaski. Don't you care what happened to them, too?

War is atrocity. People die, justly or unjustly.

> no they weren't. But is every German soldier a bastard?

No, they were "just following orders".
 
Do yourself a favor and see WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY

It's the best new movie of the summer, so far. IMHO.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> ... the Japanese ah yes. Yes, why not insult them again with the
> Yanks as 100% good, and the Japs as 100% bad.
> The inhabitants of Nagasaki and Hiroshima will be grateful.

No one said the yanks are 100% good and the Japanese 100% bad.

I realize, however, that Japanese culture to this day feels insulted, even offended, if anyone actually brings up the atrocities they
committed during WW2. This ongoing state of denial is the equivalent of if Germany today were still acting like the Holocaust was no big deal, just part of war, or didn't even really happen.

It's not the first time a film has been editted to ensure the ostrich like Japanese aren't offended by the truth. The Last Empreror contained a scene depcited the Japanese rape of the Chinese city of Nanking, where every horrible atrocity imaginable was committed, and a Japanese distributor cut the scene without authorization.

Japan currently censors history books from telling the truth about their country. They have paid nothing to their victims, unlike Germany. They have leaders who are deniers of their history. How would we react if Germany today had people in power like Japan does?You're so afraid of insulting Japan, but they (the general culture) continue to victimize the people they murdered and raped by continuing to delude thmselves.

As far as dropping nuclear bombs, it spared countless American lives and gave America a better position against the Soviets. It was certainly a morally controversial decision, but it seems like the right one to me.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> I seem to remember in my history lessons that our men, women and
> children were ALSO 'innocently' bombed and attacked. Let's all
> try to remember one thing, little kiddies: War is NOT an
> innocent action. It is one of the most selfish things to ever
> have to be involved in.

precisely the point. "ALSO".

Is there still room for Hollywoodian manicheism? Please.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> Since the Japanese were the aggressors throughout Asia and the
> Pacific, I don't think they can be labelled "victims"
> or "innocent". And I don't buy the arugment that the
> Japanese people (or the Germans) were the pawns of their
> leaders.

I do buy it. I gladly adopt it.
So, since the Germans were the aggressors throughout Europe and Africa, the population of Dresden was not "innocent" either?

> I was referring to those poor souls who died in firebombing
> campaigns. 85,000 died in the firebombing of Toyko; 135,000 died
> in Dresden. Both those totals are higher than that of Nagaski.
> Don't you care what happened to them, too?

Do I say I don't?????

> War is atrocity. People die, justly or unjustly.

Whew. *Statement!*

> No, they were "just following orders".

That's the explanation! But then you don't buy it that they are the pawns of their leaders, right ...
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> No one said the yanks are 100% good and the Japanese 100% bad.

No. But someone worried about Japanese airpilots acting as "humans". Sure, it's unrealistic per se, but the point is duly made.

> I realize, however, that Japanese culture to this day feels
> insulted, even offended, if anyone actually brings up the
> atrocities they
> committed during WW2. This ongoing state of denial is the
> equivalent of if Germany today were still acting like the
> Holocaust was no big deal, just part of war, or didn't even
> really happen.

But Germany has no Emperor....

> It's not the first time a film has been editted to ensure the
> ostrich like Japanese aren't offended by the truth. The Last
> Empreror contained a scene depcited the Japanese rape of the
> Chinese city of Nanking, where every horrible atrocity
> imaginable was committed, and a Japanese distributor cut the
> scene without authorization.

Bad.

> Japan currently censors history books from telling the truth
> about their country.

they're not the only ones.

> They have paid nothing to their victims,
> unlike Germany.

Germany was rather late with it as well.

> They have leaders who are deniers of their
> history. How would we react if Germany today had people in power
> like Japan does?You're so afraid of insulting Japan, but they
> (the general culture) continue to victimize the people they
> murdered and raped by continuing to delude thmselves.

Not afraid of insulting the Japs at all. It's simply incorrect to label them uniformly as "the bad ones". Is that so difficult?

> As far as dropping nuclear bombs, it spared countless American
> lives and gave America a better position against the Soviets. It
> was certainly a morally controversial decision, but it seems
> like the right one to me.

Uh. The only decision made in wartime that can be labeled "right", is the decision to stop it.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

But are they the only ones?

Who is America to judge, really. Do you remember the people who were originally living on this land before they were all massacred and the few left put on land that nobody else wants?

If the Indians today decided "@#!!! this" and started living how they did with no regards to their land boundaries or ours, there would be many pissed off people, so yes, in a sense, we do have people living in concentration camps to this very day. It would be like if after the war, Germany decided "OK, we're not going to kill the jews or force them into hard labor, but they have to stay on this patch of land that we don't want. They can't migrate and do the necessary things that were once part of their life, but they must stay there if they want to continue living with their customs and traditions."
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> Germany was rather late with it as well.

At this point even the SWISS have paid reparations. But not Japan.

> Not afraid of insulting the Japs at all. It's simply incorrect
> to label them uniformly as "the bad ones". Is that so
> difficult?

Well, I'm not saying every Japanese person was a bad guy, but Japan as a nation certainly was the bad guy. It's one of the more clear-cut facts of history....

> Uh. The only decision made in wartime that can be labeled
> "right", is the decision to stop it.

It seems to me the decision to drop nukes on Japan _was_ a decision designed to stop the war. A war America was very hesitant to enter, until they were attacked by Japan, a country with eyes on building an empire and wiping out whole peoples, who looked at the American fleet in Pearl Harbor as one of the only obstacles potentially standing in their way. There can be an argument over whether nuking them was the right way to stop the war, but it was either that or an invasion. Either way many people would die. I hate to tell you this, but there was no way to end WW2 without killing a lot of people. Is your point that to be "good" one should be passive and non-violent and hope the evil forces reflect on their nature and change their ways on their own?
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

Furthmore, look at how well America treated Japan after we defeated them. We became their friend and helped them become an economic powerhouse.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> Furthmore, look at how well America treated Japan after we
> defeated them. We became their friend and helped them become an
> economic powerhouse.

LOL!
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> At this point even the SWISS have paid reparations. But not
> Japan.

er ... so? It's obvious, no, that they do not WANT to pay?

> Well, I'm not saying every Japanese person was a bad guy, but
> Japan as a nation certainly was the bad guy. It's one of the
> more clear-cut facts of history....

Oh yes. And the yankees were the good guys?

> It seems to me the decision to drop nukes on Japan _was_ a
> decision designed to stop the war. A war America was very
> hesitant to enter, until they were attacked by Japan, a country
> with eyes on building an empire and wiping out whole peoples,
> who looked at the American fleet in Pearl Harbor as one of the
> only obstacles potentially standing in their way. There can be
> an argument over whether nuking them was the right way to stop
> the war, but it was either that or an invasion. Either way many
> people would die. I hate to tell you this, but there was no way
> to end WW2 without killing a lot of people.

So the end justifies the means? Once more?

> Is your point that
> to be "good" one should be passive and non-violent and
> hope the evil forces reflect on their nature and change their
> ways on their own?

one should be actively disobedient but non-violent indeed. One should be disobedient in all forms of political rule.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> Who is America to judge, really. Do you remember the people who
> were originally living on this land before they were all
> massacred and the few left put on land that nobody else wants?

I was limiting my comments to WW2, where America was on the side of the good guys. I agree that America has often been the bad guys many times. Including to this day.

America even has war criminals held in high regard and living large right now. For example, Henry Kissinger, war criminal in Southeast Asia. And, arguably and to a lesser degree, Bill Clinton, war criminal by blowing up a medicine factory in Sudan for his own personal benefit.

> If the Indians today decided " @#!!! this" and
> started living how they did with no regards to their land
> boundaries or ours, there would be many pissed off people, so
> yes, in a sense, we do have people living in concentration camps
> to this very day. It would be like if after the war, Germany
> decided "OK, we're not going to kill the jews or force them
> into hard labor, but they have to stay on this patch of land
> that we don't want. They can't migrate and do the necessary
> things that were once part of their life, but they must stay
> there if they want to continue living with their customs and
> traditions."

I don't think it's right to say that because America has committed crimes, including land theft and genocide against the Indians, that that makes it questionable as to who the bad guys were in WW2.
It also does not justify Japan continuing to pretend they have nothing to be sorry for, and trying to bury historical facts they don't want to face.

And, yes, America ought to be sorry for the crimes they've committed as well. For example, America's culture during slavery was just as sick. However, we are ashamed of that now, and America has become a better place for its acknowledgement of this. Just as Germany today is a better place for its acknowledgement. Japan needs to admit to the world and to itself what it did in WW2.

Japan has paid pess than 1% the amount Germany has in reparations to its victims. GErman Nazis were incarcerated for their crimes, or forced from public life, while Japanese war criminals continued to hold powerful poistions in government and industry after the war. Germany appologized to Holocaust victims, while Japan enshrined their war criminals in Tokyo (called by some the equivalent of erecting a cathedral for Hitler in the middle of Berlin). And prominent Japanese politicians, academics, and scholars refuse to admit some of the atrocities even took place.

This is not singling out and judging the Japanese people, but a recognition that culture can make any of us evil, and therefore we should not sweep things under the rug.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> er ... so? It's obvious, no, that they do not WANT to pay?

I don't follow your point. There are victims alive today, and JApan continues to victimize them TODAY by not ackowledging them.

America victimized Japanese-American citizens during the war, but we acknowledge this.

> Oh yes. And the yankees were the good guys?

In WW2, yes. Although Americans were too passive while watching atrocities taking place for the period before their involvement.

> So the end justifies the means? Once more?

The end being the end of the agressors and co-conspirators in worldwide holocausts (Germany and Japan), the means being doing what we sadly had to do to stop them.

> one should be actively disobedient but non-violent indeed. One
> should be disobedient in all forms of political rule.

Doing nothing in the face of atrcotities is a crime. Just as if America had done nothing to Milosevic recently, when we had the means to do something, would have been a crime. Sometimes non-violence is a crime, IMHO.

Perhaps you're not fully aware of what Japan was up to in the 30s and 40s? Do you know they went into China and used innocent people for bayonette practice? Forced fathers to have sex with their daughters? Chopped heads off while laughing? I have pictures of this in my home library. They had a policy of "loot all, kill all, burn all." In one city alone - Nanking - and in just a few WEEKS, Japan outdid the Romans at Carthrage and the Christians at the Spanish Inquisition, killing 350,000. Some estimate that Japan reduced the population in the northern Chinese countryside from 44 million to 25 million (granted some of this was people fleeing, but millions died). In punishment for suspecting that Chinese villages helped America's 1942 raid of Tokyo, Japan used biological warfare on innocent people. They sprayed fleas carrying plague germs over matropolitan areas. They tossed flasks containing anthrax, cholera, typhoid, among other nice stuff, into rivers, wells, and houses. They gave cake laced with typhoid to starving peasants.

If you want to better understand what sort of evil America was fighting, I suggest you try and see a Russian film from 1985 called COME AND SEE, a new print of which is making the rounds at art houses right now. It shows what the Nazis did to villages in Belarus, which is similar to what Japan was up to elsewhere. Watch that, and then tell me we were not the good guys. If there's one damn thing America (and the other allies) can be proud of, it's that.

All many schools teach about Japan and WW2 is Pearl HArbor and Horoshima. But that is just the tip of the iceberg on Japan's role in the war. Japan was guilty of every horror you can imagine.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

BTW, that Russian film COME AND SEE, which is probably the best war film ever made...I think the title is meant to say "come and see the apocalypse." Which is what the movie shows. It was the end of the world facing us.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> I don't follow your point. There are victims alive today, and
> JApan continues to victimize them TODAY by not ackowledging
> them.

Sure. But on the other hand, don't you think an apology might be in order before people start thinking about "money"? I'd prefer an apology before a check. Oh, yes, there hasn't been any apology. Now *that* is something you should speak about.

> America victimized Japanese-American citizens during the war,
> but we acknowledge this.

> In WW2, yes. Although Americans were too passive while watching
> atrocities taking place for the period before their involvement.

universal police then? But I do like your temporal specification.

> The end being the end of the agressors and co-conspirators in
> worldwide holocausts (Germany and Japan), the means being doing
> what we sadly had to do to stop them.

hindsight helps, innit?

> Doing nothing in the face of atrcotities is a crime. Just as if
> America had done nothing to Milosevic recently, when we had the
> means to do something, would have been a crime. Sometimes
> non-violence is a crime, IMHO.

mind you: there's a difference between violence and disobedience; the latter does not necessarily amount to "doing nothing". There are much more options than throwing smart bombs with deplated uranium.

> Perhaps you're not fully aware of what Japan was up to in the
> 30s and 40s?

I do know, don't worry.

> If you want to better understand what sort of evil America was
> fighting, I suggest you try and see a Russian film from 1985
> called COME AND SEE, a new print of which is making the rounds
> at art houses right now. It shows what the Nazis did to villages
> in Belarus, which is similar to what Japan was up to elsewhere.
> Watch that, and then tell me we were not the good guys. If
> there's one damn thing America (and the other allies) can be
> proud of, it's that.

Oh yes. And the Americans watched, and then applied similar tactics in Viet Nam?

> All many schools teach about Japan and WW2 is Pearl HArbor and
> Horoshima. But that is just the tip of the iceberg on Japan's
> role in the war. Japan was guilty of every horror you can
> imagine.

Sure. And 30 years later, who committed another horror?

Ah.
Which brings us to the bottomline: so the Yanks were the good ones in WW2, they were the bad ones in Viet Nam, they were the good ones in Irak, Yugoslavia (quote/unquote), they were very supportive of an Indonesian regime killing innocent people in East Timor, Central and Latin America ... ... hey why do they change their policy so often?
Morals, ethics and the good vs the evil ... used for political purposes, used to explain why this and why that military involvement has a reason ... oh how very painful.
The Japanese were guilty of organised war crimes in WW2, as was the Nazi regime. That was wrong. Sure, the Americans were better than the Nazis and the Japanese during WW2. But applying morals again, don't tell me the Yankees are the universal angelic police.
I fail to see that any war, any military action, is ever justified on ethical grounds. War, violence and crime in general simply SUC.KS. To seek any moral justification for it, is rather absurd.

In wartime, the only good party, is that of the united victims, all nations confounded.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> So, since the Germans were the aggressors throughout Europe and
> Africa, the population of Dresden was not "innocent"
> either?

The controversy over the bombing of Dresden is that:

1. Dresden was not a recognised military target.
2. The attack took place very late on in the war.
3. The Allies allegedly knew that a lot of refugees had sought refuge there.
4. It had a lot of pretty Baroque buildings.

But you know, you can say it was a naked act of terrorism on behalf of Bomber Command and Harris, but - oo, controversial - it was the war! And anyway, it was revenge for the German "Baedeker" bombing of some of Southern England's picturesque towns, like Bath and Canterbury. It's a shame that what the Germans started, the post-war planner finished... Swines.
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> The controversy over the bombing of Dresden is that:

> 1. Dresden was not a recognised military target.
> 2. The attack took place very late on in the war.
> 3. The Allies allegedly knew that a lot of refugees had sought
> refuge there.
> 4. It had a lot of pretty Baroque buildings.

is there still room for any controversy?
 
Re: Nomination for "Pearl Harbour" also

> Japan has paid pess than 1% the amount Germany has in
> reparations to its victims. GErman Nazis were incarcerated for
> their crimes, or forced from public life, while Japanese war
> criminals continued to hold powerful poistions in government and
> industry after the war.

It's one of the ironies of the Second World War that ONLY ONE Japanest officer was found guilty of war crimes, and he was one who had campaigned against the atrocities.
 
Re: Helloooo?...

> I wouldn't say it was official, however I do think it was pretty
> damned near 'official,' wouldn't you? And I wouldn't put it the
> way you have by making it seem like what was already going on in
> Europe WAS small potatoes UNTIL the US was finally a part of the
> fighting.
> Umm, yeah...it wasn't officially a World War until ALL the
> nations were involved...that would have included the US. You
> know, that slightly influential place stuck in the northern
> hemisphere?...

A World War is not defined by the whole world being in war. After all, to mine and many other people's information, such nations as Australia and most parts of South America and Africa weren't involved at any point.

Officially official is that WW2 began with Hitler's invasion of Tchechoslovakia on September 1st 1939. Within a few weeks the whole of Europe was involved, including such not so uninfluencial nations as England and France. Not to mention Russia, which was and still is not only the biggest country in the world geographically, but also a military force equal to the US.

I don't want to sound rude, but sometimes the American ignorance of the rest of the world's history really annoys me. North America is not the centre of the universe.
 
Re: Helloooo?...

> I wouldn't say it was official, however I do think it was pretty
> damned near 'official,' wouldn't you? And I wouldn't put it the
> way you have by making it seem like what was already going on in
> Europe WAS small potatoes UNTIL the US was finally a part of the
> fighting.

This is precisely what I'm saying. This is how Hollywood chooses to distort history.

> Umm, yeah...it wasn't officially a World War until ALL the
> nations were involved...that would have included the US. You
> know, that slightly influential place stuck in the northern
> hemisphere?...

Absolute rot. Of course it was already a world war before the Americans joined in. Don't forget the war in Africa, or the often overlooked battle of the seas.

VP
 
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