2019-03-25

The “Good War” Myth of World War 2

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by Neil Godfrey

Charles Beard

Andrew J. Bacevich has a review in The American Conservative of Richard Drake’s Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism: Charles Beard: Punished for Seeking Peace. The review sent me looking for the book and happily it is accessible on scribd.

One detail about WW2 that has often bemused me is the story of the unprovoked attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. The point that puzzles me is that the U.S. had just cut off 80% of Japan’s oil supply so was obviously faced with a situation of complete capitulation or war with the U.S. The “unprovoked” part of the story has tended to strike me as somewhat overstated. And then, when I try to get an overall picture of the whole shebang, I have sometimes wondered if in a few centuries history books will present World War 2 as a titanic conflict among imperial powers for dominance.

Here are some of Bacevich’s review comments that led me to beginning to read Drake’s book:

Beard’s offense was to have committed heresy, not once but twice over. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, he opposed U.S. intervention in the European war that had begun in September 1939. And when that conflict ended in 1945 he had the temerity to question the heroic “Good War” narrative that was even then already forming.

Present-day Americans have become so imbued with this narrative as to be oblivious to its existence. Politicians endlessly recount it. Television shows, movies, magazines, and video games affirm it. Members of the public accept it as unquestionably true. From the very moment of its inception, however, Beard believed otherwise and said so in the bluntest terms possible.

……

Revisionists disagreed among themselves about many things, but on one point all concurred: on matters related to war, the official story is merely a cover, propaganda concocted for domestic consumption. The purpose of that story is to conceal truth and manipulate popular opinion.

……

While professing a commitment to peace, he also put the squeeze on Japan, confronting that nation with a choice of submission or war. When the Japanese opted for the latter, his administration was neither surprised nor disappointed.

……

Today the Good War narrative survives fully intact. For politicians and pundits eager to explain why it is incumbent upon the United States to lead or to come to the aid of those yearning to be free, it offers an ever-ready reference point. Casting World War II as a perpetually relevant story of good versus evil relieves Americans of any obligation to consider how the international order may have changed since Hitler inspired Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Stalin to forge their unlikely ménage à trois.

In that sense, the persistence of the Good War narrative robs Americans of any capacity to think realistically about their nation’s role in the existing world.

History is written by the victors so today one can easily never come to an awareness of the depth of the arguments in against getting involved in a war with Germany. At best they might hear of those protesters as “pacifists” or “isolationists” — certainly as idealistic and naive. But that was not the case when one takes the time to look, or at least not generally the case. Just as today so then there were observers who saw the interests of big business elites driving policy, the interests of maintaining and expanding empires, and the way propaganda for public consumption about fighting for democracy, for the four freedoms, etc, was all smokescreen to hide the real interests of the former two.

Some interesting excerpts from Drake’s book…. Continue reading “The “Good War” Myth of World War 2″


2012-09-12

Jesus in Japan

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

and now for something completely different – – – –

Quixie has an interesting blogpost about the Jesus in Japan Parahistory and the historical Jesus

I’m too intrigued by the origins of this set of beliefs, rituals and relics to laugh in disdainful mockery. Though the belief is said to be very old, I wonder how its age can be tested and whether there might be reason to think it all started some time after the seventeenth century Portuguese missionaries. Not that they would have taught this myth, of course. But we do see the way myths do mutate into forms that meet very different needs and functions from their original parents: e.g. Mormonism, Dave Koresh and such on our side; but I’m thinking in particular of nineteenth century’s Hong Xuiquan of China who became the focus of the Taiping rebellion. He set up a “Heavenly Kingdom” declaring himself to be the brother of Jesus. His ideas were initiated after reading some missionary tracts from Seventh Day Adventists, I seem to recall.

Quixie has some interesting photos and a video of a dance-singing ritual with his article.

There’s another article on Jesus in Japan here: Jesus Christ was their ancestor.


2011-03-15

It’s inevitably human

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

crop of :File:MemlingJudgementOpen.jpg
Image via Wikipedia

Some events are just too horrific to comprehend, we all know, so I suppose it’s only human to invoke the gods or ancestors.

Tokyo Governor Sorry For “Divine Punishment” Comment

Mr Ishihara, 78, said yesterday that Japanese people were becoming “greedy” and highlighted the case of people who continue to pocket their parents’ pensions by delaying death notifications.

“It is necessary to wash away the greedy mind… by using the tsunami,” he told reporters.

“I think that it is divine punishment.”

Fortunately he had the good grace to “deeply apologise”, acknowledging the comments had hurt the victims.

Maybe it’s a cousin of the scapegoating propensity we fall into when things go wrong. Many of us have traditionally blamed the Jews, the socialists, progressive schooling, the foreigner, the down and out. But when the horror facing us is too much death itself, we have nowhere to look but to the divine executor. So why did this angel of death do this to us? Because of the Jews, the socialists, the down and out . . . . or whatever their appropriate substitute in the mind of the one trying to make sense of it all.

But there’s no sense to any of it. It’s all totally random. That ought to be the humbling fact that burns our flesh to share the pain and tenderness of our common humanity.