White Light/Black Rain

[livius drusus]

Has anybody else seen this HBO documentary (http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/) about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

To call it immensely compelling is to understate the case. Everything about it, from the picture to the music to the original survivor artwork to the stories they told, is heartbreaking without being maudlin.

There are some extremely disturbing images, be warned, both historical and contemporary.

Some of the original artwork featured in the documentary:

http://www.hbo.com/docs/img/programs/whitelight/slideshow/slideshow17.jpg

http://www.hbo.com/docs/img/programs/whitelight/slideshow/slideshow01.jpg

[curses]

That looks really good, liv. I wish I still had HBO. The artwork you posted is chilling.

[vremya]

I read an interview with the filmaker - it sounds like a really good documentary. We don't have HBO, but I bet it will come out on DVD with all the buzz it's been getting.

[The Lone Ranger]

To me, perhaps the most evocative images from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts are the shadows (http://history.independence.co.jp/ww2/raid/h02.jpg) created by the blasts.

In the above link, for instance, you can see the shadow of a man (or woman -- it's impossible to tell) and a ladder imprinted on the side of a wall in Hiroshima. This (http://history.independence.co.jp/ww2/raid/h01.jpg) image from Hiroshima shows the shadow of a person imprinted on some steps.

What happened was that the heat of the blast was so intense it incinerated its victims completely and almost instantaneously. But in the fraction of a second during which the person's body shielded the structure behind him or her from the intense (but brief) pulse of heat and light, it prevented the portions of the structure in his or her shadow from being bleached out by the intense radiation. In the end, all that remained of the person was his or her shadow, permanently imprinted on the structure behind him or her in the instant of annihilation.

Cheers,

Michael

[Adora]

This is why I have problems with posturing Westerners who claim it was "inevitable" for such a thing to happen.

[beyelzu]

anytime you want to debate the morality of dropping the bomb adora, im all yours,

make the thread and i will be there

[Adora]

Did I say I wanted to debate it? No, I didn't. Did I say anything about the morality of the act at all? No, I didn't either. I simply pointed out that the perspective that it was inevitable is one made from a particularly ignorant and priviledged position held by individuals in the West, who have never - until, perhaps, recently - been the victim of such an event that imprints itself so indelibly on the cultural consciousness of the country.

[livius drusus]

That looks really good, liv. I wish I still had HBO. The artwork you posted is chilling.

I read an interview with the filmaker - it sounds like a really good documentary. We don't have HBO, but I bet it will come out on DVD with all the buzz it's been getting.
The DVD is already available for pre-order (http://store.hbo.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2793149&cp=), I'm glad to say. Y'all should definitely buy it/rent it when it comes out.

To me, perhaps the most evocative images from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts are the shadows created by the blasts.
I've seen those before. They remind me of people-shaped cavities in the volcanic ash of Pompeii.

One of the things that stunned me in the documentary was a survivor who was a block from ground zero. Everyone around him died -- his mother, father and brother were skeletons, his other siblings vaporized -- but he somehow made it through.

This is why I have problems with posturing Westerners who claim it was "inevitable" for such a thing to happen.
I have to wonder how closely they've looked at the decision-making process as well as consequences of those bombings. The documentary interviews some of the men who dropped the bombs, and to a man they just didn't delve. They did what they did; the war ended. That's it.

I can understand that, really. Who wants to shoulder the burden of responsibility for flipping so monstrous a switch? The ones who did get involved with the aftermath, like Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, were wracked with guilt.

Interestingly, though, they all had strong, even vehement feelings against future use of nuclear weapons. The "bomb was inevitable" folks I've encountered tend to be far more cavalier about man-made mass death than the people who actually did the killing.

anytime you want to debate the morality of dropping the bomb adora, im all yours,

make the thread and i will be there
I might take you up on that offer. I'll note, though, that that's a different issue from the one Adora raised. She said she has problems with people who make facile claims that what happened was inevitable.

[beyelzu]

well i assumed that she was suggesting that dropping the bombs wasnt necessary i dont know how anybody could argue whether anything at all in history was inevitable.

[beyelzu]

Did I say I wanted to debate it? No, I didn't. Did I say anything about the morality of the act at all? No, I didn't either. I simply pointed out that the perspective that it was inevitable is one made from a particularly ignorant and priviledged position held by individuals in the West, who have never - until, perhaps, recently - been the victim of such an event that imprints itself so indelibly on the cultural consciousness of the country.

who the fuck says that is was inevitable

i do not think that word means what you think it means

necessary perhaps the best possible choice certainly but inevitable?

i have never heard or read anyone saying that

[beyelzu]

I might take you up on that offer. I'll note, though, that that's a different issue from the one Adora raised. She said she has problems with people who make facile claims that what happened was inevitable.

let me know when you want to go, ill be there

[Adora]

who the fuck says that is was inevitable
It's a piece of rhetoric I keep hearing over and over again, usually from righteous Yanks on some news channel when the memorial day comes up each year to validate the atrocity, and occasionally from the mouths of Brits as well. I've heard it from the mouth of one of the men of the Enola Gay in a TV interview, and it made me sick.

And yes, they use/d the word inevitable.

It would sicken me even more if they had used the word necessary.

I can understand that, really. Who wants to shoulder the burden of responsibility for flipping so monstrous a switch? The ones who did get involved with the aftermath, like Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, were wracked with guilt.
Which is what should happen more often, post-conflict. Wars happen over and over again because people don't take responsibility and aren't held accountable for their actions during conflicts, and are told/say "It was just war". War becomes the excuse, instead of the crime. Which is why documentaries like the one linked are important.

[beyelzu]

alright, let me say for the record that it definitely wasnt inevitable and anyone who says so is probably a foaming at the mouth dipshit.

though from a moral perspective it certainly was necessary in order to mitigate suffering and deaths.

[Adora]

though from a moral perspective it certainly was necessary in order to mitigate suffering and deaths.
Ahh, the "war in the name of peace" excuse.

I was wondering when it would arise in the conversation.

[D. Scarlatti]

Y'all should check out Lewis Lapham's essay in the September Harper's (http://www.harpers.org/).

[beyelzu]

though from a moral perspective it certainly was necessary in order to mitigate suffering and deaths.
Ahh, the "war in the name of peace" excuse.

I was wondering when it would arise in the conversation.

no its the "the japanese were killing something like 100,000 chinese and pacific islanders each and every week and had no plans on a fucking surrender before the bomb was dropped hell they werent even going to surrender after the first one but the fucking second one that really changed their fucking minds and how come in your little moral equations the chinese dont count" argument.

but i would like to make it in another thread and stop pissing all over liv's thread.

if you want to talk about it make a thread, but i am done here


sorry for the disruption liv

[Adora]

blah blah blah
You, Bey, like many individuals I get into such conversations with, make the grave mistake that just because one finds the eventual historical actions committed by one side in a war abhorrent, one is laying all blame at their feet.

This is a common stance taken by those trying way too hard to defend their shaky position. And I'm not even going to start on your historical inaccuracies.

Point is, I'm not laying all blame for the ending of Japan's part in the war at the feet of the US Army, though their decision was ultimately the one that resulted in the means of the end, which, for your righteous record, I find an evil on-par with the atrocities committed by the Japanese in the war, not because of the death toll but because of the true reasoning behind it. So don't try and pull the pathetic, cheap, and inhumane "They were killing more people than we were" bullshit with me, boyo.

[beyelzu]

The only regret i have about hiroshima and nagasaki... - Freethought Forum (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13674)

here you go, adora, lets rock.

liv if you are interested feel free to join the thread and again sorry about the derail

[livius drusus]

Y'all should check out Lewis Lapham's essay in the September Harper's (http://www.harpers.org/).

Can you link to it directly, Scarlatti? I can't seem to find it just from navigating.

[Dingfod]

Me neither, but there is a good essay on Executive Privilege by Lapham (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000601) to be found using their search tool.

[livius drusus]

liv if you are interested feel free to join the thread and again sorry about the derail
That's okay. I'll check out the thread in a little while. On topic here, though, have you seen the documentary or check out the link? I think especially for someone who argues necessity, it's important to have a real appreciation for the human cost.

[beyelzu]

i havent seen the documentary but would like to, i did check out your link, though i think the actions were moral and necessary i do recognize how aweinspiringly horrific it was.

god in the old testament soddom and gammorah (sp?)

[beyelzu]

One of the survivors talks about looking for her mother, and seeing what she thinks is her mother because she finds a burned corpse with a gold tooth that looks like her mother, and she reaches out to touch the body and it turns to ashes before her finger reaches it. And then her sister gets radiation sickness, her hair starts falling out, and the kids at school are taunting her sister because she's bald, and the sister steps in front of a train and kills herself. This woman says that there are two kinds of courage--the courage to die, and the courage to live. And she says she decided she wanted to live, despite her having lost everybody.

i think i will see if i can download that documentary

[D. Scarlatti]

Sorry, there's no link to the September issue yet; but you need a subscription for current stuff anyway.

"Flies in Amber" is the name of it, if you get a chance to check it out. It's exactly what you guys are arguing about.

[livius drusus]

i havent seen the documentary but would like to, i did check out your link, though i think the actions were moral and necessary i do recognize how aweinspiringly horrific it was.
I thought I recognized it too, but I didn't really. It's sort of an abstraction. That's why the survivor testimony is so important, because it makes it real on a human level instead of a toy soldier numbers game or a war is hell cliche.

god in the old testament soddom and gammorah (sp?)
Not a solid example of moral and necessary, really, but again, I really don't want this thread to be about defending the bomb. It's about taking an unflinching look at what happened to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[beyelzu]

i havent seen the documentary but would like to, i did check out your link, though i think the actions were moral and necessary i do recognize how aweinspiringly horrific it was.
I thought I recognized it too, but I didn't really. It's sort of an abstraction. That's why the survivor testimony is so important, because it makes it real on a human level instead of a toy soldier numbers game or a war is hell cliche.

hmm, i agree it probably does make it more "real"

god in the old testament soddom and gammorah (sp?)
Not a solid example of moral and necessary, really, but again, I really don't want this thread to be about defending the bomb. It's about taking an unflinching look at what happened to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[/QUOTE]

[/quote]

no doubt but horrific no doubt about it.

[wildernesse]

This is available on Netflix, but with a long wait.