Say it a little louder for all the dipshits trying to argue that a trump presidency would be better for Gaza than Biden is.
If Trump wins I’m going to be too preoccupied with the climate disaster and end of American democracy (in that order) to give a single fuck about what happens in Gaza, Ukraine, or anywhere else.
Reverse order for me, the climate distaste I worry about with a Republican dictatorship is a nuclear winter. But that might be growing up during the Cold War talking.
Maybe nuclear winter blocks out sun for so long we solve global warming and enter a new ice age. So many humans will be dead we won’t be able to carry on with our global warming activities, as the small handful remaining return to an agrarian society. Maybe Putin and the republicans will save us all.
Yup. Russia takes Ukraine and funds Iran in the inevitably escalated Israel-Iran direct conflict, while China attacks Taiwan and Trump preaches isolationism. Good start to WWIII.
All according to the plan…
I mean, am I wrong? Should I care more about what happens to Gazans or Ukrainians than the fact that we’re living in a kleptocracy of science-deniers who are openly taking $1 billion bribes from the oil industry? I don’t think so…
I mean, it is possible to care about yourself while caring about others, yes.
If you’re just abstractly posting about shit on the internet, sure. But if a wildfire burns my neighborhood down (a real possibility where I live, even now, and increasingly likely as the climate slips into the irredeemable zone over the next decade or so) I’m not going to be thinking about global politics and wars happening in countries that I will never step foot in. That would be borderline pathological.
I’m just being honest. You need to live a life of privilege to have the time, freedom, and emotional capacity to worry about what is happening in Gaza. And, should Donald Trump become president again, he will do whatever he feels like doing in Gaza, nobody will hold him accountable (as nobody seems willing to do right now for the things he’s done in the past), and I’m not going to have the willpower to care because, mark my words, WE will have real problems of our own.
If you want to see what unchecked genocide, mass civil unrest, climate disaster, and American autocracy looks like, by all means, allow Donald Trump to take over our country. 2024 is our last stand, and what happens next is a matter of individual survival.
Considering nuking Gaza could easily lead to everyone nuking everyone else, you might change your priorities a bit.
Nobody is starting a global thermonuclear war over Gaza. Iran doesn’t have a capability, NK doesn’t give a fuck, and if Russia was going to elevate the world into a nuclear war they would have already done so over Ukraine.
Meanwhile climate change is here and American democracy is in peril, and these are things that actually affect people in this country and the entire world.
If Trump wins, Gaza is his to do as he pleases. If we didn’t hold him accountable for his crimes against the United States, I have serious doubts that we’re going to hold him accountable for crimes in the middle east.
Over a nuked Gaza? I wouldn’t be so sure.
Let’s imagine Trump wins in 2024. He’s leading in a number of polls and Biden’s popularity is down, so there’s a REAL chance…
Who exactly do you think is going to hold him accountable for anything he does at home or abroad?
Congress? (Maybe in some kind of weird scenario where Trump wins the presidency but loses the House and Senate. Not very likely…)
The courts? (Trump has personally appointed 33% of the current SCOTUS, and we have seen that they will tie themselves into knots to do his bidding. Another 33% of SCOTUS are other highly political conservative judges who have proven to be on Trump’s side. And then we have to consider that Trump has also appointed a huge number of judges at every different level of our legal system. They aren’t going to do anything to him, ever.)
And if Netenyahu was to kill every last man, woman, and child in Gaza, do you think a Trump administration would push back even in the slightest? This is a guy who sides with Putin and Kim Jung Un. He does not give a fuck about humanity or anybody’s life other than his own.
I once had hope that someone, somewhere would hold Trump accountable for things like January 6th, but I guess hope doesn’t spring eternal after all because I’m just not seeing it. Trump’s right about one thing: he could shoot a guy on 5th avenue in broad daylight and nothing would happen to him. One third of this country would be evil enough to still vote for him, and another third of the country would be to stupid to hold him accountable.
What on Earth does this have to do with Trump?
You responded to a post that mentioned Trump in the last paragraph
Why aren’t the “But Biden!” people in this thread? It’s so very strange they seem to be absent (no, it really isn’t).
I feel like the narrative surrounding the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings has changed enormously since I was a kid.
I remember learning that, while tragic, the number of lives lost in the bombing paled in comparison to the numbers of lives being lost and that would be lost in winning the war by conventional means. That it was a way to minimize further bloodshed.
I’m not super well read on the subject, but is that not true? Or, if it is true, does it not matter?
I’m mostly just trying to figure out what caused the shift.
Some disclaimers
I am a 50+ year old American
Up until 10ish years ago I had at least a better than average understanding/knowledge of WWII
My ex’s grandmother’s family was from Hiroshima and they had family members killed in the bombing.
All that said as tragic as they were I still think those bombs were the correct military decision at that time. I would be willing to have a rational conversation about it though.
The situation in Gaza is completely different and Lindsey Graham and the rest of the GOP are fucking ghouls.
Also, I have always thought that, as horrific and tragic as what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, the fact that the world was able to view the aftermath has been what has prevented a larger nuclear exchange. I don’t know if the Cuban Missile Crisis would have gone the same way without everyone knowing exactly what an atomic bomb does.
Is your argument for bombing being the right decision the same (that it resulted in less bloodshed overall)? If so, how can you estimate the body count of the alternative (a prolonged conventional war, I assume)?
I mean, you could project based on the casualties already incurred I suppose.
Looks to be about 65k Americans military members died in the Pacific theater, and we were still a long ways off from reaching mainland Japan, and the fighting was only gonna get worse the farther in we got. And that’s just Americans. It doesn’t count the Japanese casualties, which by all accounts dwarfed the American numbers.
200k civilians were killed in the atomic bombings. Now, it’s worth noting that those are civilian deaths, which one can argue have a higher moral weight than combatant deaths.
So, all that said, in plain numbers I think it’s an extremely safe bet that far more than 200k more people would have died in a blockade/land invasion scenario. But, you could argue that it’s apples to oranges since the bombs were on civilian targets.
It’s also worth noting to that the 200k dead to resolve the war were all non-American, which doesn’t make it any less of a tragic loss of life, but matters in the “political” sense. If you are at war, and you are handed a solution that can end the war without sending any more of your own people to die, do you as the leader have a moral responsibility to do it? Like, if you have the choice in front of you to either bomb a civilian target, killing 200k “enemy” civilians but ending the war, or sending even 100k American’s to their deaths, knowing that you are the one responsible for making sure those men and women get home safe, can you in good conscience choose the latter? Is it better to choose the latter? I wouldn’t want to have to make that decision, but I also am loathe to second guess the decision of the person who has to make it.
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To this day gaman or Japanese stoicism is a big part of Japanese culture. The Japanese had already lost the war, but the ruling class was willing to sacrifice scores of people to fight to the bitter end.
In an episode of Hardcore History, it detailed that the Allied ships couldn’t dock in Okinawa because of all the corpses in the water. The Japanese had inundated Okinawa with propaganda that the Americans were going to rape them all. Many families killed themselves. And the invasion of the mainland was only going to get bloodier.
A terrible as it is to say, dropping the nukes was the more humane option of the two.
Back in HS, I think I was told that it was a regrettable ending and we probably went a bit overboard.
I highly recommend this video from Shaun on the matter. It’s long but you can listen to it instead of watching it and you won’t miss much. Excellent video on this subject that really put a lot of the propaganda around the bombing in a new light.
I remember watching it. The problem with the video is that they seriously overestimate the willingness of the Japanese to surrender without giving any evidence to back this up. The Japanese were absolutely not willing to surrender. I mean, just look at their reaction after Hiroshima. There was a lot of debate AFTER an entire city had been razed to the ground. Japan was absolutely not going to surrender without a nuke being dropped.
The Japanese were attempting to negotiate surrender with the “neutral” USSR prior to the nuclear bombs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan The US wanted an unconditional surrender which included the destruction of the Japanese emperor, who at the time, was the head of the Japanese religion. To put this into perspective, consider the United States request similar to requesting the destruction of the Pope within the Vatican. Because of this, the Japanese were seeking better terms of surrender which did not involved the removal of their religious leader. What the Japanese did not know at the time was the USSR was not a neutral party, and they were secretly mobilizing their forces on mainland Asia due to an agreement Stalin made with FDR prior to the US entering the war in Europe.
The reality is, once Japan learned that the USSR was not neutral and they were going to be fighting the US and the USSR in a two front war, this is when the emperor forced Japan to surrender.
To put things into perspective, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were sadly, just another two cities leveled by the US. The US were performing night carpet bombing on Japanese cities as soon as 1944. Many of these raids leveled several square km of urban areas. https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=217. This is why people argue that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were probably not the catalyst to Japan’s surrender because the US have been leveling Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens, long before the two nuclear bombs were dropped. None of these raids caused Japan to surrender before.
Yikes 2 hours and 20 minutes. I’ll try to watch as much as I can today, but probably can’t get through the whole thing. Any high points I should watch?
Been a while since I watched it, like I said I’d recommend listening to it. Treat it like a podcast, for me the time flew by and I ended up listening to every video he has over the following weeks. 😂
I wasn’t planning on spending my morning watching a 2 and a half hour YouTube video, but here we are and that’s exactly what happened. That was a fascinating watch. I’d say for others that the TLDW is this:
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The narrative that the atomic bombs were dropped to prevent an invasion of Japan is false and was constructed afterwards as a plausible and easy to understand solution that allowed all parties (both the US and Japan) to come out looking good in the end.
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The reality of the situation was much more complicated. At the time, there was never a US plan to invade Japan.
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Japan was already thoroughly defeated militarily and was looking to negotiate a surrender. Japan was hoping that Russia would be useful to negotiate peace with the US.
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The US had previously asked Russia to enter the war, but then later realized it was not necessary to bring about an end to the war. The US actually realized having Russia involved would complicate the post-war logistics and would bolster Russia as a world super power. When sending terms of surrender to Japan, the US removed Russia as a signer of the terms, leaving Japan a false hope that Russia could still be used help them secure better terms.
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Russia informed the US that they would be declaring war with Japan on August 15. The US dropped the bombs on Japan a week earlier in hopes of accelerating Japan’s surrender before Russia entered the war.
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As a result, Russia declared war on Japan in the days between the bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan issued their surrender shortly afterwards. In all likelihood, dropping the bombs accelerated the surrender timeline by about a week. Though it could be argued that had Russia’s signature been kept on the surrender terms sent to Japan, it would have also ended the war earlier.
Isn’t he fantastic? His videos are so well-researched and well-written that I’d listen to his vaguely monotonous scouse voice talk about pretty much anything.
Yeah it really was a good watch. The length and minimal use of graphics at first were intimidating, but he still kept it interesting so it was easy to absorb.
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I highly recommend this video from Shaun on the matter. It’s long but you can listen to it instead of watching it and you won’t miss much. Excellent video on this subject that really put a lot of the propaganda around the bombing in a new light.
There is a book I liked about this, it is about Allied civilian bombing in WWII in general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Dead_Cities
It’s by the philosopher A.C. Grayling, needless to say ‘Responses were divided.’
It depends whether you think killing 200,000+ civilians is a defensible act.
300,000+ if you include the bombing of Tokyo.
Nobody knows how a conventional war would have played out. To assert civilian deaths would have been higher is pure speculation and a gross attempt to justify the slaughter of noncombatants.
Though it is likely that even without nukes, the US would have still razed these cities with conventional munitions, given the events in Tokyo.
My understanding is that even after Hiroshima, the Imperial Army attempted a coup to avoid surrender.
The Japanese were not stopping. The only alternative at hand was a full invasion, which would have killed many, many more.
There’s also the possibility that because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear weapons have never since been used. What would cold war been like in that case?
I’m not super well read on the subject, but is that not true? Or, if it is true, does it not matter?
The issue is that unconditional support of past American actions is no longer acceptable, and so all America’s past actions are being re-evaluated. This is good! However, this also often results in people simply taking the reverse position than the accepted one. This is bad.
The atomic bombings were less bloody than a blockade or an invasion would have been, and the people who claim the Soviet Union was going to successfully invade the home islands or that Japan was about to surrender under any terms that would have been considered reasonable, pinky-promise, are just misinformed or deluded.
My man, read the fucking room
That’s the scary part… If you have been following the Republican Party recently, you’ll realize that he is reading the room.
What’s his stance on puppy-murder?
Being a sociopath is apparently a positive trait for these sick fucks.
He’s staunchly against it.
Until Trump picks Noem as his VP, then he’ll tell you that it’s no big deal and it’s just simple farm livin’.
Dude is illiterate regardless of the room he’s in.
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So… he knows that… like… Israel would be in the blast radius and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv probably affected by a shit ton of radiation….
Its literally him
You assume that these guy know much about anything except corruption, graft, and drug fueled sex orgies.
At Farmers, they know a thing or two about drug fueled sex orgies.
Nevermind all the other obvious reasons this is terrible but I’m sure Egypt would have some objections to being blasted by a nearby nuke.
He knows that he’s not the one who’s going to be pushing the button, but that his rabid out-for-blood base won’t even think about that. He’s just throwing them meat.
“The left are the real violent racists! Anyway, we should nuke Gaza. Filthy animals.”
-Magamorons
You can’t be a racist if they’re not real humans!
Israel is rumored to have tactical nukes that are much smaller yield than the large ICBMs we hear about all the time. Super destructive force in only 1 or 2 km blast radius, which would even fit inside a small area like Gaza. Of course, in addtition to devastating Gaza, there would still be fallout and issues over Israel, and using them in this manner is definitely Not OK. However, I can believe that there are some deluded people in government (both in Israel and in the US) who would view that as acceptable.
Russia would immediately nuke them. It would be the end game for Israel. Hopefully they aren’t that stupid.
Russia wouldn’t get involved. Many of the Jewish Mafia reside in Israel and are essential to maintaining Putin’s power in the country. Russia in many ways would be more inclined to encourage Israel to use nukes to cause destabilization in US politics.
Maybe the cunt is waiting for suitable wind direction before nuking.
How fucking Christian of him. Jesus would be sooooo fucking proud.
That’s because he’s a performative Christian, or “Christian.” He doesn’t believe in anything unless it help him get ahead in life - just like most politicians and other moderate-to-high functioning psychopaths and sociopaths.
I mean, he’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole. By most historians accounts, Fat Man and Little Boy caused less death than an actual war with Japan would have.
They were also retaliatory strikes after a direct attack on an American base, at the tail end of a global conflict, and we just got a new toy. The bomb was basically telling Japan to fuck off with their bullshit, and it did a pretty good job of it.
That doesn’t make it the right answer, per se. Glassing the strip probably would net less death and destruction than continuing the genocide or especially allowing it to escalate more. I still have a hard time calling that “the good choice”
And what happens after the glass hardens? We all gonna be honky dory or is somebody else gonna star lobbing nukes?
Um, Actually, I would hardly call it settled or that most historians agree.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/debate-over-bomb-annotated-bibliography/
The senator continued to call the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the right decision” by the U.S. That decision ended the war with Japan, but killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians between the initial blasts and the deadly radiation that followed.
“Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose, and work with them to minimize casualties,” Graham insisted.
He didn’t directly suggest nuking Gaza, but he made multiple parallels between ending the war in Japan by using nukes and then basically says we should give bombs to Israel to finish the job without specifying what he means.
So while someone might argue black and white letter of what he said isn’t “nuke Gaza”, he’s still implying something along those lines - the quick finish and a method that can do it.
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When his male lover is revealed, it will be a glorious day.
It’ll never happen. He’s doing exactly what they want gay people to do, being “decently” quiet about it.
Lindsey is part of the swamp. He’s a Christian Zionist, a doomsday Christian. These types of Christians want to hasten the Day of Judgement. Pretty much they’re psychopaths thanks to the Scofield Reference Bible.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why, if you believe in Christian Mythology, even to the point of wanting Judgement Day to come during your lifetime, why you would personally take efforts that you know are going to end in mass civilian deaths.
Assuming you are right and Judgement Day is on the horizon, are you not damning yourself to the deepest pits of Hell by spending your time leading up to the Rapture ordering the slaughter of innocent people, rather than say glorifying and spreading the word of God?
I don’t believe in any of it, but if I did, I sure wouldn’t be advocating for mass-murder right before God shows up to judge me for the way I lived my life on Earth.
Number one rule of Christian Narcissism: That rule was written for the others. It doesn’t apply to me. I’m not doing anything wrong.
I agree with you 100%. In my belief, it is God who wills when Judgement Day comes. It is not the will of a human. Christians and Zionists together think they can some how bypass the will of God.
I’m getting a little tired of people using “Zionist” when they actually mean “Jew”. Jews don’t even have a “judgement day” or even the concept of Hell for that matter, so I quite frankly have no fucking clue what you think you are saying here…
If you have criticism of religion, go for it. If you have criticism of a nation, go for it. But one by one I keep watching people like you knock down the “criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitic” house of cards by making it clear you don’t see a difference between an Israel apologist and a Jew, and are just using the term “Zionists” as a placeholder for “Jews” so you can make weird blanket statements about Jews…
I wasn’t criticizing Jews exclusively. If I want to criticize a Jew or a group of Jews, I will. Idgaf quite frankly.
Judaism =/= Zionism. I’m criticizing the secular political ideology in which cherry picks from Judaism and incorporates it into it’s political ideology. Some of the things they cherry pick when it comes to human relations… is pretty fkin Nazi-like, who am I kidding… worst than Nazi’s treatment of their opposition. Reference the Talmud regarding gentiles.
Neturei Karta is the only Torah practicing Jews that I recognize as my brethren. Because they actually practice the teachings of the Torah. If you’re a “practicing Jew” in Israel… you’re doing it wrong. Not because I say so, because your Torah says so.
You are giving them way too much credit. Any combination of “god wants me to” with “God works in mysterious ways” and “the will of God is 100% infallibly and unerringly good” can justify pretty much any heinous act you can think of.
I bet they would be off the rails no matter of the literature choices
I can’t reinforce the idea enough that they believe god is eal and that they can trick a prophecy to being fulfilled by naming a british colony “Israel”.
The biblical Israel is long gone and the current Israel is obviously a different state; you can “fulfill the prophecies” the same way by naming your dog “the kingdom of Israel”
Couldn’t ask for a better positioning of titles.
This should disqualify him from ever holding office again. I know it won’t, but it should.
There’s really no reason to ever report on or pay attention to things Lindsay Graham says. He has no real values or stands of his own. He is a spineless jellyfish that goes with the tide wherever it allows him to keep the most power.
I have never seen any evidence of him ever voicing and sticking to an actual personal belief.
On the other hand, we should keep outing these Nazis whenever we can so that the decent part of society doesn’t collectively forget who punched down and who punched up.
Also, social consequences are IMPORTANT for fighting fascism. Making them feel unwelcome at every table, every party, every workplace, EVERYWHERE is a time-tested and actually fairly effective way to fight the spread of fascist thought. It won’t get rid of the most entrenched, the true believers - but it can help the knock-on effect of “hey maybe that guy has a real point”.
It’s not clear how low these people will truly go. The bottom fell out long ago and we are going to see these guys get a lot worse. There are no boundaries to guide them. They will continue to reach no lows time and time again. It’s infinite.
In case you’re wondering, these religious freaks believe that they can force Jesus to return by instigating WW3. So long as Israel is involved, they consider that to be fulfilling prophecy; and the nuclear, the better. I’m sure some of them even consider Trump to be the actual Antichrist, while as usual, most of them think it’s whoever the Democrats have in office.
its also stupid because old country of Israel is gone and making a new colony and calling Israel also isn’t fulfilling a prophecy - its cosplaying. Might as well call your dog “Israel” and say it fulfills the prophecy
Well, if they continue this way, we all may get to know Jesus together pretty soon
And this guy is considering sane compared to Trump.
But yes please don’t for Biden so that we see what nuclear genocide looks like I guess?
How’s the mental illness going Lindsey? oh ok.
Brain worms.
