UW 3>s Peace / Alternatives are Unworthy (Remembering Nagasaki)

Peace. Try > Be > Do. Alternatives not worthy.

UW <3s Peace

Remembering “all“ (I mean *all*) victims of war. It’s not worth it, let’s talk/respect/listen/find another way.

Fck hubris, imperialism, fascism, totalitarianism, feudalism, false divinity, insecure bullies, tyrants, despots, inherited monarchy plus liars, dictators & deceit in general.

I live up road from Hiroshima (bomb coulda been here instead) & visited (wonderful) Nagasaki in Feb (early C19 daze) > hard to go to those places without understanding the horrific costs, as well as the resilience of recovery in the horrendous aftermath.

Worth noting I also went to Tinian where Enola Gay took off, lived in Guam and landed on the runway on Peleliu Palau (Bloody Nose Ridge). Explored all the points of view by reading dozens of historical accounts, every documentary can find, fictional movies, historical podcasts.

Everywhere I think of the ridiculous cost of humans and opportunity and resources and endless heartbreak resulting from conceit, imperialism and hubris.

We ask the wrong questions & the results are horrid for so many, beyond “they did so we should…”

For more about how Japan tangled itself all up in a mess, listen to “Dan Carlin‘s Hardcore history“ podcast fantastic series “supernova in the east” each segment about 4 hours(!) but he’s a great storyteller and unpacks in great detail while not getting overtly “political“.

More rabbit holes (my pardons for lack of a proper copy edit / just annotations, notes etc via a various sources) re: war in Pacific + characters, forgotten-ish storylines, further reading…

Also, on various Netflix (or use VPN to skip around country), series called “Tokyo Trail” a joint Japanese /Dutch production going into war crimes trials in Japan… Judges from all the different Allied countries, trial stretched on for seemingly forever, endless conundrums

Yet another Netflix somewhere, a movie called “Yamamoto” something something, Japanese production telling story of Navy Admiral who was (mostly) against *trying* to attack the US but was put in charge nevertheless… Explores tension between Army’s aggressive goals and gluttony

Hard to get my head around how people can be so decent and kind in these times, yet 2 generations before were ruthless killers / turns out it just takes a few maniacs in power, rhetoric, brainwashing about exceptionalism + public pressure to send culture off rails

John Hershey’s long form essay in the New Yorker about Hiroshima is an absolutely fantastic piece of writing about most dreadful of topics. Thinking about #Hiroshima and #Nagasaki so much / as well all the cities that “might have have been” / so many broken dreams and lies #peace.

Another riff with with several more deep tome historical readings about war in the Pacific, breaking it down “play-by-play“ day by day, hour by hour in some cases. Post includes digressions, annotations & asides, read anyhow ;)