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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (9024)	10/13/1998 4:36:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

jbe, re ....The debates in high-toned magazines like The Partisan Review over such questions as "Should We Save Western Civilization By Dropping the Atom Bomb?" (I am not making that up.) Why would anyone think that is so ludicrous, other than apparently civilians were playing at being military strategists? I wasn't around when U.S. military planners were occupied with WW II, but from my point of view, discussions about how best to end WW II would seem a lot more worthwhile and interesting than whether or not Clinton lied about sex, or lied to save himself from being convicted of a sexual harassment charge. I think in twenty years Clinton will be an distant memory, and people will only be marveling about how little Clinton cared for the place of honor he held as President. Oh he likes the perks and attention and the chance to push his brand of federalism, but other than that, he seems to mostly have occupied his time doing fundraisings, getting embroiled in one ethics scandal after another. Whether its serving expensive coffee to select WH visitors, to selling the Lincoln bedroom, to selling seats on Commerce Dept forays to foreign countries, Clinton's true knack seems to be inventing new ways to make his administration look unethical, self-centered, and sleazy. What a legacy. I'm just sad that Clinton has seemed so bent on recklessly squandering what the American voting process gave him. I'll remember this year of 1998 as the year that Clinton took a sabbatical to consult with his attorneys on how best to avoid looking like a cheap chump. And he still failed at that even. Back to WW II: Are you aware that Japan was well on its way to being wholly flattened before the atomic bombs were dropped? The US was using 100s of B-29s flying from a Superfortress base in the Marianas to drop firebombs (magnesium mixed with jellied gasoline) on the major metropolises and industrial centers. And yes, civilians were being hurt and killed and burned and left homeless. You ever wonder why it was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and not Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, or Kobe? The reason is because the last four cities I listed were already devastated by the terrible fire-bomb raids: For example, just after midnight of March 9-10, Tokyo was hit: 334 B-29s from Guam, Saipan, and Tinian on the most destructive single bombing mission ever recorded. It did more damage than even the dreadful atomic explosions that were to wipe out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have a picture in a book of one section of Tokyo in March 1945, just after the terrible firebomb raid, and it looks similar to what Hiroshima looked like very close to "ground zero" of where the atomic bomb hit. That March raid killed 97,000 people, wounded 125,000, and left 1,200,000 homeless. After Tokyo was Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka. In one ten-day blitz, the Superfortresses wholly flattened 32 square miles of Japan's four most important centers. So I guess I don't understand really why you would find it odd to see examples of the public discussing the questions of using the atomic bomb. Unless I'm simply getting the wrong idea of your comment, and/or am simply missing what you were pointing out.

To: jbe who wrote (9024)	10/13/1998 2:51:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

>>> Never could understand all that 50's nostalgia! How could anyone be nostalgic for that era? Yeah, in addition to all you say, there was the traditional Republican 2% growth rate. And I sure remember the stupid 'duck-and-cover' drills, where we would hide under our desks at school in the event of a nuclear war. Had a few childhood dreams off of that one. :-) Selective memory. Of course, there were some good things about the era - Jazz, Beat Art, and post-McCarthy times. Plus, it wasn't WWII, so people weren't getting killed in the tens of millions per year any more. That would have been a big relief. Technology was an optimistic thing then, too, with the advances in medicine, the new space program, the x-15, electronics. The new UN gave people hope in those days too, despite the cold war. And I recall the crime rate being low, although they always cooked the numbers on crime back then, big time. You couldn't easily get a rape reported, for instance - the cops would just say the girl 'asked for it.' So who knows about the crime rate. My youngest sister dated a guy who looked and dressed a lot like the Fonz. But I don't recall the Fonz having that switch blade and zip gun, popular accoutrements at the time for the leather jacket crowd. It was the heyday of segregation and the Mafia and the corrupt meanderings of figures like J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn. McCarthy and Korea and the beginnings of Vietnam. Ronny Reagan was busy selling the members from the entertainers union he bossed when he was a democrat to Cohn and McCarthy. The notion of free speech was truly subversive. Most of the speech on this board here would have earned these posters an interview with HUAC or the FBI. Even the supposed right wingers here. I remember the proud saying of my elders in those days if pushed: "Hey, damnit! I'm White, Male, and 21, so I can do what I please." And that was oh so true. Except if you were poor too. In that case you couldn't do what you pleased, but you could beat up anyone who wasn't in the category. Ah, good times, good times. :-\| Cheers, Chaz