mono and war
Already : Hatachi Archives
mono and war Sunday March 23
cara got mono. and strep. and i think that i'm next, but i think that such a thing would be perfectly timed given that it is spring break. however, it has been almost a week since she fell ill, and i still have no symptoms. i have a head cold, but that's totally independent of mono symptoms.
other than that, there's a lot of things on my mind, and it is wrong of me not to have collected thoughts here sooner.
regan, reva, and i went to merry ann's diner last thursday night for coffee and food. i was trying to make up for the worst cup of coffee i've ever had™, i ordered some mighty-fine chili, french fries (i mean, uh, freedom fries), and some so-so coffee. merry ann's usually does better, but i'll take what i can get in this time of strife and war. one must learn to make sacrifices for the country, and i am sure that the good coffee beans of the world are supporting our troops. i should be so selfish to think that i deserve good coffee while our boys are out in the name of freedom.
man, i thought i was going to do better than that. i thought it would take me at least a page or so to get into it about the war.
i disapprove of war.
i think that that perspective is tired, though. you've heard the liberal college student approach before. you don't want to hear it, so i'll put a new twist on it. you might even learn something, as i did at this fine institution.
currently i am enrolled in ealc 328, which is called "japan at war and peace", and it is taught by professor david goodman of the ealc department. in this class, we have covered japanese history as it pertains to world war ii. no, we don't talk about how many planes were bombing pearl harbor, and no, we don't cover "key battles" like okinawa or anything like that -- this isn't a class for war nuts. it's a class about why world war ii played out the way it did in the pacific, and how japan has recreated the war after the fact in attempts to hide its truths. i'm reading a fictional book at the moment about a man who was in hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing, but my interest in this post is on japan, not the united states.
japan was "invaded" by westerners in the mid-nineteenth century. for literally ages, it was a closed-off nation, one that did not exist as a "nation" in terms of the world solely because as an island, no one knew about it, and no one left the island (save china). however, the west started coming in, and it was clear to japan that if it didn't do something fast, people were going to start carving up the island for other nations (reference the native americans and western explorers).
so then this emperor meiji gets into power, and he essentially starts setting up a government to re-create japan. at first, the japanese mass-imported western styles, literature, and ideas. then, after the japanese had a grip on their country, they decided that although the west had been key in their societal development, that they had reached the top of the plateau. they applauded themselves for being able to climb as a civilization in only fifty years, and they applauded that they had warred with china in 1895, russia in 1905, and won both.
they then proverbially extended their middle finger to other nations and said, "yeah, what's up? we're a real country now, so don't try and step to us unless you want to have your kneecaps busted in." they took to western imperialism well, and it wasn't before long before the japanese military presence in shanghai and china was quite large -- cue the chinese communist revolution -- and then you've got a "westernized" nation who's losing out with the inability to continue to make money off of china.
japan felt, via their skirmish with china around 1900, though, that they were superior to china. in fact, they (the leaders, at least) felt they were superior to asia, and they felt that they were the west's gateway to the orient. if they acted in this fashion, they'd be in a great position of economic, military, and political power in the west in acting as a broker to the east.
japan, circa 1939: a country that has been building up strength for years. a country that had recent military success (they began invading china in the late 30s). a country whose recent military action succeeded so quickly that they moved on to other countries, proclaiming the entire way that they were the natural leaders of the pacific rim. they were taking that position because they "owned" it, e.g., japan had developed such power, and none of the others in asia had, so didn't that mean that they were the natural leaders? didn't that mean the yamato race was superior in thought, engineering, and politics? economics? japan, as a homogenous population, was patriotic. japan occupied most of the pacific rim by 1941. they then proceeded east to hawaii, and we know where that went. but we need not get into the japanese leaders' thought-pattern flaws in this post. essentially, they did not know how to lose because losing meant that everything that had thought, or at least, been told to think, was wrong. losing the war meant invalidating everything, and since they had always been successful before, there were no doubts about the war almost right up until the end. sure, the military leaders knew -- but they kept waiting for a key victory as a means to negotiate a conditional surrender with the united states. if they surrendered conditionally, they'd probably get to keep asia, and then they could have gotten seven armies on their next turn they'd still have "won".
the united states, present day: we are a country who had phenomenal military success in iraq in 1991, a country who relies on a key natural resource from the country it is provoking militarily, a country whose leaders believe that they are right in this action, and a country who believes that it is their natural job to police the rest of the world. if, for any reason, a country does not abide by america's ways, however, the country will invade them and oust their leader. they will then install a government that is friendly to america. but isn't american capitalism, freedom, and diversity the natural way? isn't it the best way? look at our success with it: we are the most advanced nation in the world economically and militarily, and how did we get that way? doesn't that mean that we know best? it's not by chance: it is because we know our stuff. our freedom makes us strong.
if we became the defeated nation, should i be surprised when it is us who will refuse to surrender, who will die for the freedom we so believe in? i may have the freedom to say this piece here, and i may have the freedom to march down the street in protest-- but my protests will do nothing to pull the hundreds of thousands (millions?) away from their boob-tubes, sucking up every syllable that cnn deems worthy.
the rhetoric of freedom is one that is used to control almost as much as it is to provoke patriotism, and i think that while our nation is great, we are not the natural best. we should mind our own problems. (how much money is being spent on war? why is the university operating on an unexpected 8 percent budget cut?)
we are too proud to accept that even we could be defeated. even in the face of defeat, when the country is cranking out propoganda to keep the war machine running to defend our great freedom, will it take only one nuclear weapon? or will it take two, as it did in japan, to finally allow us to realize that worldly imperialism is dead, and that the nathan playing risk empires only suffer the consequences of other nations' alliances to reduce the strength of the "on top" powerhouse?
who is to say that america itself could not be defeated against an alliance of nations who felt that we were their common evil? but truly, the first-world countries of the world would never turn against us, would they? someone get france, russia, and germany on the line.
