Your opinion is unpopular, but I think you have a fair point. The area was a hotbed for the development of nuclear technology, with a huge portion of the town involved in the industry at one point. The cloud and other symbols of nuclear power used to be a symbol of strength and technology, especially during the Cold War. I think pointing out that using it to associate it with two specific bombs isn’t entirely fair, as there are lots of other references besides those two events.
BUT - that said - it is a bit archaic and, IMO, the logo is pretty meh. Like I suggested above an update may be in order. According to wiki, they recently adopted “Archie”, a B-17 Ball Turret Gunner as their mascot. Put him on there. Or put Archie on a bomb. Or use a B-17. There are like a half dozen more creative images I have in my head than what they currently have.
Though I will say that if a foreigner found something culturally insensitive in Japan, most of them would politely tell you to pound sand. They don’t have much interest in outsiders’ opinions.
(The rest not a direct reply)
As for the what-about-ism… eh I feel you, I really do. Japan not only participated in war crimes that rivaled the Nazis, they have been largely unapologetic about it, and there are active forces in action to deny things like the Nanjing Massacre. Due to the later US occupation and reformation of their government, and the close ties we have with trade, and how Japanese pop culture has been fully embraced by so many in the US, we largely don’t have the cultural memory of how awful it was in WWII, like we seem to do with the Nazis still.
That said, we have to let the issue stand on its own merits. The lady wasn’t involved with WWII and I am just going to assume while maybe she hasn’t been taught the full story about WWII, she isn’t actively one of those trying to rewrite history. So her feelings on the matter are valid and I think one has try to work on ones’ argument from that perspective. I mean, in all fairness, pretty much none of the local students know WHY the cloud is awesome - it just “is”. That isn’t a good defense. If one of them had said, “It has a lot of cultural significance to this community. My grandfather worked at the plant that was developing nuclear power during the Cold War in our race to out class the Soviets.” or something like that, would at least put the historical reason for the mascot into perspective.
So that we have clarity on the matter, when I said: “posts with an ‘evil America’ theme” I was referring to exactly the same posts as you were referring to when you were talking about “you folks” “espous[ing] how evil the Americans are”. I guess I thought that was going to be obvious since I was replying to the quotation above. I’m sorry for making that assumption.
Years ago a friend of mine was working on a short story that involved the Cleveland Browns changing their name to something more “tough” sounding, and when they started to win games other teams followed suit, until there were football teams like “The Michigan Murderers” and “The Arizona Apocalypse.”
I really don’t think anyone should be proudly rooting for “The Apocalypse.”
I attended East Rochester High in the mid 70’s, and they were (and may still be) called the Bombers. But we had a B-52 outline for a mascot, not a nuclear explosion.
Yes, the number is accurate. You are making the mistake of quoting estimates from before the end of the war, before we knew the true Japanese disposition. JWPC was unwilling to go to Truman with the numbers they were being given, and downplayed them. The JWPC’s estimate was on the far low end, far lower than 6th Army expected from Kyushu alone, the first major island to be invaded. And we underestimated the effective troops on Kyushu by almost 150%. After the war, it was found that the US’ SIGINT picture was resulting in us consistently underestimating the number of troops we had facing us.
Lastly, the estimate Stimson used came from Shockley, who had no real experience and was mostly guessing. He failed to properly consider the fact that these were the home islands, and the fanaticism with which the Japanese would fight. Personally, I also wonder what the effectiveness of our vets from Europe would be, and their morale.
In other words, I’m using the best estimates they actually had at the time to evaluate the actual choices with which they were presented. And yes, the 46,000 seems shockingly low and not realistic, which is why Stimpson had his own estimates.
Which was shaded by the desire to paint as dire a picture as possible because they felt the need to justify the bombs. Understandable, but these were not the numbers with which Truman et al were actually considering.
Again, I agree that the decision ultimately saved an untold number of lives, but I don’t agree that bootstrapping the estimates is any more intellectually honest than the arguments that ignore the estimates they don’t like.
There would certainly be more discussion about the merits of the point if it was made more respectfully. Dismissing everyone else’s perspective is not a good way to make a point.
Was there any major actor in WWII that didn’t do something outrageously terrible during the war? I can’t think of any. As you say, we can pressure Japan to acknowledge and atone, if necessary, for the actions of their government while also having more respect for the tragedies faced by their people.
My distance from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is 14 years, not 75. My dad was serving in the South Pacific on Tinian in 1945 and I was born in 1959. Please do not generalize.
I agree that arguing one’s point poorly and aggressively damages their argument. Which is why I felt the need to echo some his points, but try to present it with what is hopefully perceived as a calmer tone. And I try to acknowledge more than one view.
I mean I TRY to do that in many conversations here. I don’t feel like that is always reciprocated. IMO there would be some less conflict if people at least acknowledge the merits of a different viewpoint, even if they don’t complete agree with it. Then again maybe that is because I often don’t see issue as black or white.
No, their SIGINT picture was wrong. They thought they were facing LESS troops than they really were. Because there were actually MORE troops than were thought, they weren’t painting a more dire picture, but LESS.
