"Zeitgeist"...The Biggest WTF I've Had in a Long Time

[ajzepp]

Thanks, guys....I really appreciate the responses here...these topics are very interesting to me, and I enjoy reading what you have to say about them.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

People always underestimate the simple role of friction (of any kind, including bureaucratic) in everyday systems. Large, complex systems - which describes most of our government - simply can't be that reactive when an unplanned event happens.

 

Like the aftermath of Katrina?

 

This is what I've tried to explain to Bush-bashers. To send a division of ACTIVE DUTY soldiers anywhere will take the better part of a couple weeks. Trying to gather the rabble of the National Guard together and get them organized and effective will take a lot longer.

[GoodBye]

I only watched the first part about Christianity. Wow, yeah, that had me WTFing too. Will it make me change my mind about my beliefs (raised Catholic)..not sure. But it sure gets ya thinking though.

[DC Tom]

Like the aftermath of Katrina?

 

This is what I've tried to explain to Bush-bashers. To send a division of ACTIVE DUTY soldiers anywhere will take the better part of a couple weeks. Trying to gather the rabble of the National Guard together and get them organized and effective will take a lot longer.

 

Every time I've tried to explain that, the response has been "Well, the should have deployed them to New Orleans BEFORE the storm then."

 

Yeah...there's a name for people who stick around in a major disaster zone. They're called "victims".

[DC Tom]

Wasn't sure I wanted to start a new thread on this, but then I remembered the PPP forum and figured this would be a great place to talk about it.

 

Pete, of TBD fame, posted in the 9/11 thread we currently have on Off the Wall and mentioned this film called "Zeitgeist". He didn't go into it much, but he mentioned it was available for viewing online for free. Well, since I was already in "conspiracy mode" with all this 9/11 stuff, I went ahead and found the site so that I could give this program a look. Well, I can't remember ever watching (or reading, etc) anything that shook my foundation on so many fronts. The 9/11 stuff was only part of it. I'm talking everything from Christianity, to income taxes, to the World Wars, to our borders and sovereignty, and on and on and on.

 

I just finished watching it about ten minutes before I began this post, and I'm sitting here feeling a huge WTF in my stomach. It almost made me feel as if life as I know it is a total farce...like I'm in the damn Matrix or something. Have any of you guys seen this? I've seen conspiracy type stuff before, but I've never been left feeling quite like this.

 

Here's the link in case anyone wants to watch it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197#

 

By the way...that video is almost completely made up. All that "solar messiah" crap is just that - crap.

 

Edit: so wildly untrue it's actually funny!

[KD in CA]

I suspect that's a misunderstanding of a NORAD policy to have an intercept "wheels-up" within ten minutes of request.

 

That would at least make sense. And even then, as we saw on 9-11 the closest planes to NYC were on Cape Cod. And even if those guys had made it there ahead of the 2d plane, there was no shoot order and none was forthcoming once the plane got anywhere near the city.

[GG]

That would at least make sense. And even then, as we saw on 9-11 the closest planes to NYC were on Cape Cod. And even if those guys had made it there ahead of the 2d plane, there was no shoot order and none was forthcoming once the plane got anywhere near the city.

 

Doesn't matter since the planes never hit the towers.

[Magox]

Doesn't matter since the planes never hit the towers.

I blame it on Global Warming.

[Adam]

I HAVE been saying it with 9/11.

 

Part of the reason bull **** like "Zeitgeist" looks so reasonable is that it's from a strictly limited perspective. What are watershed moments to us may not be to the other guy. Pearl Harbor was more or less a sideshow to the Japanese, intended to cover the flank of their moves into the Philippines, Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies. Their real watershed moment was the surrender of Singapore.

 

And I should add that the Lusitania is a particularly stupid example to use, considering it was the Zimmerman Telegram that prompted US entry into World War 1.

Talking about Pearl Harbor, it astounds me to this day, that many people I talk to consider the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be great, and the reasoning for doing it was because the Japanese deserved it.

 

Whether or not anyone believes that it was necessary is beside the point, I won't get into that debate- it was horrific and the loss of life was terrible.

[Alaska Darin]

Talking about Pearl Harbor, it astounds me to this day, that many people I talk to consider the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be great, and the reasoning for doing it was because the Japanese deserved it.

 

Whether or not anyone believes that it was necessary is beside the point, I won't get into that debate- it was horrific and the loss of life was terrible.

It would have been far worse had the U.S./Allies invaded Japan.

[DC Tom]

Talking about Pearl Harbor, it astounds me to this day, that many people I talk to consider the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be great, and the reasoning for doing it was because the Japanese deserved it.

 

Whether or not anyone believes that it was necessary is beside the point, I won't get into that debate- it was horrific and the loss of life was terrible.

 

Generally, war is never great, and people rarely deserve it (save the handful of people on either side that actually start it).

 

What bugs me is the persistent belief that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were somehow more horrific than the war otherwise was, simply because we used "magic bombs" (okay, "atomic bombs" - for most people, the distinction between "atomic" and "magic" is completely nonexistent). The results of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are not materially different than in Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim, Tokyo, or Stalingrad, to name a few.

[Nanker]

To me the absolute tragedy of WWII was that the bombs weren't dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at 8:20 AM Hawaiian time on December 7th, 1941.

[ajzepp]

By the way...that video is almost completely made up. All that "solar messiah" crap is just that - crap.

 

Edit: so wildly untrue it's actually funny!

 

 

I definitely feel better about that part, and what you just said is consistent with what actual scholars seem to be saying about the issue....along with the "Jesus Family Tomb" thing that I watched the other day lmao

 

I have too much time on my hands...can't wait to get back to work on Monday

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

Here's a question I have about the dropping of the bombs on Japan...maybe one of the true history buffs here can answer...

 

Couldn't we have first dropped an atomic bomb on a more remote rural area of Japan, instead of a city? Wouldn't that have demonstrated the power of the weapon AND our willingness to use it without the loss of so much civilian life?

 

I mean, I assume Japan's motivation to surrender wasn't so much the loss of life as much as the fear that we had 1,000 more atomic bombs and weren't afraid to use them.

[DC Tom]

Here's a question I have about the dropping of the bombs on Japan...maybe one of the true history buffs here can answer...

 

Couldn't we have first dropped an atomic bomb on a more remote rural area of Japan, instead of a city? Wouldn't that have demonstrated the power of the weapon AND our willingness to use it without the loss of so much civilian life?

 

I mean, I assume Japan's motivation to surrender wasn't so much the loss of life as much as the fear that we had 1,000 more atomic bombs and weren't afraid to use them.

 

It was considered. I forget off the top of my head why it was decided not to, but my point of view is that it would have been unrealistic for several reasons:

 

1) You fight a war to win as quickly as possibly (in fact, that's pretty much the only way to minimize casualties). Generally, demonstrating weapons and then threatening to use them is not congruent with that.

 

2) Japanese leadership was culturally attuned to suicidal last stands regardless of odds (witness the naval battle of Leyte Gulf, or Yamato's last cruise), and perceived the US as weak and unwilling to fight (and hinged their entire war strategy on that perception). I'd lay long odds that a simple demonstration use of it would have just encouraged the Japanese leadership. Hell, even after Nagasaki it took direct and unprecedented intervention by Hirohito to get the government to back down - and even then, they tried to stage a coup and depose the Emperor so they could keep fighting.

 

3) As I said before, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't all that unprecedented in the scale of damage. The Tokyo firebombing did far more damage than either of the nuclear bombs and left the Japanese leadership largely unfazed; there's little reason to think a demonstration of a nuclear bomb would have influenced them with any significance (and in fact, there's a good argument to be made that it was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, not the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that prompted the Japanese surrender).

 

4) Atomic bombs were expensive as hell. The Manhattan Project was the second-most expensive single wartime program of WWII, and far and away the most expensive on a cost-per-weapon basis. (The most expensive was the B-29 program, at $3B dollars, or about $1M a plane. The Manhattan Project cost $2B...for three weapons, or about $700M a bomb). And there were only two bombs available (with the possibility of having a third by the end of 1945). A "Hey, look what we can do...for $700M a shot, and only once more this year" demonstration is not exactly a practical wartime use of military resources.

 

5) Related to 4, there was a lot of careful planning and consideration that went into not wasting the bombs. Not just establishing maximum impact of their use, but ensuring as low a risk as possible. In particular, strategic bombing was for the most part egregiously inaccurate (high-altitude bombing of Japan was roughly as accurate as early British bombing of Germany - getting the bombs with in two miles of the intended aim point was generally doing a good job). So not only was it entirely possible to completely miss a small town, but significant consideration was given to identifying cities that could be effectively aimed at. The Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima was very recognizable and hence an excellent aim point, for example. Kokura (the primary target for the second mission, which to Nagasaki's grief was clouded over) and Nagasaki had very easily identifiable waterfronts for aiming purposes. There's not a lot of hick "Podunkasaki" villages that you could reasonably expect to hit, particularly with a single bomb.

 

6) Related to 4 again, there was pressure to have a military effect from the bombs, not just a psychological one. Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki were all major ports, major transport hubs, and major industrial centers for Japan. While the argument can be made that "Japanese industrial center" was by 1945 an oxymoron, it can really only be made in hindsight.

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

It was considered. I forget off the top of my head why it was decided not to, but my point of view is that it would have been unrealistic for several reasons:

 

1) You fight a war to win as quickly as possibly (in fact, that's pretty much the only way to minimize casualties). Generally, demonstrating weapons and then threatening to use them is not congruent with that.

 

2) Japanese leadership was culturally attuned to suicidal last stands regardless of odds (witness the naval battle of Leyte Gulf, or Yamato's last cruise), and perceived the US as weak and unwilling to fight (and hinged their entire war strategy on that perception). I'd lay long odds that a simple demonstration use of it would have just encouraged the Japanese leadership. Hell, even after Nagasaki it took direct and unprecedented intervention by Hirohito to get the government to back down - and even then, they tried to stage a coup and depose the Emperor so they could keep fighting.

 

3) As I said before, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't all that unprecedented in the scale of damage. The Tokyo firebombing did far more damage than either of the nuclear bombs and left the Japanese leadership largely unfazed; there's little reason to think a demonstration of a nuclear bomb would have influenced them with any significance (and in fact, there's a good argument to be made that it was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, not the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that prompted the Japanese surrender).

 

4) Atomic bombs were expensive as hell. The Manhattan Project was the second-most expensive single wartime program of WWII, and far and away the most expensive on a cost-per-weapon basis. (The most expensive was the B-29 program, at $3B dollars, or about $1M a plane. The Manhattan Project cost $2B...for three weapons, or about $700M a bomb). And there were only two bombs available (with the possibility of having a third by the end of 1945). A "Hey, look what we can do...for $700M a shot, and only once more this year" demonstration is not exactly a practical wartime use of military resources.

 

5) Related to 4, there was a lot of careful planning and consideration that went into not wasting the bombs. Not just establishing maximum impact of their use, but ensuring as low a risk as possible. In particular, strategic bombing was for the most part egregiously inaccurate (high-altitude bombing of Japan was roughly as accurate as early British bombing of Germany - getting the bombs with in two miles of the intended aim point was generally doing a good job). So not only was it entirely possible to completely miss a small town, but significant consideration was given to identifying cities that could be effectively aimed at. The Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima was very recognizable and hence an excellent aim point, for example. Kokura (the primary target for the second mission, which to Nagasaki's grief was clouded over) and Nagasaki had very easily identifiable waterfronts for aiming purposes. There's not a lot of hick "Podunkasaki" villages that you could reasonably expect to hit, particularly with a single bomb.

 

6) Related to 4 again, there was pressure to have a military effect from the bombs, not just a psychological one. Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki were all major ports, major transport hubs, and major industrial centers for Japan. While the argument can be made that "Japanese industrial center" was by 1945 an oxymoron, it can really only be made in hindsight.

 

Wow, more info than I expected. Thanks, Tom.

 

Podunkasaki

[DC Tom]

Wow, more info than I expected. Thanks, Tom.

 

Podunkasaki

 

I cut it short, too, because I got sick of typing.

 

Like Joe said above: I am the man. I really don't know why I don't just get it over with and get a degree in history already.

[Adam]

To me the absolute tragedy of WWII was that the bombs weren't dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at 8:20 AM Hawaiian time on December 7th, 1941.

No, the tragedy of WWII is that the entire world dropped the ball, making the war happen at all. War is stupid, but that's because people are stupid too.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

No, the tragedy of WWII is that the entire world dropped the ball AT VERSAILLES making the war happen at all. War is stupid, but that's because people are stupid too.

 

Had the allies defeated Germany instead of accepting armistice, WWII would hot have happened.

[Adam]

Had the allies defeated Germany instead of accepting armistice, WWII would hot have happened.

Well said, but I doubt you disagree that war is stupid actions initiated by stupid people.