14-07-2012, 03:24 AM
LR Trotter Wrote:Ms Edisen,
Your posts in this thread is a reflection of history as I understand it as it pertains to the '50s and '60s. I was a teenager in HS when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, and I remember it well. The '50s I remember quite well also. But, I'm afraid I don't understand the "idiots" comment or the "duck and cover shit" comment. And, please excuse my language. You mentioned the bombing and destruction of Japan in '45 at the end of WWII. Add Korea and the Cuba situation, along with Indo-China/Vietnam and wonder how it all would end. I do believe we did understand the potential for mass destruction, no matter who "fired first". While living normal lives, we did so with concern, not hysteria.
:nosmilie:
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I can't understand the comments by others you mentioned either.
The problem was that the American people and the Russian people, and all other peoples of the world, did not want wars. This is also true today - the common people do not wish for war. But, certain elements, a certain small fraction of the population who own most of the wealth of their own country and who control the government and hold key positions in it, and who would profit greatly, personally, from expansion of their economic interests onto the rest of the world, seek to do it by using force with no regard for the lives of humans, including those in their own military sent into foreign lands on their behalf.
The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had no real military purpose. It was to show the rest of the world that the United States had the power to destroy which no other nation at that time possessed. It sent a message to capitalism's "enemy", the Soviet Union, a socialist economy, our ally during the war, and to smaller nations as well. That is why there was no prior threat made to Japan and its citizens before the bombs were dropped. It was a "first strike" of the worst kind that Kennedy did not wish to repeat during his administration, and why he fought so hard against his own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adele