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Truman Lied, Hiroshima Fried: An Atomic Transfiguration

Truman Lied, Hiroshima Fried: An Atomic Transfiguration

Last updated on: August 6, 2016 at 11:53 pm by Artur Rosman

Truman Lied, Hiroshima Fried: An Atomic Transfiguration 2016-08-06T23:53:09-07:00 Artur Rosman

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(Atomic Bombing of Japan, images combined by Binksternet; Source: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

(Atomic Bombing of Japan, PD-US-Gov-Mil images combined by Binksternet; Source: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The bombings were a calculated BBQ of human flesh to terrorize Stalin whose powers were continually grossly overestimated throughout the Cold War.

It was terrorism.

It was, as terrorism frequently is, for naught. The Cold War is over, but Russia remains one of America’s chief enemies. Fighting for peace makes no sense.

What the bombings did accomplish was a work of nothingness, the massive expansion of modern warfare against civilian populations, which is the obverse of modern-day Jihadist terrorism. The latter seems mild in comparison.

The Christian answer to all this meaningless suffering is more suffering, willingness to suffer for one’s enemy even until death.

The strange Christian logic is that it is infinitely better to be a scapegoat (see especially Rene Girard’s work on this topic), and this will happen almost certainly given the reality of Original Sin, because life does not end with this world, however, and this is important, such sacrifice will also make this world better.

Christ was resurrected on the third day. Three days after Hiroshima Truman thought it was a good idea for America to bomb Nagasaki.

Not as the world gives (in Dorothy Day’s version):

Mr, Truman was jubilant. President Truman. True man; what a strange name, come to think of it. We refer to Jesus Christ as true God and true Man. Truman is a true man of his time in that he was jubilant. He was not a son of God, brother of Christ, brother of the Japanese, jubilating as he did. He went from table to table on the cruiser which was bringing him home from the Big Three conference, telling the great news; “jubilant” the newspapers said. Jubilate Deo. We have killed 318,000 Japanese.

That is, we hope we have killed them, the Associated Press, on page one, column one of the Herald Tribune, says. The effect is hoped for, not known. It is to be hoped they are vaporized, our Japanese brothers – scattered, men, women and babies, to the four winds, over the seven seas. Perhaps we will breathe their dust into our nostrils, feel them in the fog of New York on our faces, feel them in the rain on the hills of Easton.

Jubilate Deo. President Truman was jubilant. We have created. We have created destruction. We have created a new element, called Pluto. Nature had nothing to do with it.

You should also read Obama Used Original Sin to Explain Hiroshima.

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