Happy Pearl Harbor Day
I recently watched a documentary about how FDR and the U.S. gov't knew about Pearl Harbor and purposely let it happen. An interesting thing : there's an actual communication from FDR to some army guy saying specifically to let the Japanese attack if they want, that the U.S. wanted the first overt attack to be theirs. And if you think about it, that's reasonable... somebody wants to kill you, let him make the first move. You can still have your war but at least you didn't start it. But then I thought : well, fuck, why not at least give the poor bastards sleeping in on Sunday, Dec. 7 an hour or two advanced warning, so they could get into their damn planes?
Of course, this was the real point behind not telling anyone at all. Think about the galvanizing aspect of the timing... the Japanese suddenly became cringing, cowardly devil-nippers who couldn't stand up to their enemy like real men and instead, jumped out from the shadows when G.I. Joe was at his most vulnerable (and on God's Day, no less). Jesus, if you're looking to motivate your population, you can't buy press like that! If you want to get into a world war, whether to jump start an economy ravaged by the Depression, or because you honestly believe Hitler is a very real global threat, or maybe both, you have to do everything in your power to convince the Great Unwashed that Armageddon® is unfolding and they damn well better get themselves on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way, and right quick!! (And keep in mind that at the time, 70%-80% of the American public was absolutely opposed to any involvement in the war).
So, vroom ahead to Sept. 2001. The U.S. has no easily recognizable enemy anymore. There's no country in the world louder, ruder or more aggressive, not to mention richer, than the U.S.; they're everyone else's enemy and are more like a big dog who just wags his tail when the little dogs are yapping at them than anything else. But they still have bills to pay and they have to get a real war going. The money river has turned into a damn piss-stream and it's getting harder and harder to sell anything with a 15,000% markup to anybody. Plus alot of the Big-R Republican senators are up for their 337th term in office; they won't last forever which means elections which means the possibility of a shift in the balance of power. What would really help is another Pearl Harbor but if there's no enemy, they just can't wait until someone decides to attack... and if they did, what if the attackers fucked it up? What if they drove a plane into the Hudson River by mistake? Anyway, connect the dots.
No, 9/11 wasn't another Pearl Harbor. What happened at Pearl Harbor was large-scale mercy killing compared to what the fucking animals in charge today have done, and will undoubtedly do in the future.
So raise a glass and toast a bygone era when an American presidential administration allowed thousands of its citizens to be killed for political purposes, but at least had the decency to feel bad about it.
- g-spot -
Of course, this was the real point behind not telling anyone at all. Think about the galvanizing aspect of the timing... the Japanese suddenly became cringing, cowardly devil-nippers who couldn't stand up to their enemy like real men and instead, jumped out from the shadows when G.I. Joe was at his most vulnerable (and on God's Day, no less). Jesus, if you're looking to motivate your population, you can't buy press like that! If you want to get into a world war, whether to jump start an economy ravaged by the Depression, or because you honestly believe Hitler is a very real global threat, or maybe both, you have to do everything in your power to convince the Great Unwashed that Armageddon® is unfolding and they damn well better get themselves on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way, and right quick!! (And keep in mind that at the time, 70%-80% of the American public was absolutely opposed to any involvement in the war).
So, vroom ahead to Sept. 2001. The U.S. has no easily recognizable enemy anymore. There's no country in the world louder, ruder or more aggressive, not to mention richer, than the U.S.; they're everyone else's enemy and are more like a big dog who just wags his tail when the little dogs are yapping at them than anything else. But they still have bills to pay and they have to get a real war going. The money river has turned into a damn piss-stream and it's getting harder and harder to sell anything with a 15,000% markup to anybody. Plus alot of the Big-R Republican senators are up for their 337th term in office; they won't last forever which means elections which means the possibility of a shift in the balance of power. What would really help is another Pearl Harbor but if there's no enemy, they just can't wait until someone decides to attack... and if they did, what if the attackers fucked it up? What if they drove a plane into the Hudson River by mistake? Anyway, connect the dots.
No, 9/11 wasn't another Pearl Harbor. What happened at Pearl Harbor was large-scale mercy killing compared to what the fucking animals in charge today have done, and will undoubtedly do in the future.
So raise a glass and toast a bygone era when an American presidential administration allowed thousands of its citizens to be killed for political purposes, but at least had the decency to feel bad about it.
- g-spot -
posted by peeler at 6:47 AM
