Salmon Sheets

Here's an example of how I think perceptions have changed:

The way I see it, I want some side to win. Any side. Whatever the ouctome is, I want someone soundly defeated, to the degree that what's happening now can not happen again. I want the rules of the game changed. Either Israel wins and Hezbollah is destoryed, or Israel loses and Hezbollah wins. I don't want some peace negotiations and pussy footing and bullshit where nothing gets resolved and the mentalities stay the same. Basically, either the arabs win this or they should just shut the fuck up forever. If this doesn;t happen, if some side doesn't rule supreme, this will just go on for years and years to come. And honestly, I am fuckin bored with it. I know the lebanese are bored with it and the Israelis are bored with it. The only people that are not bored with it are the freakin Shia of Lebanon and the Hamastanis, but then again, they live for this shit. What else do they have to live for really?

In reality, there are a large number of people in the Middle East whose livelihoods depend on a perpetual low-level war. But things have changed. Hizb'allah now has bigger weapons, missles that go farther, and this is only going to continue to get worse if left alone. Jumping to the south, imagine if Gaza was a prosperous resort community with some light manufacturing industry, some boutique agriculture, and no rabid hatred of Israel. These people have a big chunk of oceanfront land with some of the best weather in the world. The Israelis walked away and what do they do? Fire missles over the wall at them. Hizb'allah, Hamas, they're all the same: they all feed off of death. They're like professional sports teams whose game is killing. Imagine if the primitive screwheads that feed off of war in Lebanon, Syria, and the area in general actually had something productive to do. Based on my reading of Middle Eastern bloggers and people from outside visiting there, it seems like an increasing number of people are tired of all the self-defeating crap going on. It's the worst sort of tragedy of the commons: with a small number of professional terrorists making a living by making the whole place one big shithole.



In my opinion: World War III was the Cold War. World War IV began while WWIII was still in progress. Although it's difficult to say exactly when, a reasonable answer would be when Iran kidnapped 52 US diplomats and held them hostage for over a year. Several attacks against the US occured over time but it wasn't until 2001 when attacked on US soil that the US finally recognized that someone was at war with them.

Again, in my opinion: I expect WW IV to last even longer than WW III, it will probably involve nuclear weapons, and after it's all over there will be an enormous global middle class of several billion people and the global economy will actually accelerate. The history of the world is one of constantly increasing productive activity on a wide scale punctuated by various destructive wars and regional dark ages (such as the current Middle Eastern dark age).

If you think the Flight 93 Memorial looks a bit too much like the Islamic crescent, here and here are good sites explaining just how similar it is.

I believe the most effective complaint against this (and sadly, it's important to focus on what will work within the entire set of what is right) is that anything even remotely symbolic of Islam whether intentional or unintentional will legitimize a link between the terrorists and Islam. Radical Islamists will be able to point to this memorial as proof that they have the true claim to Islam, since even the United States demonstrates it. The audience hearing this won't bother consulting the US officials about whether that's true or not. The result is a huge slap in the face to all moderate Muslims who already have a difficult time with those who are hijacking their religion without having the US giving aid to those hijackers.

It's similar to the slap in the face to Christians and the victims if you were to memorialize a group of Buddhists lynched by the KKK with an "Eternal Flaming Cross of Rememberance". Not only are you insulting the Buddhist victims but you are also insulting the non-KKK Christians who represent the true spirit of Christianity. It's hard to imagine doing something more insulting than this Flight 93 Memorial while keeping a straight face.

The highly popular BoingBoing blog points to this WWII military training comic book called "How to Spot a Jap". It was created for US soldiers going into China so they could tell the difference between Japanese (who were likely working for the Japanese military) and the Chinese natives. BoingBoing also links to this site, www.ddaymuseum.org, here. They have this "How to Spot a Jap" on a large wall exhibit.

The Clash of Cultures
Artifacts, posters, videos and interactive touch screens help audiences learn about racial stereotyping, demonization, and warfare in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

I say "Baka!"

When I read through the comic book, I don't see anything unusually offensive. Really.

"Ryan, you and Terry have been out in China for a long time... How about showing the men a few points of difference between the Japs and our Oriental allies!"

"Yes, sir!"

The comic book then goes on to describe what I would consider to be objective differences between Chinese and Japanese people for those whose lives depend on being able to distinguish between the two: height, body build, skin color, facial texture, teeth setting, the most probable emotional state when questioned (Japanese spies would be fearful), walking gait, a wide space between Japanese toes due to walking in geta shoes, differences in pronouncing certain English sounds, and the fact that they're likely to accept death if they can kill some of their enemy at the same time which is something I'd want to know if I was going to be encountering them. The comic book also mentions Japanese modesty and the methods typically used to conceal weapons.

What else are you going to do? If you refuse to distinguish the identifiable differences between Chinese and Japanese, many of our soldiers would die because of it. If that's racist, then being racist loses its meaning and all the real acts of true racial prejudice become diluted by the false accusations. Don't cry racial wolf.

The Japanese had invaded and occupied much of China at that time and they were all over China (and what they did in China makes "Abu Graib atrocities" look like a picnic). And if you think this is an offensive portrayal of the Japanese or Chinese, you should see what the Chinese thought of the Japanese at that time, or even today! And of course the Japanese have always been notoriously racially prejudiced.

Keep in mind that most of the people who would read these comic books would be uneducated and have almost no exposure to anything outside of the US. There was no television in their lives. They weren't going to deal well with subtleties.

Another thing to keep in mind is that people at that time had no problem whatsoever in demonizing the enemy. It was considered an important part of the war effort as it has been in pretty much every culture in all history for those doing the fighting. We ask our military to both kill and die in representing our country. Killing other people without hesitation when necessary does not come naturally for people raised in a peaceful place. It requires very specific training which includes demonizing, or at least partly dehumanizing, the enemy. And it places a significant burden on those who are trained to do it. In exchange for asking our military to do our dirty work (or even just to prepare to do our dirty work), we allow them to run their organization as they need to.

It seems to me that the most offensive part of this comic book is the way in which Chinese and Japanese are drawn vs how the Americans are drawn, and also use of the term "Jap", which should not be the least startling when looking at things from that time period.

I'm not going to apologize for what my country did in the distant past and I don't expect Japanese of today to apologize for what their country did. We made our peace long ago and we've stood by it for many decades. And thanks to Japan, today we're not forced to drive crappy, unreliable cars and watch crappy, badly animated cartoons. I say "Arigato Gozaimasu!" And we can celebrate our common Engrish heritage. Wakarimasu ka?

UPDATE: Here's a vile example of moral equivalence gone totally haywire. They claim that an American G.I. getting crushed by a large missle is "a nice counterpoint" to the booklet mentioned above. Ok, let's think about this for a minute. The booklet talks about how to detect enemy combatants who are hiding amongst the civilian population. Given that they were known to be deadly shows that they were engaged in combat or prepared to engage in combat, which would be a violation of Article 44 of the Geneva Convention (ok, so that article didn't exist at the time, but it shows that this was a problem area acknowledged in hindsight as something to be prevented).

In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack.

Ironically, these people are called "GOOD Magazine".



I grew up believing that the 1950s atomic bomb civil defense movie "Duck and Cover" (video here) was ridiculous. That was the progressive view at the time. It wasn't until I saw various documentaries about Hiroshima/Nagasaki that I found out that it was actually quite an excellent way to prepare people for a nuclear bomb. The point is that within a certain distance of a bomb, you're pretty much dead (or you'll wish you were dead). But a much larger number of people are in the region where their actions will determine what happens to them. For them, ducking and covering can mean the difference between temporary injury and burns vs massive injury, disfigurement, or death.

So is it wrong to train everyone in how to minimize their injury because some unknown set of them will not have a chance? No!

In addition to this, giving people training in what to do in the case of a nuclear attack gives them a better sense of empowerment that will help them psychologically with the constant threat of a bomb.

In my opinion, we were irresponsible to downplay civil defense after the 1960s.

I've told people that I would be equally comfortable being in charge of either the Pro Choice or the Pro Life Movement. I could lead either charge with honesty and sincerity. The reason is because most people are in the middle. They don't want their 13 year old daughter sneaking out for an abortion without knowing about it nor do they want abortion to be absolutely outlawed. If I were in charge of either one, the first thing I would do is try to get Roe v. Wade struck down and then allow legislatures (both state and federal) to create laws that people want, and allow those laws to change over time as the people's views change. If I were on the Pro Life side, I would focus on changing people's minds with reasonable methods that they would respect. At one time they had TV commercials talking about choosing to "have the baby" and I believe this was definitely the best direction to go.

At various times in history, various groups have lost power and become paranoid and ridiculous. The political left in the US is clearly there today (example). That's a bad thing. We need to have at least two basic groups of political thinking which have very different foundations in order to have a healthy political climate. If we end up with only one effective group, things will definitely go downhill for a lack of competition. A monopoly will damage any field of activity.

This article points out the similarities between the "progressives" of today and the John Birch society from the 1950s or so.

There was once a movement, born of desperation and a sense of embattlement at being on the losing side of historical forces. This movement saw itself as the inheritor and the guarantor of true American tradition and identity, and it sought to restore those things to their rightful primacy in national life. But because the movement did feel embattled, and because it did view itself as the victim of powerful forces, it chose to not merely fight its foes, but emulate them. It saw the prime virtue of its enemies as their ability to win, and if they could just crack the code — if it could grasp the very methodology of victory — then they would turn the tables, and victory would be theirs.

If I wanted to work in politics, and if I truly wanted to make the world a better place, I suppose I'd join the "progressives" and try to fix what they're doing wrong.

First, accept the basics of economics, of cause and effect, that people respond to incentives. Accept that there are successful cultures and unsuccessful ones and that it's hard to keep a good culture down. In other words, remove the big obstacles and then let things take their course. Some groups will flourish, some will flail. Those that flail have the choice of changing, or not. And finally, accept that wealth is created by wealthy people. Within the US, contrary to much opinion, they usually got wealthy by creating something of value and not by taking something away. Our economy is not a zero-sum game, which should be obvious since the global economy grows over time at varying rates. The US economy alone has grown [around] 20% since the Bush tax cuts! To put that in perspective, we've added an entire large sized country to our economy since 2003. And like the saying goes, "I never got a job from a poor man." Don't punish success, don't reward failure. No, we don't want people starving to death in the streets or (more relevant today) to be homeless.

Don't say that you're against homelessness while complaining about suburban sprawl. If you really care about homelessness, then you should be lobbying for changing zoning laws to allow cheaper, smaller homes. Stuff like Habitat for Humanity is a joke. Far better is to allow (not mandate, not have the government create, but allow) very small homes packed closely together. And in some cases perhaps even something similar to capsule hotels for people to live in temporarily. But only if it's run as a going enterprise by private industry (which has a motivation for overall success).

If we really are heading for major global warming, then we probably want developing countries to burn even more CO2. If we're going to have massive disruptions, it's better if people in places like Bangladesh can move up the social ladder into the industrial age so that they're wealthy and smart enough to deal with the impending problems of flooding. In the US, we'll be OK. It would be very costly and massively disruptive, but we'll figure something out. As they are now, Bangladesh won't.

Michelle Malkin raises a very good point about the invasion of privacy. For all the howling about government invasion of privacy from various people who seem obsessed by the topic, special interest groups are the real abusers. Just as you're far more likely to be murdered by family or friend, your privacy is far more likely to be abused (and the abuse is likely to be worse) by people outside the government (especially family and friends) than inside. But in both cases, the big scare tactics from movies and the media focus on the unlikely threats.

The government is listening in to phone calls made between specific highly suspect terrorists outside the US talking to people within the US, something that it has done in the past under various presidents. The government is tracking large bank transactions outside the US (which they already do within the US for anything over $10,000). These are both legal and mundane, and they both have precedents.

On the other hand, the New York Times shows you where Donald Rumsfeld lives and points out security measures he has in place ("There is a lens in the birdhouse at the driveway" along with a photo of it). High profile people have been stalked by political activists in frightening ways. Michelle Malkin has the details. The latest targets are the "Swift Boat Veterans" and their families who are getting harassing phone calls. Someone posted their personal information with the statement "I have some very good ideas I gleaned from 'CIA BOOK of DIRTY TRICKS' Don't get mad, get EVEN."

This is far from being the only case. Brute force intimidation when persuasion doesn't work. We've done ourselves a huge disfavor in the West by focusing entirely on the abuses of groups associated with the "right" (Nazis, police states, etc.) and not nearly enough on the abuses of groups associated with the "left" (Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc.) who, in terms of total damage done, are actually far worse. It's just that nobody tells you about it.