Yoko Ono on Hiroshima Day
mainThe artist brings home the enduring personal tragedies of an act that ended the war, 70 years ago today.
YOKO ONO: ON HIROSHIMA DAY – August 6th, 2015
Dear Friends,
The 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a tragedy of the greatest magnitude.
Even now, 68 years later, many victims of the violence of atomic weapons are still suffering, physically, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
People make a point of it. They don’t want us to forget. Of course, we are not forgetting.
But when you actually visit Hiroshima as I did in 2011, you will be totally surprised by what you see and experience. Hiroshima now is a beautiful shining city with healthy people and great food!
How did they do it?
“All that we are is the result of what we thought.” – Buddha
Yes. It’s the thoughts of the Hiroshima people who brought this incredible recovery.
In 2011, the 3/11 tsunami hit us hard. And for us and for our planet it is important that we make the fastest recovery from it.
Let’s start with having good thoughts – especially about ourselves.
Don’t waste time being angry at greed-ridden corporate guys and lying-through-the teeth politicians.
We have to focus on what we can do, and do it.
Believe in the power of goodness which we all have.
Be an oasis for people who are suffering from spiritual thirst.
Have a vision of a society that has ridden itself of social injustices.
This time, we are challenged to make a mass enlightenment.
It’s not any different from other challenges we have had to take care of.
We always did take care of them, and came out of it.
The Human Race is a miracle race.
We can do anything we want.
Just focus on what to do, and how simple it is.
Look into people’s eyes.
They are your eyes.
They are beautiful.
They are smiling.
Let’s go!
I love you!
Yoko Ono
Hiroshima Day
6 August 2015
http://imaginepeace.com/archives/21447
Does Yoko Ono have the same sympathy for the Comfort Women, or for those who perished during Japan’s Rape of Manchuria, or the Japanese occupation of the Philippines?
Almost certainly and you do you have any feeling for the war crimes brought by bombers in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki etc….?
War crimes of Dresden and Tokyo?……………just remind me who started WW2 by invading Europe and then Russia. You might also care to reflect upon the names of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek and many more concentration and extermination camps dotted across Europe. I wondered how long it would be before the “revisionist” historians started to lay the blame for everything at the allies door………….Bomber Harris would turn in his grave!
So you are just saying that their war crimes were bigger than ours?
If this article was written for 2015, why does she say “68 years ago”?
In any case, the atomic bombings weren’t a “tragedy”, they were a crime. Harry Truman, and others who played a part in dropping the bombs, were as much war criminals as any Nazi or Japanese leader and should have been tried as such (as well a should Stalin and countless Soviet leaders). Also Churchill, FDR and others responsible for the carpet bombings of Dresden, Tokyo.
It is never morally licit to deliberately target civilians in a war and to engage in the wholesale destruction of people and cities without regard to whether those targeted are civilian or military.
For anyone truly interested, I highly recommend Gar Alperovitz’s magnificent book, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth.”
So all of the allied war leaders should have been tried as war criminals. Tell me, where do you think you would be living. and under what regime if these men had not taken courageous and difficult decisions to defeat enemies that were intent on joint world domination.
War is not a “gentlemen’s game” as you seem to think, god forbid that you had been in charge during ww2 because if so, we would have been living under the Nazi jackboot……..it would have been a matter of Nero fiddled while Rome burned as you procrastinated over your conscience.
It is not possible to defeat countries by bombing their cities. To win, one must destroy their military. The war was won because the Red Army destroyed the Wehrmacht, and because the US Navy essentially destroyed the Japanese navy.
In a detailed study, the British Bombing Survey Unit noted that the bombing did not slow down Germany’s production of military equipment: “Far from there being any evidence of a cumulative effect on war production, it is evident that, as the (bombing) offensive progressed … the effect on war production became progressively smaller (and) did not reach significant dimensions.” In fact, German war production increased dramatically even though the levels of bombing were 10 times higher in 1945 as in 1941.
People often assume Americans dropped most of the bombs, but it was actually the British, about 900,000 tons vs. 600,000.
Japan didn’t have any offensive capacity whatsoever left by August 1945, which puts in serious question the draconian act of nuclear bombing cities. Recent historical research suggests that one of the main reason for the nuclear bombings was to force Japan’s surrender before the Soviets began their invasion of the country.
In any case, I hope humanity will evolve to the point where the interdiction against nuclear bombing becomes an absolute and cannot be justified by any circumstance. There are almost no absolutes on this planet, but that is one of them.
What an amusing website: A message of love is posted, and a fight breaks out!