perestroika
Perestroika, the great thaw. A melting of our sad fates in this frozen winter.
I was feeling melancholic today. But I figure its a sickness in the air.
Another disaster and more loves ones gone and it feels like just another day, just another dawn. It is the nature of human grief to be transient, to remind us that life is too fleeting, and really just the chance of whatever fates a non-existent god bestows on us.
I wanted to watch TV and think more about living the way I am. Bill O' Reilly really scares me. Must be all the leftist, anti-war propaganda bouncing around in my brain. This week is marks the memorial of the Atomic Bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The effects were immediately felt around the world. Even in America, who perpetrated the act - under war-time conditions. The image of a mushroom cloud has become etched into the media of human kind. The knowledge that we could unleash something so awful on ourselves.
This is taken directly from the Hiroshima memorial site, it's a quote from a survivor, which was published in an anthology.
Taken from the Preface in Hiroshima published in 1985.
"In a cistern under a bridge were some mothers. One mother held on her head a baby that was burned all over, and another mother wept bitterly as her child suckled her badly burned breast.
Children in the cistern cried out for their parents, holding their heads above water and joining their hands in prayer. Since they all were hurt, none could help the other. Their hair was singed, and covered with white dust. They scarcely looked like human beings.
Looking at these people, I could hardly imagine how I must have looked. My hands were red with blood, with skin hanging down. In my wounded flesh I saw black, red, and white things appearing. I was alarmed and tried to remove my handkerchief from my pocket. But there was no handkerchief or pocket. The clothes below my waist were burned away. Although I realized that my face was swelling, I could do nothing about it, and leaving it as it was..." [From Genbaku no Ko (Children of the Atomic Bombing), published in 1951 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers.]
In this picture released by the US Army, a mushroom cloud billowed, about one hour after the atomic bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. About 140,000 are believed to have died in the blast.
(US Army Photo Via Hiroshima Peace Museum Memorial)
There's not really more to say, that isn't already been said by masses. Its strange to sometimes think that it's the same people getting the message. That the pacifists remain pacifists, and the soldiers remain loyal to countries run less by democratic principle and more on the fat, money-lined pockets of University grad. Politicians. Even today there are still people, not an insignificant minority either that say that the bombings were necessary. I'd ask them to sit through "Grave of Fireflies" and tell me how they can see the crime of killing unarmed women and children by the thousands as justifiable. And if they've managed to not shed a tear, I'll ask them if they're really human, and if nationality should take precedence over humanity. But then again, there are those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and say the its was justifiable treatment of Prisoners of War.
Humans are capable of such beautiful dreams, and such terrible nightmares.
I was feeling melancholic today. But I figure its a sickness in the air.
Another disaster and more loves ones gone and it feels like just another day, just another dawn. It is the nature of human grief to be transient, to remind us that life is too fleeting, and really just the chance of whatever fates a non-existent god bestows on us.
I wanted to watch TV and think more about living the way I am. Bill O' Reilly really scares me. Must be all the leftist, anti-war propaganda bouncing around in my brain. This week is marks the memorial of the Atomic Bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The effects were immediately felt around the world. Even in America, who perpetrated the act - under war-time conditions. The image of a mushroom cloud has become etched into the media of human kind. The knowledge that we could unleash something so awful on ourselves.
This is taken directly from the Hiroshima memorial site, it's a quote from a survivor, which was published in an anthology.
Taken from the Preface in Hiroshima published in 1985.
"In a cistern under a bridge were some mothers. One mother held on her head a baby that was burned all over, and another mother wept bitterly as her child suckled her badly burned breast.
Children in the cistern cried out for their parents, holding their heads above water and joining their hands in prayer. Since they all were hurt, none could help the other. Their hair was singed, and covered with white dust. They scarcely looked like human beings.
Looking at these people, I could hardly imagine how I must have looked. My hands were red with blood, with skin hanging down. In my wounded flesh I saw black, red, and white things appearing. I was alarmed and tried to remove my handkerchief from my pocket. But there was no handkerchief or pocket. The clothes below my waist were burned away. Although I realized that my face was swelling, I could do nothing about it, and leaving it as it was..." [From Genbaku no Ko (Children of the Atomic Bombing), published in 1951 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers.]
In this picture released by the US Army, a mushroom cloud billowed, about one hour after the atomic bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. About 140,000 are believed to have died in the blast.
(US Army Photo Via Hiroshima Peace Museum Memorial)
There's not really more to say, that isn't already been said by masses. Its strange to sometimes think that it's the same people getting the message. That the pacifists remain pacifists, and the soldiers remain loyal to countries run less by democratic principle and more on the fat, money-lined pockets of University grad. Politicians. Even today there are still people, not an insignificant minority either that say that the bombings were necessary. I'd ask them to sit through "Grave of Fireflies" and tell me how they can see the crime of killing unarmed women and children by the thousands as justifiable. And if they've managed to not shed a tear, I'll ask them if they're really human, and if nationality should take precedence over humanity. But then again, there are those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and say the its was justifiable treatment of Prisoners of War.
Humans are capable of such beautiful dreams, and such terrible nightmares.