Merf. Thinking is Hard.

dimensionsintime:

annespage:

mutantbakabutt:

foreverisreal:

blunts-and-robots:

devils-in-my-head:

this this this this this

if anyone hates me for this you’re not thinking clearly

think about the amount of people killed in the middle east, too ..

lol so edgy xD

the only reason america dropped the atomic bomb was because we were at WAR idiots, if we hadn’t dropped the bomb the war would’ve lasted at lot longer. 9/11 was an act of terrorism, why don’t you go watch a video of the twin towers as they burn after the planes crash into them and later collapse in on themselves burying not only the people that worked there inside, but also the police officers and firefighters who were trying to rescue any survivors, and before they collapsed, when people were forced to choose to burn or jump out to their deaths. so yeah, the atomic bomb killed more people, but one was during WWII and the other was a direct attack of terrorism on America. And the only reason we were at war with Japan was because they attacked us at pearl harbor, if they hadn’t done that the war would’ve stayed in Europe and the atomic bomb wouldn’t have been dropped.

Not even remotely true, but thanks for playing. This misconception largely occurs because of the famous Stimson article that was featured in Harpers’ magazine.

Of course, he didn’t actually WRITE the thing and, though it presents itself as a fireside chat between two people it was actually a heavily engineered document, and almost every fact cited was knowingly wrong by the government at the time (declassified documents - read ‘em). But hey! What better source for info!

That’s neither here nor there though since Japan tried to surrender before we dropped the bomb.

Several Times.

Yes, Japan tried to surrender. Once through Russia, once through Switzerland, once through the Vatican of all places, and many times appealing directly to Truman. We turned them down because of the stipulation that we were not allowed to touch their emperor, a concession the US was not willing to make at the time.

“Foreign Minister Shigemitsu has instructed Ambassador Sato [in Moscow] to find out whether Russia is willing to assist in bringing about a negotiated peace. Shigemitsu’s instructions, although cautiously worded, clearly imply that he has in mind a move by Russia to initiate peace discussions between Japan and the Anglo-Americans… [I]t seems hardly likely that he would have taken such a step without having consulted at least some of the more important members of the new Japanese cabinet… This is the first time that the Japanese have been willing to suggest to Russia directly that they are ready for peace.”

-“Japanese Consider Peace Possibilities” War Department MAGIC reports of intercepted messages: EYES ONLY for President and closest advisers

“I learn from a very reliable source that in important civilian circles in Japan the peace problem is being discussed with increasing anxiety. A speedy German collapse is expected and it is not believed that Japan can then continue the war. It is therefore considered necessary to get peace as soon as possible before the country and towns are destroyed… If any willingness appeared to exist in London the Japanese would be ready for preliminary discussions through Swedish channels. Behind the man who gave me this message stands one of the best known statesmen in Japan and there is no doubt that this attempt must be considered as a serious one.”

-Telegram from Swedish minister in Tokyo given from the British Ambassador to the United States

“…It seems probably that very far-reaching conditions would be accepted by the Japanese by way of negotiation… Exchange of the Japanese constitution must also be considered as excluded. The Emperor must not be touched. However, the Imperial power could be somewhat democratized as is that of the English King”

-Report from Swedish minister in Tokyo sent to US State Department

AND EVEN LATER THEY GAVE THOSE CONDITIONS UP

“…Stated that he had been asked by Masutaro Inoue, Counsellor of the Japanese Legation in Portugal, to contact United States representatives. Source quoted Inoue as saying that the Japanese are ready to cease hostilities, provided they are allowed to retain possession of their home islands… On 19 May [1945], the OSS representative reported Inoue again had repeated to source his desire to talk with an American representative. On this occasion Inoue declared that actual peace terms were unimportant so long as the term ‘unconditional surrender’ was not employed.”

-OSS Representative report directly to Truman

Of course, we did anyway. But that’s not important.

Because the bomb wasn’t about Japan.

In Derry and Ramsey’s Memo to Groves (May 12, 1945) when picking a target for the atomic bomb, one of the primary listed reasons for picking a target was:

“making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.”

In fact, they ranked targets - AA to B. Know what got the lowest ratings? Military targets. The ones that got the highest ratings were civilian ones.

Japan was currently researching wooden planes. WOODEN PLANES. They had attempted to give up, we said no. They had already lost the war when we dropped the bomb. They knew this - hell, they tried to surrender twice.

So why did we drop the bomb, then?

A close reading of the memo tells all. It was to make an impact on the international community.

Do you know how Truman was first informed about the Manhatten Project and the bomb? It was in a discussion with the Secretary of State in regards to negotiations with Russia after the war.

Truman kept delaying the “Big Three” discussions, the most important political talks in recorded history, until basically the day AFTER the Trinity Tests - he wanted to wait until he knew he had the bomb as a political piece. Stalin and Churchill were VERY angry at him pushing the date back with little to no reason given (they knew, of course, because of spies and intelligence).

Still don’t believe me?

The Secretary of War, and MOST of the army was against dropping the bomb. They wanted to give the option of doing a demonstration and giving Japan an option of total surrender (that we get to do whatever we want with the Emperor) or of giving Japan time to evacuate the civilian population before bombing a city.

Oh, and there’s this from Stimson’s Memo of Talk with Truman (June 6, 1945)

“I told [the President] that I was anxious about this feature of the war for two reasons: first, because I did not want to have the United States get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities; and second, I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength. He laughed and said he understood.”

He laughed.

An estimated 500,000 people died between Nagasaki and Hiroshima if you count deaths by radiation poisoning and long-term cancer.

And Truman could only laugh because he was worried the bomb might not be noticeable amongst the wreckage of Japan.

The reason for dropping the bomb was to give America a better condition amongst the international population, particularly Stalin and Russia, in the coming years. It was to make Russia afraid to invade Japan (and from there, the fear was, the rest of Asia) when they knew America had interests in it. They dropped the bomb to give them an advantage when negotiating in the future and to give them a start when everyone began arming (a situation tons of scientists warned everyone about in The Franck Report).

But don’t pretend it was about Japan. And don’t you dare pretend it was about peace.

500,000 people died and all Truman could do was laugh.

(Source: pukepurge, via dimensionsintime)

extravengence:

Black Physicians treating a KKK member. It’s amazing the irony of things at times. 

CRAZY

(via bakethatlinguist)

ktempest:

ataxiwardance:

Five Things You Should Know About Fred Shuttlesworth

When legendary civil rights activist Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth died today, many Americans had no idea who he was or what he’d accomplished in his 89 years on earth. It’s an unfortunate reality that people often think Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were the beginning and end of black activism in the Civil Rights era. In fact, nothing could be more wrong. From the 1950s onward, Shuttlesworth was a major factor in ending Jim Crow laws in the South, and many other oppressive forces throughout the United States. Here are the top five things you should know about him.

1. From the start of his career, Shuttlesworth, who was raised poor in Alabama, was fiery and obstinate. After Alabama officially banned the NAACP from operating within the state in 1956, Shuttlesworth, then a pastor, founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. The ACMHR’s first major order of business was a Birmingham bus sit-in, during which Shuttlesworth and others boarded city buses and sat in the “whites only” sections. The ACMHR would eventually become charter member organization in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

2. He lived nearly nine decades, but many people tried to kill Shuttlesworth much earlier for his outspokenness. He was the target of two bomb attacks, one on his home and one on his church. And when Shuttlesworth tried to enroll his daughters in an all-white Birmingham school in 1957, an armed mob attacked him, beating him unconscious and stabbing his wife. The couple survived, and when a doctor remarked that Shuttlesworth was lucky to have avoided a concussion,Shuttlesworth said, “Doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head.”

3. Though he worked closely with King, Shuttlesworth’s style was decidedly different. “Among the youthful ‘elders’ of the movement,” historian Diane McWhorter told The New York Times, “he was Martin Luther King’s most effective and insistent foil: blunt where King was soothing, driven where King was leisurely, and most important, confrontational where King was conciliatory—meaning, critically, that he was more upsetting than King in the eyes of the white public.” Despite their differences, King once called Shuttlesworth ”the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.”

4. Shuttlesworth’s fiercest enemy in Birmingham was infamous public safety commissioner Bull Connor. Connor’s violent responses—attack dogs, fire hoses, billy clubs—to Shuttlesworth’s peaceful demonstrations were integral in changing America’s attitude about Jim Crow. “The televised images of Connor directing handlers of police dogs to attack unarmed demonstrators and firefighters’ using hoses to knock down children had a profound effect on American citizens’ view of the civil rights struggle,” says the Shuttlesworth Foundation’s website.

5. After his actions helped spawn the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964, Shuttlesworth continued fighting for justice in realms both racial and economic. In 1988 he founded the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation to help low-income families own their own homes, and in 2004 he became president of the SCLC. A firebrand to the end, he resigned from the SCLC within months, saying “deceit, mistrust and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization.” Three years ago, the city of Birmingham named its airport after Shuttlesworth. There are still no monuments named after Bull Connor.

I lived across the street from him for a while and it was very surreal. I couldn’t put the man I’d heard stories about together with the dude who came and got the paper off the lawn in my head.

feministslut:

[Trigger Warning: Violence, Fire, Mutilation. Very violent descriptions of torturing people]

sadisticallysweet:

Delphine McCarty LaLaurie was a sadistic socialite who lived in New Orleans. Her home was a chamber of horrors. On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the mansion’s kitchen, and firefighters found two slaves chained to the stove. They appeared to have started the fire themselves, in order to attract attention. The firefighters were lead by other slaves to the attic, where the real surprise was. Over a dozen disfigured and maimed slaves were manacled to the walls or floors. Several had been the subjects of gruesome medical experiments. One man appeared to be part of some bizarre sex change, a woman was trapped in a small cage with her limbs broken and reset to look like a crab, and another woman with arms and legs removed, and patches of her flesh sliced off in a circular motion to resemble a caterpillar. Some had had their mouths sewn shut, and had subsequently starved to death, whilst others had their hands sewn to different parts of their bodies. Most were found dead, but some were alive and begging to be killed, to release them from the pain.

Well this makes me less disposed towards white women’s tears.

(via kadalkavithaigal)

secular-india:

History of Sardar Bhagat Singh 

Sardar Bhagat Singh was born on September 27, 1907, in Khatkar Kalan, Punjab, in British India.

The revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh were branded as terrorists by the British government. They believed that given the unjust and oppressive nature of British rule, it was legitimate on their part to use violence as a weapon to overthrow the foreigners. While all this is known, what is not so well-known is that in a very short life span of less than 24 years, Bhagat Singh wrote four books and they were all written in Lahore Jail in the last two years of his life. Unfortunately for posterity, though those books were smuggled out, yet they were subsequently destroyed and thus lost for ever.

Bhagat Singh’s view on Gandhi: Singh believed that Gandhi and leaders like him are not true representatives of society. He called them only the representatives of upper class who do not care of the masses. He wrote, “No man can claim to know a people’s mind by seeing them from public platform and giving them Darshan and Updesh. Has Gandhi, during recent years, mixed in the social life of masses? Has he sit with the peasant round the evening fire and tried to know what he thinks? Has he passed a single evening in the company of a factory labourer and shared with him his vowes? We have, and therefore we claim to know what the masses think.” He also never believed in Gandhi’s ways to attain freedom, in spite of being non-violent himself and an active participant in non-cooperation movement.

Bhagat Singh’s views on religion: Singh was a believer in God in his initial life. He used to wear a turban and even recited Gayatri Mantra for hours. However, after reading about the great revolutions across the world and the biographies of Lenin and Marx he was convinced beyond doubt that God doesn’t exist. He believed that religions divide the people and divert them from the cause of independence. He was greatly influenced by Ghadar party, a revolutionary group of Indian Sikhs in Canada.

British goverment hanged Bhagat Singh along with Rajguru &  Sukhdev on the charges of murder of J.P Saunders.Singh was hanged an hour ahead of the official time when the death sentence was to be commuted and was secretly cremated on the banks of the river Sutlej by jail authorities. However, thousands of people on hearing the news gathered at the spot and took out a procession with his ashes.

When Bhagat Singh was hanged on 23 March 1931, there was a widespread general belief that Gandhi did not do enough to save the lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev while negotiating with Viceroy Irwin. When Gandhi wrote a letter to Lord Irwin on 23 March 1931, the day on which Bhagat Singh was hanged under pressure, he made a very feeble plea for commutation of his death sentence. Gandhi wrote with a forked-tongue and a twisted pen: “Popular opinion rightly or wrongly demands commutation. When there is not a principle at stake, it is often a duty to respect it”. There were anti-Gandhi demonstrations throughout the country. When Gandhi travelled by train to attend the Karachi Session of the Congress he got down at Malir railway station, fifteen miles from Karachi to avoid the angry demonstrators.

In spite of Gandhi’s un-called-for and most unpatriotic warning that, “The Bhagat Singh worship has done and is doing incalculable harm to the country”, the saga of Bhagat Singh —- man, martyr, myth and legend —- continues even today and will do so for ages to come. No one can dispute the fact that all the Gods in Heaven gave to Bhagat Singh a more glorious death than Mahatma Gandhi.

Source:1;2

 

(via kadalkavithaigal)

prolifehypocrisy:

besttumblr:

aliquidcure:

I learned this in my history of American sex class and I was completely shocked. You always think of people in the past as being less progressive, but there you go.

Maybe the number one thing I learned in college is that social “progess” is not linear. The erasure of this fact is an incredibly seductive triumph of those who would want folks to 1) buy into a conservative ethos predicated entirely on imagination and 2) stop fighting for justice because “times change; it’ll happen eventually.” 

History is really fucking important. 

Very well said!

(via moniquill)