
In a small town in Washington state, pride and shame over atomic legacy - samclemens
http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/7/richland-washingtons-atomic-legacy.html
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Zikes
I'm sure there could be hours of heated debate over this, but every time a
"mascot" issue like this pops up I wonder why they don't just frame it
differently:

1) Does the mascot accurately represent the current values of the community,
or 2) can a different mascot represent those values better?

Teams, schools, even companies will routinely rotate out their
mascots/logos/brands/slogans for something new, and they don't generate too
much controversy. But when the status quo is deemed politically incorrect,
people start to look at that potential change as an affront to their personal
values, and their resistance to change can cause stagnation.

It's okay to be proud, and it's okay to remember. We don't have to erase or
burn history, but we do have to recognize that the future belongs to the new
generation, and they get to decide how they want to represent themselves to
the world.

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barsonme
During WWII the Puyallup fairgrounds used to be an internment camp[1].

Growing up in Puyallup, we were taught what had happened. WWII -- specifically
Japanese internment -- is a big part of our history curriculum.

I think you have to find a balance. On one hand, creating the bomb that ended
WWII was a _huge_ part of their lives and is a huge part of their history. I
don't think you need to throw that away. But I don't think the bomb should be
cheered for any reason, other than perhaps ending half of the bloodiest war
we've (perhaps ever) seen.

This is something that, I think, they'll grow out of. You can only hold on to
the vitriolic or blindly patriotic view of the bomb for so long, and not many
of my generation hold the same beliefs that our parents and grandparents do
(regarding the bomb). Sooner or later it'll just be another "thing" in the
town -- a folksy sort of reference that reminds you of the 1940s -- but that's
about it.

Anyway, very interesting article. Let's cleanup Hanford please.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Harmony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Harmony)

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trhway
is there a mascot celebrating Dresden bombing? Or fire-bombing of Tokyo? There
is not much difference, beside "efficiency", between those and
Nagasaki/Hiroshima. Decades ago it seemed a meaningful strategic bombing
operations. Today we understand that it was horrible war crimes (though
committed because of not fully understanding of the degree of criminality of
it than out of a pure evil will... but again, winners write the history ...).
We've evolved (and, for example, the Miloshevich/Karadzhich were prosecuted as
war criminals for atrocities much smaller in scale than the above mentioned,
and nobody would imagine a mascot celebrating those mass killings even though
strategically they are indistinguishable from the strategic bombings of
civilian targets in the WWII), and taking down the symbols celebrating the
crimes of the past looks natural as part of that evolution.

~~~
tsotha
>is there a mascot celebrating Dresden bombing? Or fire-bombing of Tokyo?
There is not much difference, beside "efficiency", between those and
Nagasaki/Hiroshima. Decades ago it seemed a meaningful strategic bombing
operations. Today we understand that it was horrible war crimes...

No. No, _we_ do not see it that way.

~~~
deciplex
For the most part, America stands alone in seeing it that way. It is widely
considered a war crime, albeit in a war that was replete with them.

~~~
tsotha
So you assert. Even if true it's meaningless.

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deciplex
Well, it does have the meaning "it is widely considered a war crime", which is
all I was asserting in the first place. I'm not really interested in a
semantic argument with you, nor discussing the topic of whether Americans do
or should give a fuck about their image internationally, nor even whether the
term "war crime" makes any sense in the first place. The parent claimed "we
understand that it was horrible war crimes" and unless you interpret "we" to
mean "literally every single extant member of the human race", then the claim
is accurate.

~~~
tsotha
It's meaningless because if "widely considered a war crime" is the standard
than it's more of a popularity contest than a crime. The whole concept of
criminality relies on objective criteria in place at the time of the event.
All the legal bases for that widely considering is based on treaties and
fluffy documents rendered after the war.

It's also meaningless because the whole concept is flawed. Crimes do not occur
above the sovereign nation state level. "War crimes" is a convenient excuse
for the winner of a conflict to execute the leaders of the losing side. It's
victor's justice.

~~~
deciplex
Objective criteria which are established... how exactly if not by popularity
contest? And if making the criteria _ex post facto_ also wins the popularity
contest, then _ex post facto_ it is, regardless of whether that offends your
sense of justice.

(It's not really _ex post facto_ anyway - you simply apply the existing (1945)
standards for what was considered a war crime, and find that the bombings fit
the bill [1]. That seems to me the best way to do it - what would you prefer?
That no one had used an atomic bomb before, need not exclude the possibility
of the first such use of one being a war crime.)

That said, I mostly agree with your take on war crimes in practice, if not in
principle. But _if the allies had lost the war_ the bombings would have been
considered a war crime by the victors, without a doubt. In that sense it is
appropriate to call it a war crime. Again, it was a war crime in a war replete
with them, and it was not the worst of them either: it was certainly no
Holocaust, and I don't think the two bombings taken together even rise to the
level of one Rape of Nanjing, either - but it was a war crime and yes, that is
the popular opinion of it globally.

Try to keep in mind that I'm mainly defending the original statement "we
understand that it was horrible war crimes". That is an accurate statement,
even if you have grounds to think that people are wrong to see it that way.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombing...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Bombings_as_war_crimes)

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hedgehog
If you're a US citizen you can go on the free day-long Hanford facility bus
tour. However you feel about the work they did there it's pretty interesting
to see bits of the history.

[http://www.hanford.gov/publictours/](http://www.hanford.gov/publictours/)

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deciplex
Anecdote time: my brother plays baseball for this school and my wife is from
Hiroshima. I didn't realize what their mascot is until we visited this past
Spring and attended a few games. I was more embarrassed than she was upset,
mostly because she didn't care at all.

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aylons
Washington is fairly far from NY, but I wonder how these people commenting on
how it is not distasteful would feel with a 9/11 mascot for a school team.
Specially with bad puns about planes hitting buildings and some light-hearted
representations of the tragedy.

You see, some people are proud of the 9/11 attacks, even if they did not got
to participate in it directly. They may not use the world "liberal
revisionist" for people they know who do not agree, but I'm pretty sure they
will have some name to call them.

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MrZongle2
Perhaps some people can draw the distinction between a sneak attack on a
civilian target by a group of fanatics, and a technology developed _during
wartime_ to be used against a declared enemy, with the intent ending such
conflict so their friends and family could return home.

Or maybe we're just fated to become the Hypersensitive, Hyperventilating
States of America at this point.

~~~
aylons
I didn't see they celebrating the atom or the technology. The names, the
symbols and the phrase all symbolize the bombardment itself. Of civilians, no
less. Not that clear of a distinction.

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pvaldes
This mascot is just a bad one, and in more than one sense. After a quick look
to the article, I'll swear to have read 'wall of fart' somewhere.
Aesthetically is a bad design IMAO

