Post for October
Tales of the Mice and Men
There comes a time in most families when the kids ask if they could have a pet or pets, usually initiating a long argument about the pros and cons of such a venture.
This phenomenon was starkly demonstrated when, many years ago, our kids won the war of the pets and we allowed them acquire a decent sized cage, inhabited by a few mice, after stern warnings that at the first sign of trouble, they would have to go.
All seemed well and our parental duties were limited to an occasional reminder to feed and ensure a supply of fresh water and so we decided the garden shed containing the cage was out of bounds to adults.
Then it happened, despite the new additions to the family having adequate sustenance due to our frequent reminders, that one day a stampede of little feet was heard coming toward the back door, to the tearful shouts of Mummy, Daddy come quick, the mice are killing each other!
Four mice had magically become about twenty!
That was the end of the mouse phase of pet keeping, there was more than adequate food and water but they were definitely overcrowded.
They also appeared to be fighting over things that did not seem to matter much, such as whose turn it was on the famous spinning mouse wheel, or in the maze.
Fast forward a few decades and it seems to me that human aggression, always at a high level in, for example, places where alcohol is served, is on the rise, and the rise in drug taking could well play a part here, as well as higher density living, and yes, ever increasing stress, in proportion to the volume and frequency of the assurances that we never had it so good!
So, where is this going?
It seems to me, and maybe to the occasional wiser than average mouse, that stress is a major cause of aggression.
In human beings this might be what led to such appalling events as the chain of decisions which led to the destruction of two Japanese cities by the new atomic bombs, the invention of which starkly demonstrates that, while human intelligence is, as far as we know, unrivalled in its inventive capacity, it seems woefully inadequate at finding ways to prevent our self destruction, which will most likely be by acts of aggression with these weapons.
This is why I am always on the lookout for ways for us to try and rid ourselves of such weapons before they get rid of us.
As part of this quest, I have been familiarising myself with the situation surrounding the decision to bomb two Japanese cities to almost complete destruction.
These days, I thought, this would almost certainly be a war crime.
I also thought I had a way that might have convinced the Japanese to surrender without this terrible destruction, and the plan would have been for the U.S.A. to demonstrate the destructive power of the nuclear bomb by, after advising the Japanese authorities of the intention to do so, dropping one of the bombs on a small, uninhabited island, and then advising the Japanese of the intention to use these bombs on the Japanese mainland if there was not a quick surrender.
I learned a lot from what I found, here is a brief summary:
The war in the Pacific was fought between the allies (the USA, China, The United Kingdom and Australia, Russia also joining in towards the end) and the Axis (Japan, Thailand and puppet states)
The war began with a surprise attack on the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbour.
Important Battles in the war were:
The Battle of the Coral Sea, in May 1942 which stopped Japanese maritime progress toward Australia.
The Battle of Midway, (June, 1942) a U.S. victory which destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers, which had a significant effect on naval power.
Other major battles were: Guardalcanal 1942-1943, the Philippine Sea 1944, Leyte Gulf 1944, Iwo Jima 1945. and Okinawa 1945.
Buoyed by these successes, the President of the U.S.A. Harry S. Truman was preparing a land invasion of Japan by the allies, which would result in up to 330,0000 allied deaths.
President Truman, then was faced with a number of difficult choices, including what I thought was my own, A fatality-free offshore nuclear demonstration, to convince Japan to surrender a tactic, as it turned out that would have been shunned by the Japanese, whose military leaders at the time were preparing their army, plus armed civilians, for a “fight to the death” involving 5 to 10 million Japanese deaths.
So, another brilliant scheme thought up by the silly old blogger was nothing new, and we see that things aren’t always simple, President Truman, criticised as the villain who dropped the bombs, by making the hard decision, actually prevented the land invasion and saved millions of lives.
The war ended when Japan announced its surrender on August 15 1944, following the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the entry of the Soviet Union. If we all read the eye witness accounts of the real thing, as I have just been doing, it might wake us out of our comfortable denial trance, and at least get us back into the real world with renewed determination to improve it.
If so the victims of this tragedy will not have died in vain, and the silly old blogger could have a happy birthday at the end of this month!!
To Celebrate my birthday, I send you a wish for a good and peaceful year.
Silly old Blogger
