I grew up in a home where I was told about the horrifying things Americans have done and still do. I still remember photos from Life magazine that deeply affected me, especially the white women screaming at little children just trying to go to school. I have a different perspective on Korea, the country that we bombed back to the "stone age," the country where we destroyed 20% of all the villages and murdered so many people. The evil that what I call USUKI has done is simply beyond human comprehension, and I still hear people telling me that Korea was evil, that it was necessary to drop atomic bombs on Japan, that this country of mindless people is at heart "good."
When I was young I never used the word EVIL, but now it's one of the few words that adequately describes how low the "West" has sunk. Please read about the Sand Creek Massacre, it is eerily familiar.
In 1970, age 19, I was a sophomore in college. For some reason I went to the movies alone… a movie titled, Soldier Blue. I don’t know why I went but I will never, ever, forget the movie nor how sick I was afterward. The movie was about the Sand Creek Massacre. It was horrifying. I was an innocent Catholic boy from West Allis, WI who never witnessed a day of violence in my entire life. Baiting fishing hooks with worms was about the worst it got for me. My life would never be the same. The following year I performed my sociology internship on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation. I needed to understand. A majority of my life has been spent learning from, working with, conducting ceremony with Native American people. I needed to understand, I still need to grasp, how humans can be so utterly cruel to one another? How? Regarding Hiroshima I could say, ‘What about Nangjing?’ But we both know it isn’t about a who’s worse or was first competition. It is about, ‘How could any human in any time treat a fellow human ‘like this’? No people are better or more pious than any other … I just need to know… ‘How can humans be this cruel?’ Cutting out the uterus of a woman at Sand Creek and wearing it for a hat, vaporizing a Japanese man or raping CHinese women … all the way to killing a little girl alone in her car? Are we THAT evil? Strange Fruit, song of the 20th Century, says, ‘yes, we are.’ Thank you for writing.
This was a powerful post and beautifully expressed. I don’t normally advocate for trigger warnings and such because we should bear witness to the brutality we are complicit in. But that first image is among the worst images I have ever seen in my life. Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve seen that image.
I wanted to share this with my wife but I know she will not be able to handle those images - it does affect how much this will be shared.
This is not a criticism of your post or decision to include it and not warn us just some thoughts on whether your writing will be heard differently if you consider letting people know ahead of time that there is a disturbing image.
Powerful and important post, Thomas. Nothing but the truth. We are truly being led by the most evil of beasts. Liars, devils. Thanks for speaking up.
👏👏👏
Well said.
I grew up in a home where I was told about the horrifying things Americans have done and still do. I still remember photos from Life magazine that deeply affected me, especially the white women screaming at little children just trying to go to school. I have a different perspective on Korea, the country that we bombed back to the "stone age," the country where we destroyed 20% of all the villages and murdered so many people. The evil that what I call USUKI has done is simply beyond human comprehension, and I still hear people telling me that Korea was evil, that it was necessary to drop atomic bombs on Japan, that this country of mindless people is at heart "good."
When I was young I never used the word EVIL, but now it's one of the few words that adequately describes how low the "West" has sunk. Please read about the Sand Creek Massacre, it is eerily familiar.
In 1970, age 19, I was a sophomore in college. For some reason I went to the movies alone… a movie titled, Soldier Blue. I don’t know why I went but I will never, ever, forget the movie nor how sick I was afterward. The movie was about the Sand Creek Massacre. It was horrifying. I was an innocent Catholic boy from West Allis, WI who never witnessed a day of violence in my entire life. Baiting fishing hooks with worms was about the worst it got for me. My life would never be the same. The following year I performed my sociology internship on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation. I needed to understand. A majority of my life has been spent learning from, working with, conducting ceremony with Native American people. I needed to understand, I still need to grasp, how humans can be so utterly cruel to one another? How? Regarding Hiroshima I could say, ‘What about Nangjing?’ But we both know it isn’t about a who’s worse or was first competition. It is about, ‘How could any human in any time treat a fellow human ‘like this’? No people are better or more pious than any other … I just need to know… ‘How can humans be this cruel?’ Cutting out the uterus of a woman at Sand Creek and wearing it for a hat, vaporizing a Japanese man or raping CHinese women … all the way to killing a little girl alone in her car? Are we THAT evil? Strange Fruit, song of the 20th Century, says, ‘yes, we are.’ Thank you for writing.
Wonderful post! So energizing and light and life giving.
So true and sane. We have to stay awake and aware and not be lulled by snake charmers.
This was a powerful post and beautifully expressed. I don’t normally advocate for trigger warnings and such because we should bear witness to the brutality we are complicit in. But that first image is among the worst images I have ever seen in my life. Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve seen that image.
I wanted to share this with my wife but I know she will not be able to handle those images - it does affect how much this will be shared.
This is not a criticism of your post or decision to include it and not warn us just some thoughts on whether your writing will be heard differently if you consider letting people know ahead of time that there is a disturbing image.