Posts by Keir Leslie
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The Japanese leadership were "forced" into action, based on the standards and norms prevailing in Japan at the time.
Which were basically criminal standards and norms, and the Americans had every right to be fucked off when the Japanese acted on them.
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Re Pearl Harbour, I think it is the sneakiness of the attack that so outraged America, not the carnage inflicted.
Personally, I think it was the whole `they started a war' thing that outraged Americans; starting wars is Not Allowed, that's why Bush and Blair and Howard should be sitting in cells in The Hague.
(& forced into action is dodgy; the Japanese were an expansionist military power & saying `they were forced to fight a war' is a bit daft, given that they could have not fought a war. Maybe they wouldn't have been able to be an expansionist military power, but so? Also, of course, the Japanese invaded China by choice and by that stage had a rather nasty habit of invading people just because.)
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Yes but it was an act that didn't happen in isolation.
Yes, the Japanese had been invading other places for the past decade or so.
(Sorry, that was a bit cheap. But there is a real sense in which Pearl Harbor was, if not a crime, certainly something very much like one, Even if the US hadn't been blameless, starting wars is bad and illegal & should be seen as such. But the Americans were hardly saints in the Pacific either.)
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I think Americans consider Pearl Harbour to be some sort of war crime, despite the almost entirely military nature of the target.
Well, wars of aggression are generally considered a crime against peace.
Doesn't matter if it was a military target or not, aggression is Not OK & Pearl Harbor was arguably an aggressive act, so thinking it was a crime is not that daft.
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It is as if WWII was the high point in British history. That may be because WWII was the last time Britain got to seriously flex its muscles on the international stage.
More likely because between the Fall of France and Pearl Harbor, the United Kingdom was unutterably and gloriously in the right; essentially alone, against one of the evillest organisations that ever existed, and not giving in.
I mean, it was their finest hour; it really was a struggle of free men and women against slaves; it really was all that propaganda guff.
And yes, the Bengal Famine and yes all that, but come on, it isn't hard to understand why the British are proud of World War Two: because it really was something to be proud of. There is a legitimate question about the way that feeling is used and the lack of a discussion about Bomber Command and so forth, but really, how could you expect a nation not to be proud of Fighter Command, the Home Guard, and the Norway Debate?
(again, disclaimer about it being rather daft and all, but.)
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To throw a party themed around the darkest period in German history is as fitting as having a 'Stolen Generation' ball in Darwin ("Bring your black and your white mum"), or a 'Killing Fields' piss-up with a Pol Pot look-alike contest at the Cambodian cultural centre.
In my home country, only a right-wing white supremacist would ever don Nazi outfits of any sort.
Also, this is dodgy, because we aren't in Germany, so acting as if we were is a bit daft. Especially given it isn't like anyone thinks the Lincoln students are pro-Nazi; they're literally the kind of farm boys from New Zealand that went to fight the Nazis when it was a live issue. Probably not politically aware, but hardly wee Kyle Chapmans.
I don't think this was Lincoln's finest moment, but it's a dodgy offensive joke at worst, not comparable to yer actual neo-nazis or such. (Likewise the Klu Klux Van, although I think that was really much more likely to be taken seriously, given that there was a reasonably serious car with the bloody Confederate flag on it there too.)
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There's nothing like having a good "they," is there?
Well, yes, that's why the idea of national feeling is daft. But if you want to use it, you should be consistent.
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hurt my national feelings
If we accept the discourse of national feeling, then the German national feeling should be hurt forever and ever; that's what the sign outside Oradour-sur-Glane means: you can never, ever, ever, get past this. You fucked up, you did something so monstrous that you can never really be free of the taint. That's the legacy of Nazi national pride: that the Germans can't really have any any more. Even the football team is tainted.
And this applies to France and Britain and America and New Zealand as well, but what is striking about the German case is that even if you are very western and imperialist and racist and all that, they are still going to be the country that started a truly evil war of choice and then got taken to the cleaners for their trouble forever and there's pretty much nothing they can do about it.
Which is an argument against national feeling, but if we are to have national feeling, then the German national feeling should be shame.
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Angus, you aren't seriously promoting Arsenal as an nice team as opposed to that nasty diving Man U are you?
Because Eduardo da Silva's got a wee cannon on his shirt & it was Wenger that claimed that it was all a Scotch mafia at uefa that were agin him.
The scoreline really has very little to do with a `good' game or not; it is possibly to watch a truly beautiful 0-0 draw, or an edgy 2-1 win, or a nailbiting 1-1 draw, or a rollicking 4-5 goalfest; the point is that in football scoring is the aim, but it's not the simplistic measure of a game that runs are in cricket for instance.
Because while little old NZ could make it to the World Cup, when we play Brazil the outcome will be fairly certain
Well, yes. One way to think about it: there's a hundred odd countries between the two sides. The hundredth worst international rugby side in the world doesn't exist.
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Um, not quite! Because, of course, prisoners can assault etc other prisoners and prison guards.
(Probably they offend at a much reduced rate, or at least you'd hope so, but they can still offend on the inside.)