Remembering Hiroshima

by Justin Morahan Fri Aug 06, 2004 02:02

If any vigil has been palnned?

by Sickened Fri Aug 06, 2004 09:53

While we feel for those who died and the awful manner of their death please spare us the thinly veiled anti-American rant. It is unfair to judge the dropping of the atom bombs outside the context of the war in the pacific. Not that fairness ever matters to the anti-American lobby!

by Marina Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:50

Sure the Atomic bomb was terrible. But the above poem looks like the beginnings of another anti-American rant. Reading about the Rape of Naking or Unit 731 just gives you a tiny flavour of what the Japanese were like at war.

The Japanese also planned to massacre their prison population (the few left) when their homeland was invaded. JG Ballard reckons the Bomb saved his life. And he had a relatively easy time of it in his camp hear Shanghai, compared to other Japanese camps.

Look at Okiniwa in 1945, suicidal Japanese soldiers, and the Japanese military encouraging or forcing the civilian population to commit suicide. I'm afraid the unpalatable truth is that the Atomic bomb saved lives.

Admittedly, some Japanese fanatics were only convinced by the USSR's declaration of war on August 9th that their position was hopeless. They surrendered 2 days later.

by Crush Fri Aug 06, 2004 11:09

The decision to drop the bomb did not come lightly but it did save Ameican, British Chinese and other lives. The dropping of the second bomb can be critised but this anti-american poem is a load of bullshit, someone needs a new bandwagon.

by The Truth Fri Aug 06, 2004 13:13

from peoples eyes around here.That the anti war crowd are actually anti American in all shape and form.

by The Truth Fri Aug 06, 2004 13:13

from peoples eyes around here.That the anti war crowd are actually anti American in all shape and form.

by lawyer Fri Aug 06, 2004 15:35

Had the Geneva Conventions been in place when the bombs were dropped the action would have clearly been considered a 'grave breach' or in normal useage, a 'war crime'. They even breached the international legal protection that was in place at the time, the Hague Convention of 1907.

Justification for the deliberate attack on civilian targets (which also would include actions taken by all sides during this war) is dangerous and out of place. The principals of international law for protecting civilians do not allow for exceptions. To allow warring parties to consciously and deliberatlely target civilians if they believe that their cause is militarily or morally necessary allows politics to enter the equation and undermines the protection.

Today, we again find ourselves in circumstances where the rules of international law are trampled over for the sake of political expediency, and the same justifications that the action was necessary to prevent a greater evil and protect other innocent lives. We also find that the military victor in the conflict refuse to be held account for their actions, while arranging swift 'justice' for the regimes that they toppled.

International legal protection means nothing unless it is unconditional and those who breach it are made accountable for their actions. International law is as meaningless for civilians in 2004 as it was in 1945.

There is nothing anti-US in this sentiment. The same could be applied to the actions of Japan, Nazi Germany, Sadaam, Blair and Bush. They were all war criminals, but only the latter two of the list have escaped 'justice'.

by quick question Fri Aug 06, 2004 15:47

I think you'll find Hiroshima was not a precedent for bombing.

Geneva Convention? The Japanese were bombing China throughout the 1930s. They bombed anyone and everyone they could, including Darwin in Australia. They attempted but didnt get close to developing their own A-Bomb.

by Dave Fri Aug 06, 2004 18:25

So the japanere were bombing civilians. That, in your book excuses the bombing by the US of Japanese civilians?

So then it works both ways, doesnt it? If the Japanese dropped an A-bomb on New York it would be ok, because the US fire-bombed Japanese cities and kiled hundreds of thousands of people. It's the "he started it" principle.

by Dave Fri Aug 06, 2004 18:33

Its amazing how far some people will go to make excuses for American and British atrocities. Try to imagine if Germany had dropped an atomic bomb on London. Or the Japanese on Los Angeles. Or, for that matter if the Russians had dropped one on New York.

Would there be such a rush of people making sickening apologetics about 'having to put it in context' or saying 'oh well the other side was bad too so it doesn't matter'. I doubt it. If these countries obliterated cities with atomic weapons it would go down in history alongside the other infamous mass killings of civilians carried out by the official 'bad guys'.

by iosaf Fri Aug 06, 2004 22:42

A lot of people died.
All at once.
Then a lot of other people died
slowly.
And no one wants it to happen again.
Ever Ever.

(it's a double haiku)

by Tommy Donnellan - Galway Alliance Against War & Galway Grassroots Network Fri Aug 06, 2004 22:56 tommyjoe at eircom dot net

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and POPULATION." - emphasis mine, (U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey). Truman obscenely said at the time,"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians" - the 100,00 slaughtered in that city were almost all civilians. Furthermore, the United States Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, after interviewing hundreds of Japanese civilians and military leaders after Japan surrendered, reported after the war " ... it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped". Prior to the bombing, it was known to Truman & co, through the cracking of the Japanese code and the diplomatic exertions of the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, that they were actively striving towards conditional surrender, so, why the slaughter?. Perhaps, the diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, gives the game away, where he notes that the Secretary of State James F. Byrnes is "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in".

by Ciaron - Back in Briz Vegas Fri Aug 06, 2004 23:53 0432 023 188 9 (OZ MOBILE)

About 150 folks gathered in the Square. Speakers about the new U.S. base being built near Yeppoon (Queensland), war in West Papua, aspects of the anniversary and moi on disarmament at Shannon Irish style.

At the start of WW2 the Allies denounced the bombing of civilian cities as a Nazi war crime....5 years later they had perfected the technique with napalm over Dresden & Tokyo, Nukes over Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

It is truthful to say that the spiri of Nazism won the war. As the US freedom fighters went to fight freedom where ever it raised it's ugly face from Chile to the Phillipines to Iran to Indonchina.

The Australian Supreme Court ruled yesterday that it is legal to detain statelessperson (in this case a visaless Palestinian) for the term of his natural life. Because he has no visa and there is no place to deport him to.

by arthur Sat Aug 07, 2004 03:27

I agre with Marianne and the Lawyer but what wasnt mentioned about unit 731 was that they autopised human beings while they were consious in plague experiements in Manchuria.The gov that developed the a-bomb did a deal with these war criminals in exchange for the information gleamed from these experiements.
The question needs to be asked who will champion human rights as we now seem to have lost them,they have been replaced by the arrogance of office and if you want your rights "go to expensive courts and bankrupt yourself "and be mindful that judges are secretly briefed by the Attorney General.
What we need in the world is the creation of A I Artifical Intelligence and it may not be far off and when it is created we may find out what the driving forces are that influences the decision makers to start wars that debase human kind.
There is a futuristic view that the future may not need us humans and ominous indicators are emerging from the mist that our position is quite precarious without meaningfull Human Rights to protect us.

Prof Lang once said "The main fear of human beings is other human beings".The late Dr Albert Schweitzer said "We must never become callous .When we experience the conflicts ever more deeply we are living in truth.The quiet cosience is an invention of the devil."
Nothing is likely to change as people only react to their immediate needs and if there is a consience how would we know or have any influence on the big fixes that are in control.

by Justin Morahan Sat Aug 07, 2004 10:16

The comment from "the Truth" is simply untrue. Orwellian?
As one of the anti war crowd , as he or she labels us, I am not anti American. Nor anti US people.
I must keep on repeating this.

by Tim Sat Aug 07, 2004 19:31

Well Justin you shouldn't have to keep repeating that you're not anti American...
your detractors are just immature trolls.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary atrocities, and whatever wrong the Japanese military did cannot excuse dropping nuclear weapons on cities of innocent civilians, especially when that country is trying to surrender.

As mentioned before, the idea was to show off the new weapon, (particularly by dropping it on a 'clean slate' - Hiroshima had not been repeatedly firebombed like Tokyo) and to force the Japanese to surrender before the Russians got in on the act.

The oft-repeated argument that it saved lives by avoiding an invasion doesn't hold any water when the truth (almost never repeated in the media) shows that the Japanese were seeking a conditional surrender.

It says something about propganda that to some people, weapons of Mass Destruction are justified when used on Japanese cities, killing over a hundred thousand indiscriminately.
It's not a problem that the US, and UK have nuclear weapons... it's all those OTHER countries who don't speak english or perhaps don't have white people to rule them...

the trolls of course will continue on with their shite, never having a clue what Hiroshima looked like after the bombing, or what it looks like today...

by Tim Sat Aug 07, 2004 20:27

In Oak Ridge Tennessee (where a lot of work was done on the bomb project) this weekened there is a demo to remember the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"In a circle of unity, men and women of all nationalities and ages gathered to promote peace. Bishop Thomas Gumbleton is among them. He said, "If this proliferation of nuclear weapons continues, this world is going to become an ever more dangerous place." The group also remembered the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 59 years ago. Anne Hablas remarked, "Human beings in our country made the bomb and dropped it on other human beings and there's great sorrow in many of our hearts for that to have happened."

In Hiroshima every year they float peace lanterns down the river to remember what happened. this is done in other towns and cities around the world, and the group in Tennessee did the same

"The group assembled peace laterns in remembrance. Young Sarah Hutchison and Nissy Hoyt were there tonight also. Sarah said, "It's about the people who died in the bombing and we're sending these laterns off to remember them." and Nissy remarked, "I've seen pictures and it looks like a big wave of flames."
As the sun sets on the Tennessee River, and these lanterns are launced, this group prays for a future different from the past, one free of fear and safe for future generations to come. "

In Syracuse, New York, and many other places around the world similar processions took place.

Meanwhile, in Hiroshima itself, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi got a lukewarm reception, including some booing when he attended the memorial service "apparently because of local citizens' growing frustration at moves within the government to revise the pacifist Constitution"

Even though Japan's post-war constitution prohibits the making, possession or use of nuclear weapons, in 1981, a former US Ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer disclosed that the US military has been still storing nuclear weapons in Japanese ports and waters since the 1960s
-Sometimes on US naval vessels in Yokusuka (Prime Minister Koizumi's home town) and during the 50s and 60s actually stored nuclear weapons on a ship anchored at Iawkuni, near Hiroshima.

The Prime Minister at that time, Zenko Suzuki said "we trust that the US is abiding by all treaties and laws in its use of our territory."

Sound familiar?

A number of scholars and critics have insisted that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East -- popularly known as the Tokyo Trial -- was unfair.

During the trial, a lawyer for the Japanese defendants referred to ''a crime against humanity'' in accusing the United States of murdering a massive number of civilians through the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, simultaneous translation for the lawyer's argument was immediately cut off.

August 8th 1945 (2 days after the Hiroshima Bomb and 1 day before Nagasaki was nuked) that the US signed the London Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis.

Some of the crimes they charged against the European Axis included
Aerial bombardment of undefended or civilian areas.

and of course, what had the US just done in Japan?
Even the US Field Manual of the time, in paragraphs 45-48 (FM 27-10 (1940)) dealt with the requirements of international law applicable to bombardments from land and air.

the manual incorporated the rule of the 1907 Hague Regulations article 25 to the effect that the attack or bombardment, "by whatever means" of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended, is prohibited.

"By August of 1945, air supremacy over the target area had already been attained so that there appears to have been no effective fighter or anti-aircraft opposition. The Japanese had ceased to attempt to interfere with reconnaissance flights that were a daily occurrence at that time. So when the three aircraft appeared on the morning of August 6, no attempt at defense was made"

It is also prohibited to make collective punishments and it was prohibited back then as well.

The Japanese were willing to surrender, IF the emperor was allowed to remain as a figurehead.
The myth that the bombing was better than an invasion costing thousands of soldiers lives is baseless.

Soldiers can at least pick their targets, shoot at other soldiers who have a fair chance of shooting back.
bombs, especially nukes do not discriminate between combatants and civilians.

Japan was on its knees, most of their industrial facilities had been destroyed by conventional bombing and it was unable to import essentials. The end was inevitable, the US just wanted it on their terms.

The US dropped two nuclear weapons, needlessly, as an expression of military might and a message to it's rivals. It was also well timed to make sure Japan surrendered to the US and not Moscow.

They picked Hiroshima because it was a fair size and had not been flattened by conventional bombs.
Tokyo had been devastated by repeated waves of bombing.
It wouldn't do as a 'clean slate' to measure the effectiveness of the nuclear bomb.
The people of Hiroshima were nothing more than victims and test subjects for Oppenheimer's deadly toy.
Kobe was the second target for August 9th, but due to poor visibility on the day it wasn't feasible and the people of Nagasaki ended up suffering a nuclear fireball.

If you go to the musuem in Hiroshima you will see watches stopped at 08:15, a child's tricycle partially melted by the heat, a wall burnt by 'black rain' from fallout and countless other photographs and personal artefacts that one would find belonging to ordinary people, parents, children, grandparents, young and old.
None of them deserved to die.
But then again, the victor writes the history eh?

by General Groves Sat Aug 07, 2004 20:46

General Groves [Director of the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bombs] left nothing to chance. Before Hiroshima, he had prepared an order prohibiting U.S. commanders in the field from commenting on the atomic attacks without clearance from the War Department. 'We didn't want [General] MacArthur and others saying the war could have been won without the bomb,' Groves later explained. Indeed, MacArthur and many of the other commanders believed the bomb was not needed to end the war.

by Curtis Le May Sat Aug 07, 2004 21:20

The American people were not aware of the human effects right away, though. Afraid that issuing casualty estimates would "make us look like barbarians," in the words of Gereral Curtis LeMay " the U.S. government worked to conceal the gruesome details, and enjoyed the cooperation of much of the mainstream media in their efforts."

Japan's "unconditional surrender"

In July, 1945, the Allied Powers issued the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded "unconditional surrender" from Japan. Japan rejected the declaration because it wanted one condition: to keep its Emporer, Hirohito, on the throne. When Japan refused, Truman signed the order authorizing the military to use atomic bombs against Japan.

However, the Japanese surrender accepted by the Allied Powers on August 14--after both bombs had been dropped--allowed Hirohito to remain Emporer. When Truman lied and called it "unconditional" anyway, the press did not refute it.(26) The distinction was overlooked by most Americans in their joy that the war was finally over.

Lifton and Mitchell show that government officials and military advisors alike knew in the Summer of 1945 that Japan was "looking for an excuse to surrender".(27) The U.S. only needed to offer the same conditional terms it ultimately accepted, terms that Japan extended that summer, only to be rebuffed.

The U.S. Stategic Bombing Survey--an impartial group of engineers, doctors, architects and other professionals--concluded that atomic weapons were unnecessary to end the war. Their study--which was done in Japan in the Fall of 1945 at Truman's orders--revealed that the Japanese government "had decided as early as May of 1945 that the war should be ended even if it meant acceptance of defeat on Allied terms." The Survey instead gave credit for the surrender to Japan's defeats in the Pacific, the naval blockade of their home islands, and the entry of Russia into the war.

by T. Espinoza Sat Aug 07, 2004 21:37 landofowen at hotmail dot com

Theoretically speaking how would a successful anti militarist/anti-authoritarian revolution deal with stockpiles of existing nuclear weapons?

Would it disarm and destroy them immediately in the society were it consolidated the revolution? If so how would it defend it's gains from other global nuclear powers that might feel threatened by such a revolution? What if these powers were ruthless enough and committed enough to the survival of their current system to go to any lengths to thwart a revolution that might pose a treat to their continued rule?

by The Truth Sat Aug 07, 2004 23:45

As the anti American crowd keep saying."We are not anti American,this needs to be emphasised".Yet 95% of posts on indymedia are attacks on US policies,way of life,decisions ,historics,etc.
Yeah the ministry of Truth is alive and well here.

by Justin Morahan Sun Aug 08, 2004 01:29

"Yeah the ministry of Truth is alive and well here" (Orwellian)
To which of your two comments does this apply?

by The Truth Sun Aug 08, 2004 21:53

of the comments and then go figure where it applies.

by The Truth Sun Aug 08, 2004 21:54

of the comments and then go figure where it applies.

by nerraw Mon Aug 09, 2004 13:33

Terrible poem in the first place whatever about the author's motives.

by Agness Shigeko Kaku Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:52

How nice of so many of you to be speaking for The Japanese People. Kind of reminds me of skinny little Annie Coulter taking it upon herself the other to present the African-American perspective the other day.

Since I actually am Japanese and three of my great uncles died horrible deaths, I feel qualified to decline all the sympathy being thrown this way. I know better than to pretend I'm speaking for anything as impossible as an entire country, however.

Akiyuki Nosaka put it far better than anybody on either side of this ongoing bickerfest. He places the blame for the massive Japanese civilian casualties from the atom bombs on the Japanese military leadership (which in fact controlled the country, rather than the civilian government or the Emperor), who stubbornly refused the window of opportunity for surrender presented by the Potsdam Declaration.

By July 1945, almost every major city in Japan had been razed to the ground. American bombers owned the air. Japanese soldiers were dying eve faster than their families back home, and the number of American soldiers they were taking with them was more an indication of desperate last gasp than impending victory.

The military leadership knew something only the well-educated, privileged top crust of Japanese society knew in 1945 (or 1937 for that matter): that contrary to the propaganda that they had been assiduously feeding to the general population, surrendering to the Americans would not result in Japanese babies on American bayonets. No, they knew that an unconditional surrender according to the terms of Potsdam would mean the end of Japanese civilian and military casualties, not the beginning of more.

However, the Japanese military leadership also knew that they'd be the ones facing death for a change. Which is why they hesitated. There is a paralysis of will that comes upon men like these when they suddenly understand that reality is about to crash their party, that none of the choices allow them the one thing they care about: retaining their ill-gotten power. So collectively they went into denial, as 'their' people continued to suffer and die. It took 2 atom bombs to break through that paralysis.

I am Japanese, the kind with an ancestry that supposedly goes back to the begiining of time, and I have said this all my life: We were the aggressors of that war. We wormed our way into Manchuria in 1931, and invaded China in 1937. We raped and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians, and not just in Nanking. We turned on countries that had been our neighbors, mentors, blood relatives for centuries. And we still won't admit it. Because of that, we are alone. We are so alone and unredeemed that we've gone a little crazy as a culture.

The hell that came to Kobe, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Okinawa, we brought on ourselves. That is the evil of autocracies: the crimes of the leaders are necessarily visited on civilians, whose power to stop the madness is always theoretical at best. As soon as imperialist ambitions started brewing in the minds of generals after the Japan-Russo War, over a million lives began an inevitable march to terrible death. They just didn't know it for a few years yet.

The facile criticism of Truman for his decision to drop the A-bombs confounds the evil of war with the evil of those who pursue a war of choice. Fault can be ascribed in the latter case, but not in the former. Instead, the event becomes a piece of hell that the entire human race owns, one person at a time.

I have a longtime family friend, a Jesuit physicist from Osaka. He saw his friends go off to war and die, even as his tubercular lungs and status as a hard science student kept him safe. Years later, he was invited to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, then still headed by Robert Oppenheimer. The priest said the "father of the atomic bomb" sought him out to talk about the bombs and the morality of using them to end a war. Oppenheimer struggled with that question for the rest of his life, and never took the easy way. He carried the bomb with him always, and accepted it as his burden. So should we all.

by Justin Morahan - Peace People Sat Dec 11, 2004 02:56

Because you are from Japan and have granduncles who died horrible deaths doesn’t entitle you to scorn the sympathy we have for others of your race who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including your relatives if they were among those victims. Admittedly, you accept that you may not represent a majority of your countrymen and women.
The atrocities of your countrymen you rightly condemn but find nothing but excuses for the savage obliteration of your own civilian people by Truman; our criticism of him you call “facile”.
How you can see the horror in the one case and not in the other is surprising, to put it mildly.
Maybe it is commendable to see the wrongdoing of some of your own people rather than the wrongdoing of those who are far away or maybe it has something to do with your living in California?
There is an implicit acceptance in your posting, I take it, that you agree with “the terrible death” that was visited by Truman on the innocents of your cities.
J. Robert Oppenheimer regretted the part he played in the making of the bomb, telling Truman that he (Oppenheimer) had blood on his hands. There was no regret, however, on the part of Truman. You appear to believe he should feel no guilt.
My sympathy is not just for you and the people who died or were orphaned or mutilated in the Second World War but for humanity which is affected by the horror of war everywhere. I don't see that this is "taking the easy way".
You can always reject the proferred sympathy as you have done here: but that will not silence me from continuing to voice it in the hope that it will fall on a more receptive ear. Peace.

by A. S. Kaku Wed Aug 23, 2006 15:21

Justin,

I just came across your 18-month-old response, and you appear to have heard very little of what I said before putting finger to keyboard.

Take a deep breath. What does it say about you that you spent the time to look up my physical whereabouts at the time of the post (check this one, if you like. You'll find that this time, I'm in Japan), so you could decide that somehow I was not a 'real' Japanese and my opinion was therefore invalid? People did that in my country in the 1930s, and all through the war years. Hikokumin. Kokuzoku. Un-Japanese. Traitor. It should sound doubly familiar, because it's happening again these days closer to your home.

Read my post again. "Hell" is not a word one uses to call something one "implicitly accepts" or "not see the horror [of]". It is a strong word, the strongest possible term of condemnation. It's what you won't hear Condoleezza Rice use to describe Iraq. No, she would be very careful not to use the word. I don't know if Harry Truman used it to describe Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but I would not be at all surprised if he avoided doing so.

Harry Truman. You lobbed another easy and inflammatory accusation there, with a big red 'Truman Lover' daubed between the lines. Put away the torches and the long knives for a moment and ask yourself what Truman did for a living.

The Presidency of the United States of America is not a particularly righteous position. Its function is "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic... to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.. to take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion."

Under the terms of this contract, so to speak, Harry Truman's job was to protect American blood, extend American interests, pummel anybody who was in the way, and love of humanity be damned. While it is always a good idea to hold the powerful to higher standards than what they strictly signed on for, to pretend that American presidents should have qualms about pushing the button is to pretend naivete on the ruthless and nationalistic nature of that job.

Furthermore, to place the blame solely on the individual who made the final move in this end game cannot be described as anything but facile. It's tempting to chalk all those deaths up to a single man's decision. It feels like closure, but it is far from accurate. War is not like a mugging, or even a murder. World-changing military decisions are not made by individuals, but institutions. These decisions in turn are products of situations created over a period of decades, even centuries, and whose architects may number in the millions.

Your discomfort in facing the inherent moral ambiguity of war shows through all too clearly, and perhaps that's as it should be for a committed pacifist. But in addition to opposing conflict, you want to separate out victims and aggressors in the morass of war, and champion the former. It's a noble impulse, this wanting to speak for the innocent dead, but assumes that such clear division is possible. It's a belief that gives rise to the less noble corollary impulse, one that wants to divide the world into good guys and bad guys. It's a belief that instantly cleaves the room in two when the Israel-Palestine conflict is brought up, forcing the few weary freaks like me to give up and leave the room, despised by both camps for not choosing a side to throw stones from.

You are probably sincere in your desire to offer sympathy to those who have suffered the effects of war. (I hope the sympathy extends to combatants as well—the only thing worse than being killed in war is to be the killer.) But if you are serious about preventing and ending wars, you cannot remain solely the student of victimage, placing poems on graves. Instead, I urge you to study the facts and theories of past and present conflicts, the variables that contributed to defining moments, in essence becoming a war scholar. You may object that you have done all this, but on the subject of the two atomic strikes and the end of World War II, I can assure you that you're in need of more study (here's an sample study question: why August 6th, and the second one so soon after?). Unless you learn to wrap your head around the appalling murk of war, you only add to the polarization that is tearing this world into pieces.