BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: mousethief
Date: 14 May 10 - 01:50 AM

I never spout anti-USA rhetoric, mousethief.

I can scroll up, you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Bobert
Date: 13 May 10 - 08:27 PM

Well, first of all, my pudder has been down a few days 'er I woulda come 'round this thread earlier but...

...as per usual, Bobert has a ***true*** Truman story that has nuthin' to do with anyone ordering up no nuclear bombs to be dropped on population centers...

It was 'round '54 or '55 and my dad was workin' for Ford Motor Company as a factory rep and had access to lots of Ford related automobiles... The next door neigbors, the Bookers, (Nan Booker was James Arness's siter also *true* were lookin' for a large car for Ms. Booker to carry my mom and their friends and all the kids in when...

...Harry Truman's 1946 Lincoln Limo became available thru my dad and the Bookers bought it... So...

...I grew up riding in the back of Truman's Lincoln...

Now back to the regularially scheduled snipin' about the bomb... BTW, I think it was stupid and evil to drop the sumabich but afetr the campaign in the South Pacific I'm sure that lots of folks were overjoyed...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 May 10 - 12:35 PM

I never spout anti-USA rhetoric, mousethief. I love my country. Maybe I am wrong but I do not see the USA as being any more reliable when it comes to having and using nuclear weapons than any other country. I believe we are just as capable of using them as any other country. I also believe that our nuclear industry is ripe for security breaches, accidents and terrorist attacks, thefts of material, etc. Take a look at how we handle nuclear waste, for example. An accident waiting to happen or be caused.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: kendall
Date: 12 May 10 - 07:34 PM

And, no one who caused WW 2 is still alive. It all shakes out in the end.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: mousethief
Date: 11 May 10 - 07:40 PM

There is nobody alive in the United States right now who used a nuclear weapon. You are anthropomorphizing the nation. The decision was Truman's, guided by his intelligence-gathering agencies and military advisors. Nobody in that group is still in a position of decision-making in the United States. You are spouting meaningless anti-US rhetoric.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 May 10 - 02:07 PM

http://www.richardrhodes.com/books.html


For anyone who hasn't read Rhodes' The Making Of The Atomic Bomb.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 May 10 - 07:33 PM

BTW.....Edward Teller was one of the greatest assholes of all time.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 May 10 - 07:31 PM

The Richard Rhodes book is really excellent and has got to be considered definitive on the Manhattan Project.

The scientists were split to some degree and Oppenheimer did not represent them well in the halls of power although he himself had serious reservations. Many of them were truly applled after seeing footage of Hiroshima and came down hard against additional use. A few led by Teller were wanting more, better, and bigger. Teller eventually had the lead in in developing "the Super" which was the H-Bomb and also came out against Oppenheimer who had become an advocate for only peaceful uses and lost all clearances as he was thought to be a communist. His trial is another one of the more disgraceful episodes in our history.

I never meant that I agreed with Truman's decision but I admire him for his courage in making ANY decision and sticking to it because HE thought it was right. Tell me when that's happened lately? Jesus, in the last 50 years we've been treated to committe decisions based on political need and then a series of waffling and unsteady changes until we can't tell who did what to whom and when.....but the country is getting fucked somehow!

We no longer dare to dream and work to make the dream reality. We now sort though all the options and measure them against some jalf-assed political standard that represnts no one. When we have sorted through them all, we develop a compromise based on the two least desirable alternatives and then add 59 amendments to it. In the end we have something that can pass easily for nothing.......like the Healthcare program. It can barely be considered a starting place.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Bill D
Date: 10 May 10 - 06:26 PM

...and when I said "big boom", that is most of what the decision makers knew. It was a BIG bomb, but we understood very little about radiation effects right then...it was viewed as a way to end the war.
(Hitler was already at the end of his rope, but invading mainland Japan was beyond scary).
   Those few who had some idea of the real power had painted themselves into a corner, and had very few options then. I suppose they could have pretended not to be able to make more soon enough, but someone would have spilled the truth...

It's done....let's work to be SURE that Aug. 1945 never happens again.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Bill D
Date: 10 May 10 - 06:11 PM

Hindsight is 20/20

Perspective is HARD.

"When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember why you thought it was a good idea to drain the swamp."

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 10 May 10 - 04:24 PM

One of the scientist who built this thing was said to have remarked, "My God, what have we done" ? Damn good question!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 May 10 - 03:54 PM

Who better? Someone who had the sense not to use them - the rest of the world. Do as I say not as I do isn't acceptable especially since recent presidenta have stated that they would use nuclear weapons if they thought it necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: mousethief
Date: 10 May 10 - 12:15 PM

SINSULL: I don't understand the logic that says because we dropped nuclear bombs, we have no right to think they're bad or not want other nations to use them.


My comment is that the US, the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in war, assumes it is in a position to determine who can be trusted with nuclear weapons. That is irony.

Who better? we know the shame.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 May 10 - 10:29 AM

"all we really knew was this thing made a BIG boom"

We knew more and certainly after Hiroshima we knew a lot more.


What we knew:

Finally, the day came when all at Los Alamos would find out if "The Gadget" (code-named as such during its development) was going to be the colossal dud of the century or perhaps an end to the war. It all came down to a fateful morning in midsummer, 1945.
At 5:29:45 (Mountain War Time) on July 16, 1945, in a white blaze that stretched from the basin of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico to the still-dark skies, "The Gadget" ushered in the Atomic Age. The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction.

The brilliant light from the detonation pierced the early morning skies with such intensity that residents from a faraway neighboring community would swear that the sun came up twice that day. Even more astonishing is that a blind girl saw the flash 120 miles away.

Upon witnessing the explosion, its creators had mixed reactions. Isidor Rabi felt that the equilibrium in nature had been upset as if humankind had become a threat to the world it inhabited. Robert Oppenheimer, though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches."

After viewing the results several participants signed petitions against loosing the monster they had created, but their protests fell on deaf ears. The Jornada del Muerto of New Mexico would not be the last site on planet Earth to experience an atomic explosion.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 May 10 - 10:23 AM

I don't understand the logic that says because we dropped nuclear bombs, we have no right to think they're bad or not want other nations to use them.


My comment is that the US, the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in war, assumes it is in a position to determine who can be trusted with nuclear weapons. That is irony.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: mousethief
Date: 09 May 10 - 09:33 PM

I don't understand the logic that says because we dropped nuclear bombs, we have no right to think they're bad or not want other nations to use them. I would think that makes the US's resolve to minimize the number of nukes in the world all the more imperative. We didn't really find out how bad nukes were until they were used. In all the cold and hot wars since, we have not used them again. I think we learned something, perhaps. But I suppose for people who want to pummel the US, a very difficult decision made 65 years ago with incomplete information in a desperate situation makes as good a stick as any.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: kendall
Date: 09 May 10 - 09:14 PM

It's true that we were attacked. It is also true that they were put into a position that gave them no choice.

We piss and moan about terrorists attacking us on our own turf but we never mention that we have been doing the same thing to them for the last 20 years! That's why Obama's "Joke" about predator drones was so tasteless.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Bill D
Date: 09 May 10 - 03:49 PM

"...the US is always going on about which countries can't be trusted with nuclear weapons when we were the only ones to ever use them."

Not a good example, Mary. Remember..WE were the ones attacked, and many thousands had died, and all we really knew was this thing made a BIG boom, and might stop the Japanese when nothing else had.

Everyone knows now what the details of using that bomb are, and what the different motives of some of those who have it are. Harry Truman had seen ONE big boom, and had only weeks to decide what to do. There was no time to debate guys like the one who spit at him.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 May 10 - 03:17 PM

A good man. I was upset when he bounced MacArthur, but it was the right decision.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: SINSULL
Date: 09 May 10 - 02:26 PM

Too young to remember Truman. But I remember being shocked at a news bit. It would have been early 50s. He was walking on a street and a man started shouting and spitting at him while security people tried to get between them. We were taught that our leaders were specail men to be honored and respected. I was a child and could not understand such a transgression.
Later I learned that Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now I still find it ironic that the US is always going on about which countries can't be trusted with nuclear weapons when we were the only ones to ever use them.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Bill D
Date: 09 May 10 - 02:19 PM

Somewhere, I have an old, faded button produced in the chaotic 60s...it said"

"Come Back, Truman-All is Forgiven!"

When I was a a kid, people made fun of Truman and told jokes about his 'plain & earthy' ways & language. It took me years to realize how honest and sane the man was.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 May 10 - 01:36 PM

My point Kendall was that no matter how anyone feels about any of his decisions on any issues, Truman rightly took his counsel but then made a decision based not on the politics of the thing, but on his own belief in its rightness. He took on both big business and big unions. Truman believed that he always put the people first and to hell with you if you thought otherwise.

In the political climates of this country over the past 50 years, that kind of person is damn near impossible to find....and that includes Obama.   Truman would have kicked Wall Street in the ass and told the insurance companies to go fuck themselves.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 May 10 - 11:07 AM

Best of all he shared a birthday with my dad, though dad didn't come along until 1917.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: kendall
Date: 09 May 10 - 09:28 AM

It was a shame that so many civilians had to die under those bombs, but let's not forget that Japan was our mortal enemy, and the invasion of OKINAWA proved so costly in American lives that it was reasonable to believe that an invasion of the main Islands would cost a million American lives. He did what he had to do.

When he walked into a meeting of the kkk AND CHIDED THEM FOR HIDING BEHIND SHEETS THAT THEY BOUGHT FROM THE jEWS THAT THEY HATED, that took GUTS! Damn capslock...

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 May 10 - 06:52 AM

He had nuts like Kendall!
Don't you mean , 'He WAS nuts; like Kendall' ?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 10 - 10:34 PM

I also doubt that many have walked into the office with less knowledge of what was happening and with one of the greatest challenges of the ages facing them. He had never been a part of the inner circle of the Roosevelt administration and knew virtually nothing of the Manhattan Project. He acted with more integrity and according to what he believed was right than many of those that have followed.

The debate as to the bomb was one which was inevitably going to be second guessed (and third and fourth and fifth and......) by thousands of historians and politicians, not to mention the millions of folks like us. What sets Truman apart is that he chose what he thought was the best for shortening the war and saving American lives. He took all of the advice offered and then ACTED on his best beliefs and intentions. There are a thousand reasons to fault him but I can only respect the integrity of the man forced into a hard decision and under great pressure who did what he believed was right.

He also scratched his nuts like Kendall which kept him from being more popular.......

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman (born 8 May 1884)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 10 - 09:37 PM

In my lifetime, I don't think there was another President who came closer to absolute integrity (but I think Obama is close). I can't agree with Harry's decision to drop the atomic bomb, but I think he always did what he truly believed was the right thing to do.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman
From: gnu
Date: 08 May 10 - 08:18 PM

He was tough. Saw action in WW1. Saw the 30s. Just luck that he became the running mate and got to be president they way he did. Maybe the "plans" were in order anyway? Who knows. But he was the man. A good man.

These days, I wonder about "good men". We will see.... it may take more years than we have to look back and comment on our recent leaders.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman
From: mousethief
Date: 08 May 10 - 07:55 PM

He had a tough row to hoe and had to make some very excruciating decisions. Glad it wasn't me.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman
From: kendall
Date: 08 May 10 - 03:40 PM

He was like Russian toilet paper; he took no shit from anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 May 10 - 10:02 AM

Not for nothing is he known affectionately as, Hairy Arse Truman, in certain circles.

Subject: BS: Happy Birthday Harry Truman
From: kendall
Date: 08 May 10 - 09:20 AM

On this day in history one of our greatest presidents was born in Missouri. He ended the war and created the Marshall Plan, but gave the credit to General George Marshall because he knew he was about as popular as a wet dog at a wedding at that time.A real man, in my opinion.