Dear Readers:
First a quick note about Zelensky at the G-7 in Hiroshima. Russian reporter Alexander Grishin recounts how, at a press conference on Sunday, Zelensky was confronted by a couple of “jackals” of the press corps. “Mr. President, is Bakhmut still under the control of the Ukrainian army? The Russians report that they took it.”
Zelensky, who was sitting right next to American Prez Joe Biden, was forced to reply in a more or less honest fashion, to an honest question: “I think, no [obviously responding to the first question and not the follow-up]. But you have to understand, that nothing is left of the city [in other words, it’s worthless now, so who cares?] There are no buildings even left there. I am very sad about this. It’s a tragedy. As of today, Bakhmut remains only in our hearts.”
In Our Hearts, And Also Our Livers and Kidneys
Next I have this piece from TASS. The hero of this story is a man named Kunihiko Sakuma, who is one of the living survivors of the Hiroshima A-bomb attack on August 6, 1945. The Japanese city of Hiroshima is back in the news of course, because, as we just saw, Zelensky is there, having invited himself to the G-7 Summit.
Some back story: Japan is a member of the G-7, which consists of Canada, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Member states rotate the Chairmanship of the Summit, and this year it is Japan’s turn, which is the reason why the Summit is being held in Hiroshima.
Only two American Presidents have ever visited Hiroshima: Obama in 2016, and now Biden. Neither President has ever apologized for dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
The Survivor
Sakuma was only 9 months old when the A-bomb was dropped; which is why he doesn’t remember any of it. He was asleep in his crib, and his quick-thinking mom was doing laundry when it happened. She saw the flash, quickly dropped what she was doing, grabbed the infant, and hurried off to an evacuation center behind their house. In the explosion and aftermath, some 140,000 died. Sakuma’s family considered themselves lucky, that they survived. However, when Sakuma was ten years old, he started suffering from some liver and kidney issues that are very rare in children, and he wondered if it might not be the result of catching some radiation from the “black rain” fallout.
In additional to medical issues, Sakuma found himself an outcast in certain parts of Japanese society. Hiroshima survivors were regarded as diseased and unclean. The family of a girl he was dating in Tokyo, didn’t want her to marry him. Having to deal with these prejudices, Sakuma decided to return to Hiroshima, where people understood each other. He was able to find a job working for Mitsubishi.
In 2006 Sakuma became active in an advocacy group for Hiroshima survivors; they are called hibakusha. They obtain certificates for survivors, which entitles them to free medical care. They also offer psychological support to people who still suffer under a stigma and find it difficult to find somebody to talk to:
“I would hear the stories from hibakusha who were older than me at the time and I learnt so much that I didn’t know. I had watched the films that were used in our peace education at school, but it was a completely different experience to hear about what happened from people who had seen it with their own eyes.
“Over time, it began to dawn on me, that these were not only their experiences, but things I too had experienced. I began to truly appreciate the awful power of nuclear weapons and that they must never be used again.” Sakuma, now 75, has been the Chairperson of the advocacy group since 2015, and he even regularly travels abroad, to spread the anti-atomic message.
Speaks Out
These experiences have made Sakuma a political figure, so he decided to use his voice to speak out against Zelensky’s visit to Hiroshima; against his participation in the G-7 summit. Which Sakuma did at a press conference Friday evening. Originally, Zelensky was just supposed to address the conference via Zoom. But Zelensky being Zelensky, he insisted on showing up in person and also invited himself to a personal meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Videos show Zelensky deboarding his French plane wearing his usual filthy hoodie. This is what Sakuma had to say when asked about the arrival of this unwelcome guest: “Given the current political situation, there is a very spirited bargaining going on surrounding Zelensky’s visit to Hiroshima. I don’t agree with this visit.”
Awful Avalanche 
The civilian population of Hiroshima was the victim of a genocide, the perpetrators of the crime meeting there to talk about war can have no other objective than to transmit to the world a direct threat of what they can do with the destiny of humanity.
And at the same time it shows the lack of human sensitivity of the Japanese.
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“human sensitivity of the Japanese”
What? Human sensitivity from a country that invaded China, killed millions in that country and, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc, etc. established a research station that is famous in Nazi circles for its methods and overall behaved in a way even an Adolph and his criminal gang would have been proud of.
They are now nothing but an appendage to another nation having been led by war criminals, so just a continuation of a sordid history.
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Thank you! Imperial Japanese killed millions of Chinese and other Asians. Their cruelty and barbarism even made the Nazis flinch. The devastation of two nukes was nothing compared to what they did to the Asian continent. Which they still try to deny. And continue to celebrate war criminals.
Whenever people cry for imperial Japan being nuked I always say too bad the US didn’t drop a 3rd nuke and make it a hat trick.
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Imperial Japan certainly no angels, I think everyone can agree on that.
But this is a good time for a “What-about” type argument, as in “What about American genocide of native peoples? What about the slavery system?”
etc etc
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Looking at that list of G7, I see 6 countries that are far from economic power houses. After what happened to them in last 16 months, I would see them as damaged goods, and #7, the gorilla in the room, absolute abuser.
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Is America the 600 pound gorilla in the room?
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It happens to be #7 in the list although when I posted this I was not thinking about the ordering.
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Well, America is the reason why they are all there. Must keep servicing that debt….
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The nazis won at Artëmovsk!
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Nice! It’s a good reminder to us all, that Naziphobia is just as harmful as any other form of prejudice.
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I was thinking about how and if to respond to your statement, and tried to actually make sense of it, and have come to the conclusion that I cannot do this.
I hope your statement is satirical? But then…one never knows nowadays..
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Surely you know me better than that!
Must give kudos though to Raghead, who invented the word “Naziphobic”.
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The “Naziphobia” here is Biswapriya’s obsessive tendency to ultimately label everyone a Nazi. He made a post here several days ago about how the window from his dentist’s office reminded him of a window a sniper could use as a base; he’s on the path where eventually he will look out that window and every human being he sees, from age one month to 100 years, must be a Nazi.
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Now, Inkan, that is not true, and you are not being not fair. Biswapriya is an artist, so things remind him of things. And I have never heard him call anyone a Nazi who wasn’t one.
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In that drawing you betray a strange fixation on gender identity. It’s depraved to be constantly bashing people who want to express a gender identity. And it’s also bizarre for someone who’s said that he is gay in the MoA boards to wage so much hostility against people just for wanting to define a gender identity.
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It’s called “artistic license”. Take a chill pill, would ya?
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I had the fleeting thought that holding the G7 meeting in Hiroshima might have been the USA giving not-too-subtle reminder to China: We did it before.
Then I realized the USA does not do subtle. Japan?
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That’s a good point. Why didn’t they hold the meeting in Tokyo??
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It is clear that the meeting was held in Hiroshima to remind the world how far they can go. Because of its bad memories, Hiroshima is a place that scruples advise not to mention.
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Agree, John Kane. The USA does not do subtle.
The USA does not understand the meaning of subtle.
It imagines its forte is “optics” because the popular culture of the USA is based on images.
But what are the optics of a G7 roundtable in Hiroshima?
Just thinking about it gives me cognitive dissonance. To calm and cleanse my mind, I am going to resort to my one of my favourite Japanese persons,
Ryuichi Sakamoto, may he rest in peace too.
Here is Ryuichi playing his composition “Forbidden Colours”, originally from the soundtrack of the movie “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence”.
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Thanks for that nice piece, Australian Lady. It is very relaxing.
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the unapologetic behavior ties into what he says; if the west admits the bombings were unnecessary and criminal then they can’t do it again. see also: the gall of claiming putin will “use nukes” when the US is the only country in history to use them in combat.
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The use against the civilian population cannot be said to have been in combat. Even the mocking details of how the Japanese cities were chosen to be massacred indicate full knowledge of what was being done.
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Hiroshima was specifically excluded from the fire bombing of 66 Japanese cities so as to be used as a test for the atom bomb (the gun type device dropped on Hiroshima had bent been used before; the Alamogordo test used an implosion bomb as at Nagasaki). As for Nagasaki, it was not supposed to be the target initially. That was Kokura, which like Hiroshima was spared fire bombing in order to be nuked. But Kokura was covered by impenetrable clouds on 9 August 1945, so the bomber diverted to the alternate and already fire bombed Nagasaki.
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A perfectly controlled experiment. American ingenuity.
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Tsutomu Yamaguchi suffered through and survived both atomic blasts and died peacefully in 2006. What are the chances. Or more specifically what are our chances.
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Talking about Hiroshima, isn’t it odd that Hollywood never made a movie on it or Nagasaki (which I consider an even worse war crime)? Since Ameriganda avers that the bombings were both good and necessary, shouldn’t they be celebrated (just like the Hiroshima bomber crews celebrated at a barbecue party after returning to base)? You’d almost think that Hollywood doesn’t want to show what happens to people under even a medium sized primitive nuclear weapon, but that can’t be right, right?
By the way, anyone interested in the Hiroshima bombing needs to read Masuji Ibuse’s novel Black Rain. It has everything, the bombing itself, the aftermath, and the discrimination suffered by the Hibakusha (in this case a young woman) afterwards.
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The only movie I can think of off the top of my head is Fat Man and Little Boy , which was English though, not Hollywood. I haven’t seen it, I just remembered hearing about it.
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From the link it seems its about everything except the actual bombing.
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Regarding Zelensky, LentaFeed featured a great strategic graphic today:
https://lentafeed.com/upload/g_5424812938214100171_y_2.jpg?1684763787
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haha!
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Well, the pile is on the counter, and his sinuses will be offensive.
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No, no! It’s just innocent salt, from the Soledar mines.
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Pass the salt, please. I mean, anyone but Elensky, pass the salt, please.
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