hiroshima

Let's talk depressing...

I've just started reading a book called Hiroshima by John Hersey, which is a first-hand account of 6 survivors talking about their experiences in surviving the 1st atomic bomb dropped on Japan.

I don't know a lot about the war or the politics or the circumstances surrounding the apex of the war in 1945, but I do know that before so many people start arguing about whether or not the bombs should have been dropped, and figuring out who should have surrendered when and what the main goal of the atomic experiment was, they need to read books like the one I'm reading. War is fueled by the basic human instinct of a group of people trying to protect their own interests, and these interests are elevated to a point where they supercede the understanding of what human life is. People are using other people's lives to prove a point or to protect something they have been led to believe as important.

I remember as a kid interviewing a family friend who worked in weapons development up the road at Los Alamos National Labs, where the atomic program was developed. I asked him what were his and his colleagues' feelings and reactions when they heard about the explosion in Hiroshima. He said that it was happiness that everything went off successfully and as planned; it was these people's life work, soul, time, energy that went into the making of the bomb, but that they hadn't realized what a loss of life it would cause and that it would be used to that extent. They were following orders and were working in the interests of their government, and this had supplanted any real understanding of its effects on human life, on human skin and bone, on a creation of loss and suffering.

I think now in the information age we have a real opportunity to overcome that disparity between personal interests and the reality of war by using media the right way. But the media is too afraid and too controlled to present the realities caused by people's decisions and idealistic battles. If the media could just be used in a way that presents a more human side of things, people would realize that all this suffering just ain't worth it...

Just my thoughts. I wish people would read more books like the one I'm reading now, and begin to understand the results of everything they are so proud of.