Well said. From day one of the tiresome silly writings of two lazy ass layabouts, Marx and Engles, leftism in general has been infused with petulant jealousy of the innovators, creators, and producers so that today, your typical leftist cares more about what happened and happens elsewhere in the world than to their next door neighbor. It’s all so insufferable, but that’s what communist indoctrination gets you.
Completely agree with you about our relationship with the Japanese, but I would humbly add one caveat: just as with bad jokes after catastrophic events, there is such a thing as "Too soon, dude."
In the 1980s--I think it must have been around the 40th anniversary of the end of the War, so maybe 1985--the Smithsonian, in its infinite wisdom, planned a retrospective on the Pacific War, on the theme (natch) that we were the aggressors who provoked the Japanese into war, and that the Japanese were merely--I'm not making this up--"attempting to protect their national culture."
As you might guess there was just a smidge--perhaps I should say, a skosh?--of pushback from the veterans' community, at a time when many of those who had been in the Pacific were still alive.
Much Sturm und Drang, and eventually the Smithsonian rather sulkily backed off.
Interestingly, at about the same time there was a lot of Franco-German kissy-face going on, as part of which the French--natch--were dissing the Americans. This prompted the great Michel Sardou to write and perform a beautiful and deeply moving song, "Les 'Ricains" ("The 'Murricans") to admonish the post-War generation for having forgotten their own past.
So I do think it's reasonable to have a "cooling-off period" before you can truly be friends.
How long does it have to be? Unknown. But I would expect that a generation--30 years--would be the minimum.
Certainly my own memory of US reconciliation with the People's Republic of Vietnam is that it took about that long.
Well said. From day one of the tiresome silly writings of two lazy ass layabouts, Marx and Engles, leftism in general has been infused with petulant jealousy of the innovators, creators, and producers so that today, your typical leftist cares more about what happened and happens elsewhere in the world than to their next door neighbor. It’s all so insufferable, but that’s what communist indoctrination gets you.
Completely agree with you about our relationship with the Japanese, but I would humbly add one caveat: just as with bad jokes after catastrophic events, there is such a thing as "Too soon, dude."
In the 1980s--I think it must have been around the 40th anniversary of the end of the War, so maybe 1985--the Smithsonian, in its infinite wisdom, planned a retrospective on the Pacific War, on the theme (natch) that we were the aggressors who provoked the Japanese into war, and that the Japanese were merely--I'm not making this up--"attempting to protect their national culture."
As you might guess there was just a smidge--perhaps I should say, a skosh?--of pushback from the veterans' community, at a time when many of those who had been in the Pacific were still alive.
Much Sturm und Drang, and eventually the Smithsonian rather sulkily backed off.
Interestingly, at about the same time there was a lot of Franco-German kissy-face going on, as part of which the French--natch--were dissing the Americans. This prompted the great Michel Sardou to write and perform a beautiful and deeply moving song, "Les 'Ricains" ("The 'Murricans") to admonish the post-War generation for having forgotten their own past.
So I do think it's reasonable to have a "cooling-off period" before you can truly be friends.
How long does it have to be? Unknown. But I would expect that a generation--30 years--would be the minimum.
Certainly my own memory of US reconciliation with the People's Republic of Vietnam is that it took about that long.
I agree that a cooling off period can make sense. I think it probably helped on both sides in this case.