This Sunday is Peace Sunday. It is also the weekend we remember the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I thought I’d take this somber moment to remind folk that, despite some commonly held misperceptions, there was not unilateral agreement on the targeting of a huge civilian cities for destruction at the time of the bombing.
Some of the strongest voices in opposition to the bombing were, in fact, conservative voices.
Consider these quotes:
"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."
President Herbert Hoover
"...I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
President and General Dwight Eisenhower
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Admiral William Leahy
The very day after the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, the personal pilot of General Douglas MacArthur, commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, recorded in his diary that MacArthur was "appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster."
[The source of the quotes]
Who was it that said that any nation that has targeted not one, but two cities full of civilians for intentional nuclear destruction has very little room to complain about terrorism? I’d tend to agree. At least until such point that we’ve thoroughly repented of that sort of deliberate killing of innocents, we are merely reaping what we’ve sown.
Understand [although it should go without saying, it doesn’t], that I love the country of my birth. I believe in the greater ideals of the US. And it is exactly for that reason that we must remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the horrors they were.
I agree with Admiral Leahy, wars can never be won by destroying women and children. It may seem to end the fighting as it seems to some with Japan (although many, including some of the above, disagree), when you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.
"Do not be deceived, God will not be mocked. We will reap what we sow."
The Apostle Paul
45 comments:
Dan,
Fascinating list of quotes you have here.
I don't understand why people pull out the "women and children" card when it comes to war and killing. What about men? Is it just okay to kill them? Frustrating!
All things considered, your quote of the apostle Paul was pulled a bit out of context. When Paul makes that statement in Ephesians 6, he is referring to how congregations treat ministers (especially financially, indeed, that whole section is wrapped up in financial language). Yet, it is also referring to how persons within the congregation treat one another in terms of economy too. It is not a karmic quote about what goes around comes around. That's not what it means.
As for your quotes of the presidents and american leaders, I don't know about the context, though they sound on target. The citation of Paul, though, well, I fear it is out of context.
Thought provoking post Dan.
www.michaelhalcomb.blogspot.com
Don't you think that the Truth, "you will reap what you sow" is a general truth, applying in multiple situations and not just for how we treat preachers?
The Hosea quote ("sow the wind, reap the whirlwind") is the same General Truth - what goes around DOES come around, don't you think?
But Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him.
They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval.
With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction...
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."
Hosea 8
Having said that, allow me to point out that I'm not speaking of some spooky-karmic sort of comes-around-goes-around phenomenon. "I gave that homeless fella a dollar the other day and that same day! I got an unexpected check in the mail for $100!!" - I'm not talking about God/Nature-as-magic.
I'm talking about balance and natural consequences.
The US has somewhat set itself up as a national model for morality - and in some ways, that's not a bad thing. Our democratic republic was and remains an experimental model that gets a lot of things right! We are largely a moral people. We don't largely go around killing those we disagree with or those leaders we don't like.
But, having set ourselves up as a global leader, by going and deliberately targeting civilians, we said that there is a time and place where terrorizing and attacking citizens is not only not-wrong, but a Great Noble Good!
So, having set the standard ("If the circumstances are right, it's okay to wipe out entire cities"), we should not be surprised when our enemies want to grab ahold of that same morality.
When we sow the wind, we reap the whirlwind.
I think that is just a Natural Law truth.
Dan,
I'm not sure what I think about that "general" truth; I just don't know. It sounds good but is it really a universal truth, I'm not sure.
As for Paul's use of it, I was just telling you the context. I cannot say that when Paul said it he meant the same thing you did when you quoted it.
The young woman in the photo is Rae Hunter, one of the young BPFNA leaders who have literally grown up in the Baptist Peace Fellowship. She is now a theatre and the arts major at university and she helped with the mural project. She just recently returned from a longterm stay in El Salvador with Witness for Peace.
And the photo, as I understand it, was taken by our own young peacemaker, Molly W!
Yes, it was. Molly has also taken photos of the mural process which I will post, today.
I agree with t michael w halcomb about the women and children bit. All lives are precious.
And thanks for the thought provoking quotes.
Quoted:"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul"
You reckon?
Any aggression or force ought to revolt the soul of any rational and compassionate human being. No less ought it to revolt the soul when the boot (old term for 'grunt') had to squeeze off a 308 round to stop the Banzai Japanese soldier.
You don't use force and aggression unless there is just no other way.
I get annoyed at the rending of cloth and heaping of ashes over Nagasaki and Hiroshima. My father was on one of those concrete "Victory" ships crossing the Pacific five days before the first bomb was dropped. The casualties incurred in taking the Japanese held islands one by one was taking a huge toll on Allied lives. Those on board the ship knew their odds weren't good. They were to land on one of the Japanese main islands and were prepared for brutal resistance.
In mid Pacific (those ships didn't travel very fast) the news reached them that some type of new bomb had been used and as a result the Japanese imperial government had initiated talks with the allies. Japan had been bombed for months and there had already been more civilian casualties than the atomic bombs had caused, so the troops naturally tended to dismiss the news as rumor.
But it wasn't a rumor. The use of the bombs on those two cities meant that conventional bombing planned to make way for the invasion was now not needed, a bombing campaign that would have cost far more lives.
What's more, a significant number of my father's generation crossing the Pacific that year suddenly went from the odds of their survival for next few weeks of scarcely 30% to virtually 10%.
Who is responsible for the deaths of the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? The Imperial Japanese Government. Period. No shades of blame and any attempt to shift the blame to a world protecting itself from the likes of Nan King and Batan is sick and perverted.
We've already covered this before E and I know we disagree. My position is that it is always a moral/ethical wrong to target and kill civilians.
I agree with Admiral Leahy who stated that we can't win wars by targeting civilians, that it will undo us in the longrun.
Further, I agree with Eisenhower and many others of the day and of today who've weighed the data and concluded that it was a wholly unnecessary action.
You disagree. I know.
Fortunately - for those of my opinion - the times are a-changing. Whereas most people supported the bombing in the 1940s, more and more Americans are not willing to say that targeting civilians is an acceptable war strategy.
I don't know, Dan. It seems to me that the % of Americans who are okay with killing civilians has risen dramatically since the invasion of Iraq. So has the % who are fine with torture.
Eleutheros said: You don't use force and aggression unless there is just no other way.
There is always another way. In the end, if all else fails, one can choose to die rather than kill.
But Leahy and Eisenhower were speaking out of the perspective of Just War Theory. JWT agrees with you (against me) that violent force is sometimes necessary, but it insists that not all violence is created equal. There are rules and some things are ruled out even if the enemy does them.
Your view that ONLY the imperial Japanese government bears any guilt for the deaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, E, is the perspective that "war is hell." I.E., as with Sherman the burner of cities (who coined the war is hell slogan), you believe that if one side initiates violence ANYTHING GOES and any tactic used by the other side to win or end the war is justified--and the horrors are solely the fault of the party initiating the violence.
JWT (which is embedded in U.S. and international law and was so when your father was in the service, too) says that even in hell there must be rules. One such rule is that civilians and other noncombatants must never be deliberately targetted, nor any weapon used which makes it difficult or impossible to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Hiroshima and Nagasaki--and all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, violate that rule.
The men who were prepared to invade Japan (if Japan did not surrender) at great loss of life knew this. To use joy that their lives were not lost as an excuse to pardon the cosmic sin of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is to dishonor their courage and integrity--to pull them out of the morality of Just War tradition and reduce them to the anything goes barbarians.
And it used to be a rule in the U.S. that we didn't believe that our country should engage as an aggressor in a war. "W" and his ilk have disposed of that rule, on the basis that, um.m.m what was that? I think it boiled down to "we were afraid another country was preparing to do precisely what we did a long time ago." Rather than developing patterns, as a mature nation, that could lead the world to more peaceful coexistence, our leaders opted for fear mongering at home and unrestrained military actions around the world (including torture.) The war is Iraq is, philosophically, a more heinous act, to my way of thinking, than the bombings of Japan.
Michael:"There is always another way. In the end, if all else fails, one can choose to die rather than kill."
It's very fine to be against war in flowery general terms, to condemn an act of war that took place more than sixty years ago. None of those are decisions that you personally face.
What would you do if you did face them? How far would you go to prevent war and bombing against innocents if you had your finger on the bomb release?
Yes, we could choose to die rather than kill. Would any of you Walter Middy peace advocates do so?
It is very curious that it is we non-believers that take the Bible seriously, and not you faithful.
The Bible clearly teaches He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
So I look at the picture accompanying Dan's post of a young woman being lauded for her involvement in peace. The hardscrabbler's eye immediately assesses this as a person who could not possibly produce what she consumes. That means wars are waged to secure the US's place as unilateral world consumer so this person can have an idle life of (aspiring) theater and drama and take Fantasy Island trips to Nicaragua. The Devil sitting on my shoulder would put it, "How peaceful would they be if you got between them and the cheeseburgers!?" but I decided not to include that.
Neither you, nor I, nor the substantial young lady in the photo can ourselves make the decision to call off the war, to not press the next bomb release. If we could, would we do it?
I might make that decision to end the aggression if I were in that place. I say this not from any personal conviction but from taking the Bible seriously. I am faithful in that which is least. I don't make excuses, dismiss it by asserting that I'm 'trying'. In so much as is humanly possible, I do not allow innocents around the world to pay the cost of my daily essentials if I can by any means produce them for myself by my own effort and choices.
Since I am faithful in these least things, the Bible says I will be faithful in much. Who am I to disagree with the writ?
Likewise, those who consciously continue in a lifestyle and personal habits that cause the wars to be fought ... what does the Bible say would happen if they found themselves entrusted with far greater decisions?
They'd be unfaithful in those as well.
That is, if one does not find the way and the courage to stop exploiting the innocents of the world in the small everyday ways, the Bible puts no credibility in their claims to do so in grandiose ways.
Nor do I.
And some of us would agree with you as far as you go and go beyond that and say that both are good.
That is, cease contributing to the causes of war AND to call for our nation to cease warring - and if we're going to war, there ought to be at least some minimal humane criteria. That is, we ought to agree that No, we will not target innocent civilians.
"To I look at the picture accompanying Dan's post of a young woman being lauded for her involvement in peace. The hardscrabbler's eye immediately assesses this as a person who could not possibly produce what she consumes."
What? Only those who are naked are innocent?
...I realized in the previous comment that two of my sentences were jumbled together, here's the re-post...
I am shocked. I just found out that Michael Westmoreland-White's occupation is "peacemaker" educator (by the way, that apostrophe "s" is not meant to be part of the name, just wanted to be clear about that). Hooray for the occupation of peacemaking but geesh, peace wasn't made with me but rather an atomic blog bomb was dropped on me in one of Dan's previous columns, by Mr. Michael Westmoreland-White (by the way the "Mr." is a pronominal and not a literal part of the name there, just want to be clear about that). By the way, I'm still waiting for peace to be made by Michael Westmoreland-White, as I offered my apology to him (which may not have even been necesarry given that what I said was taken wrongly, none the less, I still did it) but have yet to hear anything in return.
www.michaelhalcomb.blogspot.com
Thank you for this year's post.
I linked it in my remembrance of Hiroshima Day.
I happen to know, Eleutheros, that Rae Hunter buys all her clothes from second hand stores or from fair trade stores that cut out "middle people" and reward hand-labor of peasants in two-thirds world countries. She is a vegetarian, not a McDonald's eater, and she frequents organic farmer's markets and tries to "eat local." Isn't that getting at the very patterns about which you speak?
You are too quick to judge about people of whom you know nothing.
As for Mr. Holcomb, I have no idea what he is talking about.
Mispelling my name on purpose; way to make peace Michael Westmoreland-White!
As for "not knowing" what I'm talking about, you might click this link to one of Dan's previous posts to refresh yourself.
http://paynehollow.blogspot.com/2007/07/sarah-grace.html#comments
As I see it, you're not making peace sir; put your claims into action please! Funny how I'm becoming the peace educator here! Blessed are the peacemakers, not the jerks.
That same peacemaker threatens to turn an older woman in to the police for contacting him by an email address that is on his own site, plus he is vile mouthed toward those who disagree with him and deletes their posts or completely bans them from his site. Now that is priceless, a turn the other cheek type of guy, huh?
I agree, the actions are not lining up with the words. You can promote not eating at McDonalds and shopping at Goodwill as much as you want. But if you're not loving people all the while claiming to be a peacemaker, you're only fooling yourself, not others! I am not fooled! Blessed are the peacemakers not the piece-makers (that is, those who try to split others into pieces).
A couple of things.
1. I will ask if you have issues with other commenters, take it up with them elsewhere and don't defame folk here.
2. Don't mistake being a pacifist for being a milquetoast passivist. We don't have a problem with defending one's self, we just don't agree in killing others to do so. And especially in killing innocent bystanders, which is the point of this post.
I know Michael personally and he IS a peacemaker with a great deal of character and wisdom. Some people think that means that you let folk walk all over you, name-calling, belittling and twisting words. That is not the case in general and certainly not with Michael. Michael is a ferocious peacemaker.
Because I know Michael personally, I also know he's a little abrupt at times. Most of the time, unintentionally. And usually he will apologize for any rudeness if an apology is appropriate.
Perhaps he should've been softer in his disagreement with T Michael. But that is between y'all, you'll have to sort it out on your own or not, but don't come here calling people names and trying to impugn their character.
If you do, I will probably delete the comment. I will not have my visitors abused.
I've asked that of my friend, Michael WW, and I'm asking that of mom2 and T Michael, as well. Disagree with commenters' points all you want, but name-calling and slander are beneath us and will not be suffered long.
Dan,
I'm not trying to defame anyone at all. I'm asking for an apology, that's it. I'm calling this fellow out. I respect your wishes and I enjoy chatting with you on mine and your blog. As I said, I'm simply calling this guy out; I've yet to see him attempt to make peace, especialy ferociously; if anything, he tried to "defame" me (to use your terminology) by misnaming me. He did it on purpose and then went on to say he didn't know what I was talking about. Where's the peace? Heck, if I can't call it out then that's crazy! And when he goes public saying this kind of stuff, I have to disagree, no, it is not just between me and him. It is out there for all to see; it is everyone's business. All I'm doing is challenging him to live up to his title as a peacemaker, to put it into practice. I've taken the first step, he should take the second otherwise, his claims will not be taken with any seriousness, whether you or I know him personally or not.
We are our brother's and sister's keepers and I'm asking for an apology here where I saw my supposed "brother" in Christ mess up. As for suffering long, well, it has been quite a number of days and no apology has been made, yet, this morning he started this whole slanderous mess. I'm not slandering him at all, I'm just calling it as it is. You're right, peacemaking doesn't mean letting people walk all over you and that's exactly what I'm doing. I want an apology!
The topic at hand is the bombing of Hiroshima and the deliberate targeting of innocents.
That is the topic. Not Michael's peacemaking or an issue of an apology. I welcome your comments on the topic at hand.
If Michael WW feels so inclined to address your grievance, I'd allow that here. Otherwise, let's stick to the topic at hand, thank you.
Dan, interesting quotes. I have just been learning recently about alternate ways we could have closed out the pacific theater. Our urgency and rush to use "the bomb" twice on Japan was more motivated by muscle flexing to the world but specifically to Russia. Interestingly, from the ashes of the nuclear winter we created, rose the cold war and arms race with Russia. Might it have played out differently had we not dropped the bomb? I'm inclined to think so, but am still learning more about this subject.
It's always impossible to know "what might have been," there are limitless possibilities.
I agree with you, though. I think the nuking of two cities by the US led to a Cold War that costed trillions of dollars and countless lives.
Clearly, there are no perfect solutions. I just think that we ought to agree on some basic standards when we're talking international policy and war-making. And one of those ought to be that we don't deliberately target civilians, because doing so is wrong and, ultimately, counterproductive.
Thanks for the comment, Patrick, come back any time.
Wow! Respectfully, Dan, I have to disagree with you on the whole subject thing but since this is your blog, I will try my best to honor always staying on topic here. Have a good'n bro.
Michael
I can't remember the name of it, but there's a wonderful book of artwork composed by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki about what they saw. It's called "Fires from Heaven", or somthing like that. Very powerful, moving, and graphic depictions of the aftermath of the bombings.
Michael:"Isn't that getting at the very patterns about which you speak?"
It might seem so if the coin only had one side. We are all aflutter now of days about 'eat local' and 'fair exchange'. The fact is, unless the person is producing something of like value, they are still living by exploitation even if they shop at organic markets and second hand stores. Your proposition would be like me saying that Bush could have invaded Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and Jordan as well ... but he didn't, so isn't he really close to the patterns of which you speak?
Michael:"You are too quick to judge about people of whom you know nothing."
I know enough. I am talking about the way four out of six people live in the world, wresting their living honestly from their labor without exploiting anyone. Your Ms. Hunter, or yourself, for that matter ... come here to a small taste of the thrid world and see how you fare. I am typing this while cooling off from only a couple evening hours at such labor. I am your elder by a few years and Ms. Hunter's by more than a generation.
All I need is one look (do I need to get graphic?) to assure me that a person would not survive one day of the type of commitment it takes to really live without exploiting others for our livelihood.
Anyone who disagrees is invited to come here and try it.
It all depends on whether one is serious about peace or whether it is all just idle chatter.
Dan:"And some of us would agree with you as far as you go and go beyond that and say that both are good."
Ah, Dan, we've been here before, we have.
You can't go beyond anything until you actually get there first. The idle blather isn't actually going beyond the peaceful life I advocate, it's doing something else instead of it.
Like most of our modern culture (which I call Babylon) the peace efforts look to me to be an insubstantial bag of air. This is starkly contrasted and emphasized all the more when we look on it as peace activism when we spend our blood and oil soaked money at an organic market and 'fair trade' internet merchandiser rather than spending our blood and oil soaked money at WalMart. And at the same time the sanquine and unctuous coins are jingling in our hand-make fair-trade Guatemalan purse, we have lived a life so indulgent and idle that our corpulence would give us a stroke if we had to earn our goods by honest toil.
Mr. Halcomb: I am sorry that misspelled your name while writing in a hurry. Was I rude earlier about insisting on my name? If so, I apologize for being rude. I thought that you were mangling my name on purpose--because that has become a big habit of so-called "conservatives" who comment on Dan's blog (and sometimes on mine). Failing to be able to tackle arguments, they snear at people and a favorite target is hyphenated names.
If you were not trying to be a part of that nonsense, then I apologize for lumping you in with them. If you were deliberately "shortening" my name because you, like so many, disapprove of hyphenated names, then I won't apologize since it is the height of rudeness to deliberately mangle someone else's name.
And, unlike so many, I give you credit for at least having the courage to sign your name to your comments.
Eleutheros, I have said before that I cannot agree that subsistence farming is the only valid way of life. I disagree that everyone going to the farm is the way to peace: Even if we go low-tech and without fertilizers (and I am willing to do that) there simply aren't enough farmland for everyone. Your solution would lead land wars and massive starvation.
I am glad that few farmers share your views: Most whom I meet at farmers' markets (or my own farming kin) are glad enough for folks to buy their produce who do not farm. But I don't need to do anything more than to point out the hypocrisy of you using a computer to make this point. Someone with an "unrighteous livelihood" made your computer and the connections now called the internet that you use to blog about Babylon.
When you follow your own strictures, I make you more seriously--but even then I would think you are wrong. Are there major problems with our current global economy? You bet? Is your solution the way out--I don't think so.
Michael:"But I don't need to do anything more than to point out the hypocrisy of you using a computer to make this point."
I generally bow out of dialogs that make it to the point of argumentum ad absurdum but it might be useful to take this a step further so I will try. We have become so unproductive (in any real sense) in this culture that I honestly believe people can't any longer deal with the concept. Compare your above observation to Dan's "What? Only those who are naked are innocent?"
That is, an advocation of consuming only the equivalent of what one produces somehow pegs all the way ad absurdum as being hypocritical if we interact with any other human being in any way. I would otherwise think better of your intellect, and I suppose, as I say, that the very concept is so foreign to our culture that I ought to 'ad absurdist' some slack.
But try to apply this same principle fairly to your own endeavors, or those of Bush, let's say, and see if you are still willing to employ the mechanism.
Put another way, can you articulate your objections to my posits without employing the rather baseless mechanism of arguing to the absurd?
Michael:"I am glad that few farmers share your views: Most whom I meet at farmers' markets (or my own farming kin) are glad enough for folks to buy their produce who do not farm."
Yes, and that's why our top soil is disappearing fast enough to cause widespread world starvation just as soon as we deplete the oil just a bit more. People who kill baby harp seals are glad people buy the skins too and don't kill harp seals themselves. People who run slave labor factories in the Orient are glad people buy their things too and don't try to make them for themselves. The local farmer's market here runs from state and federal grants to the tune of about $80,000 a year, yet all the produce sold in a year at that market came to about $16,000. The rest of that money represents US's oil wealth (wealth from controlling oil) which can only be sustained by bloody military action. The only "farmers" here brining substantial amounts of goods to the markets are part of an outfit called "Appalachian Sustainable Development" which only exists by siphoning off ARC (Appalachian Regional Development) funds worth several times all the products and produce they bring about. Likewise that money is dripping with oil and blood.
Even if you had a farmers' market with actual honest-to-God sustainable organic food, if the person buying that food is doing so with money whose worth was ultimately generated by the military supported industrial corporate economy, it is aggravating the efforts of world peace rather then addressing them.
It is exactly the same concept as laundering ill gotten money. The dupe is fooled into thinking that they are trafficking in honest commerce while all that is really happening is putting on a face of respectablity to the exchange of funds and goods not come by honestly.
The part that you seem to be missing entirely is that for there to be world peace, we must each only consume the goods and commodities that are equivalent to the goods and commodities that we produce or bring about ourselves. Otherwise there is someone in the world doing without, or doing with pathetically less, because we are consuming it but not producing anything.
I'll make that point in another comment as this one is getting long.
Michael:"Someone with an "unrighteous livelihood" made your computer and the connections now called the internet that you use to blog about Babylon."
Utterly immaterial and the sort of thinking that allows someone to speak grandly about peace with their bloody foot squarely on the neck of world's exploited.
There is, as the Nearings put it, the "work of the world" to be done. Toilets must be cleaned (for the very small percent of the world wealthy enough to have toilets), clothes laundered, houses swept, food grown, fuel procured, chairs and tables made, etc. Someone must do it.
Just as in a household or commune, if you are consuming goods and services, eating the food, using the toilet, sitting on the chair, but you are not producing anything the rest of the folk can use, someone else is having to work their life away in stoop labor so you can be relatively idle and not have to do it.
The same thing is true in the world overall. The same as if we were living in a small commune (and the commune we ALL live in is small enough, eh?). It's not just a matter of how much we consume or how we spend our money, it's a matter of stacking up what we have produced against what we are consuming.
Alas, most people in North America and other affluent parts of the world engage themselves in passing about bags of air to each other and imagine that this is producing something. It isn't. We are simply an idle class o people who enjoy our parasitic way of life at the expense of the rest of the world.
This idle life on the tab of the world's poor is maintained and enforced by military force. Military action around the world isn't being conducted so that Haliburton nor Exxon can increase their profits. It's because the US's consumption of the world's goods and the world's oil is only possible because we force the rest or the world to trade oil in US dollars at the point of a gun.
They only way you are not guilty of the bombing and killing in the US aggression is if you are producing MORE in goods than you are consuming.
It is, excuse me, idiotic to say that one is inescapably participating in Babylon because one owns a computer (which in my case was rescued on it's way to the landfill) or if one is using electricity or using machine woven cloth. In the case of this household, we produce more energy than we consume. Manual and animal labor replace electricity in goods we produce and manage copice and pollards and glean the deadfall for most of the rest of the energy. Compared to the small amount of electricity and propane we purchase and consume, we aer ADDING to the amount of energy available to the folk of the world. Same with food and getting close with fiber.
Anything we offer in (ultimate) exchange for the small amount of purchased goods we use is a hard tangible item or stint of labor that is of real material use to the folk and ADDS to the total amount of goods available in the world.
So it isn't a matter of how much you use or how much of what you consume. It's how much you consume compared to how much you produced. It's fine for you to have that second beer, so long as you brewed three .... then the world is up by one beer and you have a right expectation to receive something in exchange for that surplus if only the satisfaction of having brewed it. But if you take just one sip having brewed nothing at all, you are a parasite and the cause of most almost all of the world's ills.
Dan,
I agree with your post. Good job.
"How would you deal with a health advocate who was so abysmally ignorant of nutrition that they thought that two of the major food groups were beer and twinkies?"
mmmm, ignorance...so tasty...
"All based on your very mistaken notion that it takes MORE land and resources to grow food as a subsistence farmer than it does to do so commercially."
I don't believe that! The reason I think there will be land wars with your solution is because we have a world of 6 billion people AND THERE ISN'T ENOUGH ROOM FOR THEM ALL TO BE FARMERS! Since farmer seems to be the only valid lifestyle you recognize, you must want EVERYONE to grow their own food--and we don't have room for that.
Is organic farming more productive per acre than commercial farming? Great! So what do you do with the food that is more than your family needs to eat? Sell it? To whom? You don't recognize any forms of living as valid that would earn currency to buy your extra produce. You even put down organic farmers' markets! So, do you just let all that extra rot?
Dan has made this challenge before and you refused to answer it: What occupations would you consider to be valid besides farming? If the answer is None, are you expecting us to kill off everyone except about 100,000 people for the world? The answer to our current bad system CANNOT be for EVERYONE to become farmers--but that's all you ever say. That's both stupid and immoral!
Back to the original day, on this day in 1945 the sailors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis were being eaten by sharks as they swam in the waters of the Pacific. 600 died. Their ship had been sunk as it returned from having delivered the atomic bombs to the Army Air-Corps. They need to be remembered as well. Unknown and unsung heros, men just doing their jobs.
The story :http://www.discovery.com/exp/indianapolis/indianapolis.html
Michael:"I don't believe that! The reason I think there will be land wars with your solution is because we have a world of 6 billion people AND THERE ISN'T ENOUGH ROOM FOR THEM ALL TO BE FARMERS!"
Michael, there is no way for me to reach through that much ignorance. I have been providing a subsistence living for a family for a very long time. I know what I'm talking about. I know very intimately how many square feet it takes to grow ow much food and how that compares with agribusiness yields.
It appears that you are in some thick fog that "farms" come in the two flavors of "organic" and "not-organic" only and base your assumptions about what a farmer is or does on that.
How much elementary math is necessary to grasp the concept that if horticultural methods yield much greater yields than agribusiness methods, then if the land currently devoted to agribusiness is turned over to horticulture there is de facto enough land for everyone to raise food by horticultural methods.
The only modern alternative to intensive horticultural food raising is oil based agribusiness. It matters little whether the agribusiness based farm is organic or not. Opting, as you do and as most affluent people do, to not get your hands dirty in the production of your own food, the ONLY alternative you have is keep eating by means of imported oil. Our access to that oil is secured by military action. Rave as loudly and as long as you might that you are against the war in Iraq. Your comments that oil based agribusiness is the ONLY way to secure food for us all is an advocacy for the war.
Michael:"Dan has made this challenge before and you refused to answer it: What occupations would you consider to be valid besides farming?"
I have answered it fully a number of times. I suspect it is your complete orientation to the war supported current world economy that prevents you from understanding it. It is a culture and society perpetually on a war footing that talks about "occupations" as an end all, be all sum of human endeavors. It splits people into soldiers, farmers, arms makers, and on from there.
On a peace footing we have to ask, "What do we mean by occupation?" You have service to your community, a profession or following, and the mundane work of the world. To understand what a "right" occupation is, you have to deal with them separately.
First you consume material goods, food, fuel, etc. in the world. What are YOU doing to produce those? There is no "right" occupation until you settle on this account. A right occupation in this area is any tangible good or labor that produces something in the way of the necessities of life in exchange for those you are consuming.
Second, having settled that aspect of one's occupation, you have your professional work or advocation. A right occupation is when you are trading your professional work for what you receive in the way of professional work from others.
Third there is service to the community which takes care of such things as commonly held assets, caring for the elderly, defense, etc.
What has you confused is that in our modern way of things, we dump all three of those things together and render them to a common token exchange rate of money. This is the source of all inequities in the world.
So, Eleutheros, you believe that there is enough land in the world (presumably without killing off all the wild species left and their habitats) for all 6 billion humans to become subsistance farmers and grow their own food?
That's delusional.
Michael:"So, Eleutheros, you believe that there is enough land in the world (presumably without killing off all the wild species left and their habitats) for all 6 billion humans to become subsistance farmers and grow their own food?"
Michael, take a deep breath, focus, and try it once more. It takes LESS land to raise the same food by horticultural means than is required for agribusiness. Less. It's a concept they covered in Sesame Street. Less and more. Remember?
If you are already feeding six billion people on X acreage of land by an inefficient means of agriculture and you switch to one that is, as you will see cited below, four times as productive, you will not need MORE land. You won't even need all the land you have right now.
Now, I'd be curious where you picked up your savvy about comparative agricultural methods. Mine comes from nearly 40 years of doing it. That and the research done by real peace advocates. For example in the late 60's and early 70's one John Jeavons conducted experiments at Palo Alto, CA, under the organization Ecology Action where they kept meticulous records and showed that cultivating crops by hand tools only and using only natural organic compost for fertilizer, they consistently produced four (that's 4) times the average US agricultural yield.
Was not Wendell Berry at your peace camp? Next time he's about, ask him about John Jeavons, John Seymour, Scott Nearing and the like. The person after whom this blog is named raised almost all his own food in a steep, flood prone gully and never had an entire acre under cultivation the whole time.
Want to know how many acres of agricultural land we subsist on? None. That's right. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nyechevo. We are high enough up on the mountain range that the last agricultural land is miles below us. A small part of our acreage is deemed marginal pasture by the USDA which takes an interest in such things since we pay a use tax as part of our property tax determined by estimated agricultural yield .... which estimate is zero.
Most of our vegetable and grain plots, most of our Alpine pasturage is so small you could hardly turn a modern farm implement around on it. Yet it feeds more than a dozen people.
In historical context those who view farms as you do have always been the warmongers. Large farms run by slave labor in order to support the armies of the king. Peaceable people have no use for such.
Michael:"That's delusional."
What's delusional is making assertions concerning a subject that you know next to nothing about.
Try this link:
Peace Through Permaculture
Michael Westmoreland-White,
Thank you for the apology, it is well accepted; it feels good to make peace!
I wasn't taking a cheap shot at your name. As an evangelical I do see myself as more conservative but that is not to say I share all of the viewpoints of those who might also have that label; when we lump people together, often times, it backfires and we judge out of faulty presuppositions. I will stop here so as to comply with Dan's wishes to stay on topic (not being sarcastic). Thanks for the apology!
Thanks for the comments everyone. I was away a couple of days and am still trying to catch up. Maybe I'll have more to say later.
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