For Posterity: Troy Duster’s “Conditions For Guilt-Free Massacre”

[reposted from my old (now-deleted) LiveJournal account]

“The most general condition for guilt-free massacre is the denial of the humanity of the victims.”

The essay below by Troy Duster is something of a buried classic in social science, as is its forerunner by Harold Garfinkel. This is a relatively brief exploration of some of the dynamics whereby individuals and whole populations are routinely manipulated into a position of consensus in favor of their own government’s participation in any atrocity, up to and including genocide. While it is obviously a bit dated, and was never intended to be an in-depth treatment of the subject matter, I know you’ll find its relevance to present-day geopolitics to be unmistakable.

Nagasaki – The Untold Story

I’m no huge fan of Lew Rockwell, nor am I a Christian, but this is just too good not to pass along — today, or any day. [Originally found and posted to my old (now-deleted) LiveJournal account on August 9th, 2007]

The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Untold Story

by Gary G. Kohls

62 years ago, on August 9th, 1945, the second of the only two atomic bombs (a plutonium bomb) ever used as instruments of aggressive war (against essentially defenseless civilian populations) was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, by an all-Christian bomb crew. The well-trained American soldiers were only “doing their job,” and they did it efficiently.