Platonic But Not in Love

Many years ago, we taught history in our schools because we studied history to learn from it as opposed to now, when we denigrate it and belittle those who seek lessons for today from yesterday. As such, an historical important figure, Plato, once offered 'Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War.' 

If you are someone who thinks Plato was Pluto's older brother, please double click to someplace else on the World Weird Web because what follows is a waste for you. You can thank me later. If the mention of Margaret Atwood also causes you to draw a blank, I can't expect you to make much of her observation 'war doesn't determine who is right, only who is left.'

Seventy-nine years ago, today, the United States bombed Nagasaki, Japan, with a weapon so horrible in its power of destruction, for a long time we, as a species, lacked the words in any language fully convey the depth of destruction and tragedy it, and its twin, dropped on Hiroshima three days previously, had created.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but I suspect no one knows how many lives it costs. A thought worth holding, perhaps, as we consider these two images.

The Bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945
-The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, LA.

The ruins of Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945.
-Hulton Archive

The scale and scope of the damages offered humanity a glimpse into an atomic abyss from which we knew there could be no escape, and we’ve managed for almost eight decades to not unsheathe the sword of nuclear annihilation again on one another.

These two images of “then and now' Nagasaki should offer us hope that we can, indeed, learn to speak with one another, but more importantly than speak, should compel us to listen.

“We got your message on the radio…It’s never going to fade away.”

-bill kenny