A review of “Skepticism and Religious Relativism” (audiobook)

I was expecting something very different from this audiobook. Specifically, I was expecting to get an overview of agnostics, atheists, and other like-minded groups (including “secularists”). And these groups are certainly covered therein. But it is really a treatment of religious skepticism, including within the religious community. This audiobook also talks about the different kinds of skepticism, and the responses to it from within the believing community. And it finally talks about religious relativism – the idea that all religions are just a “state of mind,” and that none of them is more valid than any other. (More about that later.)

A review of “Protestant Christianity” (audiobook)

In 1517, Martin Luther wrote the “Ninety-Five Theses,” a written attack on the Catholic Church. Luther may or may not have pinned this document onto the door of All Saints’ Church. Regardless, this is often dated as the beginning of the “Protestant Reformation.” You could argue that there were other proto-Protestant groups before that. However, this audiobook basically begins in the sixteenth century. That is, it begins at the traditional date of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. It then gives a brief overview of some of the major branches of Protestant Christianity. Incidentally, the name “Protestant” comes from past protests against the Catholic Church. Today, relations between Catholics and Protestants tend to be somewhat better than they were in previous centuries. That is, they no longer tend to be violent.

Forgotten battlegrounds of the World Wars: Asia and the Pacific

Warning: This blog post contains some disturbing pictures. One of these, in particular, is very graphic, and may merit special caution.

We are often told that World War II began in Europe, with the 1939 (Nazi) invasion of Poland. And, in truth, there is a good argument to be made for this date. But some would date it earlier, to the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Some would date it even earlier than that, to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. You could make an argument for any of these three dates being correct, so I will not attempt to settle this controversy here. But either way, there is much about the war in the East that is unknown to the general public. Whenever and however it became a part of World War II, it is clear that this massive conflict began long before Pearl Harbor. This post will dive into a few of the forgotten aspects of the war in the East, and discuss its roots in local colonization by both Western and local Asian powers.

Vietnamese soldier, 1889 – during the French conquest of Vietnam

Background on prior European (and Japanese) colonization of Asia

For example, the Japanese had colonized Iwo Jima as early as the sixteenth century. And there was actually a corporation from the Netherlands called the “Dutch East India Company.” This private company had invaded Indonesia as early as 1603. But the region later fell under the control of the Netherlands government back in Holland in 1800, creating the province of the “Dutch East Indies.” And the British East India Company had gained control of India, in the 1757 Battle of Plassey. India may be the most populous overseas territory that any empire has ever possessed. In the 1820s, the British Empire later gained control of Malaya, which then included Singapore. The British also fought their first war in Burma in the 1820s, partly to maintain their control of nearby India. The British also fought the First Opium War with China from 1839 to 1842. The second British war in Burma came in the mid-1850s, with the great “Indian Mutiny” coming in 1857. Control over India then passed from the British East India Company to the British Crown, thus beginning the era of the “British Raj” in India. From 1850 to 1864, Britain and France were also involved in China’s Taiping Rebellion. And from 1856 to 1860, Britain and France fought the Second Opium War against China. In the late 1860s, there was a civil war in Japan, sometimes called the Boshin War. In 1879, the Empire of Japan annexed the Ryukyu Islands, which included the island of Okinawa. In 1885, there was a third British war in Burma, which saw Burma annexed into British India – with sporadic resistance there for decades afterward. In 1886, though, the British returned to separating the provinces of Burma and India from each other. Back in 1858, the French had begun their infamous conquest of what is today Vietnam. In 1887, the process was completed, and the province of “French Indochina” was born – although resistance there continued into the twentieth century, long after World War II. In 1893, the French also had a brief war with Siam (later renamed to Thailand). At the end of that war, Siam thus ceded some land to French Indochina. The Japanese fought their first war with China in the 1890s (with an early invasion of Manchuria), today called the “First Sino-Japanese War.” This was partly about who would control nearby Korea. At the end of the war, the Japanese then began to rule the island of Taiwan in 1895. Between 1899 and 1901, China experienced the Boxer Rebellion. The Russians also invaded Manchuria in 1900. There was an alliance between Britain and Japan starting in 1902. But the Japanese soon attacked the nearby Russians, and beat them in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The Japanese then made Korea into a Japanese protectorate in 1905, and formally started to colonize Korea for themselves in 1910. Japanese rule of Korea and Taiwan would then remain unchallenged for decades afterward.

Japanese infantry during the occupation of Seoul – Korea, 1904

A review of “Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II” (BBC)

Warning: This blog post contains several disturbing pictures. One of them shows the body of a child.

The Japanese were racist against other Asians and Pacific Islanders, not just Whites …

Apologists for the Imperial Japanese seem to have multiplied in recent years, even in the West. They do have some valid points, including that there was some real racism against the Japanese in the West – including in my home country of the United States. But there was also racism in Japan as well, and not just against the “White Westerners.” They were racist against anyone who was not Japanese – including the Chinese and other fellow Asians and Pacific Islanders, whose countries the Japanese would soon be invading. Some of the Japanese officers interviewed on camera here admit to such racism, as do some of the Western officers fighting against them. Japanese propagandists used the slogans of “Asia for the Asians,” and a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” But the truth was far different from these grossly misleading slogans, because they wanted an Asia exclusively for the Japanese. No other Asian groups benefited from Japanese imperialism, as the record shows.

A review of “Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity” (audiobook)

“I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

– Closing lines of the “Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed” (381 CE), a modified version of the “Nicene Creed” (325 CE) – as translated by the 1975 ecumenical version from the “International Consultation on English Texts” (or ICET)

In the eleventh century, Christianity was split into two groups: the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. These churches are the subjects of this audiobook.

A review of Ken Burns’ “The Vietnam War” (PBS)

“ ♪ How many roads must a man walk down,
Before they can call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail,
Before she sleeps in the sand? ♪

“ ♪ Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly,
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind –
The answer is blowin' in the wind. ♪ ”

– Bob Dylan's “Blowin' in the Wind” (released 1963), an anti-war song not used in this film

Our national debate about the Vietnam War began during the war itself …

Our national debate about the Vietnam War began during the war itself, and continues today in full force. The Ken Burns series is just a relatively recent contributor to this national debate, albeit a very important one. Contrary to popular opinion – and, to some extent, that of this series itself – America actually won most of the battles in that conflict. Nonetheless, it is quite true that we lost the war when we withdrew in 1973, and thus allowed South Vietnam to fall to communism. The doves and the hawks do not really agree on much about this war, but one thing is universally agreed upon: the war was a disaster for the United States and its allies. It caused their prestige to dwindle somewhat abroad, and gave them a reputation for lacking the political will to fight, let alone to stand up to the attempted expansion of communist regimes. (And unlike many other writers, I will not pretend that I have no opinion on this subject; but will admit my partiality up front, honestly and unabashedly.)

A review of David Grubin's “The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha” (PBS)

For practicing Buddhists, Siddhartha Gautama was just the first Buddha …

At the time I write this, I have watched eight other films by David Grubin – and I am a fan of all of them. These include Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and RFK (a lot of initials there). Every film on this particular list is a biography, and David Grubin is very good at making them. But as you may have noticed, all of these other biographies are about Western individuals; and few of his films cover more Eastern topics. As far as I know, this was his first foray into Asian history; but seems to have been a good one despite this lack of prior experience with the region. It is a good introduction to understanding Buddhism, because it examines the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the man whom Buddhists revere as the first “Buddha.” In the Buddhist religion, any good person can become a “Buddha”; so he is only held to be the first of them. Nonetheless, there’s a reason that most people think of Siddhartha Gautama when they hear a phrase like “the Buddha.” He was the founder of the religion, and one of the world's great religious leaders.

Cold War crises: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and “Able Archer 83”

“Is this a game, or is it real?”

– Quote from “WarGames” (1983), a fictional movie about a close call with nuclear war, which came out a few months before the first of these real-life crises

The Soviet Union shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 …

In 1983, a Boeing 747 aircraft took off from JFK International Airport in New York City on the 30th of August. Its planned destination was Seoul in South Korea, but it was scheduled to make a stop in Anchorage, Alaska, and routinely did so on the following day (the 31st of August). But the aircraft actually never made it to its planned destination, because it was shot down the next day on the 1st of September. It was flying over prohibited Soviet airspace. The Soviets thus mistook it for an American spy plane, and sent up a Sukhoi SU-15 interceptor aircraft to shoot it down. The interceptor did the job with air-to-air missiles, and the aircraft quickly crashed into the Sea of Japan, near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin. All 269 passengers and crew were killed, including a United States Congressman from Georgia named Larry McDonald. Two weeks later, on the 15th of September, the Soviets actually found the wreckage under the sea; and in October, they even found the flight recorders. But they kept all of this secret for the next ten years, not releasing any of this until 1993. (I borrow some of the wording for this blog post from various parts of Wikipedia, which I must acknowledge here as a source.)

HL7442, the same plane that was shot down as “Korean Air Lines Flight 007”

Bedtime stories about Armageddon: The lessons of the Cold War about nuclear weapons

“I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture … ‘And I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

– Julius Robert Oppenheimer, speaking of the “Trinity” explosion (1945), the first nuclear detonation

The Americans were the first to acquire (and later use) nuclear weapons

In July 1945, the world's first nuclear detonation went off in the American state of New Mexico. The explosion was in the desert near Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range. (This area is now part of White Sands Missile Range.) This was near the end of World War II, and the Cold War had not yet begun at this time. But it would have massive importance in the coming struggle with Soviet Russia. In August 1945, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which would have an even greater effect on the coming conflict. The frightening effects of these two bombs would haunt the world throughout the Cold War, as a chilling warning of what would happen if they were on the receiving end of a nuclear attack. Indeed, the nuclear weapons first introduced in 1945 were the most important aspect of the global confrontation now known as the “Cold War.” It is the biggest reason why the two major superpowers – which were the United States and the Soviet Union – did not directly engage each other in open conflict on a battlefield, except on a few rare occasions (which I will not elaborate on here).

“Trinity” explosion - New Mexico, United States (16 July 1945)

Why is it called the “Cold War,” when there were so many “hot wars” within it?

The reason that we call it the “Cold War” is that most of the time, the conflict did not involve actual shooting; which would be more characteristic of a “hot war.” Instead, it was usually just a “cold war” with the threat of a nuclear holocaust – although there were some notable exceptions where actual shooting occurred. (Such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan; which were all part of the larger “Cold War.”) This post will not attempt to cover these “hot wars” within the Cold War, and it will not attempt anything like an overview of this massive worldwide conflict. Rather, it will focus on the most important aspect of it, which is nuclear weapons. (Although if you're interested in the other parts of the Cold War, I cover some of them elsewhere on this blog here, for anyone that is interested.) Despite the problems caused by nuclear weapons since their first introduction in 1945, it is well that the Americans (and the free world generally) got this technology before the Nazis or the communists did, sine the prospect of these regimes getting the bomb first would have been chilling indeed. (And the Nazis almost did get it before the Americans did.)

Hiroshima explosion (left) and Nagasaki explosion (right), 6 and 9 August 1945

A review of “Korea: The Forgotten War” (Timeless Media Group)

So I recently finished watching "Korea: The Forgotten War," which is a five-hour series from Timeless Media Group. (Not to be confused with other documentaries having the same title - there seems to be at least one other series with this name out there, which I have not seen.) This popular title is entirely correct, of course, that Korea is a "forgotten war"; but this title may be stretching it a little by calling it "the forgotten war." Many wars have been forgotten, I think; from Ancient Greece's "Peloponnesian War" to the Boer Wars in Southern Africa. (Many more, I think, will be forgotten in the future.) But there are worse features in a documentary than a little exaggeration for the purpose of creating interest, and this documentary has a number of redeeming features that help to compensate for this weakness. (It has many other weaknesses besides this title, to be sure; but with the dearth of media options on this topic, one hasn't the luxury of being picky about the storytelling quality.)

This series is best entered with low expectations

To be sure, the five-hour length of this documentary is part of what recommended it to me in the first place. After comparing many documentaries on the Korean War (and I searched the Internet for a number of them), I came to the conclusion that this was the longest one that I could find. (I am not aware, at least, of any others on this topic which have a comparable runtime; although if you know of any, I'd appreciate it if you left a comment below about it.) The filmmakers are to be commended for attempting to tell this story for television here, and the amount of time that they're willing to dedicate to this topic is a rarity in the world of documentaries, if not entirely unique. There are problems with this documentary, though, that necessitate going into it with somewhat lower expectations. This documentary doesn't have very high production values, for example, and the music leaves something to be desired. (It is a bit melodramatic at times, as it turns out, and even anti-climactic.) The narration is not very well-written, either, and the delivery of the narrator doesn't really do anything for the series. Viewers used to the high production values of Ken Burns' "The Civil War" or the British series "The World at War" may find this series a disappointment in (at least some) ways.

History's horror stories: The “grand experiments” with communism

Americans have rightly been interested in their own country's history for a long time - both for the moving stories it contains, and for the secrets of its success. But we have long been interested in the stories of less successful countries as well, and we have a never-ending fascination with historical horror stories like those found in Nazi Germany. It is well that we pay them attention; because along with a careful study of the secrets of our own success, it is good to have a healthy knowledge of the causes of other countries' failures; and how the terrible events so tragically found in other countries could have been allowed to happen.

Iron Curtain, 1949 - border between the two Germanies

In that spirit, I set out to talk about another of history's "horror stories" - a story not as well-known as that of Nazi Germany, but one of vital importance nonetheless; which may be even more topical in this day, due to the expanding socialism found within our own country today. I speak of the experiences of other countries with the horrors of communism.

A review of CNN's “The Cold War”

"He who ignores the lessons of history is doomed to repeat it."

- George Santayana

Soviets' first atomic bomb test, 1949

It was a war that lasted forty years, which had many periods without any shooting at all. It was fought between two nuclear states, whose nuclear weapons were never fired against the other even once. And it was called the "Cold War" because of its periods without shooting, but had many "hot wars" within its complicated history, where shots were actually exchanged between the two sides.

Battle of Seoul, 1950 (during Korean War)

How is the war remembered today? (Depends on where you live, and when you lived ... )

There are many alive today who remember the Cold War, but there are also many who don't. Even many of those who lived through it fail to comprehend its true nature. Many in the communist countries only saw their government's version of things, and were forbidden to hear anything else. Many in the capitalist countries were deceived by their own side's pacifists and communist sympathizers, who could never see the deterrence capabilities of nuclear weapons (or military power generally). Many of them had their heads in the sand about both the failures of communism, and its threat to the free world's way of life.

Interviews with eyewitnesses from all over the world

Many fail to learn the lessons of these times, but the lessons are there, for those who care to hear them. Moreover, they can be obtained even from liberal stations like CNN. From the makers of "The World at War" came the classic series about the Cold War, which spent 18 hours explaining both the complicated politics and geography of the Cold War, and showing interviews with the top personnel in the governments and military of both sides. (From the regular soldiers, airmen, civilians, and diplomatic personnel to the generals, admirals, presidents, prime ministers, and communist dictators; you hear from virtually every major player alive when the series was made. You also see the real footage of the events, with a narration to help make sense out of the complicated events of this time.

Actually, communism HAS been tried (and it doesn't work)

Tiananmen Square, China 1989

"China isn't all that bad," some say ...

The critics of communism have long pointed out the failure of states like China and the Soviet Union, which all attempted to implement Marxist doctrine. The variety of liberal responses to this is rather interesting, and the shaky nature of the premises used is rather telling. Some contend that China isn't all that bad, and make grand proclamations about how "developed" it is, and how wonderful things supposedly are there. (Obama has made this argument before - see below.) Even the most cursory examination of the actual evidence shows how wrong this is - China is extremely poor, and their standard of living lags far behind anything in the industrialized West. There is economic development in China, it is true; but it seems to do little to raise the standard of living there; and it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

"China is bad," others say, "but that's because it's 'capitalist' ... "

Others admit that China is poor and miserable, but say that it is capitalist, and thus try to put the blame for its failures on capitalism. Again, even the most cursory examination of the evidence shows that this is not the case, and that China is vastly far removed from a capitalist society, possessing no freedom of the market like that found in the West. It's hard to decide which is more lame - the attempt to find a scapegoat, or their odd choice of which one to use; but regardless of the comparison in lameness, there is plenty of lameness to go around; and their attempt to shift the blame is ultimately illegitimate.

Does communism cause poverty? (The two experiments that prove it does)

Karl Marx, the chief founder of communism

Does communism cause poverty? And how can this be tested?

Karl Marx

What counts as "testing"?

The short answer is "yes": it does cause poverty. But as far as testing goes, it depends on how you define "test." When hearing the word "experiment," most people have the mental image of a laboratory; but I should acknowledge in advance that experiments are hard to do in economics and politics. Even the possible ones usually require major government actions which may be unpopular, and people generally don't like to be guinea pigs. This is true of any experiment about whether communism has negative effects on prosperity.

Karl Marx

The experiments that no one wanted ...

So is there such an experiment? It turns out that there are two on a large scale, but not ones initiated by any government or university. They are natural experiments, or ones in which "the experimental and control conditions are determined by nature, or by other factors outside the control of the investigators." (source citation) While they were set in motion by human beings rather than nature, their purpose was not experimental at all; but the result of complicated political negotiations following a major war. Both sides in these negotiations - who had been allies during this war - would have preferred that their own system of government be established in the territories of their former enemies; but neither had the military power to do so for all those territories. The result was a compromise, which began two of the most epic natural experiments in the history of economics - two experiments neither side wanted, but which both sides got; and which clearly show a causal relationship between communism and poverty.

Yalta Conference, 1945

Potsdam Conference, 1945