In a recent blog on HuffPost, Dennis Perrin criticized Jon Stewart for apologizing the day after he agreed with a guest that President Harry Truman was a war criminal. He wrote that "Stewart did what well-regarded mainstream entertainers do when expressing an unpopular opinion. He groveled for forgiveness....When an American 'satirist' apologizes for stating the truth, you can really appreciate 'free expression' in a corporate-owned culture." Since Perrin stated that, "before The Daily Show, Stewart was not known in a Paul Krassner/Barry Crimmins/Whitney Brown way," I feel especially compelled to disagree with his premise.
As a performer, I was a bundle of paradoxes. I was a hermit, yet I would go out to do shows and talk to a hundred people at once. I was a social critic, yet my spiritual path was trying not to judge others. Irreverence was my only sacred cow, yet I tried not to let victims become the target of my humor. So, there was one particular routine that I stopped using in 1970, when abortion was still illegal and I ran an underground referral service. It called for a "rape-in" of legislators' wives in order to impregnate them so that they would then convince their husbands to decriminalize abortion. But feminist friends objected.
I resisted at first, because it was such a well-intentioned joke. But I reconsidered. Even in a joke, why should women be assaulted because men make the laws? Legislators' wives were the victims in that joke, but the legislators themselves should have been the target. For me to cease doing that bit of comedy wasn't self-censorship, it was conscious evolution. I publicly apologized, in print and on the air. Of course, if you think I was merely kowtowing to political correctness, I hereby grovel for your forgiveness.
Perrin admitted that his take on The Daily Show was "a tad personal," because they had once rejected material he submitted because it was "too dark." Actually, I had a similar experience with Dennis Miller. He had called to invite me to submit material--several jokes and a rant--when he hosted his own TV series. This was when he mistook spouting obscure references for being hip, but before he became such a political reactionary. He never let me know his decision. After a few weeks, I wrote and asked him, but he didn't have the courtesy to respond. I learned from a staff writer that Miller considered my material "too radical." However, I did read it on the radio one Sunday morning when Harry Shearer invited me to substitute for him on Le Show.
I also feel compelled to disagree with Jon Stewart. I think that Harry Truman was indeed a war criminal. Actually, I believe that in most wars, both sides harbor top-level war criminals, but that the victor determines who they are. As Lenny Bruce said in 1962 at the Gate of Horn in Chicago, "If we would have lost the war, they would have strung Truman up by the balls...." Lenny was arrested for obscenity that night. One of the items in the police report complained: "When talking about the war he stated, 'If we would have lost the war, they would have strung Truman up by the balls.'"
Sometime during World War II we made three very useful discoveries. The first was that fire is far more effective than high explosives at decimating civilian populations. The second was the atomic bomb. And the third was that it is impossible for the air force to commit crimes against humanity.
Just ask the defendents at My Lai, who complained bitterly that if they used their zippos and M16's to liquidate a village it was a war crime, but if a plane dropped napalm on the same village and wiped out every living thing, it was "Mission Accomplished." To hell with them--they were war criminals.
There are of course men who commit acts of evil who are predominantly evil. We call them sociopaths and psychopaths. They also rationalize their actions in order to justify their point. The difference is that they do not see their acts as criminal or wrong. They never take responsibility for the result of their actions either. I can understand a contrite criminal who vows to change his ways because he sees the horror of his actions. I cannot forgive the man who spends his waking moments justifying the crimes of his past without facing the facts. Given the chance, he will do them again and again.
But at the same time, it is not clear who wouldnt be classified as a war criminal. Churchill and Roosevelt would also be guilty. Clearly the fire bombing of Dresden and Hamburg killed more people than the bombs on Japan. All boundaries had already broken down before Truman came into office. Also, the Japanese still did not surrender until we agreed to allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. It is possible that if that had been agreed to earlier, the bombing might never have been necessary.
Interestingly enough I find Colbert more daring in his humor....maybe the conservative mask that he wears allows him to do that...but I think much of it is just him.
Gee looks like Bush is right afterall....in a few decades historians and American citizens will justify the torture and the invasion of Iraq as "necessary"to protect our freedom and save American lives...blah blah blah.
I'm glad you know your history, unlike other people that post here. It's OK to criticize him for using the bomb, but it goes to far when you call him a war criminal. If you call Truman a war criminal then the following people are also war criminals:
Abraham Lincoln, US Grant, George Washington, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton, G W Bush, G HW Bush, JKF, Richard Nixon. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
> If you call Truman a war criminal then the following people are also war criminals: Abraham Lincoln, US Grant, George Washington, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton, G W Bush, G HW Bush, JKF, Richard Nixon.
It wouldn't surprise me if they all met the legal criteria. Some of them clearly do. War crimes are fairly clearly defined, and if you're at the top of the chain of command, you're responsible for the actions of your troops. Their attitude toward war crimes is evidenced by their response when such crimes are committed (what punishments were meted out to the soldiers who murdered the 400 civilian inhabitants of the village of My Lai?).
You should read up on Operation Downfall. Here is the wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
You should also read up on the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Those battles were a preview of what was coming if we would have invaded Japan's home islands. Don't make the mistake of thinking that it was an easy decision for him to make. After looking at the evidence, it was the right decision. Truman was a patriot, not a war criminal.
I think what Truman is being blamed for, is as someone who first used nuclear weapons - which brought us a new age of teetering on the edge of world destruction.
Which is an awful thing. But which is not something that Truman can be legitimately blamed for. He's just the first guy that used them, and in a war, and arguably to end it.
The ramification of that decision go a lot further than the day the first bomb was dropped. It is still going on today and now we are watching nervously the events in the SWAT Valley in Pakistan. Who is responsible for that?
But certainly Truman can't be blamed for what happened after his actions.
Do I personally see Truman as a war criminal? That is not for me to decide, but does Stewart have the right to say yes or no to Truman committing war crimes? Yes he does because of his right to free speech and just because we don't agree with him doesn't mean he has to apologize. It just means we have the right to disagree and change the channel if it offends.
exactly WHAT was said?