Vigil For The Fallen At Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

dulceetdecorumest.org

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Hiroshima: City of Peace – for Leuren Moret & www.globalresearch.ca

Folded green paper cranes pray for peace

In jade Mother Earth gardens in the land of the rising sun

Sixty three years after the ball of fire,

The genbaku bomb, the atomic bomb

Burned 80,000 human beings in one instant,

Then radiation poisoned, the creeping dose to death

80,000 more human beings¾One year later,

Three hundred sixty five days of painful dying

From corporate design, commerce blueprint disguised as war...

Folded green paper cranes pray for peace…

Folded blue paper cranes cry peace

Blue water surrounding Honshu island, Hiroshima’s home place

Human beings died from incineration, from high heat thermal burns,

Mostly peaceful Buddhist human beings died from fallout beta burns,

Mostly Shin Buddhists died from gamma radiation burns,

From incessant diarrhea, from intestinal bleeding and dehydration,

Amida Buddha human beings dying in delirium and coma,

Death was inevitable¾ the way infinite compassion elders,

Mahayana Buddhist men, Pure Land Buddhist women, and

Innocent children died was unconscionable

From corporate profit blueprint.disguised as war…

Folded blue paper cranes cry for peace…

Folded amber paper cranes chant peace,

Not only so asian Hiroshima will not be genbaku bombed again

But so no city, no human beings, no culture will be atomic-bombed again,

No rainbow child will die in agony with headaches, with uncontrollable

Bleeding in the mouth, bone-marrow destroyed,

No giver-of-life woman will die from burn tatooo design,

her dress design, burned deep in her dying, sterilized skin,

No ancient grandpa will die from infections or internal bleeding,

No venerable grandma will die from days of nausea and vomiting,

No human being will die for the corporate bottom line,

Folded amber paper cranes chant peace…

Folded black paper cranes insist on peace,

We say no to dirty bombs, We say no to dirty missiles,

We say no to dirty bullets, we say no to Memorandum 9,

The letter to General Leslie Groves, Oct. 30, 1943,

Head of the Manhattan Project ¾

Amerikkka’s atomic bomb program in World War II¾

We say no to this letter ¾this murderous blueprint¾ that said

Amerikkka’s scientists recommended

Killing by contamination, war by depopulation,

Not science for freedom, not science for life, not science for democracy,

Amerikkka’s scientists recommended killing by contaminating

Air, water, soil, food, and blood of innocent populations by

Radioactive poison weapons leaving their homes uninhabitable,

And their children deformed, mutilated, mutated,

And their children, and their children, and their children,

So Amerikkka’s scientists accept blood money,

Not funding for science which honors life,

But salaries which reflect the worst kind of facism and oppression.

And we have seen this unacceptable bloody blueprint in Hiroshima & Nagasaki,

We say no to policies of more recent times, since 1991,

Suicidal, genocidal, omnicidal economic blueprints

Of the ruling elite to depopulate and maim in

Lebanon, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan,

We say no! We say this is not the blueprint of democracy,

We say this is not the world map of the American people!

We say no! We say stop this insanity now!

On this vigil ground in front of this war ship that fought for freedom

During the time American leaders started to become Amerikkka’s leaders

On this vigil ground we say we are the sane ones, we create a zone of freedom

A place of peace. All around us we declare this place a port of peace, right here,

Right now!

We say peace over profit, peace over war, human beings before human indecency,

Folded black paper cranes insist on peace…

Folded red paper cranes demand peace,

From blood of innocents burned, poisoned, deformed,

Folded red paper cranes demand peace,

When you can call for peace and you remain silent

You give designers of this demented new world order power,

We say no to a sick new world order that benefits only the one percent

That aims to depopulate 2 billion people for wealth and empire,

We say no to the policies of the Illuminati, London Money Power,

Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, and Skull and Bones –

We say no to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission,

The National Security Council and the U.S. State Department,

Predators of mass human genocide to maximize profits and accumulate wealth.

We say no to these shadow people who walk in crimson shadows & this day

We bring them to the light of truth and the dignity of ordinary people,

And we remind them that we know no fear when we shout the truth that

This weaponry violates the Geneva and Hague Conventions,

This weaponry violates the 1925 Geneva Poison Gas Protocol,

This weaponry meets the definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the U.S. Code

In two out of three categories.

This weaponry violates U.S. military law since

The United States signed the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

This weaponry violates the consciousness, hearts, and will of all Americans,

This weaponry ended tens of thousands of lives of mostly peaceful Buddhist human beings, August 6, 1945.

This weaponry is not used to defend democracy but to push the addiction of plutocracy:

Dope men of the worst kind, addicts of power, enemies of peace…

Folded red paper cranes demand peace…

Brown origami cranes cry wage peace

Today at this vigil, we wage peace

On the infamous morning of genbaku Little Boy

And the Enola Grief, the birds of Hiroshima,

Flying through the morning air,

Burst into flames and were incinerated

By the bomb exploded a mile above the City of Peace,

Birds from seven water deltas burst into flames,

As if they were made of paper, like folded paper cranes,

Seagulls burst into flames, feather torches of death,

The Copper Pheasant burst into flames,

The Japanese Green Pheasant died in flames,

The Mute Swan died burning, The Whooper Swan perished in flames,

The Tundra Swan burned in mid-air fire,

The Greater White-Fronted Goose exploded in flames,

The Tundra Bean Goose burned and died, The Snow Goose cried it’s last,

The Mandarin Duck, the American Wigeon, the American Scoter,

The Red-Throated loon, the Black-Faced Spoonbill, the Chinese Pond Heron

A thousand dozen birds died in flames,

As if they were made of paper, like folded paper cranes,

In one instant no birds, no buildings, no trees, no children, burned life, mutilated life,

No life, forever…

As men of shame, calling themselves patriots, walked to banks over bodies of innocents..

Brown origami cranes cry – wage peace - wage peace - remember peace! Forever…

Remember what happened to Hiroshima, the City of Peace…Forever….

Jim Moreno Summer 2008 63 years after so many died, not as propaganda says to save American lives, but for empire, to prevent the Russians from claiming more territory. This poem is a voice for the voiceless, the 140,00 mostly peaceful Buddhists who died that day and the following year from painful radioactive poisoning.

"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 D.Leahy, (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) I Was There, pg. 441.

www.pajamadeen.com

On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."

Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347.

On August 8, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hoover wrote to Army and Navy Journal publisher Colonel John Callan O'Laughlin, "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."

quoted from Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 635.

"...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs."

- quoted by Barton Bernstein in Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian, pg. 142

Poet's Note on the composition of this poem:

Sometimes art takes you places you would have never predicted you would go.

In beginning this poem I wanted to retrieve some facts about Aug. 6, 1945 in Hiroshima so I went to a few web sites to gather historical fact. On one website I found origami art that you see in the above. But the term for the art was "folded paper cranes". I liked the image, the rhytmn, and the sound of the phrase so I put it in the first stanza. The next thing I know I'm ending and beginning each stanza with the phrase.

I put the poem to bed after four stanzas and the next day continued to blend spoken word, fact, compassion for the murdered, and outrage for arrogance and insouciance of power. When I felt I had been a voice for the voiceless and a voice for peace/nonviolence I decided the poem had to have an ending which turned.

I decided to see what birds were indigenous to Honshu, the island where Hiroshima stands. It was a gut feeling, an instinct. I found a web site where these birds were listed and wrote down names of birds with a particular sound, especially the fact that there were migrated American birds incinerated that day, just as there were American prisoners of war, held in Hiroshima that day who were murdered by our government's cruel and inhumane decision to drop the bomb, like little spoiled and nasty children who burn ants in the hot summer, the lives of innocent Japanese and men serving their country were cast aside by by steatlh decisions of men of profit; not men of freedom.

What popped out of consciousness next surprised me. If the birds exploded in mid air flight they were "just like folded paper cranes". The muse startled me in that unplanned creative moment. I finished the stanza and felt the poem was then finished with me.

The story doesn't end here at the keyboard. On the day of the vigil I was waiting to read and holding the peace flag when two men in a white Chevy pickup truck stopped to unload more peace signs. The last thing they unloaded were two 8-10 foot high white folded paper crane chains with about 12 rows of origami cranes. They placed these standards of peace flanking and behind the microphone. I got severe chills when I saw the origami art. The spirit of peace filled the air. When I read the poem with the origami behind me I felt very inspired, protected, and blessed.

Fellow poets, fellow artists, fellow artivists (artist & activist) when you pursue your gift, when you share your gift, doors open where you least expect them. I hope you enjoyed my story and my art. May we all continue to be voices for freedom and against nuclear arms, including the depleted uranium weapons currently used in Iraq.

Jim Moreno August 19, 2008 City Heights