Sir Paul

[uwe]

Angela has obviously had less operations.

[EvilLordJuju]

Well,
I just spent a few hours watching the Paul McCartney band (in the vague distance) performing at Hyde Park, London.

He did a pretty good set... including some I didn't expect... Helter Skelter in particular.

A good gig.... although somewhat marred by the entire crowd singing along out of tune, and actually being louder than the band....

McCartney sang and played piano fine, but his bass was so low in the mix (a lot lower than Brian Rays), it was hard to even follow his basslines. Brian Rays SG reissue bass was sounding great, especially when he was jamming the end of Hey Jude. Some great (and very accurate) performances from all the  rest of the band actually.

[uwe]

When I saw him in Berlin last December, it was the same thing: The SG RI sounded better. You could hear the Höffi in the mix, yes, but the SG RI had real authority. When it comes to high register sustain, the Höfner has its construction-inherent limits.

[Pilgrim]

Definitely... I think the thing I was reacting to (with Paul) is the sort of beatification that has taken place with him over the years. I'm not one to appreciate being lectured to and many of his recent political comments have gotten right up my backside due to that.

Those of us who lived through that era (most of those on this forum, it seems) formulated their own opinions about John and each of the foursome. 

Which leads me to reflect that those who live in the time of public figures and celebrities may well form a different opinion about them than those who learn about them as historical figures.  My mom (passed away in 2007 at age 86) always harbored a suspicion that FDR got us into WWII as a way to resurrect the US economy.  I don't agree, but I never figured it was worth arguing the point.

[uwe]

I think WW II gave your economy a boost that lasted well into the seventies, but whether FDR was that visionary ... But even if that should have been his sole motivation, the ensuing "side effect" of battling down Nazism would have vindicated his decision.

[OldManC]

I've heard many people from the WWII generation (my parents' era) conjecture about whether FDR knew Pearl Harbor was coming. The feeling was that he allowed it to happen as a way to turn public sentiment toward supporting our entering the war (the U.S. being more isolationist than not at that point). I've also read articles debunking that theory pretty handily.

The war/economy thing is a little more nuanced. I don't know that I'd buy the idea that FDR's intentions toward us entering the war were to shore up the economy, but it certainly had that effect. That being said, I don't buy the whole 'military industrial complex' bugaboo. The post war U.S. economy boomed and contracted in a normal fashion, there was just a lot of economic, technology, and population growth that went with it. Why I think that was would probably stray into political territory, but it's no secret that the last half of the 20th century was a pretty intense time in world history.

[Highlander]

I'm part way through a book on the Pacific War by a late Japanese writer called Ienaga - reputedly the defacto on the subject from their perspective - banned for some time and exceptionally critical - what everyone forgets is that they went to War in 1931 and the events of 1945 ended that War, and not before...

The American heirachy knew that supporting the Brits would drop them right into it - the Japanese pre-emptive strike was a foregone conclusion, and I hate to say this as I know it's exceptionally controversial for you guys, but from their perspective, it was a masterstroke - I can only presume that the when was the only unknown to FDR...

From their perspective, surrender was an insult and to die for the Emporor was an honour; indoctrination at a school level to an impending War began long before 1931, and they knew conflict with the Americans was inevitable... from what I have researched elsewhere, their were very few Japenese POW's by 1944 (a handful in Burma), and they were using Limeys/Yanks/Aussies as slave labour for the dishonour (from the Japanese perspective) they had brought upon their families...

The book (published under 3 differing titles) is a stunning and shocking eye-opener...

[uwe]

Of course you guys knew about Pearl Harbor (I'm not surprised that the full historic documentation is still being kept locked away) - it was inevitable for the Japanese to make that strike after you had turned off the oil for them. They did not have much more than a year to go with their energy starved army and navy and wrongly believed you'd be a squeamish and weak democracy that would not recuperate after a short sharp shock strike.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I don't believe in the coincidence of all the later on war-deciding carriers being on a naval exercise the day the Japanese attacked either. For all the drama and personal losses involved at Pearl Harbor, your strategic military losses were comparatively light - a nose-bleed so to say - and fleeting or did you really believe that your cherished WW I battleship veterans would have stood a snowflake's chance in hell against the Yamato class at open sea?



Talk about the Hood against the Bismarck ...   You'd have lost all of them in naval battles with the Japanese anyway.

Pearl Harbor was heaven-sent and I don't mean the Japanese dive bombers either. It was a huge rallying-call for your nation, kicked your tremendous war economy into action, unleashed hundreds of military projects that had been gathering dust on the drawing board and gave Imperial Japan the false security that the US was somehow like China, huge, but lumbering and disorganized plus sacrifice-averse. And then you rubbed the blood off your nose and flexed your muscles ... and it wasn't far from the heroes at Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima (you've spent far more time in Afghanistan as have we!).

In hindsight, Pearl Harbor was the first day of Imperial Japan losing the Pacific War against the US. And all that island hopping (at low risk for your homeland safely tucked away thousands of miles removed, if at high military and human cost) prepared you for that awe-inspiring WW II single greatest military operation that was D-Day. I only saw a TV documentary recently that showed how much you learned during those early Pacific island hopping days and how you honed your skills there.  

[OldManC]

People tend to focus on Germany and its aftermath (the Nuremberg trials), and while I would never mean to lessen the severity of what went on in Europe, the world just doesn't know the story of Japan and what it was up to up to before 1945. Well, the Western world doesn't. Korea, China, and others in the area know. I read a book about the Japanese equivalent to Nuremberg and it was eye opening, to say the least, and that's coming from someone with a Dad who served in the South Pacific and told stories of what he heard and saw.

[OldManC]

Uwe, your point is well made, and while I believe the U.S. government knew it would happen sometime (and that Hawaii was a likely target), I still hope FDR and military leaders at the time didn't know more than that. If they did, may they all answer to a higher power for the hell that was unleashed that day. Losing some old warships is one thing, but the men, women and children killed that day were a price worth far more than any kickstart it brought the U.S. in military or industrial terms.

[Highlander]

Ask any Australian about their War Trials and the cannibalism that was rife on the Islands...

It was (is...? a famous recent trial could not prove a murder but cannibalism is not a crime in Japan) generally accepted that you could eat your enemy (thereby taking their spirit and strength) but it was frowned upon to eat your own kind, your fellow soldiers, if times became tough, which they did...

My research on this found out that during the AWT's it was not a War Crime, per sae, to perform cannibalistic acts, but not allowing a decent burial was...

I know far too much on this subject and I am not going down that road here - if you want to know how deep that rabbit hole goes, start with a search for Unit 731...

[uwe]

People tend to focus on Germany and its aftermath (the Nuremberg trials), and while I would never mean to lessen the severity of what went on in Europe, the world just doesn't know the story of Japan and what it was up to up to before 1945. Well, the Western world doesn't. Korea, China, and others in the area know. I read a book about the Japanese equivalent to Nuremberg and it was eye opening, to say the least, and that's coming from someone with a Dad who served in the South Pacific and told stories of what he heard and saw.

The Japanese  were ruthless, oppressive and needlessly cruel, granted. But that is not why you fought them. You fought them because they were upstaging old colonial Europe in Asia and because they were threatening to become an invincible super power there when you wanted to be that super power yourself. You had strategic interests. Those are ok to have, I'm not knocking that, especially as the Japanese only pretended to liberate Asia from western colonialism, when in fact they wanted to be the new colonialists, but I thought that the US engagement in Europe was - let's use that word - much more noble. Why? Because the US could have done just fine with a Nazi controlled Europe, Hitler had no interest in Asia (save for some oil wells in the Middle East), in fact his concern was that the fall of the English Empire (which he did not want, he wanted to bomb the UK into a peace treaty) would only benefit Japan (which he had no interest in, Japan and Germany were never "allies" with a common objective, they just shared a few enemy nations by coincidence). Nor did he have an interest in North or South America. In Europe, the US did not fight so much for its own strategic interests, but for the former English motherland, European liberalism, democracy and diversity. Very honorable and I'm not being sarcastic. It ranks among the US' finest achievements.

[Barklessdog]

But you always had Italy to count on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i1iD0w3SfY&feature=channel

Germany now conducts other experiments.

[uwe]

John, you are a strange man. Very strange.

[Dave W]

When it comes to Italy, I prefer Alexei Sayle as Mussolini.



And he's a Liverpudlian which brings us back to Sir Paul.