Off to make jokes about 9/11!

Ugh, I'd seen ones about Pearl Harbor (on another website, not, thankfully, on my facebook newsfeed) but not about whales. I wonder if this behavior is unusually common in the US? I heard similar things with regards to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but I think it was all from Americans (just people lucky enough to not be in those cities). Not that we get to have all responsibility for the victim blaming in this world, but it's an interesting pattern...

how can people take joy in the death of others? this is sickening....

"Works at Google" "Studied Microbiology at Stanford University"

Wow.

Wow ... apparently the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not enough retribution for Pearl Harbor. Hatred and grudges run very, very deep.

There is also a viral video doing the rounds featuring a 'polite American Girl' complaining about 'Asians' in the library talking on their phones - to call family at home (presumably Japan? She doesn't specify) to check their safety after the tsunami. Yes, she complains about this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFtIjYn-Wq0&feature=related

The whole complexity of the concept of Karma in western culture could do with a good bit of excavating.

this makes me wonder what these people would say if the catastrophe happened here in the US. would it still be "karma"? or injustice from the divine being sort of sentiment...

I was amazed to watch CBS This Morning where they interviewed a family of white Americans to talk about their experience seeing the earthquake in Japan. From there it was to NBC Today where it was more white, middle Americans talking to us about the experience.

Only time we see Japanese people is when they shoot B-roll of wandering families. It's like the US media is at a zoo gawking at the strange creatures inhabiting this strange island.

Wow, it's crazy how some people can't move beyond the old beliefs of natural distasters being caused by sin. A lot of times these people are hypocrites too; when bad things happen to people they don't like they will say it is God's doing, but when something bad happens to them, they say its the Devil.

The "Just World Fallacy"

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/

That was just sickening. What the hell...

LOL AMERICANS

This is horrible! ..."karma" is just another way to point fingers. People use it as a control mechanism by saying, "see! that's what you deserve," and scaring people into behaving a certain way.

Isn't this the sort of thing you put a trigger warning on? I mean c'mon, Dr. Wade.

The whole 'pay back for pearl harbor' thing is really pissing me off, because a.) we did pay them back. We NUCLEAR BOMBED them, twice. b.) the people the decided to attack pearl harbor probably are not around anymore. And c.) because a lot of people are hurt, dying, and losing there homes. Average everyday people, who cannot be held responsible for everything their government does.

Also, not that I know anything about animals, but I’m sure the earthquake negatively effects them too...somehow

How about we change the OP text to "A fascinating peek into the minds of (these) Americans."

I'd really like to not be lumped in with these people.

Is it possible to put this -- and image-heavy posts in general -- under a cut, please? I love Sociological Images, but my internet isn't consistent and it's pretty awful on the off days. Plus SUDDENLY, VITRIOLIC RACISM IN LARGE FONT can be just as bad as SUDDENLY, NAKED PHOTOS AT WORK -- not to mention the trigger potential.

Both done. :)

C'est désespérant. Je ne veux même pas le dire en anglais.

As someone semi-active in the animal rights realm, some of the shit I've been seeing people post on Facebook and Twitter makes me depressed. It's only a very small percentage of the Japanese population that makes their living off of whale hunting or who even consume whale at all. It's definitely a dying trend. Still, no one ever deserves something so devastating. If you're against some of the practices of some of their people, fine, there are better ways to change the world than wishing death and destruction upon them. It also makes me wonder, if this was some sort of karmic payback, how huge and devastating will the American destruction be when Nature (God, whatever) unleashes her furry over the atrocities committed in our own land? People just don't think.

As an Atheist, all this talk of divine retribution and karma is sickening. The formula seems to go thus: "God is punishing Japan for X political belief that I hold." X can be defined as so many things rooted in ignorance or arrogance; daring to strike the greatest gosh darn nation on earth 70 years ago, being so sexually liberal, the sometimes bizarre (or offensive) porn they produce, overpopulation, etc. It just seems like everyone is taking the opportunity, once again, to use God as an excuse to uphold their own personal views. Again, people just don't think.

The main thing I find really stupid and makes me just want to start throwing bricks at people is the whole Pearl Harbor thing. Wasn't there enough "retribution" when we dropped 2 nukes on them, killing a few hundred thousand people? Additionally, this is something that happened 70 years ago! It makes me wonder if there are still those who hold a grudge against Canada for burning down Washington DC in the war of 1812. Japan is now one of America's greatest allies, so who would ever want something like this to happen to someone with whom we've shared mutual respect and aid for the last several decades? Again, if we're going to start claiming divine retribution and that they "deserved it" for this or that atrocity, where's America's horrible earthquake/tsunami for all the war crimes committed in the name of this country?

I think if these people hate Japan so much they should empty their homes of everything japanese and first made in japan starting with there computers,dvds, vhs, snes, playstations hello kitty and rice! So we don't have to listen to the evil vomit erupting from them!
No one not even these asshats deserve what has happened I didn't hear this crap when l.a. highway colapsed or when haiti had an earthquake minus the 700 club comment. Did the gulf coast deserve all that oil what about alaska?
I do wish there moms find these comments and trash there computers or better give them to children that could use them for good things like bettering themselves

The "best" pseudo-logic is the one who thinks that "Asia deserves this. They treat people like shit." Yes, it's your love of the Asian citizenry that makes you celebrate their mass death.

Not to say that there aren't plenty of moronic, hateful Americans, but we hardly have a monopoly on moronic hatefulness. And indeed, one of the pictures here comes from a Twitterer whose location is listed as "Auckland." Just sayin'...

Is there some reason why you're only singling out the Americans who are doing this? I am in Australia and have seen plenty of Facebook morons posting about Japanese getting what they deserve for WWII.

Sorry, but stupidity knows no national-bounds.

Usa made a lot of bad thing too... (not that i wish that some americans die, it's just that... this whole thing is stupid)

I in NO WAY endorse or even defend what these people are saying-- I agree that their response is offensive, truly nasty, and nonsensical-- but I wonder if there has been research on this kind of response as a coping mechanism (maybe in the "just world phenomenon" department)? It does tend to happen a lot: Katrina was punishment for the sins of New Orleans, the earthquake in Haiti was punishment for VooDoo, and now this? These sorts of horrific and random disasters are hard to deal with-- I know I wonder why such awful things are possible in a world that is supposed to be worth living in. I have my own ways of coping, but maybe distancing themselves and blaming the victims is how these people avoid having to DEAL with the tragedy, and having to confront how awful it really is. Making a joke out of it, and making a MEAN joke out of it (meanness is often the result of being upset), and turning it into "they deserved this" means not having to grasp the fact that something so devastating has happened.

Again, though, I iterate that I DO NOT think that what they did is okay, I'm not trying to justify their behavior, I'm just looking for an explanation for it. (Maybe that's my coping mechanism for why PEOPLE can be so awful.)

Ok, so, lets look at logic.

Japan bombs pearl harbor
Tsunami hits japan

...........................

Therefore

...........................

America bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki
________ hits America

...........................

America makes fun of japanese by tweeting about karma
________ hits America

...........................

America lends support and love, and deploys help due to a random natural disaster that affects everyone, including everyone reading this through the extended invisible hand of economics, through family, through crisis, through learning to prevent in the future near your home.
________ hits America

I also recently saw a video of a person who claimed the tsunami was a message to athiests.

I'm not kidding.

She said that her and other Christians had been praying to "open the eyes" of atheists, and that the tsunami was god's response.

The weirdest thing about the Facebook one is that apparently the guy speaks Japanese.

This is absolutely atrocious. Not to mention poorly informed and incredibly racist. And apparently no one remembers the retribution already given for Pearl Harbor...or the definition of karma.

But I do feel that there is a lot of support going out to the Japanese as well. At least in my News Feed all of my friends are expressing grief and sending links to donate money and places to send supplies to the Red Cross or other relief efforts.

Yes, there are incredibly nationalist morons like these, but I've found that in times of tragedy the country borders expand and we all become part of the human race.

Two other incidents that haven't been mentioned ...

A WNBA player (Cappie Pointdexter) Tweeted that, in her view, the tsunami was retribution from God for Pearl Habor and over the way Japanese people "treated each other" (no explanation of what she meant by that).

The rapper 50 Cent also Tweeted jokes making light of the tsunami. After he was called out on it, he came forward and admitted he does things like that to be provocative and generate controversy.

Of course none of these people are genuinely angry about Pearl Harbor. That's ridiculous. These people were born decades after Pearl Harbor ever happened. As someone else pointed out, even the WWII generation that was alive during Pearl Harbor probably wouldn't feel this way. My experience is that WWII veterans generally have a much more ambiguous relationship with Japan - some anger, sure, but also sympathy and respect. Warfare can do that to people sometimes. On top of that, the generation that lived during Pearl Harbor was the generation that also helped rebuild Japan and established close commercial links between the two nations.

My opinion is that these people are just guided by hatefulness and by a desire to be contrarian and confrontational. They want to vent their spite and they'll do it at any target. The fact that there is a huge outpouring of sympathy and grief over the quake/tsunami makes it a perfect target for these real-life trolls (as Charlie Sheen would put it).

I see two reasons for this attitude. First off, there's the "reality TV culture" (to summarize a wide variety of social trends in one neat phrase). I'm a member of "Generation Y" and my experience is that there a lot of people in my generation who are willing to do just about anything for attention. It doesn't matter how crazy or ignorant it is - if it generates controversy, then it's worth doing. Secondly, there is a wider sort of post-modern "attitude" pervading my generation. Sincerity and emotional openness are definitely not cool. Instead people have embraced sarcasm, irony and outlandish, bombastic statements as the only valid ways of communicating. The more of a defiant stance you can put up, the better. That's where I see a lot of this coming from, especially since I see that the majority of the people who are making these comments (at least openly) are from around my age range.

Most of these people just use events such as this one to conveniently feed their worldview.

What about the way we treat cows and chickens?
When something like this happens here, is India going to tweet about our karma for eating steak?

These are the same people who say, "Well, I didn't own slaves. So STFU black people!"

Do they realize those who bombed Pearl Harbor are dead?

Not to mention - apparently they are not aware of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which is, without any doubts, MUCH worse than anything Pearl Harbor brought.

In some ways I feel annoyed at these mouth-breathing morons, but the American education system is a complete joke, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

A few tweets on Twitter is an excellent way to relay what "the Minds of Americans" are saying.

Horrible, sensational, title.

I'm shocked, shocked to hear this!...Just kidding. Reminds me of the 'Gresham's law' type of scenario: the bad drives out the good. There's a lot of LCD (lowest common denominator) on the internet. Given the reality that almost everyone now can either afford a computer or obtain internet access, this was bound to happen. That's why I don't use the internet like I first did in the mid 90's... nor do I pay much attention to 'comments' anymore.
Things were different in the past, as the ill-informed, as well as all the kooks and bigots, were not yet spouting off online in great numbers, and the conversations were in general very different in quality, as I remember. So, they ruin it for everyone... in a 'Gresham's law' way.

I don't understand how it is possible to be so mean but it always seemed to me that any way to think (from the smartest to the dumbest) exists in the us.
Astonishing how some seem to be upset about Pearl Harbour... I mean the usa has been attacking (for good or wrong reasons) other countries every year for more than a century, doing real dead children, and Pearl Harbour maybe shocking but it's one of the only two surprising moments when the mouse dared to do a small bite to the bear. Offended, then ?
To the ones who see here a divine justice : please, keep your god in your contry thank you, and don't be happy when you see him acting rude or evil, it encourages it doing bad stuff.

Indeed, I wonder how would have they felt if someone have told that about 9/11? Horrible of course. But... it's just racism in order here, nothing new.

Most of the comments make no sence though.
I know that ignorance and stupidty know no borders but still the sheer amount of the stupidity is overwhelming: "Dumb as a doorknob and proud of it."

God doesn't kills one being heathen,saved or not, we are all sinners too. God loves all and is patient till the set time (read Revelation in bible, if you want to know the set time.), and my prayer goes to Japanese. Throughout the Bible, though, there are many examples that God punished evil person or evil acts of the nations not only on the earth, but after life too. Many believe the recent disaster is from god's punishment for Japanese shedding too much innocent Asian blood during ww2.
Historically, Japanese invaded, killed more than 20 millions of innocent Asians, forcefully colonized during WWII, from South Asia to northern Asia including China and Korea.

Though the Westerners and Americans know that Hitler killed 6 million Jews and 4 millions Europeans during WWII, and condemn America's Atomic bombing on Hiroshima as inhumane act, most of the people don't know how the Japanese invasion all over the Asia finally got stopped.

Most people don't know the fact that the atomic bombing could only stopped the Japanese invasions and brutal colonization that was already going on in Asia more than 40 years (from 1905-1945) without any international intervention. To stop this ongoing Japanese crime in Asia, America intervened and warned Japanese emperor, one week before atomic bombing, to stop all invasion, and gave up the forced colonization. Japanese refused, so America had to use the atomic bomb to stop their brutal invasions all over Asia. Finally after atomic bombing, more than 12 nations in Asia found their freedom back again.

Also Animal Channels broadcasted series of the ' "Whale War" about Japanese wales ships' unlawful fishing acts of whale around Arctic, where internationally whale protected zone. These Japanese ships were disguised as "research ship" but in fact there were commercial ships brutally killing countless whales days and nights. When international fishing regulation ships ( role as police)approached to Japanese ships to stop the violation, instead of keeping the laws, they started to shoot against these humanitarian regulatory ships which don't have any guns or weapon equipments. Japanese' out-law attitude like this frustrate me deeply as one of the global citizen. Somehow Japanese seem they can kill, invade, and attack other nations, or animals whenever or wherever they feel like.

first of all I am american, i dont know anybody in japan. BUT for ANY of you saying that this is some sort of karmic debt for the japanese is not only CRUEL but IGNORANT! havent you heard whenever you point a finger you have 4 pointing back. well i guess EVERYTHING that has happened in the united states is karmic too!! okay so every toronado, mud slide, hurricane, flood and of course 911 was because all those people that died had it coming for something they or WE did. Boy you have some sick sense of God and your purpose thats for sure! You are stuck in the old testament days my friend which jesus came to tell us WAS ALL WRONG!! You all need to READ about spirituality and the way the world works..we need natural disasters or the earth or we would literally BLOW UP without escaping the gases,(liek volcanoes) and moving the plates..scientists know this.. you are looking at it from an uneducated prospective!! unfortunately people die from these things that part of the physical manifestation of this planet.. just being born here puts you in jeapordy for diseases, and natural ways to die. You need to grow intellectually and spiritually. Gods highest blessings to you.. you need it!!

why is everyone on here commenting that ALL OF A SUDDEN ALL THESE DISASTERS ARE HAPPENING... they have been happening all along!! its just that with
our world wide web and the world changing so fast everybody seems to be on this everyone hates everyone thing STILL and now can vent it anywhere on the web. !!! becaues we are sooo connected by the internet and texting and television we know and hear everything that everyone thinks or experiences. Well what about all the diseases that killed people in the old days? People died of the common FLU and fevers, POLIO and more...what about LEPRACY (not sure how to spell that?) for you old testament folks..
its all been here and would be here worse if it wasnt for antibiodics and modern medicine!!
before they discovered "GERMS" babies died because the same doctors delivering them were working on cadavers!! come on people. think outside your little box. as far as natural disasters go last i saw there are NO DINOSAURS gee there was something called an ice age that killed everything just about. The indians never had their villages anywhere near big rivers or the ocean.. gee i wonder why?? they knew about hurricanes, and floods.!!
and there were alot of them!! look at the grand canyon how high the water used to be? everything changes and moves. I know i sound sarcastic, but i am certain the people on this site are not children.. you are grown adults and it is plain scary how you think!! God is not going to destroy the world people like you are!!

Not sure if this has been posted so far, but here is an excellent study discussing the phenomenon of thinking about natural disasters in terms of sin and punishment:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=signs-signs-everywhere-signs-seeing-2011-03-13

So what does it mean when a high-profile Japanese politician who is probably not a Christian says it was divine punishment and hasn't as yet lost his job or been forced to resign, but Gilbert Gottfried can't be the voice of a bird that sells insurance anymore for making remarks that are considerably less offensive? In my opinion Gottfried's comments are only less offensive than the governor's because the governor was sincere -and supposedly is a representative of the people- whereas Gottfried was merely being a jackass, which is kind of expected among comedians fearful of impending obscurity.

I'd expect the governor of Tokyo to be held to a higher standard than a second-rate comedian, but since the human race is more or less collectively insane I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise.

The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, has apologised after suggesting that the tsunami that has so far claimed at least 3,000 lives was "divine punishment" for the "egoism" of the Japanese people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/15/tokyo-governor-tsunami-punishment

OK, if you all don't mind (and, Lisa Wade, I hope you don't mind if I post a link, but) I'd like to remind everyone that while there are cowards on the internet, there are also people like this:

http://blog.angryasianman.com/2011/02/pink-shirted-students-flash-mob-against.html

A bunch of kids cooler than I have ever been in all my years added together.

Because this site has posted the ridiculous commentary, I unsubscribed. Bringing a spotlight to hatred makes it travel further and faster - especially on the Net! Wow. I was disappointed!

This gem came from someone who attends my university...truly terrible.

http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2011/03/pearl-harbor.html

you minority shitty head american, look out for your fat a** and try to be something instead just pretending to be the best in the world. Minnesota state of clueless fat folks!

Interesting to see Glenn Beck-level thinking coming from so many Leftist environmentalists. It just goes to show that stupid is as stupid does, no matter your political viewpoint and that no political party has a corner on dimwits and bigots.

No, stupids, it's all just blind, impersonal, inanimate plate tectonics. There is no god. There is no karma. Nature does not care about us, or even know that we are here.

No, stupids, it's all just blind, impersonal, inanimate plate tectonics. There is no god. There is no karma. Nature does not care about us, or even know that we are here.

Read a geology textbook, instead of such ridiculous pieces of superstitious trash as the bible.

All these ignorant Americans ( mostly white ) themselves quickly forot Katrina, 9-11 happened in their country.

There's a funny auxilliary note to this, about historical ignorance:

When people scan the memory banks for bad things the Japanese have done, the worst thing they come up with are Pearl Harbor? Or eating dolphins (magnificent creatures they may be?)

Does no one remember Korea? Japan occupied it for 50 years. They virtually enslaved the whole population. They made an official state policy of forcing young Korean women into sexual slavery or soldiers, sometimes one woman for hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. They set about to methodically exterminate Korean language and culture - they made speaking Korean illegal, forced all children to learn only Japanese, gave everyone Japanese names and illegalized the use of the old Korean names, etc. etc. Can you even imagine? It's a miracle Korean culture survived.

And that's just Korea, in the 20th century - we also have the rape of Nanking, etc.

I don't agree with these sentiments - most Japanese are very good people, and no person is guilty or responsible for the crimes of their forefathers or those around them. I mourn this tragedy, and wish the proud nation the best.

I just find these comments odd, that's all.

As a vegetarian, I'm partially amused that people believe that killing very specific animals causes natural disasters. Mother nature only cares about pretty and interesting animals, clearly.

The rest of me is in utter horror at how ignorant people can be.

Twisters in USA karma for Americans... well, being Americans..

"Works at Google" Why am I not surprised?

Ok