The "N" bomb?
If he said "nigger" I didn't give it much weight. I was one of very few in my neighborhood who never used the term in casual or emotional speech. (I was lucky enough to hear Lenny Bruce's rant, before I reached my teens… He may have been a sick f**k, but he had some understanding of how people get along that he expressed in an unforgettable way.) The primary meaning is derogatory, an insult meant to evoke rage or allow the acquiescence -timidity!- in a class system based upon skin color.
There's no way I could have used that word.
But many of my friends did. I just chose not to…
he certainly loves his country but his country, as he knew it, doesn't exist anymore.
I understand such feeling, many of us are orphans of a world that has disappeared. Gone forever.
I am -despite my age- not so pessimistic. Your history perhaps makes you so. But mine does not.
@Belfrager: Please use a dictionary, to find the meaning of "extermination"… We killed upwards of 300,000 Japanese with our two A-bombs. (That should satisfy your caveats about radiation poisoning, etc., eh? ) Had either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. had to invade the home islands, how many people would have died?
(You too can try to answer that question, ersi.)
We did the best we could, with what we had, based upon what we knew then. But some of you think we should have been omniscient… Very well:
You take over!
If you screw the pooch, don't ask us to return to the fray.
If you attack us, we will retaliate…