Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

anchoreditions.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 358 posts

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#171

Post by krapp »

anon1094 wrote: post #139
krapp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely supposition on my part, from someone far too young to have lived through any of it, but I suspect it's less that Japanese Americans looked different, and more that Japan was a non-Christian culture, which made it easier to dehumanize people of Japanese descent. The Nazis might have been evil but at least they were "like us" in that they shared a common heritage, religion and linguistic root with Amer…

Do you really believe that it was because Japan is dominantly a non-Christian culture and not because they look different? No, it was because they weren't white. And America has, for a very long time and even now, been painted as a mostly white and african american culture. Even in modern Japan itself ironically enough, it's hard for some people to really picture non-white and non-african Americans as Americans. The…

>Do you really believe that it was because Japan is dominantly a non-Christian culture and not because they look different?

I believe it was both - they're two sides of the same coin. Look at the propaganda of the time - the Japanese were portrayed as being fundamentally inhuman in a way that Europeans weren't. The myth of the "inscrutable Oriental" has been around in the West for a very long time, the Japanese mind and morality were considered to be incomprehensible.

That Japanese Americans looked different probably made this xenophobia easier to act upon, though.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#172

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #150
nanistheonlyist wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.

Major General Smedley Butler, in 1935: "At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval…

Does it not matter that we were running those maneuvers largely in response to Japanese aggression in China and the Pacific? Does it matter that the reason we were in tension with Japan was their murder and conquest spree in China?

Does any of it excuse the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?

I think the answer is no, despite my great respect for General Butler.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#173

Post by knz »

nanistheonlyist wrote: post #132
clarkmoody wrote: post #122

One of the many reasons to oppose war. Others include: + Control of the economy, price controls, rationing, shortages + Suspension of most (all?) of the Bill of Rights + Wholesale slaughter of civilian populations abroad (so much for "all men are created equal ... with unalienable rights") But perhaps the most nefarious is the idea that "we all pulled together and sacrificed to defeat the enemy." The government schoo…

We did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.

Japan also forced the hand of the Allied nations by invading other territories. Personally I think Japan forced our hands earlier than that (Invasion of Manchuria was a big geopolitical move IIRC) - it just wasn't apparent at the time.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#174

Post by wehadfun »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #162
wehadfun wrote: post #156

It seems uncomfortable, but how does it compare to how the Japanese treated the Chinese during the war? Its easy to look back now and think America was terrible but lets not forget that World War Freaking 2 was happening at the time. If your beloved son just got killed at Perl Harbor you probably would have no issue with this at all. Hell you probably feel like it is not bad enough. Its just like all these self right…

> It seems uncomfortable, but how does it compare to how the Japanese treated the Chinese during the war? Why does that matter? Does one atrocity excuse another? > Its easy to look back now and think America was terrible but lets not forget that World War Freaking 2 was happening at the time. We were much less terrible than the powers we were fighting against. That doesn't mean we didn't also do some terrible things.

>Why does that matter? Does one atrocity excuse another?

Absolutely if they are related. If you witness a guy setting your neighbors house on fire, then he sets the house across the street on fire. Then you committing the "atrocity" of running him over with your car it is excused. And if a couple of his buddies that were with him die in the process its excused as well.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#176

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

astrodust wrote: post #140
nanistheonlyist wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.

Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. I'm not saying what Japan did was in any way noble, but it was certainly far from unexpected. The US administration knew the war in Europe was a serious problem if left unchecked, that Britain and its allies would never prevail, but there was c…

> Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour.

Is that what it's called when we objected to Japan's war of conquest against China? Antagonism? Fine, let it be so. Japan brought doom on themselves.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#177

Post by theptip »

"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”

Orwellian logic. I always found this suspension of rationality particularly disturbing when reading about the internment camps.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#178

Post by blackbagboys »

Putting the obligatory moral condemnation of our deluded and evil forbears to one side for a moment, one can't help but notice that our darkest and most shameful national mistakes are nevertheless vastly more humane and benign than those of comparable societies. I would hope that episodes such as this inspire in modern Americans, beyond pure disgust, a desire to identify and nurture the national characteristics that enforced such comparative restraint.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#179

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

djsumdog wrote: post #141
nanistheonlyist wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.

After the US et. al. cut off fuel and oil trade. They don't teach you that part in school. The saddest thing about WWII is that the people who started the war, by funding it, were never brought up on charges at Nuremberg. Prescott Bush and Standard Oil made millions off selling fuel to both sides. IBM made the punch-card based catalogue service for the Nazis. Henry Ford's company made tank treads for both allied and…

> After the US et. al. cut off fuel and oil trade. They don't teach you that part in school.

And do you know why we did that? Was that mentioned? Did they talk about Japan's war of conquest in China or the Rape of Nanking, among a thousand other atrocities?

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#180

Post by ars »

semiel wrote: post #81
kofejnik wrote: post #12

This was appalling and obviously sucked a lot for people who underwent such treatment; however as someone born in USSR I'd say that it was surprisingly humane (hot water not always available) compared to how people were treated in the USSR around the same period. Case in point: Ukrainian Holodomor (genocide by famine) http://www.rferl.org/a/holodomor-ukraine/25174454.html Edit: also, Chechen and Krimean Tatar deporta…

Since these countries (in some form or other) still exist, it's tempting to start making moral comparisons and trying to figure out "which side you should be on". But that's not the most interesting approach, in my opinion. Future historians won't be picking sides, they'll be trying to put it in context, understand the conditions that led to these behaviors, and draw out trends in the period. I can imagine a section…

I know you are trying to be objective and disinterested, but reading you combine the German and American camps as somehow comparable is utterly horrifying.

You make it sound like they were both more or less the same, just some people were killed in the German ones.

The goal of the German camps was to torture and kill, the American camps was to segregate.

The "camps" part is an unimportant detail - yet you write as if it's the main thing.

Post reply on HN