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Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

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Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#241

Post by DanBC »

YPCrumble wrote: post #144
jlillyreed wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like to think that the "West" has progressed since then. You might like to think so, but you'd be VERY VERY wrong. This year Trump surrogates began justifying their proposal to create a muslim registry by saying that the Japanese Internment gave precedence for their desired actions.

Aren't we still in political moratorium week? How does one flag a comment?

To flag a comment you click the timestamp, and then click the [flag] link. There's a small karma threshhold - you need about 30 karma to do so.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#242

Post by mikeash »

laumars wrote: post #167
chrishacken wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. Are you kidding me? So honor was their reason to start a war that eventually caused millions to die?

You're taking his brief argument far too literally. Of course there was more at play than honour alone. However reasons aside, I'd argue your comment is moot as there's never a good reason to start a war. Edit: wow I'm surprised by the downvotes. Are you (who ever you are) suggesting you do agree with starting wars? I'd be very interested to hear why you disagree with me.

I completely agree with starting wars if it stops the suffering of large numbers of civilians. As it stands, 15-20 million Chinese were killed by the Japanese in that war. How many would have died if the US had not gotten involved?

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#243

Post by vkou »

dilipd wrote: post #191
andars wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan was "repeatedly slapped in the face" because of their increasing militarization, invasion of China (also Rape of Nanking), alliance with Italy and Germany, desire for control of all of East Asian (the Co-Prosperity Sphere), etc. The US response seems totally reasonable to me.

Correct! Repeatedly slapping Japan was reasonable because of Japan's imperial ambitions, e.g. Taiwan(1895), Manchuria(1905), Korea(1910) etc. And, England and some other European countries were not 'repeatedly slapped', even though they were also imperialist, may be far longer, may be far worse!

Japan was also promised the world for their support of the Entente in World War I - and, much like Italy, received nothing for its efforts.

Let's not forget the context of their imperial ambitions - in the first half of the twentieth century, most of the world was still ruled by empires.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#244

Post by [deleted] »

dilipd wrote: post #191
andars wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan was "repeatedly slapped in the face" because of their increasing militarization, invasion of China (also Rape of Nanking), alliance with Italy and Germany, desire for control of all of East Asian (the Co-Prosperity Sphere), etc. The US response seems totally reasonable to me.

Correct! Repeatedly slapping Japan was reasonable because of Japan's imperial ambitions, e.g. Taiwan(1895), Manchuria(1905), Korea(1910) etc. And, England and some other European countries were not 'repeatedly slapped', even though they were also imperialist, may be far longer, may be far worse!

[deleted]

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#245

Post by ars »

semiel wrote: post #215
ars wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They are comparable, though, and that's exactly my point. They're not the _same_ by any stretch of the imagination, but it's just a weaker reading of history to refuse to consider themes that were common to the time period. The Nazi camps were started for the same reason as the American camps: to contain and control a population believed to be subversive. They were indeed later used as part of an organized genocide,…

These are not "themes that were common to the time period". These are themes that are common to human history, this type of camp was not invented then.

For example if you check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#History_of_internme...

you will find examples going back more than 300 years, and I'm sure a historian can find even earlier examples.

Internment camps of various kinds happen by EVERY war, not just this one.

> it's willful blindness to ignore the deep similarities between a policy of containing and suppressing a racial group, and a policy of containing, suppressing, and exterminating a racial group.

No, it's willful blindness to think this was unique in any way to WW2. "Camps" is NOT the important or interesting thing about that war, it is an almost trivial detail.

Your framing it that way makes it as if it was something specially important. But in actuality it is a minor footnote compared to what they DID in those camps.

It's like saying "An important note about the 21st century is that humans lived in houses. People in both apartments and individual homes had wide access to cellphones."

You are focusing on the wrong thing.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#246

Post by coldpie »

GunboatDiplomat wrote: post #208
praptak wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using a non sequitur?

I don't see it as a non-sequitur. If you find that quote offensive in some way, you presumably approve of the Talibans treatment of women.

There's more than one sentence in that quote. Keep reading.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#247

Post by saalweachter »

DVassallo wrote: post #220

The Nuremberg trials determined that "deportations and persecutions on racial grounds" were crimes against humanity [1]. I don't understand how FDR's executive order to deport Japanese-Americans to internment camps allowed the Nuremberg judges to punish Nazi members on this charge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles#Principle...

At the end of the day, the problem with hypocrisy are the parts you do wrong, not the parts you do right.

America has done a lot of hypocritical things, but we shouldn't have held back from doing the right thing -- intervening in other countries to stop atrocities -- just because we were also guilty as sin. In an ideal world we'd actually be the pure, benevolent world police we imagine ourselves, but in the real world, confronting atrocities abroad has also made us better at home. Maybe we still have a long way to go, but a lot more Americans would have a problem with interment camps today, after making stopping the Holocaust such an important part of our national identity, than did in the 1940s.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#248

Post by godson_drafty »

Whenever looking at these pictures, it's worthwhile to consider how white (or any other color) Americans living in Japan were treated after war was declared.

Oh, that's right. There weren't any! The American government had some unique challenges in maximizing their chances of winning the war against a zealous and absolutely ruthless enemy (Japan). It would have been extremely irresponsible not to at least attempt to neutralize the threat posed by the population of first-generation citizens.

American authorities acted within their rights in making a reasonable effort to neutralize domestic saboteurs or collaborators by interning these people. Of course it's sad that it happened, but remember that battles such as Midway were won through superior intelligence and code-breaking. A single Japanese acting as a spy might have overturned that. It would have been very bad for east Asia had Japan won. They were committing numerous, documented war crimes and would have continued to do so.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#249

Post by gurkendoktor »

apayan wrote: post #108
DarkKomunalec wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how enforcing borders began to be seen as controversial. The explanation that makes the most sense to me is, some people see free movement across borders as a human right, while others view a country as their home, and so should have the right to decide who to let in.

From an economics point of view, we should allow the free movement of labor (people) because we already allow the free movement of capital (money) across borders. If my understanding is correct, this is one of the pillars of the European Union. However, I think looking at it as a basic human right is more appropriate. Restricting people crossing borders is simply institutional racism. Countries are granting permissio…

> nobody calls it for what it is anymore.

Because it isn't. What about the DMZ between the Koreas, the Berlin wall, the Taiwan strait? If a country leaves the Schengen area, does their citizens' race change? And which race can stroll into the US without a visa?

Some countries make it easier for people of the right ancestry to apply for citizenship, but it's more complicated than plain racism.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#250

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #225
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-examples abound: the US actively suppressed democracy in Latin America and elsewhere when it didn't suit American business interests, hence Guatemala. Likewise, a great number of deaths at the hand of Communist leaders were due to utter incompetence and mismanagement, such as in China's Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. My rule of thumb is that it's basically a bad thing when somebody dies who shoul…

Please provide a "counter-example" where the United States murdered 100 million people. Thanks.

Easy, the mass genocide of Native Americans long before and after the ink had dried on the Constitution.

You're welcome.

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