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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (31006)	10/5/2001 8:45:29 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Not once, but twice, you dismiss “the people” as fools, dupes, or worse. If you stand by these claims, E, then you can only be described as an intellectual elitist. Again you mischaracterize what I have said, to the end of name-calling. I don't object to being called names based on accurate characterizations. But what I said is this: The "will of the people" can be manipulated, and was. Lies were promulgated by local politicians and the Hearst press to stir the people into a deluded, cruel and ignoble frenzy. Scapegoats are always welcome in some quarters. To congratulate 'democracy' for that is very strange indeed. You attempted to rationalize the shame of those camps by saying they represented "the will of the people." I pointed out that the media, and politicians, sometimes (i hope you're sitting down, this will be a shock!) manipulate public opinion. Inflammatory lies and images were promulgated and widely disseminated. This is not in dispute, even by you, I assume, who believe now that what we did was wrong. The facts, as known at the time by the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, and those who studied the loyalty of Japanese-Americans for ten years prior to 1941 and concluded it was exceptional; and confirmed by the fact that no charges were even brought, none; and which facts are almost hilariously demonstrated by the total absence of any felt need to incarcerate the J-A's in Hawaii (!!!) where there were 3800% more of them than in CA (!) and which was more likely to be invaded but in which they were needed to keep the local economy running; and which facts known at the time also by many more truly American Americans than were those who joined the clamor to rush their fellow loyal citizens into horrid camps (were the horridness, the malnutrition, the theft, also necessary?) and did nothing to prevent their assets from being plundered, btw. It wasn't only the FBI Director and Attorney General who knew it was wrong, but a function of "local political pressure." You do not pay much attention to content, is my impression, and since I provided rather a lot of it, i tried to make clearer what the essential points were by bolding. more >>

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (31006)	10/5/2001 8:45:36 PM
From: E	Respond to of 82486

And JC, you seem to have written a lot in your post about the atrocities perpetrated by Japan during WWII. Were there loyal Japanese-American citizens among those brutes, or what? Why are you recounting these details about our foreign enemies now? It was entirely immaterial to the cases of the American citizens, as I thought we had established you now agreed was the case. Have you heard of Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Maidanek, Sobibor.....? My grandparents were first generation German Americans. They hadn't a problem in the world! Nobody came knocking at their door! The German-American Bund supported the Nazis. Unless the members broke a law... no camps for them! Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Maidanek, Sobibor, dozens and dozens more. Shall i tell you about medical experiments on unanesthetized children? Would the behavior of our foreign enemies in Germany be less barbaric, in your opinion, than the behavior of our foreign enemies in Japan? I have no idea why you are going into lengthy detail here about how vile the Japanese were during the war. Except that it appears, unpleasantly, imo, to be to the end of somehow excusing what we did to our law-abiding, loyal American citizens of Japanese descent, which was so very different from what was done (not done) to our loyal American citizens of German descent. And to the J-A Hawaiians, of course! If I now went into detail about what the Nazis did to men, women and children during the war would there be a point? Would it retroactively condemn FDR for not putting German-Americans into camps? (No hard feelings here, either.) I have declined to bold, hoping that you will respond to some of these points even unemphasized in that way. How about just the two questions in the final paragraph? How about these unbolded questions, too: Was the FBI wrong or right? How about the Attorney General? Do you care to second guess them at this time?