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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (645908)	10/16/2004 1:56:23 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

But why would they have been? We're really not talking "Japanese" here- -foreign nationals. We're talking US citizens. Well, you see, you are thinking. When people are fearing for their lives, they tend not to think, but go after the clearest indicator of the threat against them - whether it is right or wrong. The Japanese at the time were nowhere as integrated in American society as they are today. They were probably considered "American Japs," but "Japs" nevertheless. So when the Japanese bombed us, it was just natural to suspect the Japanese amongst us. Our general views on non-whites were a lot cruder than today. This boorishness combined with our natural and legitimate fears to cause us to act as we did. Germany and Italy declared war on the US. German submarines sank US flagged ships and warships. What more do you need if Pearl Harbor was adequate? Pearl Harbor was so much more of a slap in the face than anything the Germans did prior. The Japanese hit us and hit us broadly and very hard. The idea that these people could bring America to its knees as they did, albeit temporarily, had to have affected the psyche of everyday Americans such that they lost trust in and wanted to strike back at Japanese in particular. What "few others"? The Japanese-Americans are the only ones I know who underwent mass internment. Well yeah. I only mentioned "few-others" because there were sentiments against Germans and Italians also, especially against Italians. But the Japanese here by far took the hit. I don't agree with what happened, but I certainly understand it. I even think some of it could have been done legitimately. they were NOT interned in Hawaii, where they made up the largest percentage of the population of any state in the Union and which was clearly in the war zone, and where they therefore presented the greatest danger. Well, let's face it. Hawaii is not on the mainland. Its isolation alone likely caused Japanese there to appear quite a bit less of a threat than Japanese elsewhere.