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Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps
- mgkimsal 10y agoexpected the 'notice' signs to be in japanese... ? YES - I know that most of the folks were american-born-english speaking. But the paranoia against them was that they were all working for the Japanese govt and all secret agents and whatnot. Would have made more sense to try to present info in their "own language". Stating that you couldn't read the Japanese writing would be PROOF that you are, in fact, a Japanese spy.
- waterphone 10y agoThe occupants of Japanese internment camps in the U.S. were Japanese American.
- ComputerGuru 10y agoWhich makes it all the more ridiculous of a paranoid, senseless, knee-jerk internment.
- joetek 10y agoThose second and third generation Japanese Americans wouldn't be able to read it.
- katkattac 10y agoOut of the 110,000 incarcerated, 62% of were American-born citizens. Since they were all living in America, and this all happened in America, English certainly makes since.
- ekianjo 10y agoFor a country standing for Freedom and Human Rights, this kind of action is appalling. The quotes in the article from officials and three letters agencies stink of utter racism (even though no sabotage operations was ever undertaken).
- jdavis703 10y agoAs someone whose family ancestors were kidnapped to the US and forced to engage in unpaid labor I have to say this country never cared about freedom and human rights. It's all part of the national story designed to make the occupants of this country view themselves as better than the rest of the world.
- droopyEyelids 10y agoDistorted exaggeration disrespects everyone. This country has struggled with issues of freedom and human rights, but it has made significant strides, and we should use them as an example of what to work for and what can be achieved.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- alexhawdon 10y agoThey aren't really 'human rights' until they are applied to all humans. They're merely 'American Rights'.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y agoDid you just call slavery in the US a "distorted exaggeration"?
- 0xfeba 10y agoYup. It's a facade. Especially during the Carter, Nixon, HW Bush, etc. eras, culminating in Bush Jr's "They hate us for our Freedoms" speech after 9/11. No, they hate us for our overly zealous anti-communism that drove us to forcefully prop up dictatorships/extremist groups (Panama, Cuba, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda, etc.), and then vacate when things went sour. Time and time, and time again we did this in the past 60 years, and it's just now coming back to bite us. One of the few things I look forward to in a Trump administration is isolationism, but his cabinet is both extremely anti-communist and anti-Muslim, so it looks like it's just going to be Carter/Nixon/Truman bullshit all over again.
- mgkimsal 10y ago"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." THAT is disturbing "logic".
- dsabanin 10y agoI wouldn't call this "logic" at all :)
- ComputerGuru 10y agoIndeed. My brain encountered a segfault attempting to evaluate that expression.
- katkattac 10y agoThis is a quote from General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command. He's basically the guy that convinced the president that this was a good idea. Why we put people like him in power (instead of prison), I'll never understand.
- coldpie 10y agoThe next United States Secretary of Defense: "There are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I don’t think you do. It’s just business." "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people." "The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot." http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-james-mad-dog-mattis-7-memorable-quotes/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-james-mad-dog-mattis-7-memor...
- jwcacces 10y agoSecretary of Defense?
- katkattac 10y ago"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." — General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command Insane reasoning.
- yabatopia 10y agoI came back after reading/seeing the photographs to post the same quote. My jaw dropped when I read it. Unbelievable, yet so topical.
- king_magic 10y agoFor anyone that doubts that America is capable of truly awful, horrifying things, well, guess what, we are.
- cpr 10y agoJust to be clear, there's zero talk of any Muslim internment other than in the fevered world of the anti-Trumpers, who are using it as a straw-bogeyman to stir people up.
- roywiggins 10y agoA lot of the talk has come from the man himself (this is from 2015, but still) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/08/donald-trump-says-he-is-not-bothered-by-comparisons-to-hitler/?tid=sm_fb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12... Stephanopoulos responded: "You want to bring back policies like that?" After a pause, Trump responded: "No, I don't to bring it back, George. At all. I don't like doing it at all. It's a temporary measure until our representatives, many of whom are grossly incompetent, until our representatives can figure out what's going on."
- teddyh 10y ago“It” in this case seems to refer to the “ban on Muslims entering United States”, not any internment?
- roywiggins 10y agoMy reading is the most likely "it" in context is restricting the freedom of movement of ethnic minorities that he mentions immediately before: "They went through a whole list of things -- they couldn't go five miles from their homes, they weren't allowed to use radios, flashlights," Trump said. Maybe he means "Hey, if that's legal than my policy is less bad and therefore legal too" which is only marginally reassuring. Citing internment as a necessary tactic in wartime as a moral justification for your policy is plenty worrying on its own. "Look how generous I am- I'm not actually interning people, just X. I don't like it, but it's a time of war, so it's necessary."
- gnu8 10y agoIt's hard to develop a clear impression of what Donald Trump's position really is from that interview. He wants to sound like a hard liner who will be tough on muslim immigrants, but he also won't allow himself to be cornered into stating that he wants to take any explicitly repressive measure, like a religious ban on immigration, registration, or internment. So he winds up saying nothing at all. The reason he is so creepy is that he either has no policies or refuses to articulate them.
- johndunne 10y agoWith today's political climate I can't help but think that something like this could happen again.
- evan_ 10y agoIt kind of already is happening in the US right now in the form of "Family detention centers" intended to detain non-citizens slated for deportation. If Trump's administration seriously plans on "rounding up" millions of people for deportation, they'll have to be lodged somewhere while they are tried (assuming they're granted trials, who knows anymore) and travel arrangements are made. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/the-shame-of-americas-family-detention-camps.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/the-shame-of-amer...
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoThere's a big difference between detention and deportation of illegal immigrants and detention of legal immigrants and American citizens.
- thiagoharry 10y agoHow easy is to repeat the same mistakes from the past! Add some new terminology, change some laws, add more layers ofcomplexity to definitions. And it's done: we can repeat the evils from past and nobody will notice in the present.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- coldpie 10y agoI don't find the difference to be all that big.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago...until they come for you
- ComputerGuru 10y agoI did not know the ACLU fought against the Japanese internment camps. Donation forthcoming.
- okreallywtf 10y agoGiven the climate of the US right now recurring donations to the ACLU and SPLC (among others) would be be appropriate, I've been encouraging as many people as I can to do so. The SPLC has been a little more directed at hate-groups and racism but I groups that have fought internment and the KKK to be very well funded.
- kofejnik 10y agoThis 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 http://www.rferl.org/a/holodomor-ukraine/25174454.html Edit: also, Chechen and Krimean Tatar deportations, and many many others
- ComputerGuru 10y agoYou could just compare it to the Nazi internment camps for Jews, if finding "worse" conditions is the goal. (I'm being sardonic.) (OT question: sarcastic is to sarcasm as sardonic is to ____?) These were second and third generation "immigrants" living their normal, everyday American lives, torn away from their homes, communities, jobs, schools, churches, friends, and families. The crime isn't in the living conditions at the internment camps, the real horror is that people could be sent to them just for having a great-grandparent that came from Japan to the United States. The real crime is that hardly seventy years later, this internment is largely forgotten, the details are glossed over, and the American public (of which I am, by and large, proud to be a member of) have deluded themselves into thinking it's just another another unfortunate chapter in human history "that wouldn't happen again today" or that "desperate times called for desperate measures" and leave it at that.
- roywiggins 10y agosnark?
- paublyrne 10y agoSardonicism. It doesn't come up much.
- ComputerGuru 10y agoThanks.
- 10y ago
- hornbaker 10y agoMost of them were Japanese Americans, born in America. One wonders why German Americans weren't given similar treatment.
- blakesterz 10y agoThey were? I guess? Appears to have been different, but still done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
- mikeash 10y agoA relatively small number of Germans were interned based on specific individual circumstances. This was still unjust in many cases, but I wouldn't call it "similar treatment."
- mikeash 10y agoFun fact: Japanese Americans in Hawaii were never interned (aside from a select few) because they made up such a large portion of the population that it wouldn't have been practical. Just goes to show that the whole exercise was ridiculous.
- Nadya 10y agoJapanese, German, and Italians were all interned under the Alien Enemies Act.
- nbz118 10y agoTrue but they were overwhelmingly Japanese. It appears about 11K Germans and 2K Italians were interned compared to over 110K Japanese, despite there being significantly more Germans and Italians living in the US. Sources: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_American...
- openasocket 10y agoThe most absurd thing I read on here was that they were still subjected to the draft. So that Japanese couldn't be trusted to live in the United States without armed guards, but we can totally give them guns and send them off to fight the enemy?!
- akhilcacharya 10y agoThey were disallowed from fighting in the Pacific theatre, so they all fought in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(Unite... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye#Medal_of_Honor_citation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye#Medal_of_Honor_c...
- MaxfordAndSons 10y agoInteresting to note, this went both ways: my grandfather was a naturalized German immigrant, and was sent to the Pacific when drafted because he was disallowed from fighting in Europe. But of course, for some reason, German Americans weren't interned...
- wehadfun 10y agoWe know why this did not happen
- coldcode 10y agoGermans are considered "white" I imagine and thus hard to distinguish.
- leurfete 10y agoGermans and Italians were also interned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_American...
- altendo 10y agoThe recent speculation about a national registry for Muslims - and what that may look like - makes this even more poignant. The times may have changed, but fear and ignorance have not.
- sbierwagen 10y agoIf you recall, we already had a Muslim registry, from 2002 to 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Entry-Exit_Registration_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Entry-Exit_R...
- altendo 10y agoI do recall that. Still scary that we even had that in place.
- SixSigma 10y agoJapanese-Americans or Japanese immigrants didn't have a history of shooting, stabbing, running over or exploding things.
- rybosome 10y agoHow many such incidents have occurred? How many Muslim people exist in the world? Is it justifiable to violate the civil liberties of a large group (and set the stage for something much worse) when this ratio is quite small?
- golemotron 10y agoI thought this was no politics week.
- cooper12 10y agoIt was ended early: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855
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- caio1982 10y agoThank you for posting this, for real, all of these photographs are truly beautiful in their own way. That is, they remind me a lot about Sebastião Salgado's work on portraying human beings in such emotionally harsh conditions [1] (which in fact was quite possibly inspired by people like Dorothea). I don't know what is most disturbing in that page though, the stories behind the photos or the quotes... man, the quotes... :-( [1] I cannot recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salt_of_the_Earth_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salt_of_the_Earth_(2014_fi... enough if you are interested in this
- cooper12 10y ago> “They got to a point where they said, ‘Okay, we’re going to take you out.’ And it was obvious that he was going before a firing squad with MPs ready with rifles. He was asked if he wanted a cigarette; he said no.… You want a blindfold?… No. They said, ‘Stand up here,’ and they went as far as saying, ‘Ready, aim, fire,’ and pulling the trigger, but the rifles had no bullets. They just went click.” — Ben Takeshita, recounting his older brother’s ordeal at Tule Lake Relocation Center, where he was segregated for causing trouble Jesus...
- djschnei 10y agoYay FDR! (And this guy still blesses the "Occupy Democrats" facebook page profile pic...)
- datalus 10y agoI wonder if there is any connection between the internment camps for Japanese people living in the US & the CO camps. Were they both run by the Selective Service? I know, at least, the CO camps were. The government had really botched handling COs in WWI, to the point that it created a lobby group that when WWII broke out they eventually were able to successfully pass the Burke-Wadsworth Bill with a section that created the Civilian Public Service. As an aside, WWI conscientious objectors were sent to federal prisons. There they were starved, put into solitary, or physically abused, resulting in some ending up dead. WWII COs were instead sent to camps to do things like farm, fight forest fires, build equipment, etc. in place of service.
- okreallywtf 10y agoI would be interested to hear the perspective of some of the MP's that had to guard these camps. It would seem like such a waste, not least of which because with the labor shortages and so many other young men serving overseas, to not only be stuck guarding a camp but to be guarding camps full of people who would otherwise be helping to fill those huge labor shortages and support the war effort. I just finished reading The Girls of Atomic City[1] and its a really conflicting story because (totally discounting the moral implications of the atomic bomb) on the one hand it is an amazing story of ingenuity and hard work and everyone coming together with a common purpose (even if most people did not know what that purpose was), but then you find out about how the black workers were treated compared to the white workers and how they weren't even able to serve their country as equals. If you have a selective memory or perception you can look back and be proud of a lot in our history but I think you have to fully appreciate our highs and lows to really know what kind of country we have.
- anon987 10y agoOh boy a story where we can opine about how awful it was. Nothing will come of this pointless, off-topic story. Except a big old karma circle jerk.
- flexie 10y agoGreat to see that the HN week of censoring politics is over.
- krapp 10y agoCry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hkt 10y agoJust another example of the extreme moral ambiguity of the West. We regularly ignore our own standards around giving people a fair trial when it suits the executive of the day or when some stupid condition applies ("race" in this case, geography and citizenship for eg Guantanamo bay). Not to mention "strategic" alliances with dictators down the years that have usually proven to be murderous. It is sad to think that the myth of our moral superiority has never been anything else. Great photography, though.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago> It is sad to think that the myth of our moral superiority has never been anything else. No, it's real, just not as real as we like to think. Between "imprison people of Japanese ancestry for the rest of the war, then free them" and "imprison people of Jewish ancestry, then kill them", there is a real moral difference. They are both wrong, but they are not equal.
- pessimizer 10y agoThat proves true the myth of our moral superiority to the Nazi regime, but not the myth of our moral superiority.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoTo the Nazi regime. To the Communist regimes. To Turkey (Armenian genocide). To Rwanda. To Serbia. But not to everyone, I'll agree.
- ebiester 10y agoIs the Armenian genocide worse than the Trail of Tears, for example? (I'm not trying to discredit or diminish the Armenian genocide here, mind you, but rather point out we still have someone who committed genocide by the same terms on American money.)
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- coldcode 10y ago“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.” — Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942 Depressing to think this is going to happen again, in some way.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoThe sentiment of that quote is already here, unfortunately. It just hasn't been fully institutionalised yet.
- brilliantcode 10y agoThe Japanese pre-Cold War were treated unfairly but this pales in comparison to the many hell the Asian region have suffered under Japanese Imperialism. At least they didn't get gassed like the Jews did. At least they didn't get bayonetted like the Chinese in Nanjing en masse in graves or a military unit performing live surgery on them or forcing hundreds of thousands of young Korean women to sexual slavery. It didn't help that there was heavy animosity towards Japanese from Chinese & Korean Americans who felt compelled and directly/indirectly suffered as a result of Imperial Japan. There was probably deep desire for schadenfreude that contributed to Japanese Americans downfall. But all that aside is clearly a small drop in the bucket. The view of Japanese and Asian Americans were explicitly racist. Nazi Germany was bad but the same elements of racial white superiority is a continuing theme even until the late 60s, where African American celebrities were forced to sleep in trailer parks while their white co-actors would lounge in swanky hotels (particularly angering Frank Sinatra). There has been a miniscule effort from Reagan handing out 20k and an apology for the immense inter-generational trauma directly caused by the USG. There's little apology for Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. This suggests to me a serious lack of reflection and it's evidenced by the fact that Muslim Americans today are facing a similar treatment. I love the US but shit like this makes me pause for a bit. However, it still is nowhere near the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan & Nazi Germany. But it's curious to see the stark difference in the way Japanese and German Americans were treated. German Americans weren't sent to interment camps and had their assets seized in the same manner as the Japanese Americans. All in all, a tragedy and showing that a melting pot we-are-all-americans is a flawed policy-where everyone is American but some less American than others. Canada is no better off as they also had Japanese interment camps and showed little remorse. Sometimes I wonder as Asian Canadian, are we truly accepted by the mainstream North American society? It makes me question what the Canadian/American dream. I think about just how much easier it is when your skin color matches the mainstream crowd and you don't stand out or have any biases held against you. The Japanese interment camp is just one of those many items that raises existential questions of being in North America, and it's not all that clear whether it's in the rearview mirror seeing how Muslim Americans are being treated today in the West. I still do think North America is relatively a very accepting and open place. It's hard to fathom such level of integration in Europe or Asia.
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- clarkmoody 10y agoOne 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 schools teach the children the greatness of our national effort, priming them to accept the destruction of liberty again when the next war comes. The state forever uses a victory in war to foster national pride and patriotism, as if the society made those choices to sacrifice willingly. Speak out against the war? Prison. Fail to comply with economic controls? Prison. Don't want to fight after being drafted? Execution. Have friends who just happen to belong to the enemy country? You're a spy. And then the icing on the cake is when the government steals the money to pay for the war through inflation and currency devaluation through the subsequent years.
- nanistheonlyist 10y agoWe did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.
- astrodust 10y agoDon'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 considerable resistance to the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor instantly catalyzed support. This doesn't even touch on the fact that many American companies were looking at Germany as an important customer, a country spending lavishly to build up its capability, at a time when American companies were struggling. Politics are complicated. It's rare that any of those involved in a conflict are entirely innocent.
- chrishacken 10y ago
- lottin 10y agoIt may seem frivolous, but the first thing that strikes me when looking at these photos is how well dressed the ordinary people were back then, compared with nowadays when apparently everybody dresses in rags. I can't help but think at some point something went very wrong.
- susan_hall 10y agoRegarding Muslims in the USA, I worry about those in government who might revive this line of thinking: "The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." — General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command
- cloakandswagger 10y agoMight be a little late for that; since 2001 nearly 4k Americans have died to Islamic terrorists.
- tptacek 10y agoBringing "Islamic terrorism" up to a whopping 1.7% of all homicides over the same time period, 75% of which occurred in a single attack by less than 30 people.
- cloakandswagger 10y agoLooking at human life so numerically is pretty twisted. At what percentage of homicides do you think that terrorism is a problem?
- tptacek 10y agoAnd yet, were I to point out that firearms are responsible for the majority of all homicides from 2001-2016, I'd expect you'd have a very different objection to the numbers.
- csomar 10y agoYou know what is really disturbing? We don't know if such a thing can happen again today. It seems that the new US president got wiser, but what if he was real with his threats to people who believes in a particular religion. I'm not too immersed in US politics, but how likely is such a move? How are they going to determine them (possible suspicion?) and what kind of reaction will the civil society have?
- Koshkin 10y agoIt is somewhat interesting that the term 'internment camps' is never used in the original quotes, it is rather 'concentration camps'. (It is possible that the latter term may have been used specifically in reference to the places of internment of the Japanese.)
- LyndsySimon 10y agoI think that's because the term "concentration camp" is so heavily associated with the Nazi extermination programs. Likewise, there were Nazi concentration camps that were not designed to kill their occupants, and they're sometimes referred to as "labor camps".
- lambertsimnel 10y agoMy understanding is that the extermination camps were typically not part of the concentration camp system. Auschwitz was a notable exception. From http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n18/thomas-laqueur/devoted-to-terror http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n18/thomas-laqueur/devoted-to-terro... "Auschwitz seems to overshadow all the other camps. It also captures our attention because we know a great deal about it. ...It was the only death camp (Auschwitz II) that was also a large slave labour camp (Auschwitz I), with the result that tens of thousands of slave labourers, having endured selections, random violence and the death marches, survived to bear witness to genocide." "Most of those killed in the Holocaust were not inmates in concentration camps." "Much of what we have come to see as the particular moral debasement of the concentration camps was absent in the death camps." "[Extermination] camps were grotesquely efficient: Sobibor murdered about a quarter of a million people, a quarter as many as Auschwitz-Birkenau in one three-hundredth of the space and half the time. Precisely because of this efficiency, we know relatively little about the dead. There are only three survivors’ accounts from Belzec, where, between 17 March and late December 1942, 434,500 Jews were murdered. As Primo Levi said, we know little of those who were truly at the bottom." "Conversely, much of the story of the concentration camps does not overlap with that of the Holocaust. The camp system was a latecomer to the project of genocide. There was no representative of the KL [concentration camps] at the Wannsee Conference [which organised the Final Solution]. It was only after the conference that Himmler decided the camps could play a big role, not primarily as sites of immediate extermination but as reservoirs of Jewish slave labour. Only towards the end of the war, as Wachsmann points out, did the majority of Jews find themselves in camps and only for a few weeks in 1938 were they the majority of registered inmates."
- wehadfun 10y agoIt 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 righteous people who want to call Bush an idiot for the wars. If your Wife, kids, friends were under a pile of cement in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 you would probably have no issue with bombing the f* out of who ever you were told was responsible.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago> 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.
- wehadfun 10y ago>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.
- munificent 10y agoI think a better analogy in this case is: You witness a guy setting your neighbor's house on fire, then he sets the house across the street on fire. So you find everyone whose eyes are the same color as your neighbor and run over them with your car.
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- relieferator 10y agoIf this kind of crap has to be done it should be done right. Provide adequate housing, food, transportation. Treat humans as humans, not animals.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoBetter not to do it at all, though?
- diyorgasms 10y agoThis kind of shit should never happen. Period. It is the duty of every decent human to fight this sort of tyranny by any means necessary.
- theptip 10y ago"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.
- blackbagboys 10y agoPutting 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.
- BeingIncubated 10y agoI'm not sure I'd call the genocide of indigenous Americans "vastly more humane" than what other societies have done.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago>"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people." Are you defending the Taliban's treatment of women?
- praptak 10y agoAre you using a non sequitur?
- GunboatDiplomat 10y agoI 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.
- coldpie 10y agoThere's more than one sentence in that quote. Keep reading.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y agoWhat are you objecting to? It is fun to kill bad guys. Why do you think FPS games are so popular?
- tptacek 10y agoIf you're looking to restore some kind of accord to this thread, you might first consider apologizing to the person you told must be tolerating the Taliban's treatment of women because they disagreed with you.
- dang 10y agoBased on this and past behavior, we've banned this account for trolling. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow HN's rules in the future. But please don't create more accounts to break the rules with. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13139453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13139453 and marked it off-topic.
- FrancoDiaz 10y agoThe politics ban is lifted, and as usual, a complete degradation into the usual rhetoric. People write a comment and think somebody's mind will be changed. Nope, not gonna happen. Just look at comments and replies. It's just delusional thinking to think that HN is somehow above the fray when it comes to this stuff.
- grzm 10y agoI share your frustration with the inflammatory discussion we can sometimes see here at HN. If this is something you care about, there are things you can do. Participate in discussions constructively and charitably. You're right about writing a comment and expecting someone's mind is going to be changed. I try to keep in mind that it's not necessarily about "changing people's minds", it's at least partly about understanding and making yourself understood first. Encourage good comments by up-voting them. Gently and neutrally point out behavior that's not acceptable on HN. Flag and down vote inappropriate behavior. For particularly egregious behavior, email the mods. That's part of being part of the community.
- FrancoDiaz 10y agoParticipate in discussions constructively and charitably The problem is that invariably the amount of destruction and uncharitable discussion outweighs the constructive and charitable discussion in these threads. It's always a net loss on these types of threads. These types of threads always put a stain on the reputation of HN as a place of intelligent conversation. There's some really immoral and despicable lines of thought in this thread.
- grzm 10y agoYeah, actually engaging in the discussion can be difficult and problematic. I don't think it's always a net loss, though I agree that it often can be. If you choose not to, the other options listed above are all still valid and valuable ways of participating and contributing to the community. I hope you do!
- emmelaich 10y agoAustralia also interned Japanese as well as Germans and Italians during the wars. http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/snapshots/internment-camps/introduction.aspx#section2 http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/snapshots/internment-camps/... The museum at Berrima is a good visit for people interested in war history. http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyathome/berrima-internmentcamp/ http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyatho...
- DVassallo 10y agoThe 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_VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles#Principle...
- saalweachter 10y agoAt 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.
- Animats 10y agoIf you want the book from 2006, it's available on Amazon.[1] Most of this material is available on line, from the National Archives or the University of California.[2][3] It's not new. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Impounded-Dorothea-Censored-Japanese-Internment/dp/0393330907 https://www.amazon.com/Impounded-Dorothea-Censored-Japanese-... [2] https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/military/japanese-internment.html https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/military/ja... [3] https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/t11/jarda/ https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/t11/jarda/
- godson_drafty 10y agoWhenever 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.
- tptacek 10y agoIt is in fact not worthwhile to consider how "white Americans living in Japan" were treated, because Japanese-Americans are American citizens, simultaneously not answerable to the crimes of Imperial Japan and owed a basic obligation of the defense of their liberty by their fellow American citizens. The internment of Japanese-Americans is a national disgrace because it harmed the fabric of the entire country, and every citizen living in it: that citizenship being in part defined by the duties and obligations we share to each other, as established by the Founders. It was a betrayal of our founding principals, which is why every American schoolchild is taught about it.
- adrienne 10y agoIf only that latter thing were true. It's not. It's especially not after years of the Republicans gutting public education and pushing expurgated, jingoistic, pro-American-exceptionalism textbooks through school boards everywhere.
- kmeade 10y agoFDR's Japanese Concentration Camps? FDR's? That's a blatant attempt to simplify a historical event and manipulate the modern reader. Please spare me another rehash of how mean we became during the GOD-DAMN SECOND WORLD WAR, when our country and culture were under REAL threat. Please spend that energy examining our modern forms of prejudice and crazy fearfulness. Also -- Why does no one ever want to rehash the post-war US-Japan relationship? In just a few years we transitioned from vicious, no-holds-barred warfare to a cordial relationship that became delightfully friendly. It's an amazingly positive story that belies the sort of institutionalized racism that some people feel the need to believe in.
- sushid 10y agoYes, FDR's Japanese Internment (aka Concentration) camps. Yes, really, FDR's. If you give FDR credit for things like the New Deal (which were of course advocated by him but passed by the Congress), give him a bit of credit for his executive orders. > [The internment of Japanese Americans] were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.[0] > Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the deportation of Japanese Americans and Italian-Americans to internment camps. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066
- kmeade 10y agoSaying "FDR's ... Camps" is like saying "Harry Truman's Victory over Hitler" or "Ronald Reagan's Space Shuttle." Again, it is an extreme simplification and an attempt to manipulate the reader into associating the act with the individual. I'm amazed that many (presumably young) people want to wallow in this crap, apparently feeling superior to people who have been dead for decades. You have no reason to feel superior to the generation (and the individuals) who sacrificed so much to confront and defeat Fascism. Quite the opposite. Look around yourself.
- mordant 10y agoThe interments didn't happen in a vacuum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident It's also interesting to note that J. Edgar Hoover was opposed to the interments, but FDR overruled him.