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>It was an executive order in 1942 that created the system forcing Americans of Japanese descent to live in internment camps. Funny how often I see this rounda
by Isamu 10y ago
>It was an executive order in 1942 that created the system forcing Americans of Japanese descent to live in internment camps.
Funny how often I see this roundabout way of framing this. They'd rather not come out and say that FDR, the president, took this initiative. It was a piece of paper that did this.
Congress, the usual suspect is not to blame. Nobody voted on this. There was no public debate.
So we tiptoe around calling out FDR, maybe because he is one of our golden boys.
And we call them "internment" camps, to soften it a bit.
- aarpmcgee 10y agoMaybe it is possible that its more an attempt to draw a connection between an old horror enabled by an executive order, and any new horrors we are seeing and will see with Trump's executive orders.
- Isamu 10y agoThey are, but they managed to call out Trump by name. If they were drawing parallels, they could have just mentioned the executive orders. They should have called out FDR also but I think they wanted to avoid seeming to compare him to Trump. After all FDR was a great guy when he wasn't putting American families into internment camps.
- rayiner 10y agoNot only that, it was upheld by the Supreme Court 6-3, with all of the majority being FDR appointees. Using the same sort of result oriented handwaving that characterized many a Supreme Court opinion upholding New Deal policies. It's worth reading the opinion by the way. Pretty much the whole Court admitted internment was racist and wrong. But they had to uphold it so they did.
- jefurii 10y agoThey were concentration camps, plain and simple. And yes it was FDR. I really like the New Deal but Executive Order 9066 is a big stain on his record.
- CalChris 10y agoI'm a huge FDR fan and this is on him. Buck stopped there.
- emiliobumachar 10y agoAgree with your main point. About the "internment" euphemism, I think it is unfortunately mandatory by this point. The previously correct term, concentration camps, was so much overused as an euphemism to death camps that it changed meaning. Most people will assume mass murder when they hear it.