Remember how FDR authorized internment camps?

[michigandem58]

I wonder how many Democrats stopped being Democrats.

[Buzz Clik]

1. It's why FDR was a one term president.

errr ... wait. Is that right?

[malthaussen]

2. So, election equals morality? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

6. You quoted me, right? I said that, right?

Or something similar? Yes?

Or maybe you're going in a totally different direction than I went, and you decided to try to stir up trouble while doing so. What's the word for that?

[malthaussen]

9. Dunno, I might just have misunderstood you, eh?

Looked to me like pointing out that FDR was reelected despite the internment camps was a statement that they didn't matter.

-- Mal

[Buzz Clik]

11. As in every election, it was a statement that ...

... the country and Dems specifically hung with FDR because, even in the camps were wrong and immoral, his overall leadership was sound.

That was it.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

20. Most didn't even know of the camps

People forget that information was not as widely available then as it is now. That's one reason why many didn't know FDR couldn't walk until they saw newsreels at the local theater, and even then some probably didn't put 2 and 2 together.

[el_bryanto]

3. I guess we are all hypocrites for failing to condemn something that, in my case,

happened 29 years before I was born.

Damn, you got me.

Bryant

[Arctic Dave]

4. Remember when Obama said he would close interment camps, I mean gitmo.

I forgot, he only gives himself the power to kill people without trial not to free people who aren't convicted of anything.

[JaneyVee]

10. But Gitmo went up for a vote and got defeated, Internment was an Executive Order.

[Arctic Dave]

14. Completely missed the point didn't ya buttercup.

Was killing of US citizens put up for vote by Congress?

[JaneyVee]

16. Buttercup? I thought Gitmo WAS your point. You should have elaborated. I'll get back in the kitchen

where 'buttercups' belong.

[Riftaxe]

18. Your right!

It's not like President Obama issued an executive order then ignored it for political expediency....

EXECUTIVE ORDER

[SpartanDem]

22. Yes and Congress followed that with 400+ votes for banning transfers from Gitmo

Government 101: executive order are not law. But don't let minor facts get in the way of a good argument.

[Riftaxe]

24. Gee i wonder why....

Perhaps the reach was a bit far?


It is hardly a good thing to be slapped down when over reaching, except when it is of course.

[sadalien]

5. It wasn't really publicized at the time.

[EastKYLiberal]

7. And he's still my favorite President.

I don't judge the actions of others when they are making decisions in high-stress situations.

[zipplewrath]

17. Unless their named Bush?

How much slack did/do you cut him? Not to mention Cheney. Are you suggesting we shouldn't be so hard on them about the way we got into Iraq because they were in a "high stress" situation?

[obamanut2012]

8. It was wartime, and he played on prejudices

A proper analogy would have been GWB signing an EO to imprison Muslim American citizens after 9/11.

I know people who were in those camps, law-abiding Americans who lost everything.

[joeybee12]

12. I wonder how many Democrats suddenly said it was ok...

And didn't question it at all.

[malthaussen]

13. There was some protest at the time,

... but it wasn't too popular to fight it. Anti-Japanese sentiment was already high in the US, the war certainly exacerbated it. Hell, even Dr Seuss got into the act.

Interesting site regarding the protests of the action, including some letters from combat personnel who found the camps reprehensible: http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/articles.php?cid=95

-- Mal

[Solly Mack]

15. I think FDR should have been held accountable for that.

I've said the same before on DU.

Matters not to me who decided it was Constitutional, thereby legal. Read Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. Declaring something legal is one way to legitimize a host of horrors and abuses.


I think Bush (and all the rest) should be held accountable for war crimes. This isn't going to happen because America likes to pretend it is something it isn't. A country that cares about human rights. Oh, we give lip service to it, and we always promise to do better (As if before Bush we didn't know torture was wrong), and we most certainly chastise other countries over their human rights abuses - but let something bad happen to us and we're right back to committing abuses and declaring those abuses legal.


I don't support the "war on terror". Prior to Bush, acts of terror were handled as criminal acts. Many, many Americans, have allowed themselves to be swept up in the Bush/Cheney idea of a global battlefield, where enemies lurk in every corner, so we must bomb those corners into oblivion to feel safe. With each passing year the battlefield has grown, the enemies have multiplied - do we feel safe yet?

I've witnessed a change over the last 12 years and it has been an ugly change. More and more people are willing to accept almost anything as long as someone tells them it is legal (Thanks to the superb conditioning of the last 12 years). People have always been susceptible to the declarations of authority but I swear there was a time when more people fought against it: they questioned it - loudly. A small minority to be sure - but that minority has gotten even smaller. Sad.


I'm a registered Democrat and likely to remain so. But I was born a human. I can't just switch that on and off.

[Starry Messenger]

21. People, Liberals, spoke out about it then too.

Carey McWilliams was editor of The Nation and prepared a large report with his objections. I don't think it is fair to say that people didn't criticize FDR from the left at the time for the internments.

<snip>

Evacuation Held Proof of Disloyalty

It would be idle, at this late date, to review the pros and cons of mass evacuation were it not for the fact that mass evacuation has placed the entire resident Japanese-American minority under a cloud of suspicion. The fact that evacuation was ordered, for example, is now being cited as proof of the disloyal character of the entire group. Actually, there is no basis whatever in the available evidence for such an inference. It is also interesting to note that some of the groups that were most active in California in urging evacuation of every person of Japanese ancestry from the west coast were, at the same time, strenuously opposed to the evacuation of a single person of Japanese ancestry from Hawaii! Some of these groups, moreover, had a freely acknowledged economic interest in mass evacuation. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the Shipper-Grower Association of Salinas, California, sent Mr. Austin E. Anson to Washington to lobby for evacuation. "We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons," said Mr. Anson. "We might as well be honest. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man." Saturday Evening Post, May 9, 1942.

Voluntary Removal Fails

At the outset, it was merely the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry that was contemplated by the authorities. There was no thought, at the time, of internment.

Between February 19 and March 27, 1942, the Japanese were free to depart voluntarily from the area. During this period, 10,231 left Military Area No. 1, but, of this number, 4,825 merely moved into Military Area No. 2. Not only were the Japanese moving too slowly—as viewed by the military—but many of them did not have enough money to leave the area. They did not know where to move, and they were meeting with opposition even while in transit. For example, Governor Payne Ratner of Kansas stated that "Japs are not wanted and not welcome in Kansas" and directed the state police to turn back any Japanese trying to enter the state.
As they sought to retreat eastward, evacuees met with many unpleasant incidents. Signs posted in shops read: "This restaurant poisons rats and Japs"; barber shops carried signs reading "Japs shaved: Not Responsible for Accidents"; signs were placed in automobile windshields reading "Open Season for Japs"; filling stations, restaurants, and hotels refused to serve evacuees. Realizing that some agency would have to be established to assist in evacuation, President Roosevelt, on March 18, 1942, issued Executive Order No. 9102 creating the War Relocation Authority. Early in April, the director of the authority met with the governors of the western states in Salt Lake City. These governors, with one exception, refused to accept responsibility for the maintenance of law and order unless evacuees were placed under military guard. These developments compelled the government to stop further voluntary evacuation and to undertake a program of planned relocation.

<snip>

[WinkyDink]

23. At least that was during a declared war between sovereign states. But even so, have you

not heard of the adage about two wrongs?