Interesting Read... Options

[Blakjak]

Anybody read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? I'm about halfway through it now and I find it very interesting. Druid you're from Kansas right lol. No, but it really is a thought-provoking read, something I think everyone should try and muscle their way through.

*I know this isn't about the War on Terror but it deals with politics so I thought it would be relevant.

This post has been edited by Blakjak: 06/27/05 4:55pm

[Druid]

My last post was done in a rush as I was heading off to work.
I wanted to clarify a few things.
When I said interment was based on prejudice, I misspoke to an extent that I don't think prejudice was why it happened but prejudice among the general public went a long way to allowing it to happen.
Most people mistakenly think it was a reaction to Pearl Harbor, this is where a lot of the bias came from but the real turning point was when several ships where attacked along the coastline. One of the news stories about an attack on an oil tanker hand people up in arms because the story wasn't specifically about the tanker attack as this was happening fairly often, what enraged people was how the submarine crew turned it's deck guns on the people in life boats after sinking the tanker.
Then in February of 92 there was an attack by a Japanese sub that shelled and oil refinery at Santa Barbara California. This became a turning point, no longer did people think they where safe just because they where on the mainland.
The government and a large part of the general population in California believed the refinery attack was a preamble to a possible or likely Japanese invasion.
Which was understandable if you considered the attack on pearl harbor was to destroy our ability to repel such an invasion. It's hard for us to picture it now but within days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, miles and miles of barbed wire was strung along the coast, coastal cities where under mandatory blackouts.
Rumors where common about small advance forces landing at remote areas along the coast.
If you put yourself in that frame of thought, here is the reality you would have to face just as they did when they made the decision for interment and relocation.
The government's own study said 90-98% of the Japanese-Americans were loyal and could be trusted. The problem was it would only take a handful of saboteurs to cause great damage to the war effort in the event of an invasion.
Here are some of the problems they faced.
1) A small group could bring California to it's knees by simply setting brush fires.
2) Destroying a few dams would leave a quarter of the population without drinking water.
3) Destroying a few bridges would tie up war supplies needed to repel an invasion.
Case in point to how ill prepared we were for an actual attack on the coast, in California there was only 16 fighters assigned to defend the whole state.
NO One thought it would happen until it was way to late.

With what we know now it's easy to make the point Interment was wrong and never should of happened. I myself would say the same thing but only because hindsight is 20/20.
If I put my self in the position of the people who had to make the decision and I mean really in their position, with only the information available at the time and the circumstances involved, I would of supported interment and relocation.