Reading that statement horrified me and sent me back here to comment on it.
There was literally nothing these people could've done to prove themselves. If authorization were granted to fully exterminate them, this person would've gladly run with the order.
As terrible as this whole time period in American history was, it's even more terrifying to think of just how close it came to being even worse. And it all would've been justified and swept under the rug, and instead of being given a half day of US history class as a passing mention of "yeah bad things happened but it won't happen again", maybe given 2 days of study and a "we definitely learned to not do that again".
A clear abuse of power by the government ... all citizen would want to have sufficient safeguards in our democracy to prevent similar things from happening...
>“I’ve been to detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under, I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker — and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It’s unequivocal.”
Mark Morgan, current Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and complete waste of skin.
Were ethnically German Americans put in concentration camps too? There far more people of German heritage in the US, Col Schisskopf from Catch 22 for example
German-Americans had been aggressively discriminated against before and during WW1 [0]. By the time WW2 rolled around, many German-American families had worked very hard to assimilate and had acquired economic and political influence which could shield them from mass detentions. Even so, a small number were still detained by the government during both wars [1].
German-Americans were highly encouraged to self-identify as "white" during the Progressive Era, precisely due to the WWI issue and as a way of promoting some kind of unity beyond national-origin differences. Of course that still involved exclusion of minorities, and one can make the case that this laser-focus on race has had terrible side-effects (many present-day Europeans would probably see it that way!), but still. It's doubtful whether there even is a distinct German-American identity today in the U.S., the way there absolutely was one in the 19th century.
> It’s doubtful whether there even is a distinct German-American identity
Because comics will laugh someone out the room for describing their German Swiss but also Irish heritage. Actively encouraging people to “just say white” when within the confines of America or earshot of any Americans
Its probably unproductive
There are nuances associated with heritage that can let you understand people better
When Im in Europe or Commonwealth countries people seem way more interested in where I’m from than any muddied grouping of color:heritage ratio. Would like to see that in the states
Yes, both during WW1 and WW2, but to a much lesser extent than Japanese-American: only a few thousands were held, most of thoses deemed German enough were only required to register at their local police station. So not really the same level of collective punishment.
There were reasons for FDR mistreating the Japanese more than the Germans, that have very little to do with the conflict. Basically, he was a despicable piece of shit in his views on people from Asia, long before war broke out. Here is FDR writing in 1925;
>“Let us first examine that nightmare to many Americans, especially our friends in California, the growing population of Japanese on the Pacific slope. It is undoubtedly true that in the past many thousands of Japanese have legally or otherwise got into the United States, settled her and raised up children who became American citizens. Californians have properly objected on the sound basic ground that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population. If this had throughout the discussion been made the sole ground for the American attitude all would have been well, and the people of Japan would today understand and accept our decision.
>Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. There are throughout the East many thousands of so-called Eurasians—men and women and children partly of Asiatic blood and partly of European or American blood. These Eurasians are, as a common thing, looked down on and despised, both by the European and American who reside there, and by the pure Asiatic who lives there."
Californian farmers were also very interested in booting japanese farmers out and taking over their land.
Not just because it was good land, but because japanese family farms were very efficient and proficient "truck farms" (growing cash crops like strawberries, peppers, beans, gourds, … for markets and restaurants): californian japanese farms had almost 10% of that market before the removal order, and their farms were worth ~$250/acre on average, versus ~$40 US average.
Stumping for the "victory garden" was a direct consequence of the internment order, and tens of millions worth of truck crops unexpectedly missing from the market.
Race is a factor. After the camps were initially liberated prisoners became "displaced persons". Obviously, they were treated better than under the Nazis but many were held in the same camps for years after the war.
This is from Patton's journal...
"Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals,”
We have so mythologized our victory in WWII that's our mistakes and failures don't really exist for most people. We were only noble. We were only brave. We were only just. It's way more complicated.
I don't know why this is being downvoted. It's clear that even German POWs were treated better than the Japanese...which under different circumstances is something we talk about as an example of how we are better than our enemies.
>The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities.
>All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities.
>“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?'” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian Tuesday.
>U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government’s interpretation of the settlement agreement.
>“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” Fletcher asked Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”
>The settlement at issue came out of Jenny Lisette Flores v. Edwin Meese, filed in 1985 on behalf of a class of unaccompanied minors fleeing torture and abuse in Central America.
>Finally agreed upon in 1997, the settlement established guidelines for the humane detention, treatment and release of minors taken into federal immigration custody. The guidelines include the right to a bond hearing and requirements that immigration authorities timely release children to parents or guardians and place those not released in facilities that meet certain standards. The facilities are supposed to be “safe and sanitary.”
>The settlement landed back in court in 2015, when class members moved to enforce it following the Obama administration’s announcement that it would scrap bond hearings because they conflicted with newer immigration laws. In legal filings, the class contended the elimination of bond hearings and dirty and dangerous conditions at short-term holding facilities operated by the Border Patrol violated the agreement.
>U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles granted the class’ motion and ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure government compliance with Flores.
>Gee said the administration had breached Flores by failing to provide detainees with adequate food and clean drinking water, or with hygiene items like soap, toothbrushes and towels. She also concluded that the children were being deprived of sleep and access to bathrooms, and were subjected to near-freezing temperatures.
>The Ninth Circuit affirmed much of Gee’s ruling in July 2017, finding that detainees were still entitled to bond hearings.
>On Tuesday, Fabian asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse Gee’s findings because they added new requirements – such as giving detainees soap and toothbrushes – that were not specifically included in Flores.
>“One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian said.
>“Or it was relatively obvious,” Fletcher shot back. “And at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum-foil blanket on top of them that it doesn’t comply with the agreement.”
>“It wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That’s part of ‘safe and sanitary.’ Are you disagreeing with that?” he added.
>Class counsel Peter Schey said that, although Gee had listed specific items such as toothbrushes in her order, which were not listed...
Unfortunately I am not surprised that there is support for these things. There exist some deeply unpleasant people who seem to exist in a permanent state of vicarious sadism. Essentially they like people being mistreated by other people. A not insubstantial section of the population are thoroughly entertained by the situation these children are in. They are generally the same people who become extraordinarily pleased at the first sign of war.
The standards for detention of migrant children were agreed on in 1985. The current administration is saying that those standards do not not explicitly mention soap or toothbrushes, so therefore they are not required to provide them.
In fairness, it should be noted that all four of the referenced judges are Democrat nominees (Gee:Obama, while all three judges on the panel were Clinton nominees).
In fairness, this is about access to things like soap. Party really shouldn't matter here. Unless you are saying that if they were Republican nominees, they would have no problem with child detainees not having soap?
Before you all jump to the condemnation of Americans, Think. It was warfare. I'm Australian and one of my ancestors spent some time as a prisoner of Japan on the burma railway. I might add Japan had no Americans on it's soil during ww2.
Well, if your country is much stronger, has no real possibility of being invaded, no real possibility of being bombed, and interns 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants, maybe your country is just paranoid and racist.
The entire American condition is held together by paranoia. If there isn't a credible external threat then it turns on itself:
The idea of a soviet expansionist theory that actually impacts the US is laughable to enough of the population
Nobody powerful actually believes the teachings of Karl Marx except to placate their internal public
People kind of seem to understand that interference in the middle east creates danger from very specific people who dont represent everyone, not really protecting us from anything
so now that paranoia leads us to ideological introspection, in the absence of a common enemy
I mean you're welcome to your opinion but the US putting its own citizens into concentration camps really didn't help Australia at all, much less the US, so I don't know why you would defend it.
>"Our detention centres are concentration camps and must be closed
>Many Australians may wonder why it was necessary to set up detention centres in the far north of the country, or offshore, far from the Australian mainland, surrounded by guards and razor wire, in circumstances of great secrecy, with all staff and visiting medical personnel banned from telling outsiders about conditions in the camps, or reporting physical or sexual abuse of detainees.
>Or why it was necessary to make it nearly impossible for lawyers or journalists to visit the centres. Or why the Immigration Department was allowed (or required?) to delay vital medical treatment to Hamid Khazaei, causing his death. Or send a raped and pregnant detainee for an abortion to Port Moresby (where it is illegal) rather than Australia; or delay the treatment or transfer to Australia of the man who committed suicide last week by setting himself on fire on Nauru?
>When Nazi Germany set up concentration camps in the 1930s, the purpose was to separate various groups – communists, Jews, homosexuals – from the German community, to prevent them being "tainted" by such people. The camps were maintained in great secrecy; most Germans had little or no knowledge of the awful and dehumanising conditions in which detainees were kept.
>Australia's detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island may have originally been intended to hold detainees for a short period – say, six months – while they were investigated and their claims to refugee status were assessed. But that has long since ceased to justify the existence of these centres.
>The conditions there are bleak, the tropical heat extreme, airconditioning is rare (guards, of course, are in much better, airconditioned, accommodation) – the guards and surrounding locals are hostile, and detainees are regularly physically and verbally abused.
>The worst aspect, however, is the indefinite nature of the detention, and that so many of the refugees who have established their entitlement to refugee status have been held for more than three years, and face an indefinite future in detention.
>Australia's policy towards asylum seekers is one of deliberate and calculated barbaric cruelty. It is clearly designed to make the situation of asylum seekers intolerable, to dehumanise them, and to force them to return to their original countries; for example, Hazaras from Afghanistan must return to a country increasingly dominated by the Taliban, which have waged genocide against them; and those who have fled Iran must return to the waiting arms of the Revolutionary Guards and Tehran's appalling Evin prison, one of the most frightful hell-holes in the world. Iran last year executed more than 1000 prisoners.
>That Australia's policy is intentionally cruel is well demonstrated by government ministers who have rejected all offers, whether from New Zealand or the premiers of all Australian states, to settle any of the present asylum seekers. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, rejected those offers out of hand. The Prime Minister said it would not be a good marketing look.
>The camps in Manus Island and Nauru have long since ceased to be mere detention centres. They are now concentration camps.
>Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles has called offshore processing "the single most important policy that any Australian government has made". The Prime Minister recently described those who oppose the government's policy towards asylum seekers as "misty-eyed".
>A week ago, representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees visited Nauru and told detainees that none of them would escape from the camps within 10 years. In the past week, two have set themselves on fire. It is the only way to end their suffering. Are those cowards and hypocrites in the Australian Parliament going to tell us that this is merely another a...
Pretty much every nation interred some element of the opposing populations, and were mostly far too sweeping about it. The British commandeered a load of hotels in the Isle of Man to detain internees, and later sent some to Canada. Canada had a big internment of Japanese. Australia interred plenty too - including some sent by Britain, Dutch East Indies, French territories and others.
Yet we should condemn the sweeping internment by every nation as most were innocent, often second or third generation. Many refugees who were fleeing the Nazis or Japanese were caught. There was an extreme range of approaches and conditions. By far the worst off were those who ended up incarcerated by the Germans - if target group, Japanese or Soviets.
Yes, of course deciding who is innocent civilian and who is potential spy is challenging at outbreak of war, but should we not strive to do better? Especially when so many ended up losing home or business and all possessions.
> This government can never repay all the people who suffered. But, this should not be an excuse for token apologies. I hope this country will never forget what happened, and do what it can to make sure that future generations will never forget.
Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps
>Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps
That's not true. The internment of Japanese Americans in WW2 is taught about in school, and almost everyone knows about it, although not everyone necessarily cares, and some Americans will defend it (and even suggest that maybe doing it to Muslims would be a good idea.)
The US doesn't really "whitewash" its history, nor practice mass indoctrination or nationalist brainwashing through its educational system, to the degree some believe. Learning about our history, and learning from our history, are two different things, though.
I think part of this depends on the school. The ones I attended would completely skip sections regarding the ~1,000,000 civilian deaths during the Philippine American War, the blunders in Korea and Vietnam (my classes basically said "they happened" and then the rest of the year was Civil War and WW2 movies), and there was absolutely zero discussion of American affairs in Central/South America and events leading to the Middle Eastern situation today.
Schools and teachers aren't 100% standardized in America. Some have thorough history programs. Some absolutely do brush over a lot of bad parts in history, and my high school in the South was one of the types to say "The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery." Our biology class also had a huge disclaimer about evolution and how nobody had to, or really should, believe it, but they were just required to teach it.
So I think when some people talk about how ridiculous/amazing the school system is, it's because that's just their experience. Schools are completely different depending on what state or even what part of town you live in.
I disagree. There are narratives that become historical standards. These can be changed but there it requires ongoing effort to rectify the narrative against the latest research.
Take the impeachment of Johnson as an example. The narrative has always been that Congress had gone out of control and tried to remove him out of some plot to gain more power. In actuality the Republicans were trying to save what was left of Reconstruction.
The role of slavery as a cause of the American revolution is non-existent in anything but graduate level historical research.
While it's not 1984 levels of indoctrination it's wrong to say that there aren't approved narratives that support the legitimacy of the State.
>practice mass indoctrination or nationalist brainwashing through its educational system
'The important thing is to keep them pledging,' he explained to his cohorts. 'It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.'
It was specifically discussed in many of my history classes. For those of us of a certain age, it's such common knowledge that it was readily incorporated as a plot point in the movie The Karate Kid.
The real reminder is to be aware that under the "right" conditions most people would actively or passively support such things being done to their fellow human beings. The reminder is to be wary of setting the stage for those conditions to materialize.
Clever - but let's put a fine point on it, shall we?
The "right" conditions have typically been under Democrat party rule.
This is the party of the Trail of Tears.
This is the party that defended slavery (in both north and south). Even killing Abraham Lincoln when their cause was lost.
This is the party of the KKK and of Jim Crow. Heck, the last KKK member of Congress, Rober Byrd, who was a recruiter for the KKK, just passed away a few years ago. Obama said the eulogy at his funeral. Hillary Clinton said he was a "friend and mentor".
This is the party of segregation. Woodrow Wilson actually resegregated the federal government, ending the careers of non-white civil servants. He promoted "The Birth of a Nation" by having it be the 1st film shown at the White House.
And, of course, the party that brought us these internment camps.
Oh come on, I know of 'The Southern Strategy' and I'm not even from the US.
It isn't your modern Democrats who are flying the confederate flag and defending statues of the lazy racist pricks who would rather enslave other people than bother to do their own damn work, now is it?
One thing to note is that the Republican Party originated from the Whigs, and the term Whig is essentially synonymous with identifying as politically liberal. So, on this side of the pond, the Whigs were the precursors to our current Liberal Democrats. So both your Democrats and your Republicans have had quite the political journey over the years.
It wasn't the modern Democrats who rebuilt the Southern economy literally from the ground up along lines of classical liberalism and economic freedom either, after the Civil-Rights era made it clear to everyone how untenable the previous model actually was. There are all sorts of connotations to the "Southern strategy" meme that you might be entirely unaware of if all you have to go on is hearsay about it - no, the parties absolutely didn't just "switch places"! And Democrats are still as bigoted against minorities as they used to be, only now they're pushing the "soft bigotry of the lowest expectations"; whilst Republicans are the only ones who are actively promoting a pathway out of poverty and social exclusion, and into the middle class and its values of comprehensive inclusion, well-being and self-actualization.
>There are all sorts of connotations to the "Southern strategy" meme that you might be entirely unaware of if all you have to go on is hearsay about it.
I go on what Lee Atwater said about it. He managed nearly 30 elections for the Republican Party in the American South, so I don't think his comments count as hearsay.
>Lee Atwater: So the Southern strategy now, basically, and here's another thing, so we haven't talked about this. It's who controls elections in the South. State-wide elections in the South are controlled by, I'm going to use the term George Wallace voters. Because statistically Blacks went for John F. Kennedy en masse, they went for Johnson en masse, they went for Humphrey en masse, they went for Carter en masse, and McGovern en masse.
>I'll say the country club lines went for the Republican every time.
>So, the blue collar voter in 1964 goes for Goldwater, he carries big percentage—remember the other two votes stay the same. 1968 the blue collar voter goes for George Wallace and carries the same voters on. 1972 he goes for Nixon. 1976 he goes for Carter, and we're leading up to my own strategy in the Deep South in 1980. The whole focus group in the South is that blue collar voter. Now that's important when we talk about the race relations thing, because he's also the guy that's most threatened by the Blacks and he's also prone to be “a racist”.
>Until 1980, and a little bit until 76, the race issue was how you approach that man. Plus, the most conservative guy on fiscal matters always tends to have their vote, and the toughest son of a bitch in national defense and foreign policy are always going to have their vote.
>So what happened is Jimmy Carter in 76 was able... plus these people’s regional pride is always biggest in the lower intellects and lower income groups. So on the basis of regional pride, present issues… Being a born-again Christian, which smacks of conservatism, he gets that group en masse in 76, and carries them all the same.
>Once he got there, and this is an important point, it was his to lose. It wasn't ours to win, it was Carter's to lose. All Carter had to do was run in place. Well he didn't do that. He took that to Iran. He went out. He didn't stay on the issue. And we had to go back in and try to make them understand, and I thought we could really lay in and hamstring and bring him back.
>But what he did is default his own home turf. And not only anything to do with racism, or the race question, but on economics and national defense it was his to lose. So the fact of the matter is, the South is Reagan's to lose now. And if Reagan goes and denounces his own economic policy or doesn't balance the budget or, you know, he could lose the South. But if not, he's going to win the South.
>Alexander Lamis: But he's not going to lose the South if he goes along with what the Blacks want from him.
>Lee Atwater: That should be a first of his. Now in 1968, the whole Southern strategy that Harry had put together, the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. And now they don't have to do that.All you gotta do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues his campaigned on since 1964. And that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cutting taxes, you know that old cluster of being tough with national defense. And it's going to be very hard for Reagan to lose.
>Alexander Lamis: Whether he, I'm not saying that he does this consciously, but the fact is that he does get the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by doing away, by cutting down on food stamps.
>Lee Atwater: Here's how I would approach that issue as a statistician or a political scientist. Or as a psychologist, which I'm not, is how abstract you handle the race thing. Now once you start out, and now you don't quote me on thi...
Yes, and he goes on by saying "So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner." It's an argument that, by the 1980s the main parties were no longer focusing on race in their campaigns, and that all that was left from that POV was a matter of voters still holding on to those issues and trying to figure out who was on their "side", more or less sub-consciously. He's responding to your implied argument (it was around back then, too!) by saying that some voters will always be trying to hear "dog-whistles" out of something, and that there isn't much you can do about it other than leading that attitude change in a proactive way and patiently waiting for the voters to follow.
Of course, most people who bring up that selective Atwater quote won't tell you that. Sadly, you've been misled by a piece of political propaganda. Here's a blogpost discussing that Atwater quote rather extensively: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/what-did-lee-...
So what was it exactly that got hoary old racists to move to the party of Lincoln while not stopping waving the Confederate flags around, if it wasn't the politics of the Republican Party changing? The influx of crystal meth perhaps?
Did you miss the part where the party of Lincoln managed to rebuild the Southern economy and society from the ground up? Of course, it wasn't the first "Reconstruction" that they attempted in the South, either - but hey, second time's the charm!
And no, even waving the Confederate flag isn't exactly a contradiction with celebrating that either, or at least it wouldn't be until quite recently indeed (yes, it's a fact that race relations are going sour once again, unfortunately). But explaining why that was the case would be taking us quite far from the original topic, so I'm not sure that it's worth even trying to address this point.
>But explaining why that's the case would be taking us quite far from the original topic, so I'm not sure that it's worth even trying to address this point.
Well, in for a penny and all that.
From the outside it looks pretty simple. A sizable cross section of the USA completely and utterly lost their minds after a dark skinned guy became president, so they got behind the candidate who was most openly and consistently bigoted.
It probably helped that he also had a TV show with a simple catchphrase and hats emblazoned with a jingoistic but ultimately meaningless campaign slogan. However without the relentless bigotry to push his campaign forward, he would have been just a tacky loudmouth grifter from New York with a gold toilet and stupid hair.
Given that these last qualities would, on their own, be far more likely to lose him votes than gain him any with the majority of people who ultimately ended up supporting him, it seems a fairly safe assumption that most of his supporters just really liked the hatefulness he directed towards an amorphous enemy that had been conjured seemingly out of whole cloth, with the aid of a heady mix of fear, gullibility and delusional levels of paranoia.
Of course it didn't really help the other party very much, when they chose to parachute in a Washington insider as their candidate, who possessed almost no charisma, an obviously corrupt ex-president as a husband and a roughly equal level of hubris to Trump.
edit - To be fair, this is not the whole picture. There is also what might be the largest unacknowledged contemporary political group, those voters who are best described by the song 'Asshole', by Denis Leary. For them, Trump was never someone they ever remotely respected or agreed with. They know he is a fool who will wreck the place. And they voted for him for exactly that reason, as they find fucking up shit for the hell of it to be highly amusing.
> A sizable cross section of the USA completely and utterly lost their minds after a dark skinned guy became president
Except for the part where, you know, that didn't really happen. Obama was a great president for many, many reasons, but one of those was precisely how he managed to turn race relations into as near to a non-issue as could practically happen, given that he could and did appeal to an exceptionally broad and diverse cross-section of American voters. Even by the time Hillary became the Democrat candidate, the attitude had become quite different on all sides, in a way that's hard to underestimate. Trump wasn't always seen as bigoted or even foolish, either.
I do agree that political campaigns have become a lot worse in many ways, with jingoism and even some outright bigotry being a big part of that, but I'd blame that on a broader loss of social cohesion or respect for our most prized political values (including moderation, deliberation, inclusiveness, focus on the complexity of core issues and not on pointless distractions etc. etc.) due to things like the bad economy and perhaps even our attitude to Internet-powered social media.
I'm sorry to cut into your ongoing conversation here. There is no way around it.
The Republicans were not a force in southern politics until they embraced racist tactics that gave old Dixie-crats a reason to move.
The Democratic party actually had the South locked as Southerners joined in protest to Republicans trying to push Reconstruction through.
Your argument sounds a bit like Dinesh Disuza when you say... The Democrats created the KKK... Not really. Ex-confederates created the KKK.
As the larger Democratic party embraced civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights the Republicans gave the remnants of the old southern Democrats a place to go in protest...again...against modernization.
I'm sorry about the Disuza reference. I don't mean to be offensive, but he had used that line of argument in the past.
EDIT: Also, just because the Republicans were the party of Lincoln doesn't mean that Reconstruction era Democrats were left on the political spectrum. That's also a tactic that today's right uses. The Republicans of Lincolns day were to the left.
As the larger Democratic party embraced civil rights
Actually, Republican Congressmembers voted for the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Acts in higher propensity than did Democrats, and all filibuster activity against these Acts was led by Democrats.
Again, those were the Dixie-crats. They were segregationists. After that, the racists moved to the Republican party.
Over time the Democratic party became the side that embraced multiculturalism. It's been a fight, no doubt about that, but it did happen.
Saying that today's (after about 1975 or so) Republican party didn't explicitly make a play for the votes of racist Southerners that had been Democrats historically just fly's in the face of the words of the people who actually carried it out. The people involved have explicitly said that it was their strategy.
The "Republicans were not a force in southern politics" until the South actually became contestable, yes. But they did not "embrace racist tactics" other than perhaps momentarily in the 1970s, at the tail end of the Civil Rights Era. In actual fact, Republicans were always trying all sorts of angles to appeal to southern voters: Barry Goldwater's campaigning was quite different from Nixon's, for example. The suggestion that Republicans were uniformly "against modernization", and even more so, that this was also true in the 1980s, is simply laughable when one looks at the actual history of that time.
Edit: And the Republicans of Lincoln's day were defining their stances in opposition to the Democrats, who were largely agrarian and in favor of local control by the purportedly-virtuous "little guy", against broad economic modernization that would deprive the little guy of his livelihood and make him a sort of 'wage slave' of corrupt industry. You can phrase it as "the Republicans were on the left" if you like, but that's really pushing it.
I actually wrote a much longer reply that I was going to post, but maybe it's easier if I just give you the point you are looking for.
I don't want an open exchange of ideas.
I think that the Republican party is a cancer on the body politic. I grew up in an almost 100% R state. You won't change my mind. I'm not a Democrat because I like them. I'm a Democrat because I hate the Republican party.
We aren't going to agree to disagree. We are in opposition to one another. That's just life.
Can we stop now? Go ahead and say something clever back. You can have the last word.
No, I'm not going to blame you for hating the post-Trump Republican party. I won't even blame you for hating the social milieu that you grew up in - there are many parts of the U.S. that are still quite socially backward, particularly in the Deep South itself, and broad-based, grassroots social/economic development is a slow process. I do have a problem when some people (and, for the record, this isn't about you specifically, either - it's a huge problem!) outright refuse to look at the history and acknowledge the fact that "conservatives" have, in many ways, been on the side of progress, while "progressives" have occasionally been putting forth very misguided ideas and proposals.
The Whigs failed - one of the primary reasons being a failure to meaningfully confront slavery. This created an opportunity for a new party to actually take this issue on. Sure, there were a lot of former Whigs as would be expected, but the Republican party actually took on slavery.
It was not a Democrat president who died ending slavery.
The Republican party ended slavery, passed the anti-slavery amendments, and integrated the federal civil service.
The Democrat response was: KKK, Jim Crow, segregation - generally resist the change for generations.
>The original comment was about the "right" conditions for internment camps for Japanese Americans.
No it isn't, it is clearly about using the current topic as a starting point to then explore the broader issues for human cultures in general and is quite obviously not about the specifics of US politics, no matter how much you may try and misrepresent what was written in order to narrow the scope to that.
"The real reminder is to be aware that under the "right" conditions most people would actively or passively support such things being done to their fellow human beings. The reminder is to be wary of setting the stage for those conditions to materialize."
>What have you got? Flags?
Yes, and I'm from the UK, so be very careful or I might plant one.
What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days? When I was in middle school you could say things like "concentration camps are bad" and "hiding persecuted people in your attic is good" without much fear of controversy, and also without much fear of applicability to the present day. Are they still saying that?
>"What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days?"
As a depressing guess, unless they are still working off the censored edition, it may well be something along the lines of; 'This reading material is unsuitable due to lesbianism, we must remove all editions from the school library immediately!'
71 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] thread— General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command"
Could be straight out of Catch-22
There was literally nothing these people could've done to prove themselves. If authorization were granted to fully exterminate them, this person would've gladly run with the order.
As terrible as this whole time period in American history was, it's even more terrifying to think of just how close it came to being even worse. And it all would've been justified and swept under the rug, and instead of being given a half day of US history class as a passing mention of "yeah bad things happened but it won't happen again", maybe given 2 days of study and a "we definitely learned to not do that again".
Mark Morgan, current Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and complete waste of skin.
[0] http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath/immigrants-during-wa...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
still indiscriminately expected to have white guilt
Doesnt seem nuanced enough or productive for American society
The point is that this level of nuance isnt present, and it undermines the understanding of cultural groups within America
Because comics will laugh someone out the room for describing their German Swiss but also Irish heritage. Actively encouraging people to “just say white” when within the confines of America or earshot of any Americans
Its probably unproductive
There are nuances associated with heritage that can let you understand people better
When Im in Europe or Commonwealth countries people seem way more interested in where I’m from than any muddied grouping of color:heritage ratio. Would like to see that in the states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
>“Let us first examine that nightmare to many Americans, especially our friends in California, the growing population of Japanese on the Pacific slope. It is undoubtedly true that in the past many thousands of Japanese have legally or otherwise got into the United States, settled her and raised up children who became American citizens. Californians have properly objected on the sound basic ground that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population. If this had throughout the discussion been made the sole ground for the American attitude all would have been well, and the people of Japan would today understand and accept our decision.
>Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. There are throughout the East many thousands of so-called Eurasians—men and women and children partly of Asiatic blood and partly of European or American blood. These Eurasians are, as a common thing, looked down on and despised, both by the European and American who reside there, and by the pure Asiatic who lives there."
Not just because it was good land, but because japanese family farms were very efficient and proficient "truck farms" (growing cash crops like strawberries, peppers, beans, gourds, … for markets and restaurants): californian japanese farms had almost 10% of that market before the removal order, and their farms were worth ~$250/acre on average, versus ~$40 US average.
Stumping for the "victory garden" was a direct consequence of the internment order, and tens of millions worth of truck crops unexpectedly missing from the market.
This is from Patton's journal...
"Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals,”
We have so mythologized our victory in WWII that's our mistakes and failures don't really exist for most people. We were only noble. We were only brave. We were only just. It's way more complicated.
>The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities.
>All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities.
>“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?'” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian Tuesday.
>U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government’s interpretation of the settlement agreement.
>“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” Fletcher asked Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”
>The settlement at issue came out of Jenny Lisette Flores v. Edwin Meese, filed in 1985 on behalf of a class of unaccompanied minors fleeing torture and abuse in Central America.
>Finally agreed upon in 1997, the settlement established guidelines for the humane detention, treatment and release of minors taken into federal immigration custody. The guidelines include the right to a bond hearing and requirements that immigration authorities timely release children to parents or guardians and place those not released in facilities that meet certain standards. The facilities are supposed to be “safe and sanitary.”
>The settlement landed back in court in 2015, when class members moved to enforce it following the Obama administration’s announcement that it would scrap bond hearings because they conflicted with newer immigration laws. In legal filings, the class contended the elimination of bond hearings and dirty and dangerous conditions at short-term holding facilities operated by the Border Patrol violated the agreement.
>U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles granted the class’ motion and ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure government compliance with Flores.
>Gee said the administration had breached Flores by failing to provide detainees with adequate food and clean drinking water, or with hygiene items like soap, toothbrushes and towels. She also concluded that the children were being deprived of sleep and access to bathrooms, and were subjected to near-freezing temperatures.
>The Ninth Circuit affirmed much of Gee’s ruling in July 2017, finding that detainees were still entitled to bond hearings.
>On Tuesday, Fabian asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse Gee’s findings because they added new requirements – such as giving detainees soap and toothbrushes – that were not specifically included in Flores.
>“One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian said.
>“Or it was relatively obvious,” Fletcher shot back. “And at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum-foil blanket on top of them that it doesn’t comply with the agreement.”
>“It wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That’s part of ‘safe and sanitary.’ Are you disagreeing with that?” he added.
>Class counsel Peter Schey said that, although Gee had listed specific items such as toothbrushes in her order, which were not listed...
https://twitter.com/AG_Conservative/status/11425323465304514...
You've been had.
The idea of a soviet expansionist theory that actually impacts the US is laughable to enough of the population
Nobody powerful actually believes the teachings of Karl Marx except to placate their internal public
People kind of seem to understand that interference in the middle east creates danger from very specific people who dont represent everyone, not really protecting us from anything
so now that paranoia leads us to ideological introspection, in the absence of a common enemy
>"Our detention centres are concentration camps and must be closed
>Many Australians may wonder why it was necessary to set up detention centres in the far north of the country, or offshore, far from the Australian mainland, surrounded by guards and razor wire, in circumstances of great secrecy, with all staff and visiting medical personnel banned from telling outsiders about conditions in the camps, or reporting physical or sexual abuse of detainees.
>Or why it was necessary to make it nearly impossible for lawyers or journalists to visit the centres. Or why the Immigration Department was allowed (or required?) to delay vital medical treatment to Hamid Khazaei, causing his death. Or send a raped and pregnant detainee for an abortion to Port Moresby (where it is illegal) rather than Australia; or delay the treatment or transfer to Australia of the man who committed suicide last week by setting himself on fire on Nauru?
>When Nazi Germany set up concentration camps in the 1930s, the purpose was to separate various groups – communists, Jews, homosexuals – from the German community, to prevent them being "tainted" by such people. The camps were maintained in great secrecy; most Germans had little or no knowledge of the awful and dehumanising conditions in which detainees were kept.
>Australia's detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island may have originally been intended to hold detainees for a short period – say, six months – while they were investigated and their claims to refugee status were assessed. But that has long since ceased to justify the existence of these centres.
>The conditions there are bleak, the tropical heat extreme, airconditioning is rare (guards, of course, are in much better, airconditioned, accommodation) – the guards and surrounding locals are hostile, and detainees are regularly physically and verbally abused.
>The worst aspect, however, is the indefinite nature of the detention, and that so many of the refugees who have established their entitlement to refugee status have been held for more than three years, and face an indefinite future in detention.
>Australia's policy towards asylum seekers is one of deliberate and calculated barbaric cruelty. It is clearly designed to make the situation of asylum seekers intolerable, to dehumanise them, and to force them to return to their original countries; for example, Hazaras from Afghanistan must return to a country increasingly dominated by the Taliban, which have waged genocide against them; and those who have fled Iran must return to the waiting arms of the Revolutionary Guards and Tehran's appalling Evin prison, one of the most frightful hell-holes in the world. Iran last year executed more than 1000 prisoners.
>That Australia's policy is intentionally cruel is well demonstrated by government ministers who have rejected all offers, whether from New Zealand or the premiers of all Australian states, to settle any of the present asylum seekers. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, rejected those offers out of hand. The Prime Minister said it would not be a good marketing look.
>The camps in Manus Island and Nauru have long since ceased to be mere detention centres. They are now concentration camps.
>Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles has called offshore processing "the single most important policy that any Australian government has made". The Prime Minister recently described those who oppose the government's policy towards asylum seekers as "misty-eyed".
>A week ago, representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees visited Nauru and told detainees that none of them would escape from the camps within 10 years. In the past week, two have set themselves on fire. It is the only way to end their suffering. Are those cowards and hypocrites in the Australian Parliament going to tell us that this is merely another a...
Yet we should condemn the sweeping internment by every nation as most were innocent, often second or third generation. Many refugees who were fleeing the Nazis or Japanese were caught. There was an extreme range of approaches and conditions. By far the worst off were those who ended up incarcerated by the Germans - if target group, Japanese or Soviets.
Yes, of course deciding who is innocent civilian and who is potential spy is challenging at outbreak of war, but should we not strive to do better? Especially when so many ended up losing home or business and all possessions.
Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps
That's not true. The internment of Japanese Americans in WW2 is taught about in school, and almost everyone knows about it, although not everyone necessarily cares, and some Americans will defend it (and even suggest that maybe doing it to Muslims would be a good idea.)
The US doesn't really "whitewash" its history, nor practice mass indoctrination or nationalist brainwashing through its educational system, to the degree some believe. Learning about our history, and learning from our history, are two different things, though.
Schools and teachers aren't 100% standardized in America. Some have thorough history programs. Some absolutely do brush over a lot of bad parts in history, and my high school in the South was one of the types to say "The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery." Our biology class also had a huge disclaimer about evolution and how nobody had to, or really should, believe it, but they were just required to teach it.
So I think when some people talk about how ridiculous/amazing the school system is, it's because that's just their experience. Schools are completely different depending on what state or even what part of town you live in.
Take the impeachment of Johnson as an example. The narrative has always been that Congress had gone out of control and tried to remove him out of some plot to gain more power. In actuality the Republicans were trying to save what was left of Reconstruction.
The role of slavery as a cause of the American revolution is non-existent in anything but graduate level historical research.
While it's not 1984 levels of indoctrination it's wrong to say that there aren't approved narratives that support the legitimacy of the State.
'The important thing is to keep them pledging,' he explained to his cohorts. 'It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.'
- Captain Black, in Catch 22
The "right" conditions have typically been under Democrat party rule.
This is the party of the Trail of Tears.
This is the party that defended slavery (in both north and south). Even killing Abraham Lincoln when their cause was lost.
This is the party of the KKK and of Jim Crow. Heck, the last KKK member of Congress, Rober Byrd, who was a recruiter for the KKK, just passed away a few years ago. Obama said the eulogy at his funeral. Hillary Clinton said he was a "friend and mentor".
This is the party of segregation. Woodrow Wilson actually resegregated the federal government, ending the careers of non-white civil servants. He promoted "The Birth of a Nation" by having it be the 1st film shown at the White House.
And, of course, the party that brought us these internment camps.
It isn't your modern Democrats who are flying the confederate flag and defending statues of the lazy racist pricks who would rather enslave other people than bother to do their own damn work, now is it?
One thing to note is that the Republican Party originated from the Whigs, and the term Whig is essentially synonymous with identifying as politically liberal. So, on this side of the pond, the Whigs were the precursors to our current Liberal Democrats. So both your Democrats and your Republicans have had quite the political journey over the years.
I go on what Lee Atwater said about it. He managed nearly 30 elections for the Republican Party in the American South, so I don't think his comments count as hearsay.
>Lee Atwater: So the Southern strategy now, basically, and here's another thing, so we haven't talked about this. It's who controls elections in the South. State-wide elections in the South are controlled by, I'm going to use the term George Wallace voters. Because statistically Blacks went for John F. Kennedy en masse, they went for Johnson en masse, they went for Humphrey en masse, they went for Carter en masse, and McGovern en masse.
>I'll say the country club lines went for the Republican every time.
>So, the blue collar voter in 1964 goes for Goldwater, he carries big percentage—remember the other two votes stay the same. 1968 the blue collar voter goes for George Wallace and carries the same voters on. 1972 he goes for Nixon. 1976 he goes for Carter, and we're leading up to my own strategy in the Deep South in 1980. The whole focus group in the South is that blue collar voter. Now that's important when we talk about the race relations thing, because he's also the guy that's most threatened by the Blacks and he's also prone to be “a racist”.
>Until 1980, and a little bit until 76, the race issue was how you approach that man. Plus, the most conservative guy on fiscal matters always tends to have their vote, and the toughest son of a bitch in national defense and foreign policy are always going to have their vote.
>So what happened is Jimmy Carter in 76 was able... plus these people’s regional pride is always biggest in the lower intellects and lower income groups. So on the basis of regional pride, present issues… Being a born-again Christian, which smacks of conservatism, he gets that group en masse in 76, and carries them all the same.
>Once he got there, and this is an important point, it was his to lose. It wasn't ours to win, it was Carter's to lose. All Carter had to do was run in place. Well he didn't do that. He took that to Iran. He went out. He didn't stay on the issue. And we had to go back in and try to make them understand, and I thought we could really lay in and hamstring and bring him back.
>But what he did is default his own home turf. And not only anything to do with racism, or the race question, but on economics and national defense it was his to lose. So the fact of the matter is, the South is Reagan's to lose now. And if Reagan goes and denounces his own economic policy or doesn't balance the budget or, you know, he could lose the South. But if not, he's going to win the South.
>Alexander Lamis: But he's not going to lose the South if he goes along with what the Blacks want from him.
>Lee Atwater: That should be a first of his. Now in 1968, the whole Southern strategy that Harry had put together, the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. And now they don't have to do that.All you gotta do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues his campaigned on since 1964. And that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cutting taxes, you know that old cluster of being tough with national defense. And it's going to be very hard for Reagan to lose.
>Alexander Lamis: Whether he, I'm not saying that he does this consciously, but the fact is that he does get the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by doing away, by cutting down on food stamps.
>Lee Atwater: Here's how I would approach that issue as a statistician or a political scientist. Or as a psychologist, which I'm not, is how abstract you handle the race thing. Now once you start out, and now you don't quote me on thi...
Of course, most people who bring up that selective Atwater quote won't tell you that. Sadly, you've been misled by a piece of political propaganda. Here's a blogpost discussing that Atwater quote rather extensively: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/what-did-lee-...
And no, even waving the Confederate flag isn't exactly a contradiction with celebrating that either, or at least it wouldn't be until quite recently indeed (yes, it's a fact that race relations are going sour once again, unfortunately). But explaining why that was the case would be taking us quite far from the original topic, so I'm not sure that it's worth even trying to address this point.
Well, in for a penny and all that.
From the outside it looks pretty simple. A sizable cross section of the USA completely and utterly lost their minds after a dark skinned guy became president, so they got behind the candidate who was most openly and consistently bigoted.
It probably helped that he also had a TV show with a simple catchphrase and hats emblazoned with a jingoistic but ultimately meaningless campaign slogan. However without the relentless bigotry to push his campaign forward, he would have been just a tacky loudmouth grifter from New York with a gold toilet and stupid hair.
Given that these last qualities would, on their own, be far more likely to lose him votes than gain him any with the majority of people who ultimately ended up supporting him, it seems a fairly safe assumption that most of his supporters just really liked the hatefulness he directed towards an amorphous enemy that had been conjured seemingly out of whole cloth, with the aid of a heady mix of fear, gullibility and delusional levels of paranoia.
Of course it didn't really help the other party very much, when they chose to parachute in a Washington insider as their candidate, who possessed almost no charisma, an obviously corrupt ex-president as a husband and a roughly equal level of hubris to Trump.
edit - To be fair, this is not the whole picture. There is also what might be the largest unacknowledged contemporary political group, those voters who are best described by the song 'Asshole', by Denis Leary. For them, Trump was never someone they ever remotely respected or agreed with. They know he is a fool who will wreck the place. And they voted for him for exactly that reason, as they find fucking up shit for the hell of it to be highly amusing.
Except for the part where, you know, that didn't really happen. Obama was a great president for many, many reasons, but one of those was precisely how he managed to turn race relations into as near to a non-issue as could practically happen, given that he could and did appeal to an exceptionally broad and diverse cross-section of American voters. Even by the time Hillary became the Democrat candidate, the attitude had become quite different on all sides, in a way that's hard to underestimate. Trump wasn't always seen as bigoted or even foolish, either.
I do agree that political campaigns have become a lot worse in many ways, with jingoism and even some outright bigotry being a big part of that, but I'd blame that on a broader loss of social cohesion or respect for our most prized political values (including moderation, deliberation, inclusiveness, focus on the complexity of core issues and not on pointless distractions etc. etc.) due to things like the bad economy and perhaps even our attitude to Internet-powered social media.
The Republicans were not a force in southern politics until they embraced racist tactics that gave old Dixie-crats a reason to move.
The Democratic party actually had the South locked as Southerners joined in protest to Republicans trying to push Reconstruction through.
Your argument sounds a bit like Dinesh Disuza when you say... The Democrats created the KKK... Not really. Ex-confederates created the KKK.
As the larger Democratic party embraced civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights the Republicans gave the remnants of the old southern Democrats a place to go in protest...again...against modernization.
I'm sorry about the Disuza reference. I don't mean to be offensive, but he had used that line of argument in the past.
EDIT: Also, just because the Republicans were the party of Lincoln doesn't mean that Reconstruction era Democrats were left on the political spectrum. That's also a tactic that today's right uses. The Republicans of Lincolns day were to the left.
Over time the Democratic party became the side that embraced multiculturalism. It's been a fight, no doubt about that, but it did happen.
Saying that today's (after about 1975 or so) Republican party didn't explicitly make a play for the votes of racist Southerners that had been Democrats historically just fly's in the face of the words of the people who actually carried it out. The people involved have explicitly said that it was their strategy.
Edit: And the Republicans of Lincoln's day were defining their stances in opposition to the Democrats, who were largely agrarian and in favor of local control by the purportedly-virtuous "little guy", against broad economic modernization that would deprive the little guy of his livelihood and make him a sort of 'wage slave' of corrupt industry. You can phrase it as "the Republicans were on the left" if you like, but that's really pushing it.
I don't want an open exchange of ideas.
I think that the Republican party is a cancer on the body politic. I grew up in an almost 100% R state. You won't change my mind. I'm not a Democrat because I like them. I'm a Democrat because I hate the Republican party.
We aren't going to agree to disagree. We are in opposition to one another. That's just life.
Can we stop now? Go ahead and say something clever back. You can have the last word.
It was not a Democrat president who died ending slavery.
The Republican party ended slavery, passed the anti-slavery amendments, and integrated the federal civil service.
The Democrat response was: KKK, Jim Crow, segregation - generally resist the change for generations.
I pointed out one such condition appears to be rule by Democrat party, providing several examples.
What have you got? Flags?
No it isn't, it is clearly about using the current topic as a starting point to then explore the broader issues for human cultures in general and is quite obviously not about the specifics of US politics, no matter how much you may try and misrepresent what was written in order to narrow the scope to that.
"The real reminder is to be aware that under the "right" conditions most people would actively or passively support such things being done to their fellow human beings. The reminder is to be wary of setting the stage for those conditions to materialize."
>What have you got? Flags?
Yes, and I'm from the UK, so be very careful or I might plant one.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
As a depressing guess, unless they are still working off the censored edition, it may well be something along the lines of; 'This reading material is unsuitable due to lesbianism, we must remove all editions from the school library immediately!'
Somehow this point never seems to be learned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0
DS: I don't like to look in the mirror at myself.
BM: Why?
DS: When I look at myself I see the slit eyes, the face that was for four years during WW2 depicted as the enemy.
DS: And it was my enemy too! That face was my enemy because I was a Canadian. And we wanted to go out and kill Japs.
...
BM: Were you bitter or your parents bitter? [3]
DS: I think if one broods on this and becomes bitter and hateful, then ultimately the bigots win, you become them.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g
[3] https://youtu.be/Y2FD0DoHiK0?t=117