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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25447 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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According to Wikipedia, out of the 100,000+ Japanese interned during the Japanese internment, about 1 % died, which presumably is not that far off from the amount that would have died anyway. Even this is generally considered to be a black mark on American history and particularly on FDR's record; I can only imagine how it would be treated if it had been more like 80 % dead, even if the deaths weren't done directly.

American civilians faced no threat from Axis bombers, only a dozen or so died due to enemy action. Had any Japanese-American starved, it was either a hunger strike or a deliberate withholding of food. Meanwhile Japanese in Japan and Germans in Germany had their food supply distrupted by unrestricted bomber and submarine warfare. Even if Germans treated Jews as kindly as Americans did Japanese-Americans, a greater fraction would have died.

This argument reminds me of some who point out that diring the Pacific war a greater fraction of American soldiers captured by the Japanese died in captivity, than Japanese POWs in American custody. Sure, but while the American captors got delivered ice cream, Japanese captors were forced to eat belts and each other. To condemn Japanese for not giving more to Americans than even themselves got seems to be an isolated demand of charity.

The whole idea that "well, the Germans just had to put the Jews in the camps" seems to be based on an assumption that Jews are some sort of a self-evident, ontological evil.

As you point out, even the most righteous among the nations involved in WW2, the US, saw it fit to intern ethnic minority civilians. Minorities were everywhere looked at with suspicion.

As you point out, even the most righteous among the nations involved in WW2, the US, saw it fit to intern ethnic minority civilians. Minorities were everywhere looked at with suspicion.

This was after Japan had declared war on the US. Germany, by contrast, was not going to fight Israel, given that the latter didn't exist at the time. What threat did the various targeted minorities pose to the German people that the Germans did not invite unto themselves by invading the nations where those people lived?

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