EO 9066 Nisei relocation. America's LESS than Finest Hour. Can it happen again?

[night driver]

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154


Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation
In an atmosphere of World War II hysteria, President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. Although it is not well known, the same executive order (and other war-time orders and restrictions) were also applied to smaller numbers of residents of the United States who were of Italian or German descent. For example, 3,200 resident aliens of Italian background were arrested and more than 300 of them were interned. About 11,000 German residents—including some naturalized citizens—were arrested and more than 5000 were interned. Yet while these individuals (and others from those groups) suffered grievous violations of their civil liberties, the war-time measures applied to Japanese Americans were worse and more sweeping, uprooting entire communities and targeting citizens as well as resident aliens.

[Jeffrey Thomason]

I just read in another thread that the Japanese were evil, so this must have been okay.

[bbwx]

Nothing new under the sun. What was done in WWII when we were a much freer nation would be easier to do today then then. All it would take is another horiffic attack even bigger than 911 and if they finger a certain grouping a lot of American's would clamor for it and use WWII as a precident. Of course it will only be temporary......

[Jeffrey Thomason]

Nothing new under the sun. What was done in WWII when we were a much freer nation would be easier to do today then then. All it would take is another horiffic attack even bigger than 911 and if they finger a certain grouping a lot of American's would clamor for it and use WWII as a precident. Of course it will only be temporary......

There were people asking for it after 9/11.

Also see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133952/ which came out in 1998.

[MtnGal]

Yes, only this time it will be anyone who still believes in the Constitution.

[Jeffrey Thomason]

Yes, only this time it will be anyone who still believes in the Constitution.

That's the problem with giving the Government too much power... "the good guys" aren't always in charge.

[Lenno]

You need to keep it in historical perspective:
The Axis Powers controled all of europe, most of asia and the Pacific., The Nazies were poised to take North Africa, the Suez Canal and Iranian Oil Fields. Australia was being bombed daily and Japanese troops had been landed several times on it's north west shore. Nazies controled segments of the Atlantic Ocean. The Japanese were in the Alution Islands a US Territory.
It wasn't just the Japanese interned, it was Germans and Italians as well, over 100,000. Internment was the norm with the Allied powers, vs. execution with the Nazies and N.I.P.s
Heck my father could not exit the USA because he had a German last name.
In the FDR Libary there is a memo from the War Dept that ALL major US Naval Bases had been penetrated by Axis agents as well as many US Army bases.
What will happen in the near future will not be Internment in a Republic, it will be Re-education, followed by genocide, in a Marxist State

[moestooge]

Yes, only this time it will be anyone who still believes in the Constitution.

You can add Bible believers to the list.

[dirtpig67]

You need to keep it in historical perspective:
The Axis Powers controled all of europe, most of asia and the Pacific., The Nazies were poised to take North Africa, the Suez Canal and Iranian Oil Fields. Australia was being bombed daily and Japanese troops had been landed several times on it's north west shore. Nazies controled segments of the Atlantic Ocean. The Japanese were in the Alution Islands a US Territory.
It wasn't just the Japanese interned, it was Germans and Italians as well, over 100,000. Internment was the norm with the Allied powers, vs. execution with the Nazies and N.I.P.s
Heck my father could not exit the USA because he had a German last name.
In the FDR Libary there is a memo from the War Dept that ALL major US Naval Bases had been penetrated by Axis agents as well as many US Army bases.
What will happen in the near future will not be Internment in a Republic, it will be Re-education, followed by genocide, in a Marxist State

So in the same post you justify and support the actions in the past, but yet are fearful that it will be used to ill effect in the future.

As long as support is given to the government to define and trample on the rights of "them" under the banner of keeping us safe, there will always be a threat of you becoming that target group some day which must be dealt with for the benefit of the state.

Issues like this are an all or nothing proposition. Once you grant and support the government's ability to take such actions, even in the most extreme of cases, you grant and support the government's ability to do the same thing to you one day.

[Disastercat]

You can add Bible believers to the list.

While this is possible, I would suspect the first people rounded up would be either from a targeted country (if they decide on one) and/or those who either practice the Islamic faith or even come from such a back ground (even if they have converted to another faith or are pretty much typical secular Americans after a couple of generations).

That's exactly pretty much what happened on the California coast and I went to school with people whose parents had been interred, my mother had friends that were interred and I even worked with an elderly former internee just before I got married. Obviously the excuse was different, but the Japanese were thought to be loyal to the Emperor above the US (blamed on religion) and the Germans/Italians were just seen as potential spies (the Japanese as well).

For the general public to "tolerate" internment camps (which may or may not later turn into real concentration camps) at first the target has to be a group of people who is disliked, seen as a threat and/or disloyal to the over-all nation.

That's why in Germany they started with Criminals, drunks and other "low life" who were sent to well publicized and even photographed "camps" where they were forced to do exercise, eat a proscribed diet and do useful work. From what I've seen (don't know for sure) these places were more like adult boot camps than the later (and hidden) concentration camps. They gave the German public the idea that this is what a "camp" was, so later when they went after other groups of people; the mindset would be there of a somewhat harsh but "reasonable" say to deal with "unproductive or errant people."

From Criminals in boot camp, it wasn't a very big step to other despised groups like Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and as time went on evangelical Christians (of any stripe not willing to go with the program), Catholics who refused to follow the party line etc.

But it didn't happen all at once and it started with a combination of targeted already hated or marginalized groups (that were easy to get the public to further marginalized) combined with initial "camps" that seemed to actually be doing "good" or at least could be flogged that way to the public.

Later, when the Red Cross or others came to visit, they would just stage a temporary "camp" to show how happy everyone was and then dismantle it a few days later and send folks back off to the gas chambers or to be worked to death.

This was also used to fool the German public in continuing to think that whatever the rumors were it wasn't "that bad" and besides only people who were a "threat" or "criminals" were sent there. Since by that point simply having Jewish blood was a crime, this was even technically correct but probably would not have been stood for in the early days if the German authorities had started out with - "gee, I think we'll just round up all the Jews, let a few rich ones pay their way out and gas the rest! We'll tell the German people its just the Final Solution..."

I am not supporting the Islamic Faith and I do not practice it (and I'm not Jewish or Japanese either) but if you go ahead and "look in context" you will see the majority of Americans were told to beware of "traitors" even those with US passports, if they had the wrong parents or grandparents (or immigrated themselves).

If this sounds familiar today it is because we are hearing the same old lines directed at both "home-grown" "terrorists" (aka Patriot Movement, Tea Party, etc) and "Radical Islam" which is pretty much anyone the US wants to target.

My guess is that if Christians (especially evangelical or non-main stream denominations) are targeted; like Germany, it will be further down the line. Which doesn't make it safe, if anything this is more dangerous...it is also the reason that one of the most famous quotes of the era came from a young evangelical pastor who was taken to the camps himself (he lived to tell the tale but most did not).

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.


Martin Niemöller