Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show with me and Brian O'Neil is a fascinating journey along the highways and byways of American politics. Brian and I consider the rise of Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg, and the potential for dissension in the Democratic Party to build to an even higher level. We also look at the Department of Justice's intervention in the trial of Roger Stone, and whether or not "justice" is being done in that case and under Barr's watch more generally. We then examine the new federal lawsuits against sanctuary states, counties, and cities, and whether we've finally turned the corner on illegal immigration.
Historically, Brian and I talk about the steep price paid by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other critics of the Soviet regime. I make the case that those in America today who regard the Trump administration as dictatorial have entirely lost touch with historical reality: America is not a tyranny. In fact, Americans are among the freest people who have ever lived. Lastly, I discuss the fate of Japanese-Americans in WWII. Their internment in camps as "enemy aliens" was seen as a military imperative at the time, but it has since become regarded as a national disgrace. Moreover, the U.S. government formally apologized and paid reparations to victims and their families in 1988. Like it or not, that provides a precedent for the payment of reparations to other groups going forward. The genie is out of the bottle, you might say, and the politics of grievance threaten now to bring the "American experiment" to a swift and fractious conclusion.
All in all, this week's show is superb brain food. Take a nibble, why don't ya?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GZ0H-hHBKg&feature=youtu.be
Can't resist getting my five cents in here. (Make it $5 for inflation.) With regard to the unlawful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2 by our first Socialist President (guess who), against the advice of the then FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, who said they were not a threat to national security, Hollywood dealt with this subject (to its great credit) back in 1955. (Sorry about that ridiculously long sentence.)
ReplyDeleteThe film was titled "Bad Day At Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy and a host of other fine actors (most are deceased now), filmed in California, and ironically not all that far from Manzanar where a lot of Japanese-Americans were actually interned during the war. I'm not going to do a film review here, as anyone interested can see for themselves.
Anyway, I'm glad a not completely screwed up film industry then (in 1955) could deal with this subject, and without the "F" word used in every other sentence. Ironically, one of the most highly decorated combat units in World War 2 was the 442 Infantry Regiment composed of second generation Japanese-Americans, many of whose families were already interned in camps like Manzanar.
I think my point here (if I even have one at this point, Ha!) is that perhaps the Japanese-Americans who can probably be considered victims of a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution should have received an apology. As I recall, the money given was not much, and I believe there were some high school diplomas handed out to some survivors. Don't quote me on that, because I am NOT an expert on this period of American History. Another Hollywood film that dealt with this (yes, from a somewhat leftist bent) was "Come See The Paradise".
So there is my comment for what it is worth. Interestingly enough, the Japanese- Americans living in Hawaii in 1941 were not interned, at least permanently. My information there, however, might be faulty.
Thanks for your article Dr. Waddy.
Dr. Waddy and Anonymous: So very much to comment upon:
ReplyDeleteIts worth noting that it was proven that some Japanese in Hawaii provided the Japanese Navy key information as to the makeup of the American fleet in Hawaiian waters. Would the Hawaiian natives have fared better under Japanese rule? Ask those of Guam and those of the Philippines and Indonesia!
Japan is an insular country ill suited to accomodating the traditions of countries it may come to dominate. Its better that their government remain within their borders and I say that as one who loves Japan after having been there six times.
Jack The ONLY point I was trying to make in my comments, as you can see, was that our film industry at least called public attention to the fact that many Japanese-Americans were victims of injustice. The film industry did this at a time when it was still not popular to protest this injustice. The movie was made in 1955 only 10 years out of the war, and one movie industry official was hesitant to make it because at the time the very subject was considered to be "subversive".
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Anonymous: Consider the Allied Coast Watchers in Japanese dominated key island chains like the Solomons (Guadalcanal);.isn't it reasonable that Japanese sympathetic observers also obtained?
ReplyDeleteWas FDR, an often otherwise formidable and wise wartime leader, ( eg. his choice of Marshall, King and consequently, Eisenhower as his commanders) completely mislead in his confinement of ethnic Japanese? Was he? Who can say? Certainly the consummate devotion of the Nisei units is to be celebrated and credited forever. Did it represent the totality of Japanese derived America? Did it?
Anonymous: Good point on your part. That many Japanese-Americans were done injustice is undeniable. I would note that at least some of the perhaps leftist dominated film industry was all too eager to make films truly subversive of America, as they saw it.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy:How very encouraging and redeeming it is to witness Dem discomfort over a plutocrat seeking their nomination! Is defeat of the intensely hated Trump paramount to them? The surely Commie Bernie is their man. But gee, maybe he can't win and we'll have to embrace the rich man; oh but the degradation of it! In the end, consummate antipathy to Trump will lead Dems to vote for whoever their candidate is - but how many of them and how many "undecided"? Man, I wouldn't want to be radical now!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous -- thanks so much for the historical context on the fate of Japanese-Americans in WWII. I checked, and you're right that the vast population of Japanese-Americans on Hawaii (far more exposed to invasion and potential subversion than the West Coast) was NOT interned during the war. That's bizarre, and it completely undercuts the stated rationale for internment elsewhere. Food for thought.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like your description of FDR as our first socialist president! Of course, "socialism" is all relative, and the size of the federal government in the 1930s was still puny compared to what it is today. But that's the beauty of "socialism", from a leftist perspective: it can achieve its aims via stealth and patience alone, since -- let's be honest -- government never shrinks and, for whatever reason, the appetite for more of it among a good number of Americans is insatiable. Thus, all a good socialist needs to do, seemingly, is...wait.
Jack -- good point that Japanese rule in their "Co-Prosperity Sphere" was legendary for its cruelty. Of course, I would imagine we created a few of those legends ourselves, but be that as it may the Japanese utterly failed to win REAL allies to help them win their war against us. In that respect, they had much in common with the Germans!
Jack, you make a fair point that the fear that "enemy aliens" would be spies or saboteurs was not totally unfounded. Such things do happen. When one compares the treatment of Japanese-Americans to that of Germans and Italians, however, it's hard not to conclude that simple racism was involved. For heaven's sake, we made a German-American the Supreme Allied Commander (and without a second thought)! We should have been capable of evaluating Japanese-Americans on a case by case basis.
On the other hand, you can make the case (and almost no one ever does) that Japanese-Americans, given the pathological hatred that many Americans harbored towards them, were safer and better off in internment camps than they would have been walking the streets. If FDR had called it "protective custody," perhaps history would have been kinder to him.
As I recall, it was William Randolph Hearst who stirred up all of that hatred towards Asian-Americans out on our West Coast, and well before World War 2 began. Of course, if I want to go back even further, I should imagine that the original Chinese Exclusion Act was a good start on Asian-American bashing.
DeleteAnonymous: I did some reading today about the blacklist days of approx. 1947-60.It did take nerve to risk being seen as subversive by the making of films suspected of being so or employing people suspected of being so. It appears to me that some in Hollywood were Commie sympathizers and since they were participants in mass media had considerable potential influence. Criticism of a recent film on Dalton Trumbo (blacklisted until 1960, when Spartacus, for which he wrote the screenplay, debuted)asserted that Trumbo was a devoted Stalinist; if he was, he was no better than a Nazi. Those ensnared by the blacklist and the investigations who were true Commies deserved to lose their ability to profit by such a sinfully wealth producing industry. But I think that is beside your point about depictions of the wrong done the Nisei, with which I mostly agree.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Hooray for the President for pardoning former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Apologists for criminal typically launch into impassioned assertions of "extenuating circumstances". Well,if helping greatly to conquer a crime ridden "ungovernable" disgrace of a city (against the full and relentless excoriation of the sneering and chattering class) isn't extenuating then what is?
ReplyDeleteYeah, the President can be intemperate in his personal expression at times. Frankly, I admire him for it and I think it possible its net effect is favorable for him and those who welcome his leadership.We are so sick of slicko politicians and their prevarication and disingenuousness. In private no doubt so many of them are crude and vulgar.
So glad the President is cracking down those who lawlessly flout Immigration Law. I'm glad he's doing it now, before the election. Its gutsy and honest and if these Sanctuary types think the majority of the country backs them, well here is a test and good luck to them; they are going to need it. The President is a player; he's no fool.
Dr. Waddy: Solzhenitsyn and the dissidents. May their memory be forever hallowed in a world delivered from the Marxist curse, as we may well be in the foreseeable future. The courage it took to stand against the suffocating weight of Soviet mass inhumanity is perhaps beyond comprehension. Some Communist toady was quoted in about 1956 as saying about a critic of Stalin "why in Stalin's day, there would not have been even a wet spot left of him". The Gulag: in our usage a gutteral sounding term for an incomprehensibly evil reality. In my limited experience One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and the book Lenin's Tomb contain the most appalling descriptions of this beyond hell on earth. Yeah Bernie, its that sociopathy which it takes to support your brand of socialism and I think you know it!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Eisenhower bore a German derived name(at least not Von Eisenhower; actually, I wonder what the Nazis thought of his name)but WWI had perhaps finally proven the willingness maybe first demonstrated in the Civil War, of Germans to fight for the U.S. Very many Italians or their children fought for us in WWI too(yes, we were Italy's nominal ally in that war).
ReplyDeleteBut the Japanese did not participate visibly in our WWI effort . Also, having confined the Japanese population of Hawaii might well have decimated the Hawaiian economy because the Japanese on Hawaii, were a far larger percentage of the population than on the mainland and their positive life and work style was on Hawaii well perceived but not among the general mainland population.
Did unadulterated racial disdain play a part in the mainland Japanese confinement? Given 1940's America no doubt it did but there were other significant factors. One of them was the hideous Japanese army onslaught on the civilian population of Nanking, which generated understandable concerns about the culture of Japan and its army. One American General said "I have never heard of people who fight like this" in reaction to Japanese suicide tactics. Is it not reasonable that such would raise concerns about a culture ca ofpable producing such fanatics? I think not.
Very much looking forward to Dr. Waddy's comments on the recent Democrat Presidential Debate.
ReplyDeleteAlso I hope more people will opt to comment on this blog.
Dr. Waddy: "is it not reasonable that such . . . ." I think so.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous -- yes, anti-Asian sentiment has a very long history in the US. It's clear our wartime propaganda accentuated it.
ReplyDeleteJack: you know my feelings on the "Red Scare". Excesses may have been committed, but the penetration of our government and our culture by pinkos was real enough! It still is. Would that we could purge our institutions again...
I applaud the President's recent pardons too. It's clear that many of those sentences were flagrantly excessive. The Dems have found their favorite new narrative, though: Trump as enemy number one of the rule of law. We can expect they will be like a dog with a bone on this subject for the next nine months. The fact that they have no case at all won't deter them.
Wouldn't it be nice to get Bernie on record on the gulags? I would love to hear his thoughts...
And good point that interning a major fraction of Hawaii's population would have been difficult in the extreme. As for suicide tactics, did the Japanese use any before 1944? Not to my knowledge.
Anonymous, yes -- tell your friends and encourage all of them to partake in our conversation here, pretty please!
Dr. Waddy:Yes,much account of Japanese infantry "Banzai" suicide charges is to be found in descriptions of the Guadalcanal land campaign, in which our Marines distinguished themselves beyond description. And that was before 1944.
ReplyDelete