Sense of fairness seems lost.

[Dinosaur]

It is sad that a sense of fair play seems to have been lost in the past 5-6 decades. I often read accounts of gangs beating somebody up or some young punk hurting a senior citizen.

Circa 1949-1950 when I was in college, my father sometimes called & asked me to go to his warehouse on Sunday to pack up an order for pickup by a freight company Monday morning.

On several occasions, somebody from a local gang would pick a fight with me, the stranger. While I wore glasses & seemed a bit nerdy I was a college conference wrestling champion & slightly better than mediocre at martial arts.

The first 2-3 encounters ended with me hurting my opponent a bit & then saying that I would like to quit fighting, which ended the confrontation.

I noticed that the smallest of their crowd was the first & the next were bigger. I realized if I had to fight the biggest ones that win, lose, or draw I would get hurt.

A friend solved my problem. He knew a fellow named Bernie who had almost made the 1948 Olympic team as a shot putter. Bernie & I rehearsed an act.

The next time I went to the warehouse, Bernie & my friend met me. My friend was small & we seemed to accidentally bump into each other. Bernie, wearing a T-shirt 2 sizes small for him, roared that he was going to get me for hurting his friend. He had biceps as big as some people’s legs & looked formidable in the small T-shirt.

We went into our rehearsed act which ended with Bernie getting up off the ground pretending to have badly hurt arm & a limp due to his leg also being hurt.

After Bernie & his friend got into their car & drove away, a gang member came over to talk to me. I said something like the following.

That guy was so damn strong, I was afraid that he would hurt me badly if I gave him a chance. I did not expect any of you fellows to hurt me, so I did not go all in those fights.

That was the end of members of the gang picking fights.

In that era, a gang would never pick on a lone individual. Only one member would start a fight. There was a code of fairness which does not seem to exist nowadays. I often worry that some young punk is going to cause trouble (I am in my 80's).

BTW: In the 1930's one of the best at martial arts in the USA was a Norwegian named Harry Olsen. I took lessons from him.

Circa WW1, Harry took a job as errand boy on a Norwegian freighter. He was 9-10 at the time & his family was very poor. The crew had shore leave at some port in Japan. Harry got lost & was stranded in Japan.

It was a very sorry situation. Few, if anyone, in Japan spoke Norwegian. The owner of a dojo heard about Harry & allowed him to live in the dojo. True martial arts masters seem to be decent folks. Harry was in Japan until the early 1930's & became extremely adept at various martial arts. By that time a relative had come to USA & prospered. He sent Harry money to come to the USA where he got a job at Herman’s gym in Philadelphia. I took lessons from him for 2-3 years. While I was never much better than mediocre at martial arts, the training made me a damn good grappler.

 

[Buddha12]

When a group of bullies were walking down the hallway at Jr. High school one came over to me as I was going to walk down the stairway to my next class. He started to push me around so I just shoved him back and he fell down those stairs and broke his back. They never bothered me again nor did anyone else.

 

[iceaura]

Possibly the childhood small world illusion.

But some possibilities exist. For one, recall that around the end of the "fair fight" norm the cities of the North saw a huge migration of black people from the Jim Crow regions of the south. One of the cultural norms they had been living under was abuse by gangs of men who did not "fight fair" - so that an isolated or vulnerable black person was subject to violent assault at any time.

Or as the guy said: "If you teach a lesson in meanness to a person or an animal, don't be surprised if they learn that lesson".

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I think World War II (including the aspects of it that were only made widely available after it was over) established the fact that there is no sense of fairness in the world, even at the level of national governments. This realization couldn't help but permeate all the way down to the most personal levels of society.

• The Germans launched an effort to kill, literally, all the Jews on earth. This included children, who of course are killed in any large war but only as collateral damage. In WWII they were regarded as a danger to Christian society and herded into the death camps along with their adult relatives.
• Since Perestroika, the wartime records of Poland and other Eastern countries have been opened to Western scholars, who discovered to their horror that there were more than three times as many concentration camps in Europe as had always been believed. This means that virtually every European civilian knew about them and almost no one tried to do anything about it. Most European Christians hated all Jews even more vehemently than most Americans of European ancestry hated all Americans of African ancestry. (Yes yes, people like Schindler and a couple of small nations like Denmark stand out as beacons of fairness and decency, but there were not enough of them.)
• The roundup of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and their internment in "relocation camps"--and the seizure of all their assets--while of course not coming close to the horrors of the Holocaust, was nonetheless a breakdown of the sense of fairness at the national level.
• The deployment of nuclear weapons against civilian populations was done specifically to show the Japanese that the USA had absolutely no sense of fairness and honor, so we would have no qualms about using our superior numbers, technology and other resources to literally annihilate their entire population if they did not surrender.
• This attenuation of fairness is by no means limited to Western and other modern industrial nations. The partition of India and Pakistan was a bloodbath in which Hindu and Muslim citizens killed each other in the "fog of war" simply out of hatred.
• And that wasn't the end of it. The subsequent Pakistani civil war, resulting in the creation of Bangladesh, included, arguably, even more senseless Muslim-on-Muslim violence than the original partition.
• In order to prosecute its "War on Drugs," the shit-for-brains United States government has managed to offload the violence to Mexico, where thousands of innocent civilians are killed in the crossfire every year. This generates virtually no outrage in the USA itself, even though the statistics are published at regular intervals. Americans are just happy that the streets of our own cities have not turned into war zones as they were during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s. The fact that this campaign has resulted in absolutely no change in drug use, and instead serves only to maintain the profits of the banks who launder the money and of the alcohol and pharmaceutical companies who don't want the competition from drugs which can be prepared by amateurs (or in at least one case, grows wild in almost every climate and requires no preparation at all except a match) is one of the most egregious examples of the complete loss of a sense of fairness in the world's largest government.

With role models like these, who can expect the average citizen to be any more fair and honorable?

 

[Dinosaur]

Fraggle Rocker:A sad POV

With role models like these, who can expect the average citizen to be any more fair and honorable?

Monkey see; Monkey do seems like a weak code of ethics, capable of justifying any behavior.

 

[Jeeves]

There are social forces at work, always, directed by power interests.
When boy scoutism is generally advocated in a culture, look behind the curtain for a government that expects to fight only "just wars", pass egalitarian legislation and practice a large degree of economic isolation/self-sufficiency.
When GTA behaviour is encouraged by mass media, look for directing interests that want to sell overpriced consumer goods, fight dirty wars and pass elitist legislation.

 

[Undefined]

Hi Fraggle Rocker.

I think World War II (including the aspects of it that were only made widely available after it was over) established the fact that there is no sense of fairness in the world, even at the level of national governments. This realization couldn't help but permeate all the way down to the most personal levels of society.

• The Germans launched an effort to kill, literally, all the Jews on earth. This included children, who of course are killed in any large war but only as collateral damage. In WWII they were regarded as a danger to Christian society and herded into the death camps along with their adult relatives.
• Since Perestroika, the wartime records of Poland and other Eastern countries have been opened to Western scholars, who discovered to their horror that there were more than three times as many concentration camps in Europe as had always been believed. This means that virtually every European civilian knew about them and almost no one tried to do anything about it. Most European Christians hated all Jews even more vehemently than most Americans of European ancestry hated all Americans of African ancestry. (Yes yes, people like Schindler and a couple of small nations like Denmark stand out as beacons of fairness and decency, but there were not enough of them.)
• The roundup of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and their internment in "relocation camps"--and the seizure of all their assets--while of course not coming close to the horrors of the Holocaust, was nonetheless a breakdown of the sense of fairness at the national level.
• The deployment of nuclear weapons against civilian populations was done specifically to show the Japanese that the USA had absolutely no sense of fairness and honor, so we would have no qualms about using our superior numbers, technology and other resources to literally annihilate their entire population if they did not surrender.
• This attenuation of fairness is by no means limited to Western and other modern industrial nations. The partition of India and Pakistan was a bloodbath in which Hindu and Muslim citizens killed each other in the "fog of war" simply out of hatred.
• And that wasn't the end of it. The subsequent Pakistani civil war, resulting in the creation of Bangladesh, included, arguably, even more senseless Muslim-on-Muslim violence than the original partition.
• In order to prosecute its "War on Drugs," the shit-for-brains United States government has managed to offload the violence to Mexico, where thousands of innocent civilians are killed in the crossfire every year. This generates virtually no outrage in the USA itself, even though the statistics are published at regular intervals. Americans are just happy that the streets of our own cities have not turned into war zones as they were during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s. The fact that this campaign has resulted in absolutely no change in drug use, and instead serves only to maintain the profits of the banks who launder the money and of the alcohol and pharmaceutical companies who don't want the competition from drugs which can be prepared by amateurs (or in at least one case, grows wild in almost every climate and requires no preparation at all except a match) is one of the most egregious examples of the complete loss of a sense of fairness in the world's largest government.

With role models like these, who can expect the average citizen to be any more fair and honorable?

While I have no qualms with most of what you said above, and your examples supporting your general take on this, I am intrigued at your perspective on the US-Japanese Wartime example. From what I have read and what some old (Aussie) diggers have told me about their wartime experiences/knowledge, it seems you may have missed some background information which may alter your above 'take' on this specific US-Japanese example. Let me explain....

Regarding internment of Japanese-americans, it was common practice in times of war to minimize/deny "Fifth Column" danger/resources/materiel to the wartime enemy. Anything less than internment precautions etc would have been criminally negligent and possibly treasonous during times of war (and most Japanese-american internees understood this and were not unduly surprised to find themselves interned).

That was the general 'wartime exigencies' background. Now to specifics...

1) The US was SNEAK attacked by a TOTAL WAR enemy without any preliminary, thus declaring war by attacking. Unfairness was the starting tone, brought by the Japanese, not the US.

2) The ruthlessness and barbarity on civilian, women and children was demonstrated by Japanese actions in China; then continued against its occupied peoples in South East Asia. Demonstrating that the Japanese considered 'fairness' was a sign of weakness to be ruthlessly exploited and exterminated.

3) The very fact that US soldiers showed mercy and compassion for defeated enemies was taken by the Japanese as a sign of weakness, and many US soldiers died while trying to HELP the injured/captured enemy because the enemy booby trapped themselves with grenades and waited for the US soldiers to come treat their wounds and help them to a place of safety.

4) the fact that most Japanese troops swore not to surrender, and were convinced by lies and propaganda that US soldiers would butcher anyone surrendering, made it almost impossible to show fairness when the enemy did not understand that fairness was the US soldiers creed (until the barbarism of some enemy pushed individual soldiers beyond their limit and they had to be careful when approaching surrendered enemy with less compassion that before).

4) While the US was positioning for invasion of Mainland Islands Japan, they suffered horrendous casualties in conventional actions along the island chains towards Japan, so when the Atom Bomb option became available, it was only wartime-reasonable-strategy to use it rather than lose even MORE thousands of soldiers invading mainland Japan, where the populace was just as scared/lied to that they would all not surrender and cause UNIMAGINABLE FURTHER carnage on both sides which could be avoided by putting the lie to the propaganda and forcing the Japanese to see wartime-reason and STOP the slaughter. It could be said that all those (on both sides) who survived because there was no conventional invasion owed their survival to those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That slaughter prevented an even greater one, for both sides.

5) Remember that the war in Europe against German and Axis Powers was also brutal for all sides there. The Nazis showed no fairness or mercy, especially to US prisoners during the Nazis' futile "Battle of the Bulge" gamble where US prisoners were shot in cold blood rather than be taken away from the battlefield/action. That created a response in the hard pressed US soldiers in the "Bulge" fighting of 'take no german prisoners' because the SS divisions in the "bulge" action murdered US prisoners first and the news got around and made the outnumbered/outgunned etc US soldiers fight back more resolutely against superior forces.

6) It was this sort of horror and madness that convinced the US to use the Atom Bomb to end the war with Japan to bring that slaughter to an end as quickly as possible.


I hope I have given you and others a little pause for thought before blaming the US for practically everything that went wrong with the world then and now? And if fairness is the standard, then I would rather face US forces than almost any other in the world.

Good Luck and good thinking over the summer/winter break, and always, Fraggle, everyone! And DO be careful and stay safe during your respective festivities and celebrations!

 

[iceaura]

Monkey see; Monkey do seems like a weak code of ethics, capable of justifying any behavior.

I agree with you that when discussing the loss of a cultural norm within the US, an imitation of the US treatment of foreigners and outsiders is an unlikely explanation - as well as a non-explanatory one (the US had been unfair to others in similar and worse ways for generations, so why the loss of the "fair fight" norm now?).

My own positing, there, about the influence of a migratory flux of people raised under Jim Crow and Klan influence, has other basis than simple timing: we see "fair fight" norms in other and older cultures, but they seem to develop and hold only between members of some ruling class or "nobility". Jousting between knights in medieval Europe, dueling in 18th and 19th century European cultures, single combat challenges in a variety of cultures going back thousands of years (David and Goliath, the siege of Troy, Shogun Japan), these customs did not extend to, protect, or involve, peasants and slaves and the like.

So when a formerly oppressed peasantry (blacks in the US, say) rises up the ladder, starts to set some of the larger cultural norms themselves, the "fair fight" norm is often lost - or deliberately abandoned of necessity, among those bound to lose in such setups (the American Revolutionary peasantry dismissing with scorn the "fair fight" norms of European battle, say).

Rewgarding internment of Japanese_americans, it was common practice in times of war to minimize/deny "Fifth Column" danger/material to the wartime enemy. Anything less than internment precautions etc would have been criminally negligent and possibly treasonous during times of war.

And yet Germans, Mexicans, Italians, Russians, Swiss, and others, were not interned - or even inconvenienced much.

"Common practice in times of war" was no excuse for the manifest abuse and injustice of the Japanese internment - a lot of things had been common practice in times of war in other countries, that the US was specifically and explicitly and proudly established to eliminate as common practice on its own soil. We betrayed our principles under pressure, and let down our nation, and weakened our country thereby - lesson learned, one hopes.

, so when the Atom Bomb option became available, it was only wartime-reasonable-strategy to use it rather than lose even MORE thousands of soldiers invading mainland Japan, where the populace was just as scared/lied to that they would all not surrender and cause UNIMAGINABLE FURTHER carnage on both sides which could be avoided by putting the lie to the propaganda and forcing the Japanese to see wartime-reason and STOP the slaughter. It could be said that all those (on both sides) who survived because there was no conventional invasion owed their survival to those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Oh bullshit. Once the US had the atom bomb, it was never going to invade Japan, and no invasion was on the table - the only decision facing the US was how best to demonstrate the existence and power of the thing, which had been carefully kept secret for some reason even after we knew we had it and nobody else did. We chose to do that by incinerating not just one but two civilian populations - men, women, and children - apparently simply to check out the different designs in a real world situation, and intimidate the Soviets. That was not a good decision, morally, and the consequences of that atrocity have been percolating through American society ever since.

 

[Undefined]

...

And yet Germans, Mexicans, Italians, Russians, Swiss, and others, were not interned - or even inconvenienced much.

"Common practice in times of war" was no excuse for the manifest abuse and injustice of the Japanese internment - a lot of things had been common practice in times of war in other countries, that the US was specifically and explicitly and proudly established to eliminate as common practice on its own soil. We betrayed our principles under pressure, and let down our nation, and weakened our country thereby - lesson learned, one hopes.

Oh bullshit. Once the US had the atom bomb, it was never going to invade Japan, and no invasion was on the table - the only decision facing the US was how best to demonstrate the existence and power of the thing, which had been carefully kept secret for some reason even after we knew we had it and nobody else did. We chose to do that by incinerating not just one but two civilian populations - men, women, and children - apparently simply to check out the different designs in a real world situation, and intimidate the Soviets. That was not a good decision, morally, and the consequences of that atrocity have been percolating through American society ever since.

That's because most European-americans were ready and eager to go and fight Fascism/Nazism and against the Axis forces in Europe. The Nazis did not invade USA homeland, so a "fifth column" from European-american persons/resources/materiel was less of a potential threat than the Japanese-american one.

When you are attacked (as in Pearl Harbor) by an enemy proven to be so barbaric (in China) and are at imminent danger of not being able to defend successfully unless you take all measures to reduce the dangers to successful defence/response, you would be stupid and inept to use precious time to look at each INDIVIDUAL case like you would do in a fair court of civil law. It would have taken YEARS to sift out the fifth column threats from the entirely neutral/friendly Japanese-americans. What fantasy world do you live on, to deny the REALITY of wartime EXIGENCIES against such imminent threat of invasion by such barbaric forces involved in the Nazi-Nippon alliance at those desperate insane times?

If what YOU claim/opine above was true, they would not have needed to sacrifice all those brave young men in the island-by-island clear out of the enemy so as to obtain forward bases for CONVENTIONAL BOMBING and TRANSPORT/RESUPPLY of INVASION MATERIEL TROOPS. If you weren't so obviously subjective and fantasy driven in your 'reading' of the facts, you might have seen that it was obvious to anyone (who was not living on another planet) that, until the A-bomb was available, the conventional actions went on along the island chain towards Japan and the conventional bombing and plans for transporting invasion troops/materiel went on because a conventional invasion was then the only option.

Making up your own 'history' to suit your own propaganda/prejudice 'agenda' is too lame for words, mate! No more of it, ok? Thanks. Bye.

 

[paddoboy]

It is sad that a sense of fair play seems to have been lost in the past 5-6 decades. I often read accounts of gangs beating somebody up or some young punk hurting a senior citizen.

I agree.
Bullies need to be stood up to and as much pain inflicted on their person, as they so cowardly inflict on others.
Perhaps if the relatively recent " softly softly" approach was abandoned for good old fashion discipline in the home and at school.
That view is expressed with a couple of examples in the ""Knockout" fun game" thread.

 

[billvon]

It is sad that a sense of fair play seems to have been lost in the past 5-6 decades.

I remember my grandfather saying that. I'm sure his grandfather said that as well. And someday, your great grandkids will look back at the 2010 era as a golden age, when people were respectful of their elders, were community minded etc etc.

 

[iceaura]

That's because most European-americans were ready and eager to go and fight Fascism/Nazism and against the Axis forces in Europe.

So were the Japanese Americans, ready and eager to fight the fascistic government of Japan and its allies. No difference - except the internments.

Or maybe there was some difference: In fact, the kind of fifth column of American industrialists (such as the anti-Semitic and Fascist sympathizing Joseph Bush, father and grandfather of future Presidents) selling oil and and other war materials to the Axis right up through the 1940s was much less influential in the Pacific theater - much less of a worry. There was no large movement of Japanese Americans advocating neutrality and peace with Tojo and cooperation with the Japanese military expansion, as there was in the German American community regarding Hitler and Mussolini (and Stalin). And the kinds of surprise military attacks in American territory - torpedoing of American flag merchant vessels along the near Atlantic, killing of American sailors in American waters - we saw from the Axis prior to US entry into the war did not exist in the Pacific theater. Even Pearl Harbor, recall, was a colonial military outpost 2500 miles from the nearest American city - the entire width of the Atlantic.

When you are attacked (as in Pearl Harbor) by an enemy proven to be so barbaric (in China) and are at imminent danger of not being able to defend successfully unless you take all measures to reduce the dangers to successful defence/response, you would be stupid and inept to use precious time to look at each INDIVIDUAL case like you would do in a fair court of civil law. It would have taken YEARS to sift out the fifth column threats from the entirely neutral/friendly Japanese-americans. What fantasy world do you live on, to deny the REALITY of wartime EXIGENCIES against such imminent threat of invasion by such barbaric forces involved in the Nazi-Nippon alliance at those desperate insane times?

That is an example of the kinds of damage a moral decision as bad as Nagasaki will do to a society - the mental pretzels necessary to justify it, to somehow set things up so it was OK and right, cripple one's ability to think, to learn, to recognize simple truths.

I remember my grandfather saying that. I'm sure his grandfather said that as well

I don't. It's not an illusion - there was a young male fair fight cultural norm holding across a wide swath of the US, and it has largely disappeared. That's not to say things are worse or better now (I'm not nostalgic for the days of routine playground fistfights), merely that there is a visible difference - just as with unlocked doors, guns in school lockers, permitted clothing, drug choice and availability, walking long distances to school, and a variety of other aspects of childhood that have changed.

 

[Undefined]

Hi iceaura.

So were the Japanese Americans, ready and eager to fight the fascistic government of Japan and its allies. No difference - except the internments.

Or maybe there was some difference: In fact, the kind of fifth column of American industrialists (such as the anti-Semitic and Fascist sympathizing Joseph Bush, father and grandfather of future Presidents) selling oil and and other war materials to the Axis right up through the 1940s was much less influential in the Pacific theater - much less of a worry. There was no large movement of Japanese Americans advocating neutrality and peace with Tojo and cooperation with the Japanese military expansion, as there was in the German American community regarding Hitler and Mussolini (and Stalin). And the kinds of surprise military attacks in American territory - torpedoing of American flag merchant vessels along the near Atlantic, killing of American sailors in American waters - we saw from the Axis prior to US entry into the war did not exist in the Pacific theater. Even Pearl Harbor, recall, was a colonial military outpost 2500 miles from the nearest American city - the entire width of the Atlantic.

That is an example of the kinds of damage a moral decision as bad as Nagasaki will do to a society - the mental pretzels necessary to justify it, to somehow set things up so it was OK and right, cripple one's ability to think, to learn, to recognize simple truths.

Leaving all that other obvious and well known stuff aside (ie, many thought the British would 'soon collapse' like France, Belgium and Poland against the Nazi onslaught, hence the 'realists' so-called doing business with anyone while they themselves were 'not in the war' etc etc), there was a very IMPORTANT and IMMEDIATE difference between the European-americans and the Japanese-americans! In the case of the European-americans, the US govt had plenty of lead time (during the lead-up to world warII) to get a good idea of who was anti-Nazi, who was 'neutral/uninterested' and who was a possible ACTIVE RISK in any future conflict between US and the Nazis IF that ever came to pass. UNLIKE the Japanese-americans case, where Japan attacked without warning and started the US-Japanese conflict.....meaning that there was NO TIME or 'lead-up' scrutiny/assessment over years to identify who would pose a threat and who would fight etc from the Japanese-american community at the time.

See? The UNKNOWN quantity of which Japanese would fight for or sabotage against the US was too difficult to make up for as there was NO TIME for individual longterm scrutiny/assessment as there was for all the European-americans who made their individual positions/sympathies clear in a time of US 'neutrality', so that there was very little to worry about except some particular people/organizations which may have been 'moles'....but NOT an 'en masse' threat/unknown as the then Japanese-americans were UNAVOIDABLY treated as because the SURPRISE ATTACK by Japan gave none of them any 'neutrality time' in which the US govt could have assessed them as they had with the European-americans.

I trust your 'take' on this (and many other aspects) will be informed by this important difference, and so better target your opinions/attacks?

Good luck and good thinking, iceaura, everyone! Stay safe.

 

[iceaura]

In the case of the European-americans, the US govt had plenty of lead time (during the lead-up to world warII) to get a good idea of who was anti-Nazi, who was 'neutral/uninterested' and who was a possible ACTIVE RISK in any future conflict between US and the Nazis IF that ever came to pass. UNLIKE the Japanese-americans case, where Japan attacked without warning and started the US-Japanese conflict.

None of the German, Mexican, Swiss, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, or other Nazi sympathizers were interned, regardless of the "active risk" the posed (Joseph Bush and his kind were not merely "risks", but actual active backers of Hitler and betrayers of the US) - despite many of them organizing and actively supporting Hitler and the Axis (and Stalin), despite the open support from the Catholic Church with its many followers, despite the dealings of war materials and supplying of other goods to the German military effort in opposition to US foreign policy and even criminal law,

and meanwhile, even after several years of open hostility between the US and Japan, even including US alliances with the Chinese and others against the Japanese invasions, even with the buildup of military tension and growing expectations of direct military conflict with Japan, even with years of preparation and increasing potential for military conflict, there was no such organization and traitorous behavior among the Japanese American community.

I trust your 'take' on this (and many other aspects) will be informed by this important difference, and so better target your opinions/attacks?

Yes indeed - a notable addition to the body of evidence I have compiled for the seriousness of the mentally and psychologically crippling effects atrocities have on the people of the societies committing them. A society committing an atrocity such as Nagasaki, as a free choice especially - what is called in tennis an "unforced error" - condemns a large fraction of its population to mental handicap, the devotion of energy and reason to shoring up twisted and constantly eroding mental defenses and justifications of the indefensible and unjustifiable, the necessity of establishing a fantasy as the historical record.

The Japanese have only this past couple of years even admitted, officially, that the Rape of Nanking happened as the evidence and eyewitnesses describe it - that anything other than a regular military invasion and occupation took place, or that Japanese soldiers acted badly without - what was the phrase above, justifying the occasionally questionable behaviors of US soldiers? oh yes: "the barbarism of the enemy (Chinese, in this case) pushed individual soldiers beyond their limit". Because their justifications for Nanking and related events sound eerily familiar to anyone listening to the officially framed discussion of Nagasaki, or even smaller events such as My Lai and the related day's events, Abu Ghraib, that kind of thing.

The connection between the weakening and demoralizing effects of such self-justification, and a loss of the fir fight cultural norm, does not seem direct to me, though. Treatment of foreigners and outsiders seems to belong in a different compartment of the mind.

 

[Dinosaur]

The internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 was outrageous.

After the Civil War, many Orientals, mostly Chinese & Japanese came to America for various jobs, especially to work on building the Western Railroads.

Many of those interred were 2nd to 4th generation American citizens, due to having been born here. There is was no justification for interning them without at least some investigation of their activities.

BTW: I do not think that their property was confiscated, although many lost real estate due to non payment of taxes. I do not remember mention of bank accounts being confiscated.

The government should have at least allowed amnesty on the real estate taxes. Once incarcerated, many had no cash reserves for payment of taxes.

BTW: The Quakers (Society of Friends) campaigned against internment. I am not sure about the stance of the ACLU, assuming it existed then.

 

[Undefined]

None of the German, Mexican, Swiss, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, or other Nazi sympathizers were interned, regardless of the "active risk" the posed (Joseph Bush and his kind were not merely "risks", but actual active backers of Hitler and betrayers of the US) - despite many of them organizing and actively supporting Hitler and the Axis (and Stalin), despite the open support from the Catholic Church with its many followers, despite the dealings of war materials and supplying of other goods to the German military effort in opposition to US foreign policy and even criminal law,

and meanwhile, even after several years of open hostility between the US and Japan, even including US alliances with the Chinese and others against the Japanese invasions, even with the buildup of military tension and growing expectations of direct military conflict with Japan, even with years of preparation and increasing potential for military conflict, there was no such organization and traitorous behavior among the Japanese American community.

Are you kidding? The attack on pearl harbor was dependent on the spies already in the US for some time. But since there was no overt acts to sabotage or otherwise bring attention to themselves, that Japanese-american spy organization operated practically unnoticed until the attack. What planet do you live on, that you would think no Japanese-americans were spies in US.


Meanwhile, the European-americans you mention above were already KNOWN and were being watched and used for counter-espionage and false-information campaigns against the Axis in Europe. That was possible precisely because they WERE known, unlike the case of the UN-Known Japanese-american cells/civilians who secretly sympathized with their Japanese once they started the Pacific war.

And about their attitude to what the Japanese were doing in China, the Japanese were not THEMSELVES threatened by Chinese invasion by any China-supporters, were they? So no Japanese-american had any qualms about what Japan was doing in China or what other countries (including USA) did ON CHINESE SOIL (ie, not to Japanese mainland) to prevent Japan doing worse.

Please stop and think about all the CRUCIALLY VAST differences between the situation of European-americans and that of the Japanese-americans. Some of those differences I already pointed out above and earlier. NOW add to that the fact that, European-americans had their OWN 'old country' homelands devastated and/or occupied by the Nazis, so had NO love for the Nazis (especially those German-americans who ESCAPED the Rising Hitler violence and purges and came to America!). So the European-americans were NOT sympathetic but antagonistic (if they had any non-neutral stance at all), and their views were by that time well-known and aired, so the US could ignore many and concentrate on actual threats.

Now compare that to the case of Japanese-americans. Their homeland had not been threatened by anyone at that time, nor invaded or devastated, had it? So they had no reason to make an opinion/view about Japanese homeland/war, and certainly had no reason to make public comments about US-Japanese relations before the war; and after the attack starting the war, they had no time to either return home and fight or stay and spy/sabotage (if they were given the chance to). Hence the only sensible precaution for US to do was intern all Japanese-americans, because their individual/collective INTENTIONS were UNKNOWN at the time and would take too long to assess for everyone.

Also by that time the US was aware of Japanese-Nazi co-operation and intelligence/arms information exchanges, so the fear of fifth column Japanes-Nazi cells was too immediate and real to ignore; hence the mass internment because no time to sort through all the possible 'German-Japanese' collaborators among the Japanese-american community.

Stop and consider ALL the factors before condemning what happened at the time of SURPRISE ATTACK making wartime decisions imperative/paramount.

Yes indeed - a notable addition to the body of evidence I have compiled for the seriousness of the mentally and psychologically crippling effects atrocities have on the people of the societies committing them. A society committing an atrocity such as Nagasaki, as a free choice especially - what is called in tennis an "unforced error" - condemns a large fraction of its population to mental handicap, the devotion of energy and reason to shoring up twisted and constantly eroding mental defenses and justifications of the indefensible and unjustifiable, the necessity of establishing a fantasy as the historical record.

It appalls me to see you use a 'sporting term' of "unforced error" in this context! Have you no sense at all of the ENORMITY of the events and situation at the time? While you sit there typing rubbish at the keyboard, you have no idea of the DESPERATE REALITIES on the ground at that time. So please desist from making a 'game' out of HISTORY and WAR tragedies.

What 'condemns' people is the self-serving agendas and propaganda 'twisting' and 'ignoring' of the facts on the ground THEN, for your petty and outrageous misrepresentation NOW, far removed from the suffering and the exigencies in wartime. You have no idea of the OTHERS who suffered, and you just concentrate on SOME to 'justify' your own subjective views of 'right and wrong'. If you had been on the RECEIVING END of the HORRORS on BOTH sides, you would be less sanguine about 'black and white' characterizations/blame, and you would be more concerned to have ALL the facts and extenuating/informing background circumstances....so that you could come to the balanced view based on ADDITIONAL information/circumstances which you obviously DID NOT know or consider until I just pointed them out to you.

The Japanese have only this past couple of years even admitted, officially, that the Rape of Nanking happened as the evidence and eyewitnesses describe it - that anything other than a regular military invasion and occupation took place, or that Japanese soldiers acted badly without - what was the phrase above, justifying the occasionally questionable behaviors of US soldiers? oh yes: "the barbarism of the enemy (Chinese, in this case) pushed individual soldiers beyond their limit". Because their justifications for Nanking and related events sound eerily familiar to anyone listening to the officially framed discussion of Nagasaki, or even smaller events such as My Lai and the related day's events, Abu Ghraib, that kind of thing.

The connection between the weakening and demoralizing effects of such self-justification, and a loss of the fir fight cultural norm, does not seem direct to me, though. Treatment of foreigners and outsiders seems to belong in a different compartment of the mind.

What is the matter with you? How can you equate the situation I described that was happening at the Battle of the Bulge' in Europe, with what the Japanese did in China? The Bulge atrocities were first done by the SS divisions, against under-armed/under-manned US/Allied soldiers resting in that are. Despite their surprise and initial superiority, the SS commanders decided to execute all allied prisoners in cold blood. Only THEN did the US soldiers become enraged and fought back against superior force with the resolve necessary for THEMSELVES and their comrades NOT to be taken prisoner and murdered as well! The US soldier fightback was legendary because of their awful plight and few number/arms in horrible blizzard conditions for days on end. The individual soldiers then decided to fight back and take no prisoners of their own, since they also would be at a further disadvantage against the SS onslaught at the time. This all happened in the heat of DESPERATE BATTLE, and NOT as a 'policy' by US commanders (unlike the SS who deliberately CHOSE BEFORE BATTLE to murder any allied prisoners). Get it?

While the murder by Japan in China was genocide on a large scale, involving civilians of all situations as well as soldier-prisoners. Anyway, the barbaric actions of Japan in China did not affect Japanese-americans and so no-one had voiced any concern one way or the other. So US had no indication of what they would do when the attack on Pearl Harbor started the Pacific war. Hence mass and indiscriminate internment of ALL Japanese-americans was the only thing to be done at the time. Get?

And the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were done for more than one reason, one of which I earlier pointed out. The other reason was to give Stalin pause for thought in his ambitious plans to take over all of germany despite the allies' opposition to his plans. It worked. Stalin just kept to his German sector.


Mate, as a friendly bloke, I am willing to overlook much from one who may be misunderstanding or missing something altogether; but actual willful ignoring of the facts on the ground at the time (which I have now apprised you of) cannot be tenable based on partial view of what happened and why. If you persist in making such generalized assumptions and omissions just to push your personal subjective view of such tragic realities as were involved in this matter we are discussing, then I must tell you straight that I cannot stand by and let you deceive yourself let alone others with your obviously biased reading of history and ignoring of crucial information you have now been made aware of. That is why I spoke up at all in the first instance; to help inform/correct what were obviously partially informed opinions and not representative of all the facts involved on the ground at the time.

Good luck and good thinking, iceaura, everyone!

 

[iceaura]

Are you kidding? The attack on pearl harbor was dependent on the spies already in the US for some time. But since there was no overt acts to sabotage or otherwise bring attention to themselves, that Japanese-american spy organization operated practically unnoticed until the attack.

The spies you are talking about were in Hawaii, not the US - they were farther away from the US than Berlin is. Few of them were Japanese Americans. But at least you admit they committed no sabotage, did not supply Tojo with oil and steel and military gear for the invasions of China et al, did not infiltrate the US government and install agents in major war industries and research operations, and in general were much less of a hazard (despite the buildup of hostilities in the Pacific, with the US supporting China and the whole theater on a war footing) than the large factions of Nazi and Soviet sympathizers among other US ethnic groups - who were none of them interned, despite overt opposition and undermining of the war efforts.

NOW add to that the fact that, European-americans had their OWN 'old country' homelands devastated and/or occupied by the Nazis, so had NO love for the Nazis (especially those German-americans who ESCAPED the Rising Hitler violence and purges and came to America!). So the European-americans were NOT sympathetic but antagonistic (if they had any non-neutral stance at all)

That is false. Many German, Mexican, Irish, Austrian, Swiss, Spanish, Italian, and other ethnic Americans were ardent Nazi supporters and sympathizers, and they were much more active in their support than the few Japanese Americans who may have supported Tojo in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor.

] It appalls me to see you use a 'sporting term' of "unforced error" in this context! Have you no sense at all of the ENORMITY of the events and situation at the time?

The enormity of the atrocities the US committed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never be downplayed or minimized - if that is your point, then I accept correction.

The point I was making was that the decision to commit them was not forced - the situation was not desperate, the US was in no immediate danger, the war was won, there was plenty of time to think and plan and weigh the several favorable alternatives for forcing surrender. The US incinerated those cities deliberately, with advance planning, and after carefully forestalling all other possibilities including any hope of ending the war earlier.

What is the matter with you? How can you equate the situation I described that was happening at the Battle of the Bulge' in Europe, with what the Japanese did in China?

Didn't. Not even close. And that's obvious, actually.

That is why I spoke up at all in the first instance; to help inform/correct what were obviously partially informed opinions and not representative of all the facts involved on the ground at the time.

So far we have from you a litany of historical errors - that the US government had not investigated the Japanese community to create a list of dangerous people prior to Pearl Harbor, as it had the German and other ethnic groups (the government had compiled a list of politically dangerous Japanese starting in 1939, along with its list of Germans, Italians, etc), that the internments of Japanese were based on reasonable suspicion of possible disloyalty and spying etc (note that orphaned children with 1/16th Japanese ancestry were interned on the West Coast, while in Hawaii almost no Japanese were interned - the exact opposite of what a fear of spying and sabotage would recommend, much more consistent with simple racism), that European Americans were all - or even mostly - strongly opposed to Hitler and no risk of undermining a war effort against the Axis, and so forth.

You are coming to illustrate the OP here - no sense of fairness, no honest attempt to address issues, just a bunch of bs and rant in the service of what looks more and more like a bad conscience. It's not your fault the US interned its Japanese ethnics and no others, it's not your fault the US carefully prevented the Japanese from finding out about the Bomb or negotiating surrender until it had a chance to drop two of them of different designs, incinerating whole cities full of women and children and old folks. But the US will never be able to protect itself from making such moral errors in the future, if it refuses to recognize them in its past.

And this amnesiac, ahistorical approach to evaluation of alternatives may be a clue as to why and how the fair fight norm eroded away - the sense of accountability over time, of building a reputation in a community, of guarding one's honor, is probably important to the fair fight norm.

 

[Syne]

The spies you are talking about were in Hawaii, not the US - they were farther away from the US than Berlin is.

:facepalm: Learn some geography.

 

[Dinosaur]

Talk of Japamese spies in Hawaii is nonsense & a red herring.

Does anyone think that the Japanese military could not find Pearl harbor without the aid of spies?

Does any poster here believe it was legal and/or ethical to incarcerate 2nd to 4th generation American citizens & allow ther real estate to be confiscated due to unpaid taxes?

I wonder if the real estate issue was the main motive.

 

[Undefined]

Talk of Japamese spies in Hawaii is nonsense & a red herring.

Does anyone think that the Japanese military could not find Pearl harbor without the aid of spies?

Does any poster here believe it was legal and/or ethical to incarcerate 2nd to 4th generation American citizens & allow ther real estate to be confiscated due to unpaid taxes?

I wonder if the real estate issue was the main motive.

Why 'nonsense' or 'red herring'? Didn't you know that the spies were on the ground there to keep the Japanese Admiral informed as to the layout on the day in Pearl Harbor? The Admiral needed to sink the US fleet or the attack would be futile. It was only unlucky for the Japanese that some of the fleet happened to be out at sea and not trapped like the rest.

Very funny. lol. Even you could find Hawaii. That wasn't the point why the spies were there. The Planners of the aerial torpedo attack runs had to know precisely which ships were moored where (especially the more dangerous/important ones) and when most ships' gun crews and communications/engine room complements were ashore and the ships unable to manoeuvre or defend effectively etc.

And apart from all the other WARTIME 'unfairness' on all sides, the subsequent INTERNMENT unfairness probably saved many Japanese-american families from being murdered by neighbors/communities who had lost families/countries to either the Japanese in China and/or the Nazis in Europe (because the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was part of an Axis collaboration/split-up of the expected 'spoils' of war between the Nazis and Japanese), because if left in the community, angry frightened mobs would not distinguish between innocent/guilty Japanese-americans. It was BRUTAL TOTAL WAR times by then, remember; and the horrors from Nazis in Europe and Japanese in China were all to real and imminent to those then threatened when the Pacific stage of the conflict was 'unfairly' ushered in by the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As for the real estate issue, who knows? Probably some motivation in that direction on the part of individual crooked officials/mafia at the time. But that was overshadowed by the specters of fear and annihilation by ruthless enemies whose record of atrocities far outweighed anything US citizens had had seen before the Nazi-Nippon Axis Powers horrors in Europe and China and later in South-East Asia.

Looking at it all from the comfort and temporal remove of your computer chair makes you forget the fear and madness that gripped the whole globe then. Desperate measures out of unreasoning fear accounts for many of the unfair actions on all sides. Those are different from unfairnesses carried out coldly and methodically by the Nazi and Japanese military/govts. History records it. No amount of trying to 'compare' the unfairness from US and Allies (except maybe Soviet Union, which as an ally of necessity not choice), to the unfairness and brutality of total war brought by the Nazi-Nippon Axis powers, will ever make them of the same calibre or intent. The proof of this is the way the defeated German-Nippon Axis populations/countries were treated by the US/Britain after the war, as compared to how they were treated by the Japanese and Germans during the war (and by Soviets afterwards in the cold war).

Give some credit where credit is due, that is my point; and don't tar everything/everyone with the same brush. Total War is obvious never fair; that some fairness emerged from it at all is due to the US-British sense of fair play when the defeated enemies were HELPED to get back on their feet under a proper democracy construct where fair play was more possible than in the Nazi-Japanese social constructs before and during the TOTAL WAR period which we are still feeling the 'echoes' of even now, and which will take even more time to transition away from its more nasty legacies.

Good luck to you, Dinosaur, everyone!