Apparently some knucklehead at The LA Times thinks Japanese internment during WW II was just something for Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals in the US to do – like a job (h/t: Joy Ann Reid – a journalist who is very good at what she does).
is the @latimes giving a platform to clueless racists? one reader thinks so pic.twitter.com/ySBdcXEC9J
— nasty woman (@runolgarun) December 12, 2016
.@latimes YOU ACTUALLY PUBLISHED THIS pic.twitter.com/O7WEYE0wUl
— nasty woman (@runolgarun) December 12, 2016
This is the Manzanar interment camp:
I think the guard tower is a nice touch for people just doing their job by staying out of the way…
And this was just one of eight camps. I realize that these are letters to the editor, but the LA Times‘ editors did not have to publish them. They chose to do so. Why? Magic balance fairy? Being edgy and provocative? Who knows. Since the LA Times has the time to waste on absolutely inaccurate, reader supplied, historical revisionism, perhaps they should find something useful to do with all that time.
Patricia Kayden
What in the living hell?
SiubhanDuinne
This appears to be a good time to remind everyone that if you’re near a cinema that carries Fathom events, you might want to go see George Takei’s “Allegiance” this Tuesday night.
Here’s the link; check your own ZIP Code for a theatre near you, along with screen times. Fathom link.
As you probably know, Takei (who was just a child at the time) was interned along with the rest of his Japanese-American family. “Allegisnce” explores his experiences.
I plan to go see it, and would love to hear from other Juicers who are doing the same.
James E Powell
This is not the country we claimed it was, but the country we feared it was.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: One of my friends from aikido spent time in Manzanar as a child.
Yarrow
Seems like an appropriate thread to link this – Dorthea Lange’s censored photographs of Japanese internment camps.
Click through for the photos. Heartbreaking.
Adam L Silverman
@James E Powell: Its the country that it has too often been, but we prefer to pretend it hasn’t.
wenchacha
Dammit! Were any German Americans “gotten out of the way?” I don’t remember any stories from my extended family with Germanic names. What is it with this new way of interpreting the history so that UP is DOWN?
Also, my daughter-in-law is a Japanese national. She’ll be okay, I say to myself, because she and our son are in California. So, thanks a heap, LATimes.
SiubhanDuinne
Hey Adam, I fixed it for you.
Gravenstone
Whomever the author of that piece of shit article is needs to become unemployed, immediately and in perpetuity. Institutionalized for their own protection as they are clearly cognitively deficient would be the kind thing to do.
SciNY
What a crock of Orwell doublespeak. Disgusting. Next he will excuse Nazi concentration camps & Stalin-era gulags by saying that Jews, gays, journalists, and dissidents simply did their assigned jobs of “getting out of the way” and “not causing complications.” Seems like this guy is buffing up his portfolio for propaganda minister in the Trump era, since real journalism will be harassed, gaslighted, and maybe even banned outright.
Drunkenhausfrau
Not to mention that all their properties, businesses, etc. were seized… I guess that was like forced war bond saving? Wtf?
dnfree
Why did we intern the Japanese in case they were disloyal, and not the Germans? It would have been easier for citizens of German heritage to blend in physically while committing acts of terrorism or sabotage. Hmmmm.
Adam L Silverman
@wenchacha: No during WW II. Yes during WW I.
Mnemosyne
Of course, part of the Japanese-Americans’ “contribution” to the war effort was to essentially have their property stolen by the government and sold off with absolutely no recourse after the war, and with only a paltry partial “reparation” in the 1980s after most of the people with a claim had died.
celticdragonchick
Hey, all those folks had a the important job of letting machine guns and rifles be pointed at them! Somebody had to do it you know. And you know what? They also had the exciting job of standing by and watching their property be stolen from them without recourse and their jobs and livelihoods stripped away for years because we are at war makes any and everything magically right!
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Apparently they are letters to the editor. Whoever the editor is that made the decision to publish them is the one who should be held accountable.
Omnes Omnibus
On the plus side, our ovens baked bread. I think that FDR was one of the greatest presidents we have had. Internment is a major blot on his legacy. Most of the other iffy things can be explained by “let’s get this done and fix the details later.”
amk
goebbels must be kicking himself for being born in the wrong country and in the wrong century.
PhoenixRising
The letters were pushing a line of thought that is troubling: Japanese-Americans were subjected to prejudice and acts of violence by non state actors in the period after Pearl Harbor (which is true), therefore confining them to camps was the only option to keep those little nits I mean Japs I mean children safe. From racist whites. Who can’t be expected not to assault their fellow Americans who look like the people who attacked the US.
Keep an eye on that logic, because you’ll see it again in 3 weeks after the next major terror attack. Which I expect during our 1st year of President You’ve Covered Your Ass, Now Get Out II: The Ignorance Multiples.
celticdragonchick
@wenchacha: German citizens were interned in some cases and some were actually deported after the war.
Wikipedia, with the usual cautions and and so forth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
From what I remember, many of those Germans interned kinda went out of their way to get noticed with pro Nazi statements, membership in Aryan clubs etc.
That was NOT the case with Japanese Americans.
Timurid
At this point our elites just want to watch the world burn.
Major Major Major Major
I want to defend this sort of, because the surfacing of insane racist beliefs that your neighbors hold is a legitimate function of the media. Obviously this is the wrong way to do it. But I just can’t get over how fucked up it feels to be watching revisionism happen in real-time. The Nazis are gaslighting the country.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I do not disagree that FDR was one of our greatest presidents. This was a huge error and is a major blot not only on his legacy, but on the country’s.
SFBayAreaGal
The Tanforan Race Track that held the Japanese Americans is now Tanforan Mall. I live a few miles from the mall.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Amendment cheerfully accepted.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Still on the pain killers?
celticdragonchick
@Major Major Major Major: I had wondered some years back if there was precedent for a modern , educated country to actually slide into ignorance and educational decay without war or other exterior factors…because we seem to be doing that to ourselves and I cannot figure if any other recent nation has done something similar.
GregB
Next week the LA Times takes a look back in time to determine if Emmett Till was a victim of a crime or if he got what was coming to him for being so fresh to a white woman.
PhoenixRising
@Major Major Major Major: Yup.
The headline was the only maybe-wrong thing about this. People who are willing to put their names on these abhorrent ideas are in our communities. They live and work among us. I for one am happier knowing who they are than just having a creepy feeling that they are on the internet, anonymously.
Mike J
They were out of Dutch Treat so I got Thai Girl. It’s the only way to deal with these people.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Absolutely nothing (say it again!)
Yarrow
@PhoenixRising: Yes. Agreed. I fully expect some dramatic “terrorist act” (modern Reichstag fire) here within the first year. Then the Muslim registry. If they can tie other “undesirables” to it, even better.
They’ve already mentioned the Japanese internment camps as an example of a good way to deal with dangerous people here in the US. Came up during the election. This letter wasn’t sent by accident. The editor who ran it is playing the part of the useful idiot. The only excuse for running it would be if an explanation of what happened during WWII and the apology and reparations we paid after that were attached to it. Use it as a teaching opportunity. And even that, I don’t know…
SFBayAreaGal
@Adam L. Silverman seems like the LA Times hasn’t changed.
“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”
— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942
ArchTeryx
This actually was a plot point in an extremely unexpected place – the old 80s movie The Karate Kid. Miyagi, Daniel’s karate instructor and mentor, was a war hero for the American side in WWII – he even had a Medal of Honor! – but his family was interred in Manzanar.
Due to the poor grade of medical “care” in the camps, she died of complications due to childbirth. While he was away fighting for America, his country murdered his wife and newborn son by malign neglect. That cognitive dissonance was so great he had to drink himself stupid every year, at the anniversary of the event.
In what was otherwise a fairly fluffy and sentimentalist movie, the scene that this was revealed to Daniel stood out above all else, and brought home the horror of what had been done to these people…including the families of many who had fought selflessly for the U.S. in WWII. It’s good that these photos are actually seeing the light of day, and endless raspberries for the L.A. Times for that abominable bit of historical revisionism.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: with their level of competence I’m expecting a massive actual terrorist attack in the first year.
SFBayAreaGal
@Yarrow: I started crying. Never, never again.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. Yesterday laughing or coughing caused severe pain and flop sweat. Today, I have progressed to just severe pain. Woohoo.
Dread
Every year, as I go to Mammoth Lakes, I pass by Manzanar off highway 395.
It’s a barren place, a high desert where the temperatures can breach 100 degrees during a summer day and plunge down to 40 degrees at night.
A place without water. A place out of the way of prying eyes.
A lone guard tower stood, restored by the park services. A measure of barbed wire fencing. A bungalow rebuilt as it was… a long hall to store people. People without freedom. People without privacy. Women used the sheets they were given to partition the room so people could have some dignity when they changed clothes.
By some accounts, the guards stationed there were cordial, but there was no doubt about which way those guards had their weapons pointed. They were pointed in. Pointed at the people who had been condemned to prison without due process. People who lost their jobs. Their businesses. Their homes. A lifetime of work gone because white Americans were paranoid that their neighbors who were different were a threat.
It took courage for those people to build some semblance of normalcy in a prison camp. It took courage for those people to not hate the country that had done that to them, but to humbly try their best to return to their lives when it was all over. It took courage to stand up and continue to demand an apology from the country that had wronged them.
And how quickly every generation forgets just how insidious fear and racism can be. Every child should visit Manzanar. Every child should see the barren wasteland we sent kids their age to. Every child should cry at the stories of the victims of our prejudice.
God damn those who would repeat the past.
Lizzy L
@Major Major Major Major: Avert!
celticdragonchick
O/T
Out neighborhood has the annual luminary lighting and Christmas party tonight, which was held outside down in the actual (very pretty and wooded) park that the neighborhood is built around. A fire pit was burning away nicely, s’mores were everywhere, kids and dogs running in the early crisp evening and it honestly looked like something from 70 years ago in a Christmas movie or some such
. I brought a board of cheese and sausage along with plenty of spiced, hot German Christmas wine in punch bowl which quickly vanished…so I refilled back in the kitchen with a couple bottles of merlot,heated on the stove, some orange slices, a cup of sugar and a packet of mulling spices you can get from high end grocery stores.
Worked great. I managed to get about one mug left out of all of that. It was a beautiful night tonight.
Yarrow
@SFBayAreaGal: They’re really powerful, aren’t they? I hadn’t seen them. The pictures of the businesses being closed, the children. Heartbreaking.
In, “Oh, it’s on” news. The CIA is subtweeting.
Omnes Omnibus
Did anyone catch the SNL Merkel interview last night? Link.
catclub
Fucked up elections get noticed:
Banana Republic is not just a clothing store.
Major Major Major Major
@Lizzy L: not following you.
@catclub: Snow Crash was a fun book.
randy khan
Oh, dear Lord.
I’d like not to believe this, but I’m not really even surprised.
cmorenc
It might have been justified for the LA Times to publish that lady’s letter IF the editor had written a reply directly underneath convincingly refuting the lady’s bullshit claims and pointing out how many ways the internment policy turned out to be needlessly cruel, unnecessary, and wrongheaded in its assumptions, and what a stain it put on what the United States supposedly stood for. Sunlight is often a potent cleanser.
SFBayAreaGal
When the Iranian hostage crisis occurred in the late 1970s, there were groups stating all Iranian Americans needed to be rounded up and put into internment camps. It was the Japanese American community that spoke out the loudest against doing this.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
You could be right, but it seems more and more that 9/11 was an extremely lucky one-off event.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: Memorial Day. 50 rental trucks, one Nice per state.
These things are simple.
ETA: especially with a weakened NSA.
Omnes Omnibus
@cmorenc: I’ve said in other places that publishing those letters with an Op/Ed condemning the concept would have been responsible. Publishing them with contrary letters would have been responsible. This? It was not responsible.
James E Powell
@Yarrow:
From the linked photo essay:
This reminds me of so much of today’s RW propaganda and RW worldview.
Lizzy L
@Major Major Major Major: An old (and useless) response to someone making an evil wish or foretelling an evil future. In the same class as making the “two horns” gesture to ward off the evil eye.
Lizzy L
@cmorenc: This would, indeed, have been the correct way to handle this. Depending on the amount of response/pushback they get, it may yet happen.
Yarrow
@James E Powell: Breathtaking, isn’t it?
Mnemosyne
Also, too, let’s not forget that this was published in the major newspaper for a state that just voted for Hillary Clinton by about 70 percent in a high turnout election.
If this bullshit can be published here, imagine what they’re going to publish in newly red states along the same lines.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Doesn’t even have to be 50 states. Could be five or ten. Just enough on the same day to create fear and chaos. Then round up the Muslims.
bluehill
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is truth. I thought 1984 was meant to be a cautionary tale not a how-to book.
Yarrow
@SFBayAreaGal:
I remember reading something a few months ago suggesting that the rise of fascism around the globe is possible because of the passing of the WWII generation. There are few Holocaust survivors left to tell the tale. Few of the people who liberated the camps. People don’t remember how bad it was. It’s history. How bad can it really get, people think. They don’t know.
Same of Japanese interned in the camps. If people start talking about putting Muslims in camps, there won’t be very many people who remember how that was alive who can speak out. George Takei is one, and I’m sure there are more, but there aren’t many left.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: One day at a time. One day at a time.
jenn
@Yarrow: Thank you!
dmsilev
I’ve lost track. Is the LA Times still part of TribuneCo, or did it get spun off after the corporate raiders finished sucking all of the marrow out of the pension plans and other ‘available’ assets?
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Long ago, I bounced a toboggan on my left ankle during a winter break from Basic. I just tied my left boot really tight and FIDOed. That was cool. This hurts.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: just trying to illustrate how the casualties could reach 9/11 levels.
burnspbesq
@Dread:
Yup. If you’ve driven by, you won’t have any illusions about what it was like.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: My wife and I visited Manzanar 3 years ago, it was more like a prison out in the middle of nowhere(hot in the summer and cold as shit in the winter).
BlueDWarrior
@Yarrow: I believe this is why so many political philosophers believe in the cycles of history. Ultimately most people must experience something, or have close relationships with someone who did, in order to truly learn something. A book or a film can only teach do much, especially when a significant portion of your fellow travelers want to live the narrative because it makes them more comfortable.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
If we’re sharing not-so-bad things that happened today, I supported a local business by buying $80 worth of stuff at The Ripped Bodice, a local specialty bookstore.
And if anyone can’t figure out which genre they specialize in, they need to get out more. ;-)
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Yep. And there’s also been reporting on Spain, which went through a more recent experience with fascism under Franco (ended in 1975), is the one bright exception in Europe. No significant anti-immigrant/anti-refugee movement.
opiejeanne
@Adam L Silverman: My dad and his parents were friends with a family who were removed to Manzanar and later to Montana. Grandma wrote to them the whole time, sent them sugar from her own family’s rations, and other things that were hard to get; I think she mentioned buttons. The boy my dad’s age went into the army a little earlier than Dad; Dad was a skinny little guy and they rated him 4F at first. We have pictures of the young man, Kay, in his uniform, photos of his wife and child. The family came back after the war, and the “friend” who was taking care of their property for them had sold it while they were gone; they had to start from scratch.
I just recently tracked down Kay and found out that he died last year, and his wife had just died. I may contact the family and see if they’d like to have the photos.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: But my response is that we not seen that ‘one Nice per state’ over the past 15 years. Such a thing has been possible (in principle) the past fifteen years.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Tracking. Rib cartilage is nothing to mess around with.
James E Powell
@cmorenc:
I used to believe this, but this year showed that it also causes some things to grow, others to come out of the woodwork.
opiejeanne
@Yarrow: I’ve seen only a few of those before. Thanks for the link. Amazing photos.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: I assumed you meant “lucky for the terrorists”.
Yarrow
Los Angeles people, just saw this:
There’s a map on the tweet if you click through.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I think what Major^4 is worried about is a false flag operation, either by the Trump government or another state actor (like China or Russia) that wants to sow chaos.
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: Absolutely amazing that we’d steal the homesteads of people while they were actually serving. But, of course, these were all part of the greatest generation… (Copyright: Tom Brokaw, the Man Who Invented World War II)
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: no, just pointing out that a real one is super easy. One of the reasons all the patriot act stuff was such a transparent security state power grab.
opiejeanne
@dnfree: The Japanese who were interned were supposedly only the ones living along the West Coast; that was the plan, at least. If they interned them from other areas I do not know.
I’ve had friends whose German parents were ostracized as kids during the war because of their heritage but it was bullying by locals, not a systematic process by the government. Some changed their last names to sound more English than German, quietly moved to another town.
jenn
I don’t know how many of you know about James Keelaghan, but he’s one of my favorite singers and songwriters. One of his songs that I sing all the time (and probably a majority of the time, tearing up) is Kiri’s Piano. Reading this, singing it again, breaking down in utter sobs – that this is where our country is right now. It’s a beautiful song, for anyone who hasn’t heard it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Lx7mjwNr0
James starts singing at about 0:42.
Best wishes to you all.
fuckwit
@Adam L Silverman: this is a good candidate for the new mantra. except when every day gets worse than the last.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I’m worried about a false flag operation, but I’m having a pretty paranoid weekend. I may need to drink more, or at least take a Benadryl before bed.
bluehill
Long, interesting twitter thread about Russian subversion of U.S.
Yarrow
Feel so bad for these kids.
Mnemosyne
@bluehill:
Here’s the Storify version — it’s easier to read.
BlueDWarrior
@bluehill: it’s been posted a couple of times, but I think it’s a good summation of the conditions that have created this crisis
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Yes, it has been posted before. Several times.
trollhattan
My congresswoman was born in an internment camp. She’d be thrilled at this piece, I’m sure.
Suffragete City elftx
The world is turning into a bad redditt thread..just off the rails insane.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I still can’t get a single conservative to give me a rational explanation for why we would want to deport young people who want to live here and contribute to our society. Letting them stay and get educations and jobs would pay for itself within about 10 or 15 years. But even a practical argument doesn’t work on most ‘wingers.
Lizzy L
@Yarrow: This makes sense to me. I was born on West 13th St in NYC, I grew up among people with numbers tattooed on their arms. My father and all his brothers fought in the war. I knew a man (he was both mentor and friend) who served in the US Army in WW II, and was in the infantry division that first entered Buchenwald. He spoke of it, sometimes. One can understand why the Armenians refuse to forget their rage against the Turks — because the cause of that rage has never been acknowledged by the perpetrators. The more we lie about or conceal or minimize the horrors, the more likely they are to be repeated.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know, that’s why I have the Storify link handy. It really is easier to read it that way.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: they broke the law. These are people who believe in original sin after all.
bluehill
@Mnemosyne: Oops. Haven’t been going through other posts. Sorry for the repeat.
Raven Onthill
@Mnemosyne: All they need to do is make a policy of harassing Muslims, then wait for someone to snap. That seems to be what worked for Hitler.
BlueDWarrior
@Mnemosyne: because the lying narrative comforts them in the immediate, and woe betide you trying to break it up.
Mnemosyne
@Raven Onthill:
It already worked in San Bernardino. Now it just has to work somewhere else as well.
Nick
@wenchacha:
Germanic-Americans as a class weren’t gotten out of the way, but Mennonites were. Not solely because of their ethnicity, but as German-American pacifists. My relatives who were draft-aged men in WWII were forcibly enlisted in the army, and then when they refused to serve, sent to army camps in rural California. These stayed open surprisingly long after the war ended, and their occupants (who were not all Mennonites, but included pacifists, socialists, and other groups) never received the veterans benefits that they technically qualified for.
Brachiator
WTF? What the living fvck?
I have said recently that the LA Times has died as a viable journalistic enterprise, and is on its last legs. The publisher is a puppet of the corporate master that now owns the paper, and editors and the best writers have taken buyout offers and are long gone.
There is still some good work being done, but veteran journalistic instinct, and common sense, is no longer present.
In the not so old days, a letter like this would never have been published, not even to be provocative.
And for the record, I say this as someone who worked for the Times, and still know a lot of the past staff.
I also know people whose families were forced into the camps.
opiejeanne
@Brachiator: Not all of them; Michael Hiltzik is still there and he’s damned good.
Lizzy L
@Major Major Major Major: Gonna push back a little here, since I too believe in original sin. I don’t know what their religious beliefs are, but I think what matters most is that they are authoritarians, and for them, rules and applications of the rules are primary. They want to regulate, control, and restrain themselves and others.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Dude. This is what we keep telling you. This is exactly what our media is now.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
Wasn’t the 442nd RCT one of the most decorated units of the war? It was entirely Japanese soldiers stationed in Europe.
Mike J
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini: Go For Broke, with Van Johnson, is a pretty good movie.
Yarrow
Since this is a thread on our media, I hadn’t seen this before:
Major Major Major Major
@Lizzy L:
That’s not true though. It’s very selective. I think it’s a combination of a predisposition towards religion, authoritarianism, and not wanting to press 1 for English.
Timurid
@Yarrow:
Trump is not acting like somebody who will ever have to worry about winning another election. He’s not trying to fool anybody. This is not going to be some kind of long con boil the frog scenario. Some of us think we have a lot more time than we probably do…
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: This is not a smart idea. It would be interesting to find out which member of Congress proposed this amendment.
EBT
http://www.brynntannehill.com/drums-in-the-deep/
Nick
@Timurid:
I completely agree with this. Events are going to happen fast, there is not going to be a pretense of subtlety, and no fig leafs are going to be given to norms or expectations.
BlueDWarrior
@Timurid: Trump and his cabal executing a smash-and-grab would not suppose mine in the least.
People want to hate the elites, and for good cause some of the time, but one thing that keeps this whole enterprise stable is that leadership doesn’t want to gut the goose to get the eggs faster.
If people think the government was terrible before, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Timurid
@Nick:
And getting comprehensively called out on the Russia thing is only going to speed up his timeline. One way to avoid Special Prosecutors and other scary creatures is to move as quickly as possible to the point where such things are no longer relevant…
bluehill
@Mnemosyne: Been thinking about why Trump is going out of his way to provoke China and I wonder if he or Bannon/Kushner are setting up China to be the unifying enemy going forward. Islamophobia was useful for scaring the masses to get elected, but it’s not really a cohesive entity in the way that a country is and we’re so much stronger it’s not much of a contest if we do have the things Trump has threatened. China on the other hand is obviously an easier enemy to define and already recognized as an economic and growing military threat. It would put pressure on U.S. businesses to limit their ties, which could temporarily shift jobs to U.S.. Lots more Chinese/Asians in the U.S. for people to hate on. I know kind of nuts, but so is poking the Chinese in the eye.
Yarrow
@Timurid: No. He is acting like an authoritarian dictator. I’m afraid that those who are depending on our institutions to defend us are going to be sorely disappointed. The people who study authoritarian societies have been screaming about this for awhile now. We have very little time left to do anything.
@Adam L Silverman: Had you heard about this before?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Actually, it’s not. There is a lot of whining about a monolithic mainstream media that is pro-conservative or pro-corporate. Along with this is willful ignorance to the death spiral of the newspaper industry and the rapid exit of competent journalists.
And apart from the easy example of Fox News propaganda, there is little understanding of how conservative news directors shade news stories. KFI radio here is a good example.
Mnemosyne
@EBT:
I have a touch of deep dark humor on that, so dont read further if you’re not in the mood:
Well, at least we can look forward to Ivanka and Jared getting strung up like the Ceaușescus did.
/small comforts
Nick
@Timurid:
Yep — the amazing thing about Trump’s trajectory is he’s basically a missile. If he ever starts to lose momentum, he’s finished. If he’d lost the campaign he was facing several different types of business destruction — now he’s got enough juice to keep moving for a while longer.
BlueDWarrior
@Yarrow: I think this is one of the more obvious failure states of democracy-based governments that we don’t have an institutional check for.
Enough of the population has lost it and are trying to actively sabotage anything resembling good governance in favor of establishing a permanent white conservative Christian society, to where you can scarcely imagine how and where to fix things even if both Trump and Pence were struck by meteorites.
Lizzy L
@Major Major Major Major: Again, I don’t fully agree. But I am not going to take this any further, because I’m tired and don’t feel like putting the effort into a long response. Sorry.Perhaps another time.
@Nick: I just came across this. It seems apropos of what we are facing. I have no doubt T would agree with it.
Dostoevsky, Crime & Punishment
EBT
@Mnemosyne: I am nothing if not gallows humor.
Mnemosyne
@bluehill:
That may be the plan, but it’s basically suicide. How long do you think Americans will be willing to go without textiles — clothing, shoes, sheets, towels — before there are riots?
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: A lot of those things are made elsewhere now – Bangladesh, for instance. Didn’t Ivanka just move her business to Ethiopia or something. There are lots of places to make those things if China is the enemy.
Brachiator
@bluehill:
There are news stories that the Taiwan call had been in preparation for months, and that Bob DDole, of all people, was involved. In short, it’s currently unclear how much of this hint at new policy is coming from Trump and his people, and how much is coming from the GOP political establishment.
BlueDWarrior
@Mnemosyne: I dunno honestly. A lot of Trumpets seem like they are down with the cause, but who really knows when it comes time to buy new sandals and they’re $100 due to lack of supply.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: I’ve been reading stories for a while now about how China is losing jobs to cheaper places due to offshoring and outsourcing.
@Brachiator: Taiwanese nationalists have always been a minority part of the GOP establishment.
Ruckus
@Lizzy L:
I couldn’t recall where I’d read that long ago. My only thought is that the men who think they are extraordinary almost never are and that men who want to be ordinary usually aren’t. OK that and isn’t our system supposed to treat everyone the same about guilt and innocence? Or have I been mistaken for decades? And yes I know that it rarely actually works out that way, just that it’s supposed to.
BillinGlendaleCA
The Manzanar Cemetary.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: Sure, good luck getting a smartphone though.
EBT
@Yarrow: Who will buy all our soybeans and corn though?
Yarrow
@Brachiator: It may not even be GOP establishment, but individual players with their own agendas. Trump seems to listen to the last person he talked to. If that’s obvious to us you know it’s clear to people that actually interact with him. Anyone could flatter him and hand him a phone. He’ll happily talk away.
cokane
this is a bit of nutpicking adam, papers publish plenty of letters, especially online
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Can’t they make an iphone in America for not a whole lot more? I thought I read that somewhere.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: After they strip out environmental protection laws, worker compensation laws, and overtime laws.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Wow. I guess this is really wanting to run the government like a business. CEO President Trump is in charge of the government public relations department, and can fire people who don’t make America look good.
It’s amazing how Obama was a dictator to conservatives, but they are jumping to give Trump more authority.
Yarrow
@BillinGlendaleCA: Trump brings jobs back to America. Make our smartphones here. Hire children to make them since Betsy DeVos gets her way and child labor laws are overturned – work is good for children.
@EBT: Russia?
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: Here it is. Only twice as much. They could probably move somewhere cheap-but-not-China and do it almost as cheap as in China.
@cokane: It’s the way they framed it that was the problem, IMO.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: They might be able to assemble one for a higher cost. Think about where all the parts inside are made.
ETA: Hint, Apple doesn’t make the stuff inside, much of an iPhone is made, oddly enough, by Samsung.
Ruckus
@bluehill:
It’s possible that you’ve hit the nail on the head but I’d bet that a better reason is that drumpf (and the gop) want to institute a regime like they imagine China’s is, authoritarian, with him (them) at the top of the heap, to show how great he is and what with the professionals in China with lots of practice, he’d just look like an idiot.
IOW you may be over thinking this. In the case of both drumpf and the gop in general I never assign deep, thoughtful (if completely wrong headed) ideals to them. They don’t deserve it because they never process thoughts to their logical end.
Dmbeaster
The LA Times is a Chicago Tribune paper, and its content now reflects that institution. It is not at all like the historical tradition of the newspaper.
I have been going to Manzanar since 1970. For years, there was no indication of what had been there, except for a remnant and small guard post building by the highway with a pagoda like roof. A small historical plaque was added in 1973. The camp auditorium had been converted into an Inyo County road maintenance building, and for decades I had no idea that it had anything to do with the camp.
In the last 10 years, private organizations and the National Park system have been turning the site into an excellent museum, with recreated guard towers and barracks being added. So despite that moron at the LA Times, the trend has been to preserve and keep alive the memory of America’s own internment camps, and the sad and sorry history of it all.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: I am talking about the whole supply chain. Apple doesn’t make the solid state components they use, and those are quite nasty to make both on the toll on the worker and when the waste gets poured out. So if the price of transistors doubles, the price of everything that uses them octuples.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Possible. But unless the GOP leadership are total fools, which is entirely possible, they would want to try to control or restrain Trump if they thought that he could be easily played by the last person who spoke to him.
Any way you look at it, though, this is a mess. Our Supreme Leader is an easily distracted cranky old man.
Brachiator
@Dmbeaster:
Sad, but very true.
ThresherK (GPad)
@SiubhanDuinne: Three miles from my home is a theater with Allegiance. I am going to try my damndest to make it; I haven’t been very on beam lately.
I love. Parade, This is another show that sounds like it’ll bring the waterworks and gut punches, even when you know the ending.
Not sure Spousal Thresher K can sit in a movie seat for 2 1/2 hour yet due to the new knee.
bluehill
@Mnemosyne: i get your point, but frame this as a matter of national pride, set up some textile plants with tax breaks, no unions and looser workplace regulations and the cost differential won’t be as great. Throw in a overt aggressive action by China to galvanize popular opinion. China sends a bomber for a flyover, what’s Trump going to do to retaliate when he’s in office? We’re going to have increasingly more encounters and some incident is going to happen that will get spun up as an attack. So, if something like that unfolds (lots of ifs), I think the populace will accept it as long they can blame someone else. I mean GWB had a lot of support for attacking Iraq under the whole axis of evil bs, which unstabilized the Middle East, which contributed to some degree to a massive increase in gas prices.
Yarrow
To Trump’s comment that he doesn’t need intelligence briefings because he’s, “like, a smart person,” Jason Kander, the Missouri Dem candidate for Senate that recently lost his election (the one with the great TV commercial where he put the gun together without looking) said this:
I hope more like him push back on this.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
But like the Cubans, they were humored, but not allowed to influence foreign policy.
EBT
@bluehill: We really would just have to step up production in the various protectorates we already have super loose regulations in regards to. They already get to use slave labor to sell Made in America goods, no reason they couldn’t expand.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
As a very cranky (as of Nov 8) old man, I take umbridge at being lumped into the same grouping as the
shit gibbonOSL.Major Major Major Major
I think Trump’s going to get his infrastructure bill. The GOP has already started making noises about supporting stimulative measures. It will be financed through deficit spending offset with magic asterisks and passed with cooperation from the populist wing of the Democratic party. In the long run, it won’t cost the GOP anything with their voters since their voters don’t actually care.
The bipartisan nature will mean that the gridlock that partly obstructed the ‘shovel-readiness’ of the ARRA won’t be there. Eminent domain and other big-government things will be used to clear the way.
This will get Trump Administration-branded projects happening in targeted areas, payoff to his supporters in the upper midwest. It will be a boon for the economy. And TrumpCo will be able to skim a lot off the top.
It’ll be brilliant politics for Trump and the Republicans.
ETA: And if a “try to buy American” provision combines with a trade war against China to get American textile and steel factories up, even better.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: I agree it’s a possibility. But the Republicans are also greedy and might attach all sorts of things to it and the Democrats vote no. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Why would they? Clean-ish bill, bipartisan cover, cause massive Dem infighting, the Russians will love it.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Clinton got 62.3 percent of the vote, and Trump got 31.9 percent of the vote. An impressive butt whipping, but not close to 70 percent.
Turnout was good, 75 percent of registered voters, but still a low 58 percent of eligible voters.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Congratulations. There’s good cranky, and Trump cranky.
bluehill
Ruckus – I’m more concerned about what Bannon/Kusher are up to, which I agree is some form of authoritarian government that probably more closely resembles Russia’s than China’s government. I’m also trying to make a distinction between their intelligence and their goals. Bannon/Kushner seem pretty damn smart, but their goals as best as I can determine them are reprehensible.
Major – I agree short-term the economy is likely to get a massive fiscal stimulus thanks to Keynes’ new repub converts. I’m trying to think about how they’re going to keep the debt from exploding, but if they’re successful in cutting social security and medicare, privitize some/a lot of the infrastructure spending and bury the rest in accounting tricks and throw in some public indifference it’s probably not an issue until after the 2020 elections.
As for Apple, I thought I read somewhere that Apple was already considering building some products in the U.S. again. Imagine how that would go over if they do. Trump would be all over that through his Ministry of Truth.
divF
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini: I was reading about the 442nd on December 7, and came across the following facts:
(1) They were all recruited from Hawaii (ETA: the units were formed in Hawaii).
(2) There was no internment of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. The (white) business establishment there kept it from happening, because Japanese-Americans were essential to the smooth running of the major business enterprises in the islands.
bluehill
I should add I think the infrastructure bill is a good policy. Of course, Obama has been trying to do this for the past 8 years.
Major Major Major Major
@bluehill: Whether or not to collaborate on good policy is exactly how they’re going to split the left, at the exact moment we need to be united.
bluehill
@Major Major Major Major: Right. One thing Trump knows is how to appeal to people. The public doesn’t really care about the debt as long as they think they’re getting a piece of the action and they certainly don’t care about hypocrisy. Puts the dems in a tough position, which is one reason I try not to underestimate Bannon/Kushner’s intelligence even though I don’t like what they’re trying to do. Also a reason why I’m hoping dems can get past the shock and outrage of the election and focus on what their strategy is going to be for the slew of bills and executive actions that are coming day one of the Trump regime. They need to figure out how much political capital they have and where they want to use it. I don’t think they can make a stand on every issue, some of which I wouldn’t be surprised if the repubs just threw in just to keep them off balance.
ThresherK (GPad)
@divF: It’s too late in the nite for me to look up, but I’m just wondering the percentage of Japanese-lineage folks in Hawaii then, compared to even major Pacific coast mainland places.
It’s easier to oppress a smaller numerical minority, and as you pointed out, said smaller subset isn’t so crucial to the economy.
divF
@ThresherK (GPad): The larger percentage of Japanese-lineage folks in Hawaii was part of the issue, but the economic case was explicitly made.
ETA: In any case, the different treatment of mainland Japanese-descent and island Japanese-descent makes the mainland actions all the more scummy. Hawaii was a major strategic asset for the U.S., and the security issues were, if anything, more pressing.
Mart
My best man’s parents were taken off their Washington State farms and interned. When the war was over their farm was not owned by the family anymore; it was now owned by ‘muricans. They moved to Illinois and did well. Both his parents got the $25,000, but I suspect they were screwed out of millions…
Mnemosyne
@cokane:
Los Angeles has a large and politically active Japanese-American community, with a lot of memorials to the internment.
This was basically like publishing a letter in a Skokie newspaper saying the Holocaust wasn’t all that bad. It’s a slap in the face to a local community, not just a random letter published.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Clinton got 72% of the vote in Los Angeles County. And the LA Times is really the newspaper for this county and region, not the whole state.
Mnemosyne
@Mart:
David Neiwart published a book about the internment of Japanese-Americans in Washington state called Strawberry Days.
ThresherK (GPad)
@divF: Thanx.
My German ancestors were vaguely turn of century immigrants, maybe a bit before that. I never asked Dad about them and the Great War, like if any of em picked up the nickname “Dutch”, a la many baseballers then.
I am prepared to see “Allegiance” Tuesday nite, and be rendered a quietly weeping mess.
Mart
@Mnemosyne: Awesome. Thanks for that.
daverave
The wind, always the wind…
sharl
@divF:
I think this was mostly true – perhaps in part because there were too many Japanese-Americans in Hawaii to make complete internment feasible – but leaders in the Japanese-American community were imprisoned. I first learned of this from a colleague over there, whose father – a Buddhist priest – was one of those held. The following excerpt is from the description of a 2014 documentary on this:
Cckids
@ArchTeryx: In Studs Terkel’s book “The Good War”, he interviews a Japanese-American soldier whose family was interned in the camps. When he was on leave & went to visit them, he was escorted on the trains & his whole trip by MPs. Reflect on that.
It is all part and parcel of America’s original sin – racism.
Mary G
@Dmbeaster: @Brachiator: I agree, lots of people from the Chandler days must be spinning their graves over what the LA Times has become. Sad!
Brachiator
@Mary G:
The upcoming issue of LA Magazine did a major story on the Times, and, according to the site, LA Observed,
Brachiator
@Cckids:
Canada also had camps for its citizens of Japanese ancestry.
Lots of racism to go around.
Kathleen
@PhoenixRising: Sarah Kendzior, a journalist who has studied and documented authoritarian regimes, has warned that one of the features of such a regime is the “normalizing” of horrendous beliefs. These letters/articles are a prelude to what the Rethuglican regime is planning. We will probably see more “articles” like this.
Kathleen
@Mnemosyne: I’m with you.
rikyrah
They stripped American citizens of their belongings in order to put these citizens in the camps. They robbed them of their livelihood.
The ever loving PHUCK!!!!! LATimes
Matt
Good news, Trumpkins: since you all just tried to hand the country over to fascists, the sane persons in the country have decided you need to sit in that corner for a while and not “cause complications”. Yes, the corner with the barbed wire and armed guards.
D58826
SS guards at Auschwitz were just doing their jobs by keeping the Jews out of the way of Germany’s war effort also.
bluefoot
@PhoenixRising: I’ve seen this kind of argument in other situations, mostly to deny permitting for non-Christian religious buildings (temples, mosques,etc). That is, the argument is that the children worshipping might be subject to harassment or what have you, so in order to protect them, the temple, mosque or what have you shouldn’t be allowed.
Lynn Dee
I like the part in the one letter about how “[t]he Japanese had a clear way to land invading forces in California but lost their chance because they did not realize it.”
Whew. That was close, wasn’t it? Apparently no one in Japan had an atlas or a globe.
cmorenc
@James E Powell:
The problem isn’t with the disinfectant quality of the sunlight an articulate, factual refutation in the LAX immediately below the lady’s bullshit letter – rather it’s because there are so many sources of deliberate disinformation acting to both insulate the substantial portion of the electorate inside the closed RW bubble of Fox, Rush, etc., and inject fresh infectious material into the mix. It’s hard to clean the floor of bullshit when people are constantly pooping fresh shit onto it.
prob50
Boy, from this new, improved, revised perspective you would have to reconsider the Holocaust. The Jews “job” was to keep concentration camp employees working and also to contribute their personal belongings and other items like precious metal dental fillings and hair and God Knows what else to the German war effort. They could perhaps even have qualified for a medal, but I think they would probably have been prevailed upon to allow it to be returned to the war effort.
Between articles like this and some of their Op-Ed contributor choices lately (like that idiot Barton Swain this past Sunday claiming Obama and Trump had a similar attitude when speaking towards their critics. It was unbelievable.)
J R in WV
@celticdragonchick:
Nazi and Fascist ideology was very popular in the USofA throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Like this in Jersey.
Or like these photos from Madison Square Garden!
They kind of sank out of sight during and immediately after WW II, but not too long after the war, they sprang back to life like Nosferatu – this time more in the dark corners and shadowy dirty spots in the American underclass.
But then later on, right-wing radio started to make the beliefs of the Nazi movement more respectable, and NOW we have President-to-be Trump talking about rounding people up for camps again.
Still despicable after all these years!
Sonora
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m going to Allegience tomorrow. My grandparents both taught at a Japanese Relocation Camp (my grandmother’s term) in Poston, Az. She, a quiet but committed racist, gained enormous respect for the families and culture she was exposed to and spoke about that often when I was a child.
artem1s
They weren’t just gotten out of the way. The US government stole their homes, their businesses, and their assets. This is what the Nazi’s did when they sent gays and communists and Jews and Slavs to the camps in Europe. Nazi’s did it, in part, so they could legally steal assets and fund the war. The US did this to it’s own citizens and got away with it because they were not white. It’s bizarre and appalling that a writer at a major newspaper in one of the states where most of the interred lived, could so willfully lie about this. Why do it other than to play nice with bigots and white nationalists? WTF?
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
From the WaPo article, down near the bottom:
M. Bouffant
Large parts of the L.A. Times have been crap for over a century; this is an outlier, but the institution manages to irritate people.
And we thought it might get better once the Chandlers sold out!