X-Message-Number: 16880
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 00:05:33 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Japanese internment, message load

Lee Corbin wrote
>... I'd
>have had to be there to have a strong opinion about just
>how badly Japanese would have been treated in California.
>One friend who WAS there says that you wouldn't believe
>the amount of Japanese vilification and racism; but
>whether it would translate into mobs attacking Japs
>I don't know.

I don't think the authorities had sufficient evidence of violence to use 
this as a justification for detaining Japanese-Americans, i.e. for their 
own protection.

>...in retrospect, since in fact California never was invaded,
>the internment did turn out to be unnecessary and unwarranted
>(unless the danger from the Anglos was real).  But I claim that
>it was reasonable at the time.

Well, at first you said it was "absolutely necessary." I'll grant it was 
*understandable* (somewhat) at the time, and presumably *seemed* necessary 
to some. But I also think a little more care and caution on the part of 
those in power would have been reasonable by then-extant standards, and 
that it would have averted the action.
...
> >in California there were certain unscrupulous, racist
> >elements who stood to gain if the property was seized,
> >etc.,
>
>Of course
>
> >and who managed to play on fear and hysteria enough to
> >bring about the infamous action in *their* home territory.
>
>?? Would you mind explaining the mechanism in more detail?
>I don't understand how these people "got" to Roosevelt and
>the military high command.  Bribes?  Political pull?

I'm drawing on memories of decades ago, but my impression was they used 
political pull mainly, "crying with a loud voice" so that those in power in 
Washington would listen. They did, and didn't take sufficient pains to 
investigate properly, or perhaps lacked the nerve.


>You also have not answered the explanations that I have
>submitted for why indeed one would expect a racial subgroup
>to welcome an invading army of their "kinsmen".  (1) What do
>you think would have happened in France, if there had been a
>German sub-population?  (2) What was wrong with my picture
>of the highly disaffected "loser" young man, namely, those
>with low self-esteem who I would expect to naturally revel
>in the accomplishments of the invincible Japanese Army?
>(see my earlier description for more detail).  (3) the way
>that it would be only prudent for a number of
>Japanese-Americans to welcome the invader, and do all
>that they could to help?

Yes, these were real possibilities. One can never rule out such things, but 
here I think the hard evidence was decidedly scanty. So again I think those 
in power should have proceeded with more caution, and been willing to hold 
off on this thing until more real evidence that it was needed emerged. It's 
easy to say this in retrospect, I'll grant, but when I've studied the 
matter, it really does seem clear that it was a case of "you should have 
known better."

On the message load: There have been quite a lot of postings on Cryonet 
recently, too much for me to read, let alone comment on as I might have 
liked. (And others are complaining.) One possible remedy would be using 
urls to limit the size of the main text. Trygve, I do hope you look into 
that. Your stuff is certainly relevant to cryonics as you claim, but I 
think it could be better approached and better appreciated that way than by 
dumping it all here. Another possibility (as you suggest) would be the use 
of addressing so the reader could skip around and not have to scroll 
through so much. Maybe both approaches should be used. Or each user could 
limit the number and volume of messages posted per day, as has been 
suggested. In any case, Kevin Brown deserves a lot of credit for having 
maintained this forum for so many years. It has its weaknesses, but I don't 
see anything really to take its place.

Mike Perry

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