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In reply to the discussion: Wow, where did this come from? [View all]OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 14, 2012, 02:04 PM - Edit history (1)
I must take exception with that.
FDR screwed over resident alien Japanese and Japanese American farmers.
Japanese-operated farms were increasing and Japanese wage demands were approaching Caucasian pay rates, despite laws passed to prevent them from becoming naturalized citizens, owning property (that's the big one) and later, renting property, as well as reproducing (female migrant workers were denied entry.)
These laws were passed to benefit the capitalist class who used them to take advantage of the Japanese by forcing them into unorthodox land agreements, charging them high rent, taking out liens on crops, etc.
Being propertyless, the Japanese were coerced to give away what they had.
When the Japanese were in internment (concentration) camps, the farm corporations made a deal with the government- to avoid the crops dying in the fields during war time, the government would subsidize dummy corporations to harvest the crops so the parent corporations could avoid being exposed to risk. The dummy corporations would then sell the crops back to the parent corporations for cheap. Big profits all around.
The national security threat was merely a ruse. It was the permissible cause that allowed it to be possible.
Cues from media and political elites conflated Japanese Americans with enemy Japan. Words like "voluntary evacuee" were used. "Concentration camp" was used in early media reports, but when conditions began to resemble Germany, it was changed to "internment camp."
Class interest begat public opinion begat government laws. (Actually, class interest begat government laws; the gullible public only had to think it was their idea.)
I can't "hate" FDR for doing what he did anymore than I can "hate" Ulysses S. Webb for the California Alien Land Act. Both are simply cogs in the machine.
The "privileged position of business" over government sets it high above any pluralistic interest group, and mere mortal voters are insignificant.
FDR gave great speeches, had a wonderful wife, and liked dogs. He created the social safety net.
He was not above screwing over a minority group for capitalists' benefit, however.
I can only shake my head and laugh when I read that Obama is THE ONE who will turn this country around. He is only a man, and the structure he is in is very big and very powerful. The structure put him where he is. The gullible public only had to think it was their idea.