Tom Brokaw: Friends Across Barbed Wire and Politics

[RememberSchiff]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/brokaw-norman-mineta-alan-simpson.html

 

Tom Brokaw writes about the friendship between two scouts that started at a scout Jamboree at Heart Mountain (WY) internment camp,  Only one scout troop from outside the camp accepted the invitation. Interesting story.

[SSScout]

Sad but true.  

[TAHAWK]

Not at all unique, the U.S. did it's best to fan the flames of hate.

[Col. Flagg]

Didn't see the hate after Reagan won, or Bush, or Clinton. After Bush 2 won the vitriol started and escalated.

[TAHAWK]

It's been rough before.  "Ma', Ma', where's my pa?  Gone to the White House; ha, ha, ah."

 

http://freakonomics.com/2007/11/06/the-complete-history-of-dirty-politics-a-qa-on-anything-for-a-vote/

[Stosh]

We live in an era of extremism.  We see it with Islamic push for power, with NK push for the world stage, and it's happening in our own country.  Trying to find a moderate today is difficult at best.  The media has given up on journalism and has gone the National Inquirer/People Magazine approach to sales.  The more inflated the story, the more it will sell over the competition.  

 

I've seen it in the past, the riots of the 60's and the Vietnam War protest marches.  This sort of thing will take time and a lot of people dying before everyone realizes the foolishness of their extreme actions.  When one sees people physically injuring others because they had their feelings hurt, this country is in serious trouble and has been for a number of years now.  It's just that it has gotten to the point where people die.

 

In spite of all that, there are still the islands of hope that this article indicates.  Just one scout was brave enough to take on the challenge.  Sometimes that's all it takes.  So, who in this day and age is the one that's going to step up?

[RememberSchiff]

In spite of all that, there are still the islands of hope that this article indicates.  Just one scout was brave enough to take on the challenge.  Sometimes that's all it takes.  So, who in this day and age is the one that's going to step up?

 

Could have happened at Jambo, say when the President arrived to speak. I am not aware if there was a welcoming  skit which celebrated the diversity (race, religion, location, etc. ) of Scouting in America. So in the assembled crowd of  40,000  have a dozen or so Scouts stand  in turn and state "I am  a  .(religion, location, etc)... "  Then everybody stands "We are all Scouts. We are all Americans. Welcome to Summit, Mr. President."

 

Anyway you get the idea.

Edited August 15, 2017 by RememberSchiff
40,000 not 400,000

[Stosh]

Anytime one is required to choose sides, it means the polarizing affects of politics is beginning to take it's toll.  Once it gets out of hand, it never ends well.

 

We scream and yell about what the Germans did to their citizen Jewish population.

 

Is it any different than what we did with our Japanese population? or what we have done and continue to do to the Native Americans?

 

Please explain the philosophical differences between concentration camps, internment camps and reservations.....  Surely one's freedom is not really celebrated in those settings.

 

If one thinks it puts a person in a bad situation to be on one side with a ton of people against you on the other.   The only other place worse is the middle where no one likes you. 

[TAHAWK]

Anytime one is required to choose sides, it means the polarizing affects of politics is beginning to take it's toll.  Once it gets out of hand, it never ends well.

 

We scream and yell about what the Germans did to their citizen Jewish population.

 

[1] Is it any different than what we did with our Japanese population? or [2] what we have done and continue to do to the Native Americans?

 

[3] Please explain the philosophical differences between concentration camps, internment camps and reservations.....  Surely one's freedom is not really celebrated in those settings.

 

If one thinks it puts a person in a bad situation to be on one side with a ton of people against you on the other.   The only other place worse is the middle where no one likes you. 

1. Yes.  Clearly.

2. Yes, although less so.  There were some who favored extermination, but they lost that debate.

3. Exterminate vs. imprison.  Exterminate vs. semi-autonomous states.  

[NJCubScouter]

Stosh, if you don't know the difference between dead and alive, I can't help you.

[Col. Flagg]

I believe @@Stosh is referring to the xenophobia which created the MIND SET that leads populations to single out a certain race, NOT the outcome. Clearly @@Stosh knows the difference between extermination and incarceration.

[TAHAWK]

Bearing in mind that my Scout tent-mate for two years was born in a concentration camp, I suspect the victims were/are more concerned with the BEHAVIOR than the MIND SET.

 

Interestingly enough, support for internment was strongest in California, with a history of racism, and almost zero in Hawaii, where the military governor, newspapers, politicians, and business community opposed it.  The extremely right-wing Santa Ana Register opposed internment as illegal and unconstitutional.  The L.A. Times continued a long tradition of racism against those of Asian ancestry by vigorously supporting it, joined by the N.Y. Times and Washington Post.

[Col. Flagg]

Really? Do you think those held in the camps in the US weren't concerned about Uncle Sam doing the same to them as the Germans did? Because that's been widely noted in interviews with former Japanese Americans.

[TAHAWK]

I am sure they were afraid.  And not without reason given wartime propaganda, governmental and private, about the "dirty Japs."

 

But in the end, we did not do to them what Germany under Hitler did to Jews, Romani, Soviet POW's or the mentally handicapped.

 

And I "really" believe that being alive was more important to them than the evil we did to them.  So they told me.  

 

We had a half-dozen Nisei Scouts in our troop and another half-dozen Sensei.  I ate at my buddy Toshi's house many times and talked to his dad, Toshi, Sr., about the camps and his family losing their farm and house.  "Tosh" Sr. started a Scout troop in the camp and was an SA in our troop.  (The family had a "truck farm" where the John Wayne Airport is located.)  There is a street named for the family in Garden Grove.

Edited August 14, 2017 by TAHAWK

[Col. Flagg]

I'll let @@Stosh argue his point.

 

A Japanese American in March 1942 had no idea of his fate in a detention camp than a Jew or Gypsy or Catholic or dissident had in Dachau in 1934. Only the outcome was different. What put them in those camps was fear and hatred. As Americans we focus on the outcome because we don't like to think about the reason why we put them there in the first place.

 

I won't even bring up the Indians. We outright slaughtered them.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Col. Flagg