WWII+outside+readings

KBM While Americans of the WWII era had supported reasoning to be on edge regarding the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many of the government’s actions against American-born Japanese people were completely cruel and unjustified and are masked behind the terrors of being involved in a World War. The American-born Japanese population was immediately socially attacked after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The American population often targeted them with accusations of being involved with spies in charge of an *impending* attack on the West Coast of the US, even though Japan’s loss at Midway made the navy completely incapable. The Japanese removal is comparable to the removal of Jews in Europe under the Nazis, although lacking similar motifs, the results were similar. The Executive Order 9066 under Roosevelt ordered for internment camps which housed families who may have even had relatives fighting in the war against Japan. This order, declared under an emergency state of war, was a prejudice action based solely on race that defied any moral reasoning- something that equally sets as definition for the concentration camps of Europe. Evacuating the Jews with anything they could carry and relocating them many miles from their homes is precisely what FDR ordered for the Japanese. This is masked in American history behind what was seemingly good intent on the part of the president protecting his people. FDR’s orders were for protection and Hitler’s were unsupported on his determination for an Aryan and, what he thought to be, perfect race. Good intent doesn’t blind immoral actions- thus the Japanese removal is an overlooked and underplayed part of American history which masked the corruption that still existed in relative recency.

KBM In most governments, keeping secrets from the population is inevitable to avoid social conflict. Several secretive processes of FDR took place during WWII. Modernly, with WikiLeaks exposing many national secrets, the question arises whether or not it's proper to keep such extreme secrets from so many people; whether morality is more important than order. FDR had a linguistic way of maintaining order such as declaring a bank 'holiday' rather than shutdown and Japanese "time-out/ quarantine" rather than embargo. His passive rather than aggressive language assured the population that they were remaining in the same manner regarding the war. He did, however, push it to farther limits by keeping actual secrets, not just altering words when wordplay couldn't cover up extremities. FDR's secret meetings with Churchill overseas proved to be important in dealing with the war and, had they been uncovered by the American population, not much confusion over the lack of previous knowledge about the president's location would have surfaced, just concern over his state of being while crossing a war zone area. This secret was necessary to avoid such information from coming into contact with enemy spies that were suspected within the USA. This withholding of information had little impact on the population directly. In contrast, the nuclear bomb experimentation was a secret that, had it occurred today, the nation would have felt the need to know. Conspiracy and secrecy go hand in hand, however, this secrecy, during this era of desperation for the American people, only would have stirred more drama among the country. Since only 3 people in the nation knew about the testing before FDR passed, when the bomb droppings were successful, the American population overlooked the complete secret of the bomb, blinded by the successful feelings it brought to the nation. The testing were dangerous with little public awareness and potential heath hazards with the use of nuclear weapons. These scientists were unaware of the effect, hence the testing, had anything gone wrong, could have affected and killed many people. The government took a huge risk with the secret of the nuclear bombs. Looking back on the positive result for our country, most people overlook the terror that could have erupted from such a secret.

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