The Japanese government was determined to make Japan safe for Japanese–and no one else. I do not recall the name of the author, but the book Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy points this out clearly. When Emperor Hirohito felt that Japan was strong enough to win a war with the West, he encouraged his people who wanted Japan to be for the Japanese only to act, even though they knew that Japan had the military strength fo a short war, Not knowing how the people of United States would act in response to military aggression, he encouraged his supporters, both military and civil, to move to attack–despite the opposition of elder statesmen.
Hirohito’s great-grandfather, Kotohito, wanted to resist our Commodore Perry–and his advisors knew that the comparative military might was absolutely against Japan. After he died suddenly, his son Mutsohito pursued the policy of slowly building up the military strength. His son Yoshohito, was almost a non-entity. However, Yoshohito’s son Hirohito determined that Kotohito’s desires would bear fruit.
Despite advice from certain elder statesmen, the government moved to remove all western influence from what Japan considered to be its sphere–even though it was calculated that Japan’s military strength had a limited time to conquer the enemy.
Excuse my ignorance of history, but the embargo was deemed constitutional by a court? It is my understanding that Congress passed enabling legislation, President Roosevelt acted as permitted by that legislation, and no one even had the thought of challenging the constitutionality of those two branches of the government acting in that manner. When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, no one at the time (OK, Charles Lindbergh, maybe) thought to say, “If you hadn’t provoked the Empire of Japan with that embargo, none of this would have happened.” All of
Dave Klepper- Well thanks for the nice thoughts on Gander.
The world remains very dangerous. Arms buildups everywhere, darkness and ignorance. Nuclear proliferation looming.
Somehow I remain optimistic and I believe their will be a significant push back of evil and usher in a new era where it’s the good that wins for a while. It’s our turn.
You are correct about the Canada/USA relationship. We are mutually very fortunate. 3 Ocean’s, enormous land mass, abundant natural resources and agricultural land, well developed, common language and we get along tremendously well.
We may even witness an international merger of Railroad systems some day. If anyone can really pull it off it would be USA-Canada.
The frustration with the pittance allocated to Amtrak and the glacial pace by which the California HSR is moving forward, the big political no-no lightning rod was the Iraq War.
The Iraq War was a terribly expensive proposition in treasure, our blood, and the blood of our foes who were mixed in among a civilian population. At a time that it was popular to prosecute this war, the cry went out “The trillions spent on the War could get us a great set of trains!” that was countered by many around here who supported the then president in the war effort but couldn’t overtly say that without being shamed.
I guess the war ran its course as did public support for it, and we elected a bold, young, new president who was going to end such wars (or at least fight the “correct war” and wind down U.S. involvement in the “incorrect war” where his predecessor had started both wars and his own-party primary challenger voted for both). This new president also had a trillion dollar stimulus bill and had a vice president enthusiastic about passenger trains. But this president eyed the challenge of if not meeting Harry Truman’s vision of universal public health care, of advancing a program to broaden health insurance coverage, especially among those with known health problems or of limited financial resources. Another trillion dollar program that was not the dollar cost of yet another foreign expeditionary war, but have passenger trains really prospered these past 8 years?
But among some who support passenger trains, it is all about the trains. I offered tongue-in-cheek, yes, all of the money spent on old-person’s health care could get us really nice passenger trains, but many were too earnest to “get” my attempt at humor or offended that I would liken the vast money spent on defense to the even larger amount spent on health care? But then someone commented on another thread that the large amount of money spent
Am I correct in that there is an ancient tradition, no, commandment regarding the offering of hospitality to strangers. Abraham, who is the patriarch of one great religion and also “culturally appropriated” by two others, was particularly blest for his immediate and enthusiastic hospitality to three, mysterious strangers?
But doesn’t that same sacred text in other places support self-defense against invasion by much larger numbers of strangers along with condemnation for forsaking one’s own culture in adopting the ways of strangers?
And isn’t there some irony in this celebration of not shunning strangers in one’s midst (I get the point that many if not most of the stranded pass
What should have been a peaceful thread honoring the folks in Gander, Newfoundland instead becomes a debate on WWII. The discussion has been turned into a “church of the poisoned mind” between two fueding democrats.
All this thread needs now for frosting on the cake is a singing and dancing transvestite…Oh wait, here is one…
My opinion in a few, simple, clear declarative sentences?
Mr. Roosevelt in embargoing Japan was pursuing the U.S. national interest in containing the lawlessness of Imperial Japan.
Mr. Trump in temporarily restraining the entry of persons from seven countries is pursuing the U.S. national interest in containing the lawlessness endemic to those countries.
There are many good people in those countries just as there were and are many good people in Japan. The countries in question, however, are regarded as having governments (or lack thereof) giving license for many bad actions by their citizens.
Even the blocked travel ban has noticably gotten the attention of leaders in Iran, a target of the ban, and Pakistan, not targeted but could be targeted. Passage of their citizens to and from the United States is being realized to be a benefit to them and to their respective governments, a relationship that could be nurtured by cooperating with the U.S. to encourage lawful conduct. That is, rather than not cooperating with the U.S. and sponsoring unlawful acts. That and encouraging your citizens to rally and chant “Death to America!”
My belief is that people by expressing contempt for the travel ban as both immoral and ineffective at the same time, my belief is that such people shop at Whole Foods, a kind of corporate-Disneyland “Small World Exhibit” version of multiculturalism. Seriously, shop at an Aldi to get some trans-cultural perspective.
Two feuding Democrats? Good, I am a Croatian ultra-nationalist supporting Senator Russ Feingold as well as a Democratic Party member in good standing – I haven’t “blown my cover” I have been trying to maintain for the last 35 years here in the People’s Republic (of Madison, Wisconsin).
Honoring the folks in Gander? The back story to that play is the most horrific attack on the continental U.S. since the British burned down D.C., and any discussion of the preconditions providing the predicate for that attack are out-of-order?
I think the preconditions if they extend back to WWII and the Japanese are a little off topic (not to mention stretching things a bit), don’t you? I mean this isn’t much different than having a thread honoring someone that passed on and then someone posting “They deserved to die” on that same thread.
If you want to pull the topic that far off on a tangent then start another thread. This thread is only vaguely related to trains as it has to do with airline transport and international relations so I am also unsure why the OP started it in the first place but since its here, not sure why we had to bring Hitler and Hirohito into the discussion of Gander, Newfoundland.
Don’t mean to offend anyone, but I’ve got to go with the “I thought this was about Newfoundland?” thought from another poster.
Oh, and on Japanese agression in Asia? I’ve got to go with Schlimm on this one, he’s 100% correct. And ask any Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Burmese, Philipino, Thai, or Malaysian what they think about THAT subject.
I agree and apologize to any and all for my responding to PM’s myriad of tangential assertions, with one exception: refuting his contention regarding Imperial Japan’s benificence in China. As Firelock accurately pointed out, Imperial Japan engaged in many cases of unprovoked militaristic aggression throughout most of East Asia. I would add to that deadly toll, its acts of wanton sadism and racism. Just ask the Chinese, Filipinos and Koreans.
No, we “cannot go back to Newfoundland now.” You cannot take the Newfoundland play out of context of 9-11. “Can’t we all just get along like they did that time in Newfoundland”? Well no. The United States tried to be hospitable to foreign visitors, and a small group of them took it upon themselves to crash jets into major buildings. That happened, in part, because people confronted with the scary behavior of that small group, didn’t want to act as prejudiced against foreign visitors.
Sometimes when you act friendly, it all works out as in Gander, Newfoundland that time. Sometimes when you act friendly, your buildings get blown up. There are people who harbor and nurse grievances and plan such acts, and being nice to them won’t heal this up.
It’s a dangerous world, and the U.S Congress has passed laws giving the U.S. president broad powers in dealings with other countries that may harbor persons seeking to do us ill. Our current president has acted with those powers in what he sees as our common national security, and a commentator on this forum mocked the president for doing something inhospitable. Our president has acted on account of recent events that are very much tied to what had happened in 9-11, which is very much tied to the events in Gander, Newfoundland.
Oh, let us talk about the happy times in Newfoundlan
Sure, sure you were. You stated " it was plainly motivated by anti-Japanese racism in the United States, along with a misunderstanding in public sentiment in the U.S. of the Japanese Emperor wanting to bring order to a China that had fragmented into fiefdoms of warlords." You are condemned by your own words.
The exact same sort of thing I said about Japan is being said today about a different part of the world. Large portions of the American people are called out as racists and xenophobes by wanting to end the conditions where county workers holding an office Christmas party get gunned down. The parallels are uncanny.
Tangential arguments? These are called analogies and they used to comprise much of the SAT test until the authorities decided such questions are unfair because people in the U.S. no longer reason that way?
The reason the 9-11 terrorist were successful was because the ‘accepted practice’ in air line hijackings at the time was to ‘do no resist’. To our knowledge there was no ‘organized restiance’ to the flights that were flown into the Trade Centers and the Pentagon. Passengers on flight 93 did resist and the plane crashed in Somerset County, PA - not what was believed to have been it’s target of either the Capitol or the White House.
9-11 totally changed the passenger dynamic in hijacking attempts as has been demonstrated in several attemps since 9-11 that were ‘fought off’ by the passengers.
The success of the 9-11 terrorist was caused by the then existing ‘normal practice’ of do not resist and the surprise factor that the terrorists had minimal skills to keep the planes in the air without the normal flight crews. Yes - the US was totally caught with it’s pants down and sleeping.
A flight school instructor thought it odd that a student only wanted to know how to fly the plane but not land it, but felt that he was responding to the stereotype “Middle Easterners are terrorists.” A woman Federal small-business loan officer, interviewed a Mr. Atta, who wanted a loan to purchase a crop dusting plane, but brushed off his anti-female, and “I will kill you if you deny me the loan” rhetoric as simply bluster from a young man from a part of the world where men prove themselves by talking that way. Ticket agents describe their visceral reactions of dread and fear in response to the facial expressions, body language, and ice-cold stares of a group of Middle Eastern men purchasing one-way tickets.
The do-not-resist was do-not-give-in-to-prejudice-and-stereotypes at many stages leading up to this. It seems that the biggest fear in many quarters in the U.S. was not that more attacks would take place. Rather, it was that all of the educating and preaching and conditioning to not harbor prejudice, especially in light of the Civil Rights Movement would all be for naught as the attack gave everyone license to harbor racist thoughts about persons from the Middle East.
There was a lawsuit brought by three religious clerics who were ejected from a plane either to or from Minneapolis – their lawsuit got press attention there. Accounts suggest that these clerics acted like “suspicous Middle Eastern men” as a deliberate provocation in order to, from their point of view, root out latent prejudice against Middle Eastern men in the aftermath of 9-11. And there are others who rallied to their cause because Free Speech and Civil Rights and yes, we are unfair to Middle Eastern men.
The uproar against Mr. Trump is rooted in the belief that our loss of innocence was a much more serious outcome of 9-11 than our loss of lives. People will throw the kitchen sink at
Most of the 9-11 hijackers were citizens of our “friend” Saudi Arabia. And the hijackings succeeded because the Bush WH chose to ignore “clear and present danger” warnings from the CIA Director. None of them were from countries on the travel ban list drawn up by the wigged goof in the WH. But then he has no properties in those countries.
But Mr. Analogy/Straw Argument wants to connect terrorism to tolerance. Well, tolerance is a core American value, but perhaps not in your Trumpland.