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MissPickwickian
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09 Aug 2008, 7:39 am

T-rav20 wrote:
MissPickwickian wrote:
I think Americans avoid talking about Japanese war atrocities because we feel bad about going overboard with our frankly racist demonization of all things Japanese during the war. It's kind of like how the German government always tries to be extra sweet to Jews these days. It's the joy of guilt!
Absurd. The interning of the Japanese is hardly one of the prouder moments in american history but doesn't even come close to a "war crime" Paranoid? Absolutely! They were loyal americans and showed zero signs of loyalty to imperial Japan. Idiotic? You Bet! The conditions in the internment camps bred exactly the sort of discontent the government was trying to avoid, but to compare it to the systematic murder of eleven million people is just... ridiculous.


I didn't. I was just making a point about WWII-related guilt and how there's more than enough to go around.

Anyhoo, that's why Americans are soft on Japanese war crimes. Guilt.

Never said anything was directly comparable to anything else except in guilt-creating capacity.


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Ishmael
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09 Aug 2008, 7:44 am

The germans did bad, the Japanese did bad, but both did bad generations ago.
Most people in those countries want to move away from what their grandparents' generation did.


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T-rav20
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09 Aug 2008, 8:34 am

MissPickwickian wrote:
I didn't. I was just making a point about WWII-related guilt and how there's more than enough to go around.

Anyhoo, that's why Americans are soft on Japanese war crimes. Guilt.

Never said anything was directly comparable to anything else except in guilt-creating capacity.

Ahhh, That clarifies it.
As for the guilt; I don't think enough people even know about the internment camps for there to be some sort of national complex about it. In the end I think it really just comes down to PR - these folks didn't have any. The POWs who survived didn't want to talk about it, China was busy falling apart, and the western powers were all getting googly-eyed about the Com-block, so it all just got swept into the backroom of history and ignored.


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MissPickwickian
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09 Aug 2008, 9:56 am

Ishmael wrote:
The germans did bad, the Japanese did bad, but both did bad generations ago.
Most people in those countries want to move away from what their grandparents' generation did.


And I respect that.

I hate the "slavery" aspect of being a southerner.

But no ugly past should be entirely ignored.


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JerryHatake
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09 Aug 2008, 11:33 pm

^That is actually true about the War between the States in the South point of view when the North forgets about it. Though I don't know if I had family in the war but in respect both sides were bad to one other noted in POWs camps.


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Ishmael
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10 Aug 2008, 7:01 am

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And I respect that.

I hate the "slavery" aspect of being a southerner.

But no ugly past should be entirely ignored.


True, the past should never be forgotton - but, neither should it be remembered as anything but history.
When people try and form more personal, emotional connections with wars and conflicts of ages ago... well, then you get the middle-east, eastern-europe, etc.


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MissPickwickian
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10 Aug 2008, 10:58 pm

Ishmael wrote:
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And I respect that.

I hate the "slavery" aspect of being a southerner.

But no ugly past should be entirely ignored.


True, the past should never be forgotton - but, neither should it be remembered as anything but history.
When people try and form more personal, emotional connections with wars and conflicts of ages ago... well, then you get the middle-east, eastern-europe, etc.


You're right.


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Prof_Pretorius
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11 Aug 2008, 5:38 pm

The Middle-East really has a lock on never forgetting. The fuss lately that was made over the word "crusade" is a good example.


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