FDR and Racism

[Papist]

This man built concentration camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II and deprived these American citizens of their homes, businesses, property, and livelihoods for the crime of being of the same ethnic ancestry as our enemy. He also clapped German-Americans and Italian-Americans into those camps for the same reason. He even managed to get his racism enshrined into Constitutional Law when he won the case brought against him in Koramatsu v. United States of America.

This man turned away a ship filled with more than 900 European Jews seeking refuge from Hitler in May, 1939.

This man would not, at the behest of the Vatican and Jewish organizations, bomb the railroad tracks leading to Auschwitz and other death camps. It is a story told by many Church scholars, and most recently by Pope Francis.

This man put his all into researching, developing, and building the atomic bombs we dropped on Japan. It would have been FDR who gave the order, had he lived a few more months.

Will New York City Mayor DeBlasio rename Roosevelt Island, Roosevelt Park, the FDR Drive, and remove all statues of this racist who brought the nuclear nightmare to the world? What of the rest of the nation? Will the iconoclasts go after FDR as well?

 

[Luigi]

NO ONE in politics has unstained hands. Past presidents have owned slaves, or didn't own slaves themselves but allowed slavery to continue, or acted to end slavery but only when it was politically expedient, or invaded neighboring territories to augment US territory, or bombed innocent civilians, or cheated on their wives, or... or... or...

The current trend of outrage at past events is misguided and wrongheaded. We cannot hold past politicians to current standards - nor past scientists, nor past teachers, nor past farmers, nor past doctors, nor anyone else. They were doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. Now we know better - partly because we learned from their mistakes, or the consequences of their decisions -, so we try to do better.

The current trend of outrage at past events is Puritanical and perfectionistic. The outraged expect their targets to think in perfect agreement with them, be motivated in perfect agreement with them, speak in perfect agreement with them, act in perfect agreement with them, to achieve the goal which the outraged have decided is perfect - while the outraged are imperfect themselves.

  

[vee]

Trump is still worse. 

[dominicansoul]

1 minute ago, vee said:

Trump is still worse. 

And THIS is completely the whole basis for the outrage!!!  It's all about Trump, not about racism or really giving a floop about the Confederacy,  or even hating the KKK.  It all boils down to the concerted effort to hurt this one man.  I've never seen the Left so completely unhinged as they have been since Trump beat their pantsuit goddess.

[KnightofChrist]

It's cool when Democrats do it. Mellow out man.

[Seven77]

[Anomaly]

Trump's statement was weak and a little equivocal because he wanted to avoid offending middle and lower class white voters who feel marginalized and pushed to the side by today's hyper sensitive PC culture.    It was then exaggerated and misinterpreted to attack Trump both with ill intent and sincere belief.  

With today's constant media message onslaught, only the superficial hysterical sound bite is valued.  You either love or hate.   You cannot respectfully disagree with 10% of something. Trump himself as been both a beneficiary and victim of today's polarized and polarizing mass media hype that too many think is intelligent discourse. 

It isn't about what Dems did or do or Reps are or aren't more racist.   

Its being honest that the Confederate Monuments represents both good and bad things to different groups in our ONE society.   We should be able to have an intelligent conversation about this and be open to both sides having valid, but different reasonable points. There's certainly could be a compromise somewhere.   

[dairygirl4u2c]

past presidents who did wrong things like fdr or even washington should be denounced for what they did. i'd leave it there but it seems like it's all a distraction from denouncing the evils on the right or elsewhere and that isn't a good thing. to anyone drawing lines to the confederate issue, those guys are only known for one thing, their rebellion to protect slavery. that's why we honor one and not the other. 

[Papist]

[CatherineM]

I'm a moderate. I'm starting to hate both sides. 

[Papist]

I am on the far right and I still hate both sides. 

[dominicansoul]

I just want everybody to think like me, cos if they don't they are all filthy baby killing communists

[little2add]

FDR is dead.   what point is there to dredging up the past?  

[Norseman82]

Here in Chicago some want to rename Balbo Drive (named after Italian General Italo Balbo, who served in the Italian Air Force under Mussolini and made a trans-Atlantic journey to the 1933 world's fair in Chicago): 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo 

In remembrance of that event, Mussolini sent a monument to Chicago that they also want removed: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balbo_Monument

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/protesters-demand-removal-of-monument-to-fascist-italo-balbo/2017/08/24/bf7ca97e-88f2-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html?utm_term=.b8a6b7750639

[Amppax]

On 8/25/2017 at 1:12 PM, Anomaly said:

Trump's statement was weak and a little equivocal because he wanted to avoid offending middle and lower class white voters who feel marginalized and pushed to the side by today's hyper sensitive PC culture.    It was then exaggerated and misinterpreted to attack Trump both with ill intent and sincere belief.  

With today's constant media message onslaught, only the superficial hysterical sound bite is valued.  You either love or hate.   You cannot respectfully disagree with 10% of something. Trump himself as been both a beneficiary and victim of today's polarized and polarizing mass media hype that too many think is intelligent discourse. 

It isn't about what Dems did or do or Reps are or aren't more racist.   

Its being honest that the Confederate Monuments represents both good and bad things to different groups in our ONE society.   We should be able to have an intelligent conversation about this and be open to both sides having valid, but different reasonable points. There's certainly could be a compromise somewhere.   

For the most part, I agree with this sentiment. So what does compromise look like, to you? 

I think a lot of the hysteria from the left has been just that, hysteria. I also think there has been a pretty hysterical reaction (not necessarily saying that about anyone here, I haven't been around much lately). There has certainly been very little done to give credence to good points made by those on the other side, from both sides. I can think of some exceptions, mostly on the right.