History Final paper

            I think the people learned from the atrocities of war and the effects of genocide but the governments that manage our world continue to operate in a way that power grabs resources and disregard rights of the people involved. So, why doesn’t the US respond to the genocide in Rwanda and Darfur like they did during WW2? It probably because the U.S. believes they can’t win against China in the resources in that region. If anything the U.S. government might already have plans to exploit the Darfur region. Why am I talking about this? I guess after what we seen so far, it's just seems to be the regular pattern.

            Things I read in Chapter 16 of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States:

            The reason why the U.S. entered WW2 was claim more economic stakes in the European world. Zinn wrote, “Before the war was over, the administration was planning the outlines of the new international economic order, based on partnership between government and big business.” (Zinn) An Assistant Secretary of State, Archibald MacLeish, said, "As things are now going, the peace we will make, the peace we seem to be making, will be a peace of oil, a peace of gold, a peace of shipping, a peace, in brief . . . without moral purpose or human interest . . ." The U.S. continue to make business a priority before and even after the war making the U.S. one of the most powerful countries at the time.

            After the attack on Pearl Harbor that was instigated by the US. government through embargo on Japanese goods, the Japanese-Americans living in the United States were forced into concentration camps by the hysteria that developed in the government. There were 110,000 men, women, and children all along the West Coast, and among them was a young girl named Michi Weglyn. This was her experience, “Michi Weglyn was a young girl when her family experienced evacuation and detention. She tells (Years of Infamy) of bungling in the evacuation, of misery, confusion, anger, but also of Japanese-American dignity and fighting back. There were strikes, petitions, mass meetings, refusal to sign loyalty oaths, riots against the camp authorities. The Japanese resisted to the end.”

            Knowing more about the history of the U.S. and racism, it continued on, even in waring times. The blacks were treated like lower class humans as usual, while on boats they were put below deck next to the engine rooms. They were employment were belittling with jobs in the mess hall or janitorial duty. More often than not, the black community opposed the war due to their oppression here in the states. Lawrence Wittner wrote in Rebel Against War quoted a black journalist: ‘"The Negro . . . is angry, resentful, and utterly apathetic about the war. 'Fight for what?' he is asking. 'This war doesn't mean a thing to me. If we win I lose, so what?'" The black community felt there was no point in fighting in a white man’s war when the war at home was still raging without much effort from the government.

            For an anti-fascist government, the U.S. still did some genocidal acts. The Europeans and US bombed German cities: Cologne, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Dresden. In Dresden, there more than 100,000 deaths, majority were civilians. In Japan, the U.S. did more saturation bombing in Tokyo taking 80,000 lives, said to destroy civilian morale. The one that was most impactful was the fact that Zinn wrote, “...on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning.” With the notions of eliminating evil in the world, the U.S. contradict themselves with mass murder. I can see the reasons for acts of war, but why drop the bomb when the Japanese were ready to surrender after the fall of the Nazi forces?

            What keeps being repeated in our history is the constant mention of how pro-business we are, and the needs by companies for control of the population. Zinn wrote, “It was an old lesson learned by governments: that war solves problems of control. Charles E. Wilson, the president of General Electric Corporation, was so happy about the wartime situation that he suggested a continuing alliance between business and the military for "a permanent war economy."’ We are a nation that is pro-war.