Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Ghost of Hearings Past

Eric Muller has a post on the occasion of this week's congressional hearing on "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response."  He draws our attention to the 1941 (pre-Pearl Harbor) Dies Committee investigation of alleged subversive tendencies in the Japanese American community.  Eric suggests:
They contributed to the atmosphere of hysteria that swept the West Coast after the Pearl Harbor attack.  Politicians and journalists urging the mass removal of Japanese Americans from the coast in early 1942 pointed to the Dies Committee's "findings" for support.  Military officials used the findings to justify their decision to give the politicians what they were clamoring for. 
More here.
And in The Chronicle Review, Nelson Lichtenstein has a post on The Long History of Labor Bashing.