I have just finished reading Tyler Hayden’s interview with you in The Santa Barbara Independent.

From some of your comments and positions, I have come to the conclusion that you are either misinformed or it is something far worse. For the sake of brevity, I will address just two of them:

GLOBAL WARMING

Regarding your wondering if global warming is “such a bad thing” and the warming-induced Arctic ice melt “opening up the Northwest Passage might be great for commerce”:

The poor souls living in Southern Texas have just been hit with the most devastating storm in the recorded history of our country. Scientists are convinced that the increase in the ferocity of weather is a direct result of global warming. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico states, and those with cities in low-lying coastal areas (think Santa Barbara!), they believe that these occurrences will not only occur more often but will also get worse. Admittedly, urban flood damage is also being increased by development of former wetlands and paving them over with concrete and asphalt.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066

Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans to American concentration camps.

Your comments that the internment of over 77,000 American citizens and tens of thousands of legal residents, who just happened to be Japanese, in saying that the execution of Executive Order was not “racially tinged or emotionally damaging” is 100 percent wrong.

No German Americans and most Germans classed as Enemy Aliens, including my immediate family and I, were not interned. We had to be at home by 10 p.m., and we could not own a short wave radio or camera. I have few pictures of me taken during WWII.

The same went for the Italians. Roosevelt was told that if he forced the internment of Italians, then Joe DiMaggio’s parents would have to be interned!

The Japanese had their homes and businesses stolen from them at fire sale prices and some with outright theft. They were sent to makeshift camps and lived dire lives in freezing in the winter and hell in the summer, God-forsaken camps hastily slapped together in Tule Lake and in Manzanar in the desert area north of Lone Pine off of Highway 395.

I have been to both places, and you might do yourself a service if you at least visited Manzanar to learn about the history and hardships that these poor people endured for four long years, even as many of their sons were fighting, getting maimed, and dying as they, as members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, became the most decorated unit in the history of the United States military!

The internees came back to nothing and had to start building their lives over with nothing.

In 1988, the survivors were finally paid REPARATIONS in the amount of a paltry $20,000 each!

No Japanese American was ever found to be subversive during the entire period of WWII, including the many thousands that lived in Hawaii!

If you believe that this entire ordeal was not emotionally damaging, especially for children, then I pity you!

With your opinions and beliefs on these two topics alone, you should not be elected mayor!

Login

Please note this login is to submit events or press releases. Use this page here to login for your Independent subscription

Not a member? Sign up here.