LATIN QUARTER performing 'RADIO AFRICA' on TOTP

KAYJATTA

ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT:

                                                           Kayjatta

The environment and development are recurring issues of conflict among environmental scientists and economists. The goals of economic development/economic growth often conflict with the goals of environmental protection and sustainability. As a result, a large a body of literature has developed by academia over the years with regards to this discourse about the economic, social, political, philosophical, cultural and physical environmental implications of the impact of economic development/economic growth on the environment.

This paper discusses this topic from the perspectives of the following articles and scholars:

1.      ‘Uneven and Combined Development…’ by James O’Connor.

2.      ‘Third World Critique of Western Environmentalism, by Ramachandra Guha.

3.      ‘The Tragedy of Commons’ by Garret Hardin

4.      ‘Poverty Breeds Over-Population’ , by Barry Commoner

5.      GDP as a measure of economic development and societal well-being.

In ‘Uneven and Combined Development….’, O’Connor explores the impact of modern capitalism on the stability of the natural and social environment. He argues that economic development as a result of industrialization has been achieved at great costs to environmental and cultural stability. But economic development itself has been examined in two contrasting senses. Firstly, economic development is described as “uneven” in the sense that there is uneven spatial distribution of production, consumption, wealth, labor relations and political configurations (O’Connor, 1989). This uneven development has resulted in the dichotomy between country and town, developed and under-developed countries, and generally exacerbated global poverty and inequality. Secondly, economic development is described as “combined” in the sense that industrial capitalism, in its effort to maximize profits combines the most profitable features of development and underdevelopment.

O’Connor argues that the worst environmental disasters disproportionately affect the poor and the marginalized (1989). He cited examples of pesticide poisoning in India and Mexico both in 1984, the earth quake in Mexico City in 1985, the volcanic eruption in Colombia, and the flooding in Mississippi.

O’Connor also explores the spatial origin (source) of pollution and its impact as it relates to “uneven’ and “combined” development approaches.  He argues that because of “uneven development” where industry and population are concentrated in (pockets) of urban centers, the earth’s assimilative capacity is disturbed and pollution and resource depletion results. In a similar way, agriculture (monoculture) and resource extraction being concentrated in the rural (countryside) or underdeveloped areas, the assimilative capacity is disturbed in these areas and the soil resources are depleted as well. He cites examples from Brazil and the Sahel in Africa where monoculture and deforestation (introduced by colonialism) ruined the soil resources so much that recovery from the resulting poverty is still impossible. In “combined development’, O’Connor recognizes the social and economic forms that maximizes profits in a global economy. The movement of people from resource-deprived poor regions (countryside and underdeveloped nations) into industrial towns and developed nations; and outsourcing of capital and technology to less regulated poverty stricken regions are all features of “combined development”.  As a result, air pollution and resource depletion in these underdeveloped nations worsen. Air pollution in the cities of underdeveloped nations such as Ankara (Turkey), Bangkok  (Thailand), Bombay (India), Cairo (Egypt), Caracas (Venezuela), Mexico City (Mexico),  Seoul (South Korea) and Tehran (Iran) for example are much worse than many cities in developed countries; (O’Connor, 1989).

Partly as a result of these global and regional disparities brought about by the uneven and combined impact of industrial economic development, different philosophical, socio-political and academic movements have arose with regards to the relationship between humans (and human activity) and the physical environment. One such movement is called deep ecology. One of the critics of this movement is Ramachandra Guha. Guha welcomes the philosophy of deep ecology, but doubts it fits the underdeveloped nations; arguing that it uniquely fits the American culture. The sole focus on wilderness preservation can threaten economic survival in the underdeveloped nations, Van De Veer and Pierce, 2003). Guha identified four underlying aspects of deep ecology in relation to human/nature interactions, namely:

1.      Deep ecologists subscribe to the idea of a biocentric world as compared to an anthropocentric world where the earth’s welfare is supreme to the interests of mankind. Guha insists that this dichotomy is irrelevant to the real environmental problems of over-consumption and militarization.

2.      Deep ecologists also emphasize the preservation of wilderness and restoration of degraded areas. This, Guha argues ignores the real environmental and economic problems faced by poorer people in the underdeveloped world, and their livelihood is therefore threatened.

3.      Deep ecologists also relate their conceptual roots of biocentrism to Eastern religious philosophies and primal people in non-Western cultures. Guha objects to this claim and argues that Eastern religious sources are selectively cited and lacks the environmental awareness that deep ecologists claim it has.

4.      Deep ecologists consider themselves as the “leading edge” and custodians of global environmentalism.

In addition to these four tenets of deep ecology, Guha argues that there are two fundamental ecological challenges facing the world; over-consumption by the industrialized world and the urban elite in the underdeveloped nations, and militarization; and none of these has to do with the dichotomy between anthropocentric and biocentric world views that dominate the philosophical debates among environmental groups.

Lastly, Guha recommends equity as well as economic and political redistribution of production as an alternative to Western emphasis on wilderness preservation and restoration.

As indicated above, these issues of environment and development can be complex, controversial and in some cases very divisive. Another perspective that contributes to this ongoing discourse is that provided by Barry Commoner in his article “Poverty Breeds Over-Population”.  Commoner is perhaps a neo-Malthusian in that he largely concurs with the Malthusian premises of population growth, although he sees the solutions as more complex. Although technological advancement and its resultant increased food production has changed the Malthusian population equilibrium, Barry Commoner blames lack of economic growth for the population explosion particularly in the underdeveloped world.  Rather than viewing population control as a precursor of economic growth, Commoner views economic growth as the driver of declining birth rates; and he further argues that this has not happened in the underdeveloped world. Increased economic development results in increased higher education and opportunities especially for women, thus reducing birth rate since highly educated women tends to marry later and bear fewer children. Therefore Commoner argues that birth rate is not purely determined biologically, but also socially determined. Partly because of this, Commoner rejects the “Life-Boat Ethics” (earth as a spaceship) concept of Garrett Hardin. He (Commoner) recognizes what might be called demographic parasitism as colonialism and neo-colonialism where the Western world is able to sustain large populations at high standards of living largely be living off of the resources of the underdeveloped nations of Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe.

The connection between family size and infant mortality has been identified by Commoner. This observation is very relevant to the underdeveloped nations where infant mortality is still very high and consequently family sizes are large to ensure the survival of some of the off springs. Also in the underdeveloped world large family size ensures adequate availability of farm labor.

Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an argument for privatization and individual personal responsibility. It could as well serve as a hand book for today’s conservative thinkers. Hardin argues that private property owners are better suited to care for the property, as compared to common (access) property where many become free riders by taking as much as they can while contributing as little as they can to the upkeep of the common property. He argues that the air and water resources are polluted today because they are treated as common property. Hardin’s argument is similar to Ronald Coase’s theorem, however critics of both pointed out that both confused common property rights to ‘open access’ and that in much of the underdeveloped the use of commonly shared property come with social responsibility where the right to use can be lost if the property is not taken care of. Private ownership of land for example as observed in East Africa (Kenya) but also true for much of Africa has resulted in commoditization of land and smaller and smaller subdivisions causing overgrazing, deforestation and depletion of soil nutrients. The resulting environmental destruction increases poverty and inequality.

This above discourse considers some of the leading authorities on the issue of economic development and the environment. The debate is far from settled but the concepts outlined here could help development experts chart a reasonable development strategy that balances the need for economic development and the environmental sustainability.

References:

6.      ‘Uneven and Combined Development…’ by James O’Connor.

7.      ‘Third World Critique of Western Environmentalism, by Ramachandra Guha.

8.      ‘The Tragedy of Commons’ by Garret Hardin

9.      ‘Poverty Breeds Over-Population’ , by Barry Commoner

Youssou Ndour -Gambie Deuxième partie

KAYJATTA

AN ANALYSIS OF MARTI’S ‘OUR AMERICA’ AND LEVERTOV’S ‘LIFE AT WAR’:

KAYJATTA

INTRODUCTION:

Jose Marti was born and educated in Havana, Cuba in 1853. Marti was a radical political activist and intellectual, writing articles for a clandestine newspaper since he was seventeen years old until his arrest and deportation to Spain. He then settled in the United States after travelling extensively in Europe. In the United States, he continued his clandestine activities, writing about Latin America for the Central American audience.

Marti’s most important piece of work is called ‘Nuestra America’ completed in 1887, a sort of a socialist revolutionary manifesto that laid out the practical foundation for mobilizing Latin American working class. This work is largely informed by revolutionary literature, Latin American folk heroes and culture, as well as his religious convictions as a catholic. Marti was both an intellectual and a warrior. He did not only articulate his political views in written form, but also actually went to war for those ideas.

Denise Levertov on the other hand is an outright pacifist. Born in Essex, Wales in the United Kingdom in 1923 to Jewish parents from Russia; Levertov’s rich background of Jewish, German, and English origins will influence her later writings and world views. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1955.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Levertov’s writings turned to political activism as she became a very vocal anti-war advocate. Her major work, ‘Life at War’ is perhaps her most important anti-war writing; in which she consistently deplored the injustice of the Vietnam War with vivid imagery largely drawing inspiration from religious and compassionate convictions.

ANALYSIS:

The Cuban writer and political activist, Jose Marti was a nationalist anti-imperialist, who nonetheless had deep admiration for the United States but strongly opposed its expansionism in Latin America. In this regard, Marti compares strongly to the English-American poet, Denise Levertov. Levertov, an anti-imperialist on a somewhat equal standing was a strong opponent of the Vietnamese war and American expansionism in Asia largely on the grounds of religious morality. In his essay, “Our America”, by which according to Dr. Ramirez, Marti referred to Latin America; he celebrates North America but also condemns it for its activities in Latin America much like Levertov’s polarity between America at home and America abroad (in Vietnam).

While religion runs deep in both Marti’s “Our America” and Levertov’s “Life at War”, Marti leans more on political ideology than the more religious morality of Levertov. Also the more pragmatic and perhaps virulent Marti who would eventually organize and even go to war for his cause contrasts starkly to the more subdued appeals by Levertov.Levertov is by all indications a pacifist who laments the horrors of war in such succinct language and compelling imagery as in these lines: “the scheduled breaking opens of breast whose milk/ runs out over the entrails of still-alive babies/ transformation of witnessing eyes to pulp-fragments/ implosion of skinned penises into carcass-gulleys” (Levertov 80).

In that respect, Marti is more of a revolutionary like the Great Simon Bolivar of Latin America whom he admirably alludes to in his writings. This is unlike Levertov who feels herself physically detached from the war so far away that it renders her unable to act as she expressed in this line: “The disasters numb within us" (Levertov 79). Therefore if Marti, a revolutionary cum socialist intellectual were a hybrid of Frantz Fanon and Leo Tolstoy; then Levertov, with her strong religious background and training as a nurse, would be a cross between Florence Mahoney and Mother Theresa. There is some kind of intellectual nostalgia and nationalism about Marti that is not seen in Levertov, as he paid homage to Latin American culture and heroes as well as a yearning for peasant life closer to nature similar to Tolstoy. That is perhaps why, he argued, “the natural man has triumphed over the imported book in Latin America, the mestizo over the exotic Creole,and nature over false erudition” (Barnett 2002). Marti’s arguments stem largely from his vision of himself as part of the oppressed while Levertov’s lamentations derive from her position as part of the oppressor, yet both are deeply concerned with the enormous human suffering brought about by oppressive government policies (Rosenthal, 2006). While Levertov laments the tranquilizing effect of “breathing in the war” daily which renders us immune to the horrors of war, Marti actively sought an uprising against imperialism and to achieve Latin American liberation.

As a Latin American nationalist, Marti condemns both Washington and Europe as he argues that “there is no nation to be more proud of than the … republics of Nuestra America that rose among the silent Indian masses…” (Barnett 2002). This kind of nationalism was not seen in Levertov, despite her anti-war stance and advocacy for American (military) withdrawal from the world particularly Vietnam. In addition to his revolutionary ideas, Marti also laid out an impressive political philosophy about the nature and operation of government. He argued that “to govern well in America, one has to know the elements of the country and how to unite those elements so that each citizen can attain self-realization…” (Marti 86, 87). Levertov, a social activist nonetheless, did not venture much into political philosophy. Marti also celebrates ideas, but then he was very wary and suspicious of those who wield so much power in ideas. He recognized that “a powerful idea, waved before the world at the proper time, can stop a squadron of iron-clad ships” (Marti 84).

CONCLUSION:

There is a broad common thread that runs between the works of Jose Marti and Denise Levertov. They are both pre-occupied with the socio-political condition of man, the condition of human suffering and how to achieve a better living condition for mankind.

However, Marti appears more inclined to pragmatism than Levertov. Marti actively sought to transform his philosophy into action for liberation while Levertov concedes to the paralyzing effect of the daily dose of news about war. Religion played a key role in the ideas of both writers, but again Marti leans more towards political ideology and revolutionary literature than the more puritanical Levertov whose condemnation of war (in Vietnam) is derived from a purely religious and compassionate position. Therefore, Marti arguably is a more objective advocate than Levertov.

Also Marti is a Latin American nationalist who appealed to his readers to look inwards unlike the more internationalist posture of Levertov. In addition to being a poet and essayist, Marti is by all means a political philosopher, sometimes going to extreme length to lay out his vision of government and the governed. Levertov makes no such attempt at political philosophy. Levertov is a writer first, then a political activist whereas Marti is a political activist first, then a writer.

Citations:

1.      Rosenthal, Peggy. Making Peace: Denise Levertov (2006).

2.      “Nuestra America” by Jose Marti

3.      Life at war, Denise Levertov

4.      Dr. Ramirez. Caribbean Literature: Online Overview of Jose Marti’s “Our America”

5.      Breslin, Paul. Modern American Poetry

COUMBA GAWLO " TOPMA"

Great love piece by Coumba Gawlo, the Whitney Houston of Senegambia. Listen for the smooth guitar/piano melody and the sabar rhythm....

AMERICA: BY ALLEN GINSBERG

KAYJATTA

November 16, 2011

Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘America’ is a classic protest poem. A political and cultural protest. A protest of racial, ideological and sexuality conflict. It is a classic immigrant poem, characterized by an initial great love for America and then followed by a huge disappointment at the injustice and oppression endemic in American foreign and domestic policy. The poem starts out with the narrator, like a betrayed spouse, expressing his disappointment for getting very little in return after giving all he has got to America. The narrator projects a pacifist view point that questions blind patriotism as in John Okada’s “NO-NO Boy”.  Pacifism was gaining momentum during and after World War II. This is indicated in line 4 and 5 with:

              “America when will we end the human war?

               Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb”

This is clearly and anti-war protest, with the narrator asking when America will be “angelic”, suggesting that war is satanic. In lines 9, 10 and 11, the narrator questions the end to American power and the rise of Asia, China and socialism (Trotskyism-revolution by the workers) as thus:

       “When will you take off your clothes?

         When will you look at yourself through the grave?

        When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?”

This perhaps is a profound expression of the narrator’s disappointment of what America once offered to him as an immigrant and what America now is. This bears some semblance to the sentiments expressed in Claude McKay’s ‘America’, or Antin’s ‘The Promise Land’, or Yezierska’s ‘America and I’ or even Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and Odet’s ‘Waiting for Lefty’ . The draconian American military and corporate power, as illustrated by the atom bomb and Time Magazine and Henry Ford (4th stanza, line 67), is a common source of lamentation.

In the second stanza of the poem, the narrator attempts at reconciliation with America by pointing out their commonalities as the ones “who are perfect not the next world” (line17) and suggests that “There must be some other way to settle this argument” (line 21).

There are several imageries in the third stanza of the poem that lays out the subsurface cultural and political tensions playing out at the time. The “atom bomb” (line5) for example alludes to the divisions over American involvement in World War II and “Burroughs is in Tangiers” (line 22) recalls the exiled William Burroughs and the debate over legalizing drugs, something that Ginsberg favors. The “Wobblies” (line 30) illustrates workers supremacy and Ginsberg’s anti-corporation stance. The narrator’s admission to smoking ‘weed’, “a million genitals” and reading Karl Marx both socially and politically as well as legally controversial at the time points to the cultural tension at play. The references to Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys are critiques of the American legal systems and the institutionalized discrimination.

Ginsberg’s poem is a great indictment of American political, economic, legal, cultural and military powers during and after World War ii.

REFERENCES:

1.      No-NO Boy, John Okada

2.      America, McKay

3.      Waiting for Lefty, Odets

4.      The Promise Land, Antin

5.      John Steinbeck, The Grapes Of Wrath

6.      America and I, Yezierska

7.      Bcwillia.wordpress.com

.

                              I HAVE A DREAM: A UTOPIA

KAYJATTA

November 15, 2011

“I Have A Dream”, a historical speech delivered by the revered civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to “dramatize a shameful political and economic condition” (I Have A Dream; 1963)of discrimination and segregation was utopian and remains largely unfulfilled today.  The speech is one of hope and optimism, although a vague one.  The combination of biblical references with images from the natural (physical) environment makes the speech highly impressive and effective. Despite the hope expressed in the speech, there are times when it appears that violence is suggested. For example, when Dr. King stated that “it would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment…”

The optimism in the “I Have A Dream” speech rests on Dr. King’s trust in the ultimate good in (White) people based on the Christian gospel and believe in liberal democratic principles somewhat based on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Dr. King’s ideology that underpins his speech of 1963 was informed by both theology and politics; an ideology that will be tested by the resilience and persistence of poverty, inequality and injustice for not only the Southern Blacks but also the inner-city Blacks in the north.

Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, very little has changed for the impoverished urban Blacks, according to Dr. Floyd W. Hayes of John Hopkins’ University. In his speech at the Chicago Festival in 1966, Dr. King described the urban slum as a place to confine those who have no power and perpetuate their powerlessness, according to Dr. Hayes in his article Discourse: The Political Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. This description of the urban slums in America compares fittingly to the Russian immigrant, Yezierska’s descriptions in his work ‘America and I’. This further indicates that despite the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, which were modest steps towards race equality; poverty, injustice, and segregation were evolving into a more recalcitrant and resistant strain.

Dr. King’s attempt to win the sensibilities of White Americans and his projection of Blacks as the “moral conscience” of America is also earlier observed in Booker T. Washington, a strategy often described by more-pragmatic activists like W.E.B. Dubois as elitist. Hence Dr. King’s hope for an America where prosperity, equality and justice for all prevails was not felt by the majority of Blacks then and now.  Perhaps Dr. King over-estimated the goodness in men; human nature might after all be a complex combination of both good and bad and in a fiercely competitive capitalist economy like America; equality, justice and prosperity for all may remain an illusion.

The continued deterioration of the economic and social condition of the Blacks well after King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech and the passage of both Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, both in the South and the North, led to an erosion of faith in Dr. King’s dream of America. This despair resulted in the emergence of several more-militant splinter nationalist groups and leaders such as Nation of Islam Minister, Malcolm X. Malcolm X, a firebrand ultra-nationalist ridiculed Dr. King’s integrationist approach as elitist and used the house-nigger versus field nigger analogy (The Autobiography of Malcolm X; 1965), and looked outside the prevailing white establishment for radical solutions for separation; just falling short of Marcus Garvey’s call for repatriation. Perhaps Malcolm X could have been influenced by the writings of the Caribbean revolutionary, Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon; 1961) as compared to Dr. King’s more ‘Ghandi-ist’ approach.

Despite, Dr. King’s lofty dream of equality, liberal democracy, and the general goodness of mankind to do the right thing, poverty, inequality, and injustice remains rooted in American society today.

REFERENCES:

1.      Discourse: The Political Theology Of Martin Luther King Jr.; Floyd W. Hayes, 2011

2.      I Have A Dream, Dr. Martin Luther  King Jr.; 1965

3.      The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965

Watch Rick Perry's Campaign End Before Your Eyes

KAYJATTA

Watch Rick Perry's Campaign End Before Your Eyes

KAYJATTA

KAYJATTA

November 2, 2011

HIRABAYASHI V. UNITED STATES: 320 U.S. 81 (1943)

CASE FACTS:

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese Navy attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in two successive waves. 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 were wounded.

Public opinion about Japanese Americans started to deteriorate shortly afterwards because of concern about what was referred to as the “Fifth Column “activity derived from the 1936-1939 Spanish civil war and also depicted in playwright and novelist Hemmingway’s play of a similar name suggesting internal collaboration with external enemy forces. This raised questions about the loyalty of Japanese Americans to the United States despite government dismissal of potential threats from Japanese Americans. This situation appears similar to the situation of Muslims and Muslim-Americans in the U.S. following September 11, 2001.

Then on February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an Executive Order 9066 giving permission to the head of the military to confine and exclude certain groups of people without regards to citizenship or ancestry from military installations, mainly on the West Coast because of its vulnerability to invasion and attack at the time. Some 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were imprisoned in ten (10) different camps.

The implementation of this Executive Order evolved from the initial imposition of curfew upon aliens of Japanese descent as well as Japanese Americans, to confinement of Japanese and Japanese Americans to military facilities, and later rounding up Japanese and Japanese Americans in detention centers that were interchangeably called “relocation centers”, “internment camps”, and “concentration camps”.

Gordon K. Hirabayashi, who was a student at the University of Washington, refused to register for evacuation and thereby was accused of violating the Executive curfew order and the Congressional statute that followed designating the violation of military orders. Both violations were misdemeanors. Hirabayashi argued that the indictment should be dismissed because he was an American citizen, born in Seattle in 1918 that at no time had borne allegiance to Japan and had never been to Japan.

CASE HISTORY:

The case of Hirabayashi v. United States reached the Supreme Court from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit where the defendant’s conviction from the district court was upheld. The court held that the application of curfews against members of a minority group was constitutional during a war time with a country that the group originated.

The Supreme Court also upheld the curfew order in Hirabayashi and its companion case (Korematsu v. United States). However, several years later in 1986 and 1987, Hirabayashi’s case would be overturned by the U.S. District Court in Seattle and the Federal Appeals Court.

SUPREME COURT DECISION:

The Supreme Court indicated that where the sentences of a defendant were to run concurrently, it would be necessary to consider the validity of the sentence on both charges  (counts) if the sentence on one of the charges is sustainable

Chief Justice Stone delivered the opinion of the court. The decision addressed two main issues or charges:

1.       Whether the restrictions of the Executive Order and the subsequent Congressional statute violate the rights of Japanese Americans?

2.       Whether the restrictions of the Executive Order and the subsequent Congressional statute unconstitutionally discriminated against citizens of Japanese origin?

The Supreme Court held that the Executive Order was a in the interest of public safety, a “protective measure necessary to meet the threats of sabotage and espionage” (P. 320 U.S. 95). The Court also held that the curfew order did not unconstitutionally discriminate against citizens of Japanese origin, P. 320 U.S. 101. Chief Stone also cite the landmark case of McCullough v. Maryland to support his position.

Justice Douglas, in concurrence argues that after Pearl Harbor, the threat of Japanese invasion was real and the threat of aliens and citizens of Japanese origin in military installation is a legitimate concern. He challenged the substantial evidence rule, saying that peacetime procedures do not necessarily fit wartime needs. Justice Douglas raised doubts that the court is competent to review the case, further arguing that the court is dealing with loyalty, not assimilation; but then loyalty is matter of mind and of heart, and not of race yet guilt is personal. He argued that detention for reasonable cause is one thing, and detention for ancestry is another thing all together.

Justice Murphy also concurred. A concurrent opinion is one that agrees with the majority opinion but uses different reasons or reasoning. He cited United States v. Macintosh (283 U.S. 605, 283 U.S. 622)  arguing  on the basis of the “Necessary and Proper” clause of the constitution that the executive and congress are empowered to exercise control over persons and property  even though such may not be permissible in normal times. However, Murphy lamented that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights cannot be suspended by the mere existence of war, and the executive and congressional war powers is subject to constitutional limitations. He questioned the wisdom of restricting substantially the personal liberty of citizens of United States based on the accident of ancestry (Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 274 U.S. 372).

Justice Rutledge also concurred. He raised doubts about the wide range of power vested in military commanders such General De Witt even during an emergency. While he agrees that the generals must have discretion in conducting their operations, they would not go unchecked and there would be boundaries beyond which they cannot go.

It is however interesting that one of the justices dissented in this case. The lack of a dissent goes to underscore American nationalism during a time of crisis. Notwithstanding, the large number of concurrent opinions perhaps sets this case on the path to a later reversal. Dissenting and concurrent opinions are often useful in shaping future majority opinions.