Sayonara Sweet Caroline

United States Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy stepped down from her position this Wednesday. She had done so ahead of the incoming President's demand that all Obama appointees vacate their offices by January 20th without having a replacement leaving many American Citizens abroad in the lurch. Despite this rude unprecedented undignified demand on the part of Donald Trump without any real transitional period, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy leaves her office with the dignity and grace that represents the best of us. She has been a true friend to Japan of whom welcomed her with adoration. Her legacy will be remembered for having brought about the historic visit by President Obama to Hiroshima (of which PM Shinzo Abe reciprocated by visiting Pearl Harbor of which she also attended), her strong advocacy for women's & LBGT rights, and her strong support for those affected by the Tohoku Disaster. She had made many friends in Japan and had the honor to meet the widow of the IJN Destroyer Captain who collided with her father John F. Kennedy's PT-109 boat during WWII. As she expressed her gratitude to the People of Japan, she also proclaimed that she will see Japan again. We at American Mishima are very proud of Caroline Kennedy and offer her a big thank you - ども ありがとう ございまして! JFK smiles from heaven. 

Japanese PM Visits Pearl Harbor

This week marked the historic visit of the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit Pearl Harbor. PM Shinzo Abe in keeping good with his promise to honor the those who lost their lives in the opening salvo between our two great nations 75 years ago, joined President Obama in an act of reconciliation. Much like President Obama's earlier visit to Hiroshima, PM Abe met with survivors and laid wreaths where appropriate. Following President Obama's example, no apologies were made but instead offered his "sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls" of those who were lost on December 7, 1941. He said the Japanese had taken a "solemn vow" to never again wage war.In his concluding statements, Shinzo Abe said: "It is my wish that our Japanese children, and President Obama, your American children, and indeed their children and grandchildren, and people all around the world, will continue to remember Pearl Harbor as the symbol of reconciliation," Abe said. "We will spare no efforts to continue our endeavors to make that wish a reality. Together with President Obama, I hereby make my steadfast pledge." We at American Mishima hope that in spite of what has happened in our recent election that the United States and Japan will continue to be strong allies for years to come and furthermore that we may never go to war against each other again.

To PM Abe, we at American Mishima say: 

ども ありがとう ございまして!

PM Abe to Visit Pearl Harbor

On the eve of what some are predicting to be a series of troubling times ahead for the United States under the control of an unstable president-elect, a gesture of good will from Japan comes our way. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor making him the first Japanese PM to visit there. He will be joined by outgoing President Obama in what many are calling a great symbolic gesture on the part of Japan in recognition of it's wartime past so it never happens again. This announcement coincides with the 75 anniversary of the Japanese attack on the Naval Forces of the United States that took place there on December 7th, 1941 that led to an all out war between the United States and Japan. PM Abe is quoted as saying: ""I will visit Pearl Harbor with President Obama. This will be a visit to soothe the souls of the victims. "We should never repeat the ravages of the war." As we had earlier blogged last August 2016, Abe's wife Akie Abe had earlier made the trip to the Arizona Memorial and prayed for those lost on that day. Japan is our number one ally in Asia and the Pacific and such gestures of healing & reconciliation are as symbolic to how far we have come as they are meaningful. We at American Mishima appreciate this significant gesture.

For those who still can not let go or those who ask what difference that any of this makes, we defer this answer to the words humbly spoken by President Obama during his visit to the Hiroshima Memorial: "We come to mourn the dead. Their souls speak to us and ask us to look inward. To take stock of who we are and what we might become."

America's Most Dangerous Game

As everyone by now knows, a vulgar Reality TV host with absolutely no political experience governing was elected the 45th President of the United States. It was done so through a vile campaign of fear and hate inflamed by a reckless demagogue who has embraced our country's enemies and scorned our allies abroad. While the effects will not be immediate, fears of what may come in the form of future wars and disastrous policies at home loom large among the free thinkers and those who reject racism and culture wars brought on by the religious right. We have survived bad presidents before (George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon) and will do so again as we have in the past but first we must get through this with the eyes of the world nervously watching. It is not with bitterness that we write this but with sadness that the question of how a nation could elect such a man who lied with impunity and who had shown incredible disrespect for our outgoing president could come to life. Our worst fears of history repeating itself have only begun. While this is not Nazi Germany, this is not supposed to happen here in the United States. Those who vehemently rejected Barack Obama on the basis of the color of his skin (and not the content of his character or his polices) as some secret Muslim have now come out of the shadows and shamelessly helped bring racism into the mainstream. They have gone so far as to legitimize such vile behavior and violence as entertainment. Reality TV has replaced common sense and responsibility in the name of American Exceptionalism or as the rest of the world knows as Arrogance. It is also in part the failure of the Media who held the new President-Elect to a lower standard than his Democratic opponent that the facts were often ignored or sensationalized for higher ratings than fair reporting that this has happened. 

Where this ship of state will go now is anyone's guess. The United States has been up to until now a beacon of stability and a leader for World Peace. Never before had the outcome of an election brought about so much fear and loathing that our standing in the world is so threatened. We now have a man who regularly throws childish temper tantrums on Twitter at former beauty queens and anyone else he doesn't like at three in the morning in control of the Nuclear Codes. Worse, he has threatened during the campaign to use them without giving any thought of what that could actually mean. This is a frightening prospect that as of this morning became real. If your reading this from Russia or from The People's Republic of China, you should not be celebrating. This should worry you as much as it worries us. The World already has one Kim Jong Un and does not need another yet here we are. We who have stood against the "Trump Train" have absolutely no confidence that the weight of such responsibility would temper such a man given the keys to the world's most powerful military. Particularly since he has vowed to fire the entire General Staff because as he puts it "they know nothing." This is as Bill Maher called it "A Right Wing Coup." Sounds a little too dramatic? Arguably it is when you consider the forces that backed Trump that include War Criminal Allen West famous for violating the Geneva Convention in Iraq with the use of torture of prisoners. It will be now up to our standing Military Officer Corps to live up to their oaths of protecting us from all enemies foreign & domestic (and I do stress the word Domestic) should things go terribly south. We are counting on them to reject illegal orders such as the promise during the campaign use of torture and far worse that our fragile democracy will need to survive this Right Wing Coup that threatens not only American Democracy but World Peace in an already unstable world. 

At some point we will get past the shock of this electoral outcome and come to grips with the new realities facing the home front. We now have a new leader with a hot temper and a fragile ego who will likely come after us who criticize him as he routinely threatens to do like some two bit third world dictatorship. Well, America is not a Banana Republic and we still have many good people here despite this nasty election. (Good going John Oliver!) We hope that those who still view Americans favorably do not judge us as a whole for what folly our recent election has done. And perhaps those who have fought for freedom will one day forgive us for embarking on this Most Dangerous Game Show where people don't just get kicked off the island, they go home in flag draped coffins or they are strung up by ropes and hung from trees in the amber glow of burning crosses. While some Americans will rejoice, the rest of us are filled with dread and nausea and unyielding sense of national shame that this has happened in our country. We are better than this but it seems we may take a hard fall from a self inflicted wound to realize this. The brief unity that brought this country together after 9/11 has been long forgotten and the nightmare of a Trump Presidency has only begun. It's like a bad dream we would like to wake up from but can't. Thus, the Free Thinkers of America will continue to write and voice their opinions and people will find a way to go about their lives. But will it be the same? It's too soon to say but it is clear we are now a more polarized divided nation than ever before that must together endure what we have so foolishly wrought. The Far Right has no interest in uniting the nation or representing all of its citizens nor does its new leader. We've lived through bad presidents before and hopefully we will get through this again. As actor Robert Whul once said in his famous HBO Assume The Position lecture: "Bad Presidents are as American as Apple Pie." In the unlikelihood we are offered a slice in Mr. Trump's Noninclusive America, We at American Mishima shall pass.

PM's Wife Visits Pearl Harbor

If there are two lingering issues between Japan and the United States that still stir up deep feelings about the war, they are Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor. And while they say time heals most wounds, there are still people in the United States who still hold onto strong feelings of anger of which many were not even born when these tragic events took place. Over the years we have talked about Veterans and Hibakusha who have long made peace, it has only been in recent times that moves to heal such lingering wounds on the part of politicians in both countries made significant gains. In this year we have seen Japan apologize to Korea for the final time and President Obama lay a wreath at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. Now Mrs. Akie Abe who is the wife of Japan's Prime Minster Shinzo Abe has made the historic first of visiting the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. While many see this as a precursor to a visit by the PM himself, others as noted in the Japan Times see this as an important counter balance to her husbands polices.

While this can be seen as being political, Mrs. Abe considers this to be a personal gesture of peace and offered prayers. She is quoted in the Japan Times as saying: "I understand that there are various debates and stances on Pearl Harbor, but I think that we have to pass on the memory to the next generation, transcending the feelings of hate and anger. I offered my condolences to the victims and gave my prayer of gratitude for the peace that we have enjoyed and to establish the peace going forward."

President Obama Visits Hiroshima

In an event no one ever saw coming, President Obama became the first United States President to visit Hiroshima. It had been a long desire for him to do so and we at American Mishima are thankful that this historic moment has been made. Joined by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, President Obama made the pilgrimage to Peace Memorial Park and laid a wreath for the the 125,000 people that died there from the Atomic Bomb dropped by the B-29 Enola Gay. This figure included mostly civilian men, women, children, a number of Koreans, and a dozen American POW's. This figure does not include the untold thousands that died later from radiation sickness. 

It is most poignant that for an American President to visit Hiroshima. Not to apologize, but to mourn those lives lost and speak of peace. We are pleased that the president met with three Hibakusha present and later spoke of the peace that was forged from this terrible weapon that unleashed its indescribable cruelty that was later repeated in Nagasaki. Japan and the United States have become the best of friends since those dark days near the end of WWII.

"That is why we come to this place. We stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry.

We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering, but we have a shared responsibility to look into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.

Someday the voices of the Hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness, but the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change. And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope." - President Barrack Obama 2016.

一日の画像 - Picture of the Day

Seen here: President Obama visiting the Venerable Mingtsung Shih at Phuoc Hai Temple in Vietnam. Our good friend Mr. Tony Truong had the pleasure of working with the Venerable Mingtsung for a Yoga "Flaming Mouth Service" when he visited the United States years ago. We at American Mishima hope this meeting will have been blessed for the President's continued goodwill tour of Asia.

President Obama to Visit Hiroshima Memorial

In a historic move, President Obama will become the first sitting American President to visit the Hiroshima Memorial. He is expected to be joined by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Peace Memorial Park near Ground Zero Hiroshima. This has long been an expressed  personal desire on the part of President Barack Obama to visit the site memorializing the over 125,000 people who died there during the atomic attack on the city August 6th, 1945. This visit of course is not without it's controversy. Racist detractors here at home have already condemned the unprecedented visit as some "apology tour." The White House has made it crystal clear that this in no way represents an apology for the then deemed essential bombing that shortened the war. Some people will say what they will in an effort to discredit the first Black American President and others will rehash old hatreds that go back to the outbreak of WWII. From our perspective, we see this as pointless as re-fighting a war that we had long won some 70 years ago. Then again we live in a country where these same people riot and burns our own cities when they win sports championships which makes absolutely no sense at all. Go figure.

There will be no doubt there will be many more strong reactions to come (predictably negative) from those on the right. Be it politically motivated or by those who can not bury ancient rancor or hostility for a people they neither know, understand, or feel anything for much less want to. For the rest of us, it is better to consider the of the horrors of nuclear war and better ways to prevent future use of such destructive weapons. It is through such gestures of enduring peace that the memory of those lost by this horrific tragedy of war never be forgotten nor such horrors repeated. To date no U.S. President has visited Hiroshima and until recently had only been visited by the last two U.S. Ambassadors and Secretary of State John Kerry as seen in the above photo. 

It is honorable to pay respects to the dead particularly for these mostly civilian non-combatants of Hiroshima who suffered as the result of wars consequences that were far beyond their control. We have been fortunate enough to befriend a few living Hibakusha that are still alive to tell the tale of what it was like to experience a hell on earth that we shall hopefully never know. I guess to say that there is a stark contrast between Japanese and American people on how they view the bombing. For some some Americans, they can not get past the attack on the part of Japan on Pearl Harbor. For those who actually survived the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, they wish only peace in the world and bear no grudges against America. People can learn a thing or two from these few living survivors. We get it, they get it, the President gets it, and hopefully some of you will also get it. Our Hibakusha were merely school children when they watched their families die both from the initial blast and from the following suffering from radiation sickness. They will gladly share you their tales and their scars in hope that it brings peace. They know what the President's visit is about. In fact there has been a letter campaign to bring President Obama to Hiroshima which has now borne fruit. But for those who need further reassurance, White House spokesman Ben Rhodes is quoted as saying: "He (President Obama) will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future." We at American Mishima applaud President Obama for his efforts. May there never be more future Hibakusha and no more Hiroshimas. Peace.