As it is now known, the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush has passed away at the age of ninety-four. While I disagreed with his politics or what took place during his tenure at the CIA, the former CIA Director, Vice President, and 41st President, George H. W. Bush was still a patriot who served his country in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater during WWII. He flew the TBM Avenger and was shot down by the Japanese near Chichijima and later rescued by American Submarine. He would one day be Commander in Cheif during Desert Storm and hailed as the Liberator of Kuwait. He was a devoted husband who recently lost his wife Barbara and father of five children of which his son George W. Bush served as the 43rd President. He dedicated a lifetime of public service to this country he once hoped would be a "Kinder, Gentler, Nation" and the "Thousand Points of Light" to Ronald Reagan's vision of that shining beacon on the hill. Friends to former political foes and to former Presidents, he was also a doting grandfather and that kinder gentleman we no longer see enough of these days. To him, I say Godspeed, Fairwinds, and Following Seas. Barbara, Robin, and your Shipmates await you in heaven.
It's not even been a week since Reality T.V. Show host turned "President" Donald Trump who previously mocked North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un was last praising him. Now that Kim has catfished Donald in the most humiliating way, he is once again turned his un-presidential rage against Black NFL players in suggesting that if they do not bow to our national anthem then perhaps they should not be in this country. It's outrageous that the White NFL owners caved into Trump's racist demands to punish Black players, but worse, he is emulating the very man in Pyongyang he is angry at and all because he won't be receiving that coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Seeing Donald having the temperament of a spoiled child, it's no wonder Kim Jong Un had no trouble playing him like a fiddle. Truly pathetic!
It's bad enough we are not going to the World Cup this year, but worse that one man has forced another league's players to stand for an anthem as if this was North Korea. What's next? Will people be required to bow before his portrait like they do in Pyongyang? We can't let that happen. Not here, not now. I love this country dearly but hate this blatant racism and police brutality that is taking place. As much as it pains me to say, until further notice, I too will not stand for the anthem because one man says so.
This is not a dictatorship and I as a citizen whose family has served this county during war and in peacetime will not yield to this draft dodgers questionable authority. I am taking this stand in solidarity with our fellow Brothers and Sisters of Color because it is right. They are Americans too and many of them have spilled the same blood in the same mud for this country. This silent protest was never was about our military, or in any way a disrespect to it, but now it has become about one man's ego and you don't get to question this proud son of a Vietnam Veteran's patriotism. When facing social injustice, protest is the most American thing you can do. #EndRacism#NFLProtest
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.
With all that is going on in the region, a most unexpected move was announced earlier this week. CNN had posted reports that spokesmen from both the United States and the PRC have both announced that the two countries plan to hold joint military exercises this November 13-18th 2016 to focus on Disaster Relief Missions. The Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that China's military spokesperson Wu Qian said in a recent briefing: "The scenario of the joint exercise and exchange is professional
disaster relief in high-altitude regions. It consists of three phases,
namely, academic exchange, command post exercise and live troop
exercise." While only a small number of PLA and US Military personal will take part in this exercise, it is our hope that this spirit of cooperation can be built upon and perhaps the current tensions could be eased. With rising climate related disasters on the rise, it is up to the nations of the world to put aside their petty differences and come together in times of need. Whiles these exercises won't solve all the outstanding issues on the South China Seas, it can in some small part lay the ground work for future cooperation in humanitarian and disaster relief efforts where our two great countries resources can be used in tandem for good. We at American Mishima hope to see more of this.
“American Mishima” is the work of Louis Rosas, the son of Mexican Immigrants, whose father served in Vietnam for the US Army and who grew up on glamorized war films and military aviation in the sleepy seaside plains of Oxnard, Calif. With an early fascination of the Second World War embedded in his young mind during the post-Vietnam era, it was his exposure to Akira Kurosawa's samurai epic Ran (Toho, 1985) that changed his views of war while creating a lasting impression of Japanese culture and history. Further inspired by the works of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Rosas would go on to study Japanese language and swordsmanship, which led him to the practice of Shingon Buddhism and Shinto. Rosas is also a former student of Shinkendo, the ideal and practice of the samurai code of Bushido in the modern world, which helped shape the creative force that is “American Mishima.”
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