Ultimate Chinese Finger Trap For Twitter Fingers?

For many reasonable Americans, we have only begun to live through a bad dream we can't wake up from. The "Donald" as he is known had used every underhanded means at his disposal to win the American Presidency. This is a man who outside of an International Beauty Pageant has absolutely no experience in international diplomacy and is way in over his head but can't get past his own. So what does he do to handle tough situations such as the recent moves on the part of the PRC? He goes to Twitter and rants like a third grader at China. This is bad for a lot of people and not just Americans. For the first time since the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War, the People's Republic of China has America at a serious disadvantage. 4000 years of Chinese Culture versus an unstable Reality TV Host who can't stop attacking people on Twitter. This could not be any more embarrassing or dangerous. America and China while at odds over the South China Seas have interdependent trade balances of which the PRC has underwritten much of our debt and does not take too kindly by the Donald's Twitter rants. This of course plays right into Beijing's hands requiring little or no effort on the part of the PRC. This is a man anyone even yours truly can bait with a single Tweet. Just imagine what the skilled strategists in the PLA will have in store for this amateur who lacks the temperament to lead the free world. It will be the ultimate Chinese Finger Trap and America's interests are going to take a serious hit from a predictable self inflicted wound. Anyone who has ever watched Chinese Martial Arts films can tell you that you never tread lightly against a skilled master. They don't make Sun Tzu for Dummies and if they did this man would not read it. And with the circle of "advisors" (such as his own children) the Donald has surrounded himself with, we pray that our young people serving in our military do not pay the ultimate price of this man's narcissistic ego which will get the better of him and make other Americans pay for his foolishness. 

These are dark times for America. We expect the Chinese to do whatever it is in their interests and we can not fault them for doing so. While we may have differences of opinions, we do need to continue work together. Our new "Leader" however seems determined to undo years of cooperation to satisfy his right wing political base at home while ignoring the consequences of his name calling abroad. It would be foolish for him to rant like a school yard bully on Twitter and then ignore the consequences. This is no longer Reality TV nor is it a game show where he can say "You're Fired" and walk away. This is a dangerous world we live in. We only hope that those in Beijing who visit our page to read this know that many of us here DO NOT want a war with the PRC. But with aggressive moves made on the part of the Chinese Navy in the South China Seas, we can only expect a war of words from our side that could potentially get seriously out of hand. The Donald loves to point his undersized fingers and the worst thing he can do right now is point them at China. We hope the skilled masters in Beijing exercise patience for this new learner is going to make mistakes. Let's just hope no one gets killed because of it. In the event this does happen, we Americans who opposed this reckless demagogue in our 2016 Presidential Election apologize in advance. 抱歉

The Pervasive Fear

In the wake of the 2016 Presidential Election outcome, a wave of fear and loathing has gripped many non-whites and people of all persuasions. Acts of vandalism, racists taunts, and violence against Blacks, Muslims, Latinos, and LGBTQ have occurred with an alarming growing frequency and there is no sign that this will wane anytime soon. In reaction there have been protests and counter vandalism. Neither of which will change the outcome of what has occurred. Until the next presidential election cycle begins in 2018, we must live with a vindictive man who keeps a list of enemies now control of the highest office in the land. What is more frightening is the collection of a who's who of  Republican extremists that are being vetted for Cabinet positions. What we are witnessing is in essence what Bill Maher describes as a Right Wing Coup that embraced racist extremists and fanned the flames of racial & social divide. With vulgar calls from Mr. Trump himself to "knock the shit" out of people and other UN-presidential examples of his erratic behavior that has only encouraged the darker elements of our society to act upon their desires to wage terror on non whites, Muslims, and LGBTQ peoples. This is not what America stands for. And with Mr. Trump making no effort to restrain his more unstable supporters, his recent call for national unity comes off as insincere.

Anger and intolerance has made an ugly return. This happened once before in this country. We go to our Buddhist Temple with people who as children were forced from their homes and put on trains to be sent to concentration camps. This was the result of Executive order 9066. This is an idea that Trump himself said he was open to. This is a frightening prospect and more so for our Muslim citizens who Trump had said he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering this country. Whether he follows through with that threat is yet to be seen. As of yesterday, he removed the Muslim Ban from his campaign's website. But the damage has been done and the racists have only become further emboldened to commit acts of violence and intimidation. This is a dark time in America. One could only wonder what it must have been like before EO9066 was issued. People thought it couldn't happen here but it did. The Isei who lived here in those times used to say "Shigata ga nai" which translates "It could not be helped." The fallout from the election has left this country more fiercely divided. We are fortunate that we live in the Free Thinkers states but for those who do not, we fear for them. We hope we are wrong but as the days go by and scarier news makes it ways, we are less than optimistic. With the Pervasive Fear replacing anger and disgust, one must ask if it too early to say Shigata ga nai? We'll soon find out. Pray for the USA. We're going to need it.

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.

2016 Election Essay

A little over a year ago, I traveled to our nation's capital to honor my late father's service in Vietnam. While I was there, I made an astute observation of the people there. You could say there was two groups of people of which one vast group was both culturally and intellectually diverse. They were full of optimism and forward momentum. The other smaller group of people I witnessed were largely tourists who consisted of frightened white people largely from the South. They looked on to the White house with deep fear (as if someone shot the family dog) and stinging resentment for things they could not control nor embrace. It's safe to say a year later that I see much of this in this 2016 Presidential Election. I can see this alone from my friends list on Facebook alone these two groups at play with one bearing that sense of optimism in the face of perceived fear while another bears white resentment for a country they no longer control or can return it to. A world where people like me a Latino where my Muslim & Central American neighbors are not welcome or encouraged to take part in. A world where my Japanese, Chinese, & Vietnamese friends don't have a voice. A world where what few LGBT folk I have known must live in the shadows. A world where intellectualism is distrusted as elitism. It's sad that such unwarranted fears exists for these people. Worse, it is repugnant that demagogues (people who preach what they know not to be true) stroke the flames of fear and hate in a time where we could for better or worse become a stronger united nation. My family came from Mexico and my late father fought in Vietnam for a country he could barely speak its language or was a citizen of. How lucky was I to be born here in the United States! How unfortunate, those who have lost their connection to their immigrant roots can not see this. I say this because I believe such people have lost perspective. A perspective so critical to think clearly and see past the electoral bullshit and campaign rhetoric where lies are passed as truth, and truth distorted by those seeking to undermine our electoral process.

For me, it was like that moment two days after 9/11 2001 that I and a friend I had at the time carried an American Flag down the Sunset Strip and we stopped traffic. 500 people marched with us and a couple thousand cheered us on. People of all races, religions, creeds, and orientations joined with us as Americans. How powerful that moment of unity felt. You can never have that in an All White Controlled Society. How fair would it be to go backwards to the 1950's where my black neighbors could not attend the same schools and instead be sicked on by police dogs? What strokes this fear and hatred in the modern age? You can not blame it on President Obama as some in this country do. This rage was always there for some and now it's reared its ugly head once again. Ask any soldier who has fought in combat whether a skin color made a difference in the field in the face of a determined enemy. They know but some strangely within the ranks have strangely forgotten when they returned home and thus joined the angry ranks of the Far Right. And while many of you may not agree with my views, it is natural to agree to disagree. It can be done so without becoming uncivil or a "my way or the highway" diatribe that settles nothing. This country has so much to offer when you look past the cynicism and indifference of those who sit on the sidelines and argue as arm chair pundits hiding from the safety of their computer screens. We won't cure racism and economic inequality over night nor will we solve age old problems of balancing freedom and democracy on the scales of a Capitalist system that encourages both greed and innovation. But the challenge for every citizen is out there. Partake in our electoral process and fight for what you believe in. If that belief is to fight me, well here I am. Unarmed and easy to find but do so at your own peril. The war we wage is not against ideas but fear and indifference. While not everything in Washington directly impacts your personal life, change can be made right at home. I applaud those people who take up such challenges be it in small ways or giving largely of themselves to the community around them. We are stronger together than we are at odds apart but we will have a long way to go before we can become that "More Perfect Union." Regardless of what happens on November 8th, life will go on. How you choose to live it as a Citizen is up to you.