Trump's supporters claim that they love America, and believe that simply saying 'we're number one,' is enough to make our country 'great again.' They think that anyone who points out America's flaws is not a good American, like when Bush invaded Iraq, no one could protest the war without being deemed a traitor. Even our U.S. history books have adopted a more jingoistic account of our nation's past, as is evidenced by the whitewashing of unpleasant reminders of shameful laws enacted in the name of greed and 'national security.' The abhorrent slave trade is remembered with much more innocuous language, thanks to new books printed in Texas (shocking!).
A very dark and deplorable event in American history is often omitted from our memories, as many are unaware, willfully or not, that we forced the internment of Japanese-Americans. This was done in the name of 'national security' following the day that will live in infamy, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Joy Reid reminds us that this insane reality could easily happen again, thanks to Republican/Trump hatemongers who have supported a similar fate for anyone of Muslim descent. A Muslim registry would not be too discernible from Japanese internment, lumping all people of one group into a suspicious category.
George Takei was taken, along with his family, at gunpoint, and moved to an internment camp where they remained for the duration of WWII. You'd be surprised how many Americans have forgotten or never even knew of this unpleasant history of ours. Ignorance of history likely results in something about repeating it...or so I've heard.
REID: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 men women and children were rounded up and relocated, forced to live in camps during World War Two. Sixty-two percent of internees were United States citizens. Your (WaPo) column was wonderful and it was very moving. It was called "They Interned My Family, Don't Let Them Do It To Muslims." ...You wrote "120,000 people including me and my family lost our homes, our livelihood and our freedoms because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor."
Joy asked how he felt hearing Carl Higbie say that this possibility still exists, today!
TAKEI: ...my blood was boiling. He said there's precedent. If there is a precedent, it's a precedent to make America disgraced again it was one of the most shameful chapters of America history and for having done that, many decades later, President Ronald Reagan apologized for it on behalf of the nation and paid twenty-thousand-dollar of the token restitution to every survivor of the internment camp.
Reagan's more than a billion-dollar restitution is something I've never heard mentioned by the GOP who worships his legacy. Heaven forbid any acknowledgment of wrongdoing ever be made by a Republican, who'd have thought that Reagan was an exemplary example of kindness.
They go over all the intimations of Trump's surrogates that this awful history could repeat itself, Joy asks Takei what he thinks.
George when you hear all of those various explanations of what they want to do what did you hear?
.
..let me tell you about a Republican Attorney General in California at that time in the early forties he was a fine lawyer, but he wanted to run for governor of California and he saw that the single most popular issue in California that time was lock up the Japanese movement and so this attorney general, who knew the law who knew the Constitution, decided to be the and outspoken advocate for locking up Japanese-Americans.
It turns out this AG was Chief Justice Earl Warren, who actually accomplished some notable civil rights accomplishments, but started out his career all wrong. Mr. Takei explains his thinking with brilliant simplicity.
(Warren thought) it would be prudent to lock them up before they do anything. For this attorney, the absence of evidence was the evidence and the interment happened.
Of course there's no way that Trump would have any sympathy or consideration for anyone but his White Supremacist, alt-Right base. His sole reason for pursuing this office was their adulation and praise. Civil rights in America will only regress, and the mistakes of the past will be forgotten.
Just imagine if all African-Americans received restitution for the centuries of slavery and Jim Crow Laws that have hindered the progress of this substantial segment of our population? The amount would be in the trillions.
Mr. Takei made an offer to any official in a government capacity, from the municipal to the national level, a free screening of his Broadway production "Allegiance." The film version of the play will be shown on December 13, 2016, one night only nationwide, in movie theaters.
“George Takei’s Allegiance: The Broadway Musical on the Big Screen” will play theaters around the country Dec. 13. In addition to the full musical, the screening will also incorporate behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the show’s creators and cast members.
Joy calls George Takei a 'national treasure,' and he definitely put his heart and soul into the production. "Allegiance"provides real-life examples of why we can't let down our guard when it comes to watching the Trump presidency. If his campaign promises come to fruition, someone's got to look out for the innocent lives it would most assuredly destroy.
