George Takei  🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽
When I was a little boy, the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor. It was a surprise attack, and thousands of U.S. servicemembers perished. As a nation, we were stunned. And we vowed to strike back. Revenge was understandably on everyone’s mind, including many Americans of Japanese descent who opposed the emperor and were peaceful and law-abiding U.S. citizens and residents. /1
Oct 8, 2023 at 3:44pmWeb
Show threadGeorge Takei  🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽Oct 8, 2023

In its zeal to exact that revenge, however, the U.S. government overreacted, out of fear and bigotry. They targeted everyone who happened to look like the people who had carried out the attack. Those of us who had done nothing wrong were forced to pay the consequences for the decisions of others far away and disconnected from us. We were interned for years, in open-air prisons, while America went off to fight Japan, Germany and Italy.

/2

Show threadGeorge Takei  🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽Oct 8, 2023

It’s so important that we carry the lessons of the past through to today. Merely because one group commits atrocities and acts with depravity does not mean vast hundreds of thousands or even millions of others should be lumped together with them and made to suffer. We must never paint with the brush of justice and retaliation too broadly, or the toll of human suffering will rise immeasurably.

/end

Show threadKaori 🍉 🇵🇸 ☮️Oct 8, 2023

@georgetakei
George,

I’m sorry what our ancestors did at Pearl Harbor.It was unjustifiable.

It caused Japanese Americans like you suffer despite you are American.

At the same time,please know
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also unjustifiable. I learned ,just after WWII ended,NYT and Harvard dean spread misinformation “Atomic bomb were needed” despite US predicted Japan would surrender at the latest November.

Human tend to have act of revenge in their mind.
Kids like you back then,or my parents back then are most likely suffer despite they can stop nothing. I feel like “preaching “you, which I shouldn’t,

There were Japanese kids unjustly hurt and killed,
Like 2 years old in Palestine.

Show threadエセドクOct 8, 2023
@kaori @georgetakei
核がなかったら一億玉砕で植民地もろとも無くなってましたよ
Show threadKaori 🍉 🇵🇸 ☮️Oct 8, 2023
@drbarles @georgetakei
You have been wrongly “educated”(beginning with GHQ)War would be over by Soviet joining attack against Japan anyway, until November 1945 at latest calculation by US.
Show threadエセドクOct 8, 2023

@kaori @georgetakei
https://ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9D%E3%83%84%E3%83%80%E3%83%A0%E5%AE%A3%E8%A8%80

Potsdam Declaration | Birth of the Constitution of Japan

Show threadKaori 🍉 🇵🇸 ☮️Oct 8, 2023

@drbarles @georgetakei
This is the same old story for me and I’m so sleepy awoken early,so I just give you part of link and mute you to get some nap before work,sorry

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/science/william-laurence-new-york-times.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

How a Star New York Times Reporter Got Paid by Government Agencies He Covered

A pair of new books tell how William L. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times known as ‘Atomic Bill,’ became an apologist for the American military and a serial defier of journalism’s mores.

The New York Times
Show threadKaori 🍉 🇵🇸 ☮️Oct 8, 2023
@drbarles
Coming from NYT, Expect there will be excuses. Anyway beware of Tsunami
Show threadエセドクOct 8, 2023
我々の放射能被害を嘘にした汚れマスゴミ輩と二回に渡る降伏拒否の間に何の関係があるのか解せんがミュートされたししかたない
Show threadModus PonensOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei The Japanese internment was a horrific stain on the legacy of the United States as a purported guarantor of human rights and should never be forgotten.
Show threadhubzillarOct 8, 2023
@Modus Ponens
legacy of the United States as a purported guarantor of human rights
Amusement of nonsense; amerikkka is based upon theft, genocide, enslavement
Modus Ponens (@[email protected])

224 Posts, 61 Following, 18 Followers · Twitter Refugee, former intellectual property attorney. Science educated.

convo//casa
Show threadOregon Wine WomanOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei
Dude
Show threadguitardisOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei the people that are doing the lumping-in don't know the history.
The events that allowed the hard-liners to come to power in Israel, for example. What would things be like now, if Hamas had not sworn to drive Israel into the sea? And all the attacks that followed. 1967 borders, no settlements, maybe even place? No Bibi? No "apartheid Israel"?
None of the civilians, Arabs or Jews, deserve what their governing bodies are doing to them.
Show threadxs4me2Oct 8, 2023

@georgetakei

Wise words...

Show threadΩ 🌍 Gus PoseyOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei You're a special person.
Show threadScott 🇮🇱🇺🇦 WILL NOT COMPLYOct 8, 2023

@georgetakei Of course that's true. But, as you're clearly alluding to the Israeli response in Gaza, please keep in mind that by far the simplest thing the IDF could do would be to simply flatten Gaza altogether. That would be the cheapest, fastest, and safest response.

But of course, that won't happen. Because—while collateral damage to people and infrastructure is tragically unavoidable—unlike its enemy, Israel values human life.

Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure, including schools, homes, and mosques. That of course is a war crime on top of a war crime.

And yet Israel will still do the dirty, dangerous, and exhausting work of defeating the terrorists while trying—to the extent possible—to limit civilian casualties. Because this isn't about "revenge" or "retaliation": it's about self-defense.

Show threadCautionWIP (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈🇨🇦🕎Oct 8, 2023

@escott @georgetakei Please do elaborate on that dirty and dangerous work.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-08/palestine-tower-in-gaza-city-collapses/102948634

Palestine tower in Gaza city collapses

Trusted and independent source of local, national and world news. In-depth analysis, business, sport, weather and more.

Show threadKeithApr 16, 2024
@escott @georgetakei safest? Fuck you a thousand times. Fucking "mass murder would be the safest thing to do"?? Rot in hell genocide apologist
Show threadTang_FishOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei sad and true
Show threadphlewOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei Personally I believe the brush of justice, as used, is not wide enough. This is how wrongdoers escape and are allowed to continue in their wrongful actions. The “if they can do it to me, they can do it to you” crowd are spreading the mistrust.
Show threadVery Human RobotOct 9, 2023

@georgetakei revenge never works.
But those who support (or mutely accept) atrocities, are complicit.

This argument has of course been used both ways, and it's true both ways. And currently, the Hamas terrorists are the latest murderers.

Show threadMuckrakingMadnessOct 10, 2023
@georgetakei Well Done, George. People are losing their minds over current events. Horrible, deplorable, barbaric events, but we must look at things in context and try not to repeat the same mistakes as before. Mastodon looks like the "X-sewer" as I see people retreat back to their respective corners of the boxing ring, screaming at each other. I'm not your enemy if I disagree with you nor are you my enemy.
Show threadhubzillarOct 11, 2023
@MuckrakingMadness
Mastodon looks like the "X-sewer"
Time to find less toxic parts of fediverse
Show threadBlake BrasherOct 20, 2023
@georgetakei thank you.
Show thread[email protected]Oct 29, 2023
@georgetakei pity to see the US becoming complicit in the warcrimes perpetrated on the Palestinians. They did not learn a single iota of all the lessons they could have taken to heart. But hey. It’s a pattern with the USA.
Show threadPapaw MillerOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei You’ve omitted one critical aspect of the WWII interment of Japanese-Americans…German-Americans and Italian-Americans were NOT similarly interred. Why? They’re White while Japanese were the “yellow menace”. One can argue that the Japanese conducted a major attack on us (Pearl Harbor) while the Germans did not (not from a lack of trying). But the Germans DID slaughter six million Jews, and that anti-Semitic thread was evident among the German-American community.
Show threadHolger FialloOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei Sad but true yet at the same times Americans of Japanese heritage fought in Europe and died to protect the nation that put their families in concentration camps. They show their courage and did more than others by throwing themselves in the war.
Show threadTang_FishOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei with BiBi it will be a complete overreaction and exponentially more people will die as a result.
Show threadMarcus Marcius MarcellusApr 16, 2024
@georgetakei It's worth mentioning, as an aside, that many young men of Japanese descent -- whose anger at the government would have been understandable -- instead rallied to their country's flag and fought to defend it, including in the most decorated unit of the war, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
Show threadgavinisdie Oct 8, 2023
@georgetakei I am sorry that your fellow Americans locked you up for something and some people you couldn't control, I hope you have moved on from your trauma and that nothing like this ever happens again
Show threadNicole ParsonsOct 8, 2023

@georgetakei

The Internment Camps for the innocent was also an enormous theft.

After WW2, the formerly interned arrived back to find their land, homes, property, businesses,and assets had been sold at rock bottom prices.

Homes and property that would be worth millions now.

In Gaza, the ultimate goal will see the same theft of valuable lands.

Show threadEvelyn C. LeeperOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei And the Americans who went off to fight in Europe included 33,000 Japanese-Americans, many of whom had families in those camps.
Show threadIainOct 8, 2023
@georgetakei Israel already treats all Palestinians as enemies.
Show threadprabirkcApr 16, 2024
@georgetakei There is a book called Deoliwallahs about Indian Chinese who were interned during the 1962war between India and China. Many of them later migrated to Vancouver. They suffered a lot in their own home (India)
Show threadKeithApr 16, 2024
@georgetakei sorry George, I didn't mean to include you in my response to the genocide apologist on your thread