Open Your Minds. Vote for a New Way of Thinking. Vote Obama.

Hire someone who wants to tackle the issues of housing, jobs, health care, and education. John McCain is too wealthy and too pampered and too privileged to give a damn about the average American. Joe the Plumber is a foot soldier for McCain to order around. He means well but he has no clue what matters to the average American. He’ll tell you to join the military if you’re worried about health care, jobs, housing and education.  Can’t you hear McCain saying, “My friends, if you’re worried about health care and housing and jobs, why not join the military?  Stand up and serve your country.  Do something to help yourself and your country.  Be an American.  Get up off your lazy asses and join the army, my friends. The army takes care of all of your needs. And while you’re in the military you can help with foreign affairs by following orders and doing what you’re told to do. Your country will thank you for your service.”

The irony of those who were planning to attack and kill African Americans and then go after Obama is that they have anger and hatred that has built up over the last 8 years as a result of Republican policies and that the person who can most help them crawl out from their positions of inadequacy, hopelessness and frustration is the Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama. The problem for Obama is that his own name is a barrier to getting some people to think differently. While Obama’s campaign is well organized, his name is a marketing nightmare.  To some people his name screams “guilty by association”.  Some will think that Obama’s name sounds too ethnic.  It sounds foreign.  It screws up the image that people have of someone who holds the White House. The American presidency is the most powerful and influential entity in the world. How can Americans hire someone who has a name that sounds so ethnic for a job that is so American? This is where Americans will hold themselves back. They will let their bias and prejudice cloud their judgment and sense of what is right. In the end, Americans and America will fall from grace if they choose to abandon their sense of what is right. If Americans allow the color of someone’s skin or the sound of someone’s name to influence their decision to do what is right, then they have abandoned what is right and just and will begin to lose self respect.  Shall you fall from grace, America or shall you build a bridge to the future that takes us to a better place?  

The president of the United States should be the top public servant that responds to the people. That is what the president should be. How was G.W. Bush qualified to be president of the United States, other than his father was the 41st president? Where had George W. been tested? What was his foreign policy experience? Isn’t the test of a president someone who can put together a good team of advisors and be willing to listen and be thoughtful in his decisions?  Shouldn’t a president be able to build a consensus with the people he is seeking to lead? The greatest change that Obama represents for America and the world is a change in attitude. Is it possible that most Americans really have no idea what makes America a unique nation? America is nothing if not an attitude. America is a can-do attitude.  What is America about? Has it lost its way in the world?

Barack Obama is a bridge to the 21st century. He is unique in that he is both black and white. He shares both cultures. He is a bridge culture to a better life. His interests line up with the American middle class better than any presidential candidate who has come before him. You gave George W. Bush a chance to be president for 8 years. Why can’t you give Obama a chance to be president for at least 4 years?

Be inspired. Don’t let your imagined fear scare you from doing what is honorable. Do the American thing. Vote for the guy who is really listening to what America is saying. Vote American. Vote Obama.  This must be the place.

W.—-It’s Gonna Happen Again. Because Americans Just Don’t Learn

The last 8 years have been like a train wreck.  All we can do is just stop and stare.  And let it happen again.  God have mercy on us.

 

Republican Convention: Party of Lincoln Ready to Lead America Backwards to Dividing Lines of the Civil War

The Republican People wave the American flag like it’s the Confederate Flag. They wave the flag and act how much more patriotic and how much more American they are than you and I. The Republican People are desperate. Those at the convention looked like men and women from a religious compound from which they cannot escape. These people show no diversity in their gathering and came across as way too bloodthirsty to be entrusted with the future of a nation as diverse and as compassionate as America.

The speeches given at the convention sounded like a high school pep rally aimed at disparaging the other team in the most humiliating terms. Speechmakers made nonstop juvenile remarks to ingratiate themselves with their friends. It was a most juvenile and immature spectacle to behold. They offered nothing of substance to address the issues affecting the people of America. All they could do was attack like pit bulls that haven’t been fed for days. Pit bull Sarah Palin has shown that she is just another one of the good ole boys. Who does she think she’s kidding? Rudy Giuliani sounded like the class clown making fun of Obama, the black kid with the funny sounding name, while Rudy’s Republican classmates laughed and jeered and goaded him on. It was an embarrassment for the nation to behold this cutthroat, heartless bashing of members of another political party. All you have to do is read between the lines to know just how capable the Republicans are of playing dirty tricks to knock down their opponents.

Republican hypocrisy is really a form of insanity that is meant to look like prosperity which is derived from American tyranny under Republican ideology. The Party of Lincoln is marching us backwards to the dividing lines of the Civil War era. Country First. Service. Sacrifice. These Christian soldiers are intent on pushing us all back to the days of the Union and the Confederacy. Slavery is once more back on the agenda. But this time we are all on the verge of becoming slaves to the Republican Confederacy. If not slaves, then foot soldiers in McCain’s military industrial complex. As far as the Republicans are concerned, the last eight years of Bush never happened. George W. Bush does not exist. The Bush Administration never happened. And the Republicans can prove it! They want a free pass and the best way for them to get it is to play the patriot card.

The Republican convention was nothing less than a war rally. It was war fever in full bloom. We heard nothing but war stories and fish stories, the one that got away, the one that will get away if we don’t elect Warmonger McCain. Maverick McCain. Top Gun McCain. What we saw was a call to war and that’s what the Republicans have to offer–more of the same. They revel in dredging up memories of Vietnam and the horrors of torture camps. They glorified war and its brutality of American values with their sob stories of death and mutilation. They are shameless in their use of scare tactics. World War II was won with the help of a generation of men and women who rose to the challenge when they were needed most. McCain and his Republican cohorts want perpetual war. McCain Economics is War Economics. If you’re in uniform fighting for McCain’s Navy, you won’t have time to complain about your economic woes. You’ll be worrying about shooting the enemy.

Convention speakers exploited McCain’s military record as if that mattered more than his senate record, which ultimately is not that much to speak of. When McCain and the Republicans talk about economics, they are talking about military economics. It’s guns vs. butter. McCain equals guns while Obama equals butter. The issues at stake could not be more stark. Everyone is an enemy in the Republican world view. You’re either for us or against us. War and money is what matters most to McCain Republicans. That’s their culture. That’s their world view.

Country First. That’s Mickey C’s way of preparing America for 100 years of war in Iraq and other hot spots around the world. Convention speeches from people like Leslie Smith, a retired Army captain, are meant to recruit bodies for the Republican military. McCain is a military guy. That’s what he knows best. Obama is a community guy. He believes in service to community, which is another way of putting country first. Community organizing helps to build the country that McCain thinks he founded. Community is what defines Obama. If you haven’t figured it out, McCain’s culture is a military culture that puts people in uniform, taking orders without asking questions. Obama’s culture is a community culture that brings people together and offers opportunities to succeed and build a strong country, from the community up. McCain is all about soldiers saving soldiers, bullets flying everywhere, prison camps, soldiers taking positions, grenades bouncing off chests, unbridled heroism, men leaping on grenades, putting country before self so the Republicans can profit from your patriotism that was programmed by the Republican propaganda spin machine. McCain’s foreign policy does not include the use of diplomats. McCain’s philosophy believes that bullets speak louder than words.

How can McCain talk about putting the country first and honor war veterans when he did nothing to speak out against the smear campaign against Vietnam War veteran and medal recipient John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign? What kind of double standard hypocrisy is this? Oh, it’s Republican dirty tricks sanctioned by the power of Jesus Christ and God Almighty. What kind of a reformer did you say McCain is? What has he really done to change the Republican Party? He blows a lot of hot, dusty Arizona air.

We’re either going to be a country that promotes peace, like Obama and Biden, or we are going to be a country that promotes war, disguised as peace, like McCain and Palin.

It’s guns vs. butter. McCain vs. Obama. McCain will put people to war. Obama will put people to work. This election is truly the fork in the road that will determine which path America will take into the 21st century. It’s a decision that will directly affect each of us for many years to come. Choose wisely. Because if John McCain makes it to the White House, he is very likely going to bring back the military draft. That’s what he means by Country First. Service. Sacrifice. Get it?

Now that’s a thought you can take to the bank.

Okinawa, Mon Amour

“Hiroshima Mon Amour” (1959) is a terrific film by Alain Resnais, the French filmmaker who was well known for his documentary filmmaking skills. The film came out in 1959 at a time when military planes were carrying nuclear payload 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After I watched this movie I began to think just how much horror there must have been when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on innocent civilians living in the peaceful city of Hiroshima, Japan. Imagine what actually happened. The United States wanted to stop the Japanese military and end the war in the Pacific. So why did they decide to drop an atomic bomb on innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the war? Why did innocent civilians need to die from an atomic bomb blast? How much of a threat were the people of Hiroshima to the people of the United States of America? Why wasn’t an obvious military target chosen for the atomic bomb? How could innocent Japanese civilians have become the target of an atomic bomb dropped by the United States Air Force? Obviously the decision to drop the bomb was made in the absence of any sense of brotherhood. It was a decision that was tainted by racism and a mindset that the people of Hiroshima are not one of ours and who the hell cares what happens to them.

 Some statistics about the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima:

1. By the end of 1945, 140,000 people died as a direct result of the bomb blast. From 1946 to 1951, another 60,000 people succumbed to the effects of radiation.

2. The wind velocity generated by the explosion was up to 980 miles per hour. The pressure was 3.5 kg per square centimeter, which is equivalent to 8,600 pounds per square foot.

3. The temperature on the ground at the center of the blast was 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. With the combination of the heat and pressure generated from the blast, the silhouette of a man sitting on the steps of one of the buildings at the center of the blast was scorched onto the surrounding cement. This person was just sitting there enjoying his day when suddenly a decision made by the President of the United States, a civilian, lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians.

What’s even more disturbing is to think that if the United States had been able to develop the bomb earlier, it may well have dropped it on Okinawa. If you consider the fact that Okinawa is relatively far away from mainland Japan and that the Japanese Imperial Army were dug into positions all over the island, you realize that these facts would have made Okinawa the perfect place to drop an atomic bomb. The island of Okinawa is isolated and relatively small. If the bomb had been ready to go in April, May or June of 1945, Okinawa could easily have been the target of America’s A-Bomb program. Still, even without the atomic bomb, many tens of thousands of civilians on Okinawa perished during the three months of fighting that took place between April and June 1945 on Okinawa. Okinawa, mon amour, you should consider yourself very lucky that you avoided an American atomic attack.

This August when the Olympic Games begin in Beijing, China, just remember that not far away, an atomic bomb had once been dropped on innocent civilians who were just going about their daily lives on a hot August day when the unthinkable happened. It is a truly sad thought to know that a horrible reality befell mankind, one which must never be forgotten, lest it happen again.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Part I

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston talks about her book “Firehorse Woman” with Frederick W. Marrazzo in 2004.  The story covers three generations of Japanese American women. The story starts in Hiroshima, Japan, where the first atomic bomb was dropped, and makes its way to United States.  Jeanne is also the co-author of the masterpiece “Farewell to Manzanar”, which is about her experience of surviving the internment camp at Manzanar.

 

Kumejima, Okinawa Youth Day Music Video

 A middle school on the little island of Kume, Okinawa was celebrating Youth Day when I was there in 2002. I try to synch these images with a neat pop song from Aly & AJ called “Rush”.  

An Interview with Frederik L. Schodt: Part I

Author and Japanese manga expert Frederik L. Schodt talks with Frederick W. Marrazzo about manga, anime, Osamu Tezuka and a host of other issues surrounding Japanese popular culture.  With classic modesty, he says that he doesn’t pretend to know everything about manga, but I wouldn’t bet on it.  Schodt’s latest book is “The Astro Boy Essays”, a tribute to Osamu Tezuka, Japan’s ”God of Manga”.

In fact, Fred was befriended by Osamu Tezuka in the late 1970s and maintained a close relationship with him until his death in 1989. Fluent in spoken and written Japanese, Fred frequently served as Tezuka’s interpreter and is the translator of several of Tezuka’s manga, including the 23-volume Astro Boy series. He is also the author of several acclaimed works on Japan and Japanese culture. Fred won the Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 2000 for helping to popularize manga overseas. He lives in San Francisco.

Thank You, Comrade McClellan! The People Are Listening to What You Need to Say

But aren’t you a little late to be blowing your whistle so long after the fact? Did you suddenly come to your senses when you popped out of the “Bush in Wonderland” world you people were living in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Do you think that this memoir will restore honor somewhere? Maybe it will restore something to the McClellan family name. Future generations of the McClellan clan will bow down to worship and honor you at their altars in Texas, China. Maybe you are on your way to becoming a reformed comrade. Maybe your memoir will inspire other members of your Republican Communist Party to follow your example and write a self criticism.

Say what you need to say, Scott McClellan. Say it for the sake of democracy. Say it for the souls lost in the hellish deserts of the Middle East. Better late than never, Scott McClellan. Better to say what you need to say, even if you could have spoken up earlier to stop your American comrades from dying in Iraq, spilling their blood for the sake of all that you said in support of the president, the glorious commander-in-chief. Do you feel foolish that the rest of the world knew about the deception long before you were even a glimmer in the eye of George W and his cohort of co-conspirators? Yes, you were duped and used like a lot of people, not to mention the 4,000+ soldiers who spilled their precious patriotic blood and died in the sands of a desert far away from the homeland of their birth. Yes, manipulation is a good choice of words. That’s what Republican Communists do. They manipulate, intimidate, leak names of CIA agents and use various sorts of propaganda to force others to do what they want. The American Republican Party could teach the Chinese Communist Party a few things, eh Comrade?

Your memoir is confirmation that the Bush Administration is really the Bush Conspiracy. It is a group of good ole boys who have operated like a conspiracy against American democracy, prestige and honor. The American Republican Guard is as dangerous as the Iranian Republican Guard. Both ideologies are dangerous to world peace and stability. At least your memoir will make us think very carefully about John McCain. He has been part of an administration, read MAFIA, that makes The Sopranos look like boy scouts. McCain is now going to have to explain why the American Republican Party decided to adopt the values of the Chinese Communist Party. The Bush Conspiracy moved into the Middle East on behalf of the American oil and automobile industries to ensure that their profits were maximized. Is McCain going to let them down by leaving earlier than his self-proclaimed 100-year pull out date? The Bush Conspiracy has treated the American people like a bug that it has stepped on without a second thought.

Oh say what you need to say, Scott McClellan. Better late than never. But tell that to the mothers and fathers whose precious sons and daughters heeded the president’s call for patriotism to take up arms to fight and protect the homeland against a threat that never really was all that you, the president’s press secretary, a public servant, made us believe it was. Tell that to those whose sons and daughters will never speak again. You had a chance to say it for them before they paid for your lies with their lives.

Say what you need to say, Comrade. But don’t be surprised if we ask you how to say “Long Live the Republican Communist Party” in Chinese.

 

An Interview with Firoozeh Dumas: Part I

Frederick W. Marrazzo interviewed Firoozeh Dumas about her memoir “Funny in Farsi” in 2004.  Here Firoozeh talks about what it was like to come to the United States from Iran in the 1970s.  She tells a humorous story of cultural misunderstandings that make you think differently about Iran and its people.

 

Haiku-Inspiring Koto Performance: “Final Flight”

This koto performance took place on April 12, 2008 at the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown.  Enjoy.