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CatWoman

(79,302 posts)
Mon Oct 8, 2012, 11:54 PM Oct 2012

Watch: George Takei’s Endorsement Of Barack Obama Will Make You Cry

George Takei has become known as not only the actor who portrayed “Mr. Sulu” on the original Star Trek TV series, but as a humorous and engaging LGBT activist. But in this President Barack Obama endorsement video he recorded for the campaign, Takei wears a different hat — a representative of the Asian American community, as he tells of the “memory seared” into his brain when “soldiers came marching up our driveway” and his family and he — at the age of five — were locked up in World War II internment camps.

“We were in prison, behind barbed wire fences, for four years, for the duration of the war, simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. We were American citizens, yet, because of who we were, what we looked like, we were in prison, without due process.”

Stop right now and imagine a five-year old George Takei, in prison. That was America seventy years ago. It may make you cry, at least a little. It did me.

“But, we have, as an Asian-American community, low voter registration,” Takei states. “We’ve got to be actively involved in the electoral process. And if you really appreciate the price that has been paid, for that right, you should be in there participating, protecting our interests, and, in so doing, making our democracy a truer democracy.”

“We have a unique opportunity to support a president who is a part of us. He grew up in Hawaii, the ‘Aloha’ spirit, his sister’s half-Asian. He understands, and loves, the Asian-American community.”

George Takei is a gift to America.

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/watch-george-takeis-endorsement-of-barack-obama-will-make-you-cry/politics/2012/10/06/50414

14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Watch: George Takei’s Endorsement Of Barack Obama Will Make You Cry (Original Post) CatWoman Oct 2012 OP
Thanks for posting this, beautiful indeed. Here's the youtube video: freshwest Oct 2012 #1
Catwoman, I also crossposted the video in the BOG. freshwest Oct 2012 #2
what a beautiful soul he is. Whisp Oct 2012 #6
You're right, Cat.. it's very emotional and Cha Oct 2012 #3
And here's his message to Mitt Romney sakabatou Oct 2012 #4
I am glad he celebrated Obama's family's mixed heritage Generic Other Oct 2012 #5
Yes, George Takei is a gift to America... hunter Oct 2012 #7
Love Takei. Love him! Lucy Goosey Oct 2012 #8
It's a nice message, and well delivered, but I am torn on this one. AtheistCrusader Oct 2012 #9
Great Ad, but not for said candidate RitchieRich Oct 2012 #11
I wouldn't say the NDAA has been successfully defended yet. AtheistCrusader Oct 2012 #12
you never know. RitchieRich Oct 2012 #13
He's right; it was nothing but racism. Rozlee Oct 2012 #10
Bideo wa totemo seijitsuna ne AsahinaKimi Oct 2012 #14

Cha

(297,258 posts)
3. You're right, Cat.. it's very emotional and
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 12:10 AM
Oct 2012

I'm not even Asian American! thank you and thank George Takei..that's a beautiful GOTV Vid!

Here's Maya's tribute to Asian Americans..



We have our own Mazie Hirono running for Senator here in Hawai'i..

http://www.mazieforhawaii.com/

Lucy Goosey

(2,940 posts)
8. Love Takei. Love him!
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 10:35 AM
Oct 2012

George Takei has been one of my favorite people in the world for the past few years.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
9. It's a nice message, and well delivered, but I am torn on this one.
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 11:41 AM
Oct 2012

I appreciate learning a bit more about Obama's family heritage, and I enthusiastically endorse Takei's call to voter registration for the under-represented Asian-American community...

but.

This message doesn't square well in my mind, with the indefinite detention provisions of the 2012 NDAA. No, it doesn't define Obama's presidency, and it certainly doesn't make the other candidate look any better, but it is sort of the elephant in the room, in contrast to Takei's message. And that is unfortunate.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
12. I wouldn't say the NDAA has been successfully defended yet.
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 01:46 PM
Oct 2012

It's going to have to go to the supreme court. I'll leave the party-lines divide on the court up to your imagination.

RitchieRich

(292 posts)
13. you never know.
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 02:45 PM
Oct 2012

Occasionally they actually will vote with their conscience, not their party's expectation. Do you know about the status of this going to the court? I couldn't stomach reading any more on it after it was reinstated. Sad that I have more hope for Roberts than for Obama.

It seems to me that if this were a Red decision, people on the Left would positively loose their minds. How does it escape their attention that there will eventually be another Right president who will be free to wield these broad new powers?

Rozlee

(2,529 posts)
10. He's right; it was nothing but racism.
Tue Oct 9, 2012, 11:44 AM
Oct 2012

Not many Americans know that we had 400,000 Nazi EPWs here during WWII working in fields and in our factories. They were housed in barracks prisons when not out working in prison labor. But, we didn't have them segregated from our population overall. One African-American veteran, disabled while fighting the Nazis overseas, once told of how despairing and horrified he felt at coming home and seeing Nazi soldiers standing in line to drink from "WHITES ONLY" water fountains. Our Asian-American citizens were treated monstrously during that time all because of their race.

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