February 19, 2018 marks the 76th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of over 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry during World… Read more “CAPAC Members Observe Day of Remembrance for Japanese Incarceration”
Washington DC: Never Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice
Film Screening And Discussion February 18 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM For more information visit this link
Event Jan 18, 2018: From Korematsu to the Travel Ban: Guarding Against Executive Abuse
Event Contact Information Name Japanese American Citizens League – Honolulu RSVP jaclhon@gmail.com
Former US Solicitor General Neal Katyal Argues Stop Repeating History in Ninth Circuit Travel Ban Case
Former U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal argues against the Travel Ban in his closing argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on December… Read more “Former US Solicitor General Neal Katyal Argues Stop Repeating History in Ninth Circuit Travel Ban Case”
ACLU: Trump’s Ban Repeats Travesty Against Japanese-Americans in World War II
Article is linked here. Trump’s Muslim Ban Repeats the Constitutional Travesty Committed Against Japanese-Americans in World War II By Cecillia Wang, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU DECEMBER 18,… Read more “ACLU: Trump’s Ban Repeats Travesty Against Japanese-Americans in World War II”
CNN: Obama invokes Nazi Germany in warning about today’s politics
Article available here.
Obama invokes Nazi Germany in warning about today’s politics
By Miranda Green, CNN
Updated 2:11 PM ET, Fri December 8, 2017
Washington (CNN) – Former President Barack Obama urged voters this week to stay engaged in democracy, warning that complacency was responsible for the rise of Nazi Germany.
“You have to tend to this garden of democracy, otherwise things can fall apart fairly quickly. And we’ve seen societies where that happens,” Obama said at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, according to video of the event.
“Now, presume there was a ballroom here in Vienna in the late 1920s or ’30s that looked and seemed as if it, filled with the music and art and literature that was emerging, would continue into perpetuity. And then 60 million people died. An entire world was plunged into chaos,” Obama said. “So you got to pay attention — and vote.”
During the event, the former President mentioned similar themes of responding to a changing political landscape, mentioning examples from America’s history.
“FDR is one of my political heroes. In my mind, the second greatest president after Lincoln. … But he interned a bunch of loyal Japanese Americans during World War II. That was a threat to our institutions,” he said. “There have been periods in our history where censorship was considered OK. We had the McCarthy era. We had a President who had to resign prior to impeachment because he was undermining rule of law. At every juncture, we’ve had to wrestle with big problems.”
Obama also defended the necessity of a free press.
“During my presidency, the press often drove me nuts,” he said. “There were times where I thought reporters were ill-informed. There were times where they didn’t actually get the story right. But what I understood was that principle of the free press was vital, and that, as President, part of my job was to make sure that that was maintained.”
Obama over the past year has occasionally voiced thinly veiled criticisms of the Trump administration’s policies, particularly on climate change, though it’s not clear from the video that he was directly addressing his successor.
UPDATE (Dec. 20): NYC Council approves Jan. 30 as Korematsu Day in perpetuity
UPDATE (Dec. 20): Today, the New York City Council passed Res. 792, naming January 30 Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution in perpetuity, starting January 30,… Read more “UPDATE (Dec. 20): NYC Council approves Jan. 30 as Korematsu Day in perpetuity”
Duckworth, Hirono, Takano to Introduce Bills to Prevent Repeat of Japanese American Incarceration
On the anniversary of the widely-condemned Korematsu Supreme Court decision that led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, U.S. Senators Tammy… Read more “Duckworth, Hirono, Takano to Introduce Bills to Prevent Repeat of Japanese American Incarceration”
