Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins
Forum Rules and Guidelines

Totally lost respect for: Tom Hanks

USS Redskins

By USS Redskins
in The Tailgate

Recommended Posts

USS Redskins

USS Redskins

Posted
Posted

I missed this a few weeks back when it happened but apparently Tom Hanks thinks the war in the Pacifc was waged because America was racist and wanted to wipe out the Japanese becuase they were different.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/17/entertainment/main6307437.shtml

This really bummed me out because I am an avid reader of War World II history and was a big fan of Saving Private Ryan, Band of Bros. and was enjoying the Pacific.

Mr. Hanks obviously missed allot in his research. The Japanese committed atrocities second only to the Nazi's from 1937-1945:

*The slaughter of between 5 and 7 million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos- civilians and soldiers... using the Emperor Hirohito sanctioned policy to “Kill All, Burn All, and Loot All."

*The Bataan Death March (between 6,000 and 11,000 deaths)

*The torturing and murder of thousands of allied POW’s including scientific experimentation.

*Thousands of Chinese and Korean women raped – known as the “comfort women.”

*The suicides of Saipan - Over 10,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle to take the offered privileged place in the afterlife offered by Emperor Hirohito, some jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff".

Those are just a few examples that I know of and have read about. There are more out there.

It was sad to see Mr. Hanks calling American’s racists in fighting against these actions. I believe Imperial Japan was as evil and power hungry as the Nazi’s and those men and women who stopped them were real heroes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheGoodBits

TheGoodBits

Posted
Posted

Wow, talk about totally missing his point. He wasn't calling Americans racists for fighting the Japanese, he was saying that the war was inciting because of vast cultural differences between Japan and the US. He followed that up by drawing a comparison to what is happening between middle eastern people and the US today. Cultural differences leading to further conflict because it's so easy to view someone who you don't understand as inferior.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Burgold

Burgold

Posted
Posted

I'm giving him the temporary benefit of the doubt. Sounds like a misquote. If that's what he believes as a whole it was pretty stupid. However, if he was talking about the Japanese internment camps, he has a point and anyone who's watched Bugs Bunny, Walt Disney or Charlie Chan knows that there was some anti-Asian sentiment that was pretty strong during that time period and earlier.... but it was certainly not the motivating reason to go to war.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jnhay

jnhay

Posted
Posted

There's no doubt that there was a ton of racism on both sides. I don't understand how anyone could deny that. I don't like how he sounds like he's making us the bad guy, because we clearly weren't. The Pacific doesn't paint us that way either, so I really wonder what's going on here.

Has anyone tried to talk to Hanks about his comments? Karl Rove said he's "impervious to rational discussion" ,but I'd be surprised if he actually had a discussion with him. If he hasn't, that's an idiotic thing to say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
USS Redskins

USS Redskins

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I'm giving him the temporary benefit of the doubt. Sounds like a misquote. If that's what he believes as a whole it was pretty stupid. However, if he was talking about the Japanese internment camps, he has a point and anyone who's watched Bugs Bunny, Walt Disney or Charlie Chan knows that there was some anti-Asian sentiment that was pretty strong during that time period and earlier.... but it was certainly not the motivating reason to go to war.

I cant disagree on that point... but not the sole reason.

My Uncle was a WWII vet - saw some serious action and had the night terrors, etc... After what he saw/experienced - lets just say he was not a fan of Japan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
zoony

zoony

Posted
Posted

the atom bomb was the perfect solution to the pure hatred that existed between the japanese and americans.

without it japan would have killed millions more and america would have punished japan to this day

as it is we rebuilt them and now we are allies

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Spanky22

Spanky22

Posted
Posted
My grandfather survived that.

As did my great-grandfather. He left the states weighing over 170 pounds. After the Bataan Death March and 2 years in a POW camp in the Philippines, he came back under 100 pounds.

Man did he have some stories.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ABQCOWBOY

ABQCOWBOY

Posted
Posted

Anytime you have races fighting as bitterly as we did against one another, your going to develop a strong hatred. You have to in order to survive. WWII was real War. It's not like we have today. I am not trying to take anything away from our fighting men and women of today but WWII was different. It was different then anything I ever saw, while in the Military. Heck, even today, you talk to our Soldiers who are fighting overseas and you will likely not have a whole lot of love lost for the enemy. You can't not be in that frame of mind and expect to survive. You kill them or they will kill you. That is the nature of War and if you are not in that frame of mine, you do not belong at War.

What Hanks said is mastery of the Obvious. Of course they hated each other. Of course they were prejudice against one another. They had to be in order to survive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jnhay

jnhay

Posted
Posted

Why does this article quote Karl Rove? I watched the clip, and the statement has NOTHING to do with what Hanks said. Rove said Hanks was "impervious to rational discussion" after O'Reilly played him a clip of Hanks criticizing Rove's book. How does that relate to the story at all?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tone_dubbz

tone_dubbz

Posted
Posted
My grandfather survived that.

I'm glad he survived. I'm pretty sure he spared you the details of it. I've heard plenty of stories from people that were either directly or indirectly effected by it.

My Pop's use to tell me how he and his cousins would hide in the mountains when the Japanese invaded the PI. I didn't realize how rough he had it growing up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
USS Redskins

USS Redskins

Posted
  • Author
Posted
You've lost respect for a random actor, that you've never met, because he has different views? Okay.

I respect that he is a very good actor and that's about it.

I always knew he was a commited left wing guy- thats fine -and he was the star of one of the best movies ever made (SVP) and produced a great mini-series (BoB) - I had allot of respect for the guy up until he made those statements, which I interpreted to be calling America's reason to fight the war in the Pacific was because they hated the Japanese b/c they were different and racist.... not because of a little thing called Pearl Harbor (and the invasion of China and the Philipines).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
IONTOP

IONTOP

Posted
Posted
As did my great-grandfather. He left the states weighing over 170 pounds. After the Bataan Death March and 2 years in a POW camp in the Philippines, he came back under 100 pounds.

Man did he have some stories.

Yeah, he died when I was about 5 or 6 I think... So I didn't get to hear any stories, or I don't remember them.

I'm glad he survived. I'm pretty sure he spared you the details of it. I've heard plenty of stories from people that were either directly or indirectly effected by it.

He wrote a book, which was absolutely awesome, I read it (I think it was 250-300 pages) in one sitting. I wish I could find it again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Predicto

Predicto

Posted
Posted

I don't think that was what he was saying at all.

Any WWII scholar would tell you that that there was a difference between the Atlantic War and the Pacific War.

In the Atlantic War, we hated Hitler and the Nazis, but continued to generally respect the German people and their heritage. We thought the Germans had been duped, that they had a militaristic flaw in their character perhaps, but we never considered for a moment rounding up all Americans of German heritage and putting them in camps.

In the Pacific war, we not only hated Tojo and the Japanese Army, but we hated and feared the yellow peril. Japanese Americans could not be trusted, and had to be put into camps right away.

Back then, we really did think that Asians in general and Japanese in particular were inherently inferior and treacherous. Go back and look at the cartoons and posters from that time. They really are amazing. And California was the worst of all. Japan attempted to introduce a racial equality resolution at the League of Nations, but it was vetoed by the United States.

Luckily we have outgrown that. Doesn't mean we were the bad guys in WWII, because we weren't (if anything, the Japanese were even more racist than we were, and committed horrible atrocities long before we entered the war). And they are the ones that attacked us.

Still, bottom line - prior to WWII, Japan wanted to have a colonial empire the same as England and France and Germany and Holland did. America didn't want an empire of its own, but we didn't care if the European powers had one and if they kept it by force of arms. That was the natural order of things. But a Japanese colonial empire? No way, man.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hitman21ST

Hitman21ST

Posted
Posted

I'm just tired of celebrities making statements like that one and concerning politics and world events (global warming, wars, etc.) like their opinion hold any weight. It's frustrating hearing people making ignorant claims just to get their name in the paper. This goes for both Republican and Democrat celebrities. Their job is to entertain with movies/music/television/sports. They need to keep their opinions to theirselves and let the people educated in such matters make the statements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...