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March 11, 2010
Tom Hanks: YAAHI (Yet Another Asinine Hollywood Ignoramus)
Victor Hanson asks "Is Tom Hanks Unhinged?"
Despite Hanks' efforts at moral equivalence in making the U.S. and Japan kindred in their hatreds, America was attacked first, and its democratic system was both antithetical to the Japan of 1941, and capable of continual moral evolution in a way impossible under Gen. Tojo and his cadre. It is quite shameful to reduce that fundamental difference into a "they...us" 50/50 polarity. Indeed, the most disturbing phrase of all was Hank's suggestion that the Japanese wished to "kill" us, while we in turn wanted to "annihilate" them. Had they developed the bomb or other such weapons of mass destruction (and they had all sorts of plans of creating WMDs), and won the war, I can guarantee Hanks that he would probably would not be here today, and that his Los Angeles would look nothing like a prosperous and modern Tokyo.
Posted by Vanderleun at March 11, 2010 10:15 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Someone must have accidentally dropped Acid instead of fizz into Malibu's bottled water supply.
The reality-based crazy is just too prevalent to be otherwise.
Posted by: monkeyfan at March 12, 2010 4:30 AM
Maybe Tom can explain to me how we laid waste to Germany--and anything in France that got in the way--without those buck-toothed slants motivating the American war machine.
Between the Japanese and the Germans, there is no doubt who Roosevelt detested beyond all. The bomb was meant for the Germans.
Tom may have learned his history from Ed Asner.
Posted by: james wilson at March 12, 2010 7:19 PM
Here's what I think has happened (FWIW): The always liberal Tom Hanks, with considerable and deliberate publicity, donated a substantial sum of money to Bill Clinton's legal defense fund.
The backlash from shocked Americans (who quaintly think a President should not commit adultery in the Oval Office) derailed Hanks's film career, so to balance his books again, he embarked on a highly public "patriotic" comeback tour. I don't think this move was purely cynical; I do believe that Tom Hanks loves this country, but you can't piss away half your audience and not suffer for it.
So for the past 10+ years, Tom Hanks has been trying (and succeeding, I think) to bring conservatives back to the box office. But in walking this tightrope, he alienated his leftist brothers, and now they are mad at him.
So Hanks tossed a bone to the liberal public as atonement, having milked all the glory he can off of Americans' willingness to fight and die for freedom. And that is cynical.
Posted by: Deborah at March 15, 2010 7:16 AM