With millions of fans on Facebook and over 900,000 Twitter followers, George Takei – probably known best for his role as Lieutenant Sulu on “Star Trek” – has a wide audience and is a very active, influential force online.
Speaking in an interview with Al Jazeera America, Takei called the Tea Party “lunatics” and blamed them for the recent government shutdown. He seemed to be referring to Tea Party in the context of members of Congress.
The interview began with a discussion of Takei’s childhood, and the unfortunate time he and his family spent in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Takei explains, “We are American citizens, born and raised here. My mother was born in Sacramento. My father was a San Franciscan. We were American citizens, but simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor, right after the bombing, President Roosevelt, on Feb. 19, signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be grounded there and put in 10 barbed-wire prisons.”
He then talks of recently visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial in DC, when just a day before, he said, the government had been open. He observed that across the mall was what he called the “national nuthouse,” referring to the Capitol building and the House and Senate.
And then the conversation takes a turn.
“Those Tea Party people are crazy. I mean, they’re lunatics,” Takei said. “They close down the government, throw people out of their jobs — hundreds of thousands of people — and they say that they’re doing it ultimately in the interest of creating jobs. Madness.”
Takei continues, to put the rest into context:
“You know, my life has been shaped by that kind of situation. Madness, craziness on one end of our democracy and the shining ideals of our democracy memorialized in those monuments at the other end of the National Mall. Because the incarceration of Japanese-Americans was absolutely crazy. They didn’t incarcerate the Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. That’s the place that was bombed. But the Japanese-American population was about 45 percent of the island of Hawaii. And if they extracted those Japanese-Americans, the economy would have collapsed. But on the mainland, we were thinly spread out up and down the West Coast.”
Earlier this year, Takei said in an interview with another outlet, “It’s outrageous that we have these Tea Party people — people who don’t understand the Constitution — steering the discussion.”
Read the Al Jazeera America interview in its full context here.
(Featured image credit: Twitter)
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Tea Party riots: 0
Tea Party murders: 0
Tea Party bombings: 0
FDR: Democrat
Tea Party rapes: 0
Tea Party knockout incidents: 0
Tea Party Congressional Passed Health Care Industry bills that are stupid and un-constitutional – ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s worthwhile to have talking points for low info voters.
At work no one would know these stats or what they mean. Say something like this instead:
“This govt has more money to spend than any govt in the history of the world. They will still blow past that…by hundreds of billions of dollars. I don’t understand why they can’t reduce waste or cut back.”
When the Dems cut $716 billion out of Medicare, they assured us it was entirely waste that they were trimming, and that actual medical care would not be affected in the least. Then, Pelosi said “it’s very important that people understand” that there’s not one penny of waste anywhere else in the government that could possibly be cut. How did Medicare become the only part of government where money was spent wastefully?
Tea Party vandalism: 0
Tea Party litter left on the ground: -0 (less than there was before the Tea Party group arrived)
Ironic isn’t it that Takei uses the same dismissive hate language that brought about the internment camps.
I wonder if he has ever even considered it, or does he just soak up the attention it brings him?
BRAVO!!!!!!!
That is the true take on things.
George is a hater engaging in hate speech.
That thing leftists supposedly condemn, but use every awake moment of every day.
I’d bet a large portion of Trekkie fans are Tea Party friendly if not Tea Party supporters or Tea Party members.
It must be sad to be an ignored Queen 50 years past the sell-by date.
SNARK SNARK!
RE: “jennifer a johnson | November 23, 2013 at 9:15 am
Ironic isn’t it that Takei uses the same dismissive hate language that brought about the internment camps.”
“Those
Tea Partyobama people are crazy. I mean, they’re lunatics,” Takei said. “They close down the government, throw people out of their jobs —hundreds of thousands of peoplemillions of people — and they say that they’re doing it ultimately in the interest ofcreating jobsobamacare. Madness.”Fixed that for ya’ Georgie.
I see this all the time with my “academic” friends. They have the “NPR View” of the world, and no amount of facts will sway them. It is rather evident where the insanity he rants about is.
I share your observation, but it’s not limited to academics, it’s practically all liberals. And you can add reason and logic to the things that won’t sway them.
Yes, their attitude of “I know what I know, don’t confuse me with FACTS” is infuriating. They feel entitled to their OWN version of reality.Until now, that was the definition of “psychotic”.
Don’t you love when the resort to ad hominem?
No arguments or intelligence to support your points?
Call them lunatics!!
Ohhhh myyyy….
He is an actor. I seldom rely on people who have a talent for memorizing words that someone else wrote for serious political analysis.
The real question is, why do allegedly professional media people seek them out for their political opinions?
Because….it’s easier to SHOUT FIRE in a cowed crowd of lemmings than to do REAL WORK??????
Because the media people want to be famous themselves, for interviewing the celebrities on camera. That is how Barbara Walters achieved fame. Too bad it took so very long to find out that she slept with Fidel Castro before interviewing him.
“Those Tea Party people are crazy. I mean, they’re lunatics,” Takei said. “They close down the government, throw people out of their jobs — hundreds of thousands of people…
““…these Tea Party people — people who don’t understand the Constitution — steering the discussion.”
Let’s see. A left-wing, Democrat president violates the 5th amendment right of Japanese American citizens, confiscates their property and interns them in concentration camps operated by Big Government employees.
No, Mr. Sulu. You parents WISHED there was a Tea Party in 1942.
I thought the Force was from Star Wars?
George Takei is the from the Beam Me Up wing of lefty Hollywood prog id10ts.
Yeah, let’s talk about your twisted views of sexual orientation and the damage IT’S done over the years and compare and contrast to what zero damage has occurred because of the TEA Party?
Two themes that I can guarantee with metaphysical certainty that we will hear ad nauseum from now until the election is how crazy Republican Tea Party people are and how voter ID laws are intended to suppress minority voters. Jon Lovett, one of Obama’s “brilliant” hipster former speechwriters trotted out the “Republicans are crazy theme” a few weeks ago at The Atlantic with his appropriately titled article, “How The GOP Slowly Went Insane”:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/how-the-gop-slowly-went-insane/280614/
And this week, Harold Meyerson, who REALLY is a far left lunatic, trotted out, once again, the phony voter suppression theme:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-making-it-easier-to-buy-an-election-than-to-vote-in-one/2013/11/19/980fd138-514f-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html
Republicans have no reason for not being prepared for attacks along these lines. Strategize. Prepare.
How crazy were the Dems to think the Obamacare scheme would work? That nobody would lose the health plans they wanted to keep? That people’s premiums would decline by $2500 a year?
When people reported that their premiums suddenly doubled or tripled, Democrats were actually claiming that the increase would have been much worse if Obamacare hadn’t been enacted. How crazy is that?
Dems are saying that all those policy cancellation letters are actually “transition” or “re-enrollment” letters. How crazy is that — especially when your insurer is leaving the market?
Takei doesn’t appear to have looked at the other side of the coin.
Methinks he’s sitting on it.
I’m pretty sure if he’s sitting on anything, it’s wouldn’t be flat. That’s not the way (s)he rolls, if you catch my drift.
On the other hand, some of his Facebook graphics are hilarious. This proves, once again, that those with conservative viewpoints need to find a way to better infiltrate the entertainment industry. That way, we have a large platform to get our message out.
When I think of entertainment from the queenies, I think of stage shows with lots of makeup and feathers. Not cartoons. But that’s just me – YMMV.
Yes, Tea Party people are crazy, George. Unlike the people who own, say, Al Jazeera. Headquartered in Doha, Qatar, a totally open-minded, all-inclusive region, Al Jazeera is owned by Muslims, who are equally renowned for their own open-minded, all-inclusive attitudes. They’re especially fond of gays like you, George.
Yeah, it’s the Tea Party folks who are the crazy ones.
I suggest that Takei spend a little time in Qatar – I’m sure his personal antics would be tolerated there.
The left is full blown Orwellian “denialists” now.
When they accuse conservatives of something, it is almost always cover for their own actions. Obama has even accused us of “manufactured crisis”, a Cloward Piven tool.
Tea partiers are more constitution oriented than anyone, in direct opposition to the “living document” leftists. Team Obama constantly subverts our rule of law.
The internments MAY have been crazy, but today we let in the Boston bombers despite all indications they came out of a country with enemy combatants, and we subsidized them even after we were warned of their malicious connections. So today we release malicious illegal aliens, which is used as retribution by guilt, for any wrongs FDR committed during war.
Harry Reid shut down government. Bills were on his desk and he stated he would not fund government piecemeal, BECAUSE Obamacare would be left out. He had the funding in hand, and refused to pass it until he got his ransom. He held the gun and squeezed the trigger on the shut down, demanding the ransom.
I still don’t get why Repub’s don’t insist on correcting everyone that states Tea Partiers and Cruz shut down government. Orwellian Obama says the tea party held him ransom … another lie. Government funding was there piecemeal … ONLY Democrats demanded the ransom via omnibus full of pork.
Cruz did rebuke Leno on that a little, but he should have been clearer that Reid had the government funding on his desk piecemeal and refused it. REID shut it down, with Barrycade support.
Indeed we need to fire on all cylinders when we get the national stage, which as Obama showed, means Leno, Oprah, Stewart, etc.
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/11/11/ted-cruz-on-leno/
“Today’s Democrat Party!”
“Finally Sociopaths Have a HOME!”
This message brought to you by Democrats for No Tomorrow!
Those “Tea Party” lunatics also include a HIGH number of people who grew up with the original Star Trek – people who pay lots of money to go see OST movies, buy OST merchandise, attend ComicCon and other sci-fi conventions to see OST cast members, etc.
Mr. Takei might want to learn a little bit more about WHO is in the Tea Party before he starts condemning them with a broad brush.
Otherwise, he might just find his checking account is a little bit less full….
Takei said in an interview with another outlet, “It’s outrageous that we have these Tea Party people — people who don’t understand the Constitution
The complete and total lack of self-awareness on display by Sulu is staggering.
Where are the hundreds of thousands who were thrown out of their jobs? Furloughed government workers all kept their jobs and got back pay, and some even got unemployment insurance on top of it.
Do you suppose he’s talking about the privately operated, self-funding concessions that were unnecessarily and vindictively shut down by Obama? Maybe?
Sulu really is a Klingon. He klings onto the left’s non-negotiables: abortion and sodomy, no restrictions, no dissent, no apology. The TP is a threat to the old poofter because they don’t go along.
I have never understood why taxpayer funded babykilling-on-demand is so important to the rainbow boyz. I mean, it’s not like they will ever be in a situation where abortion is germane to their world.
As explained at a counter-protest at a Boston abortion mill in the 90’s by a poofter who eventually became Mass. Gov. Bill Weld’s “gay-straight alliance” high-school “club” initiator: if abortion goes, “gays” will go next — back into the closet, that is.
Perhaps it’s because they don’t personally benefit from, and are actually penalized by, the breeder program. I wonder if these are the same people who outsource American opportunities and invite the cheaper, often illegal alien, labor to displace Americans.
At least I know where to put my mouth …
A Hollywood B lister doesn’t like conservatives (((yawn))).
Wake me when the revolution begins.
First, redistributive change is recycled change is change with a diminishing return. Second, entitlements which are unbacked by productivity will sponsor corruption of the “benefactor” and beneficiary. Third, a progressive devaluation of capital and labor harms the middle class, which lacks sufficient capital, and is unsubsidized through “transfer” benefits, in order to weather progressive economics. Fourth, medical insurance is not equivalent to medical care, does not address cost and availability. Finally, if you are concerned about private monopolies, then you should absolutely fear a public monopoly. Perhaps that is the answer.
Anyway, The Tea Party is right to address corruption of public servants, elected, appointed, and employed. The status quo which has identified a profitable niche treating symptoms will only enable the causes to fester.
That said, it was after Reid rejected individual appropriation bills, in lieu of the favored omnibus bill, that Obama and Reid threatened to shutdown the federal government, and brought out the barricades in a fit of juvenile rage.
“On the other hand, some of his Facebook graphics are hilarious.”
You realize he has intern-types that do all the FB stuff for him? I doubt he even sees half of them before they get posted. Wasn’t he the one with the recent scandal – his followers got miffed that they were responding on FB to interns using his profile instead of him.
“You know, my life has been shaped by that kind of situation. Madness, craziness on one end of our democracy”
Very interesting. George T. seems unable to grasp the essential continuity between the crazy Democratic control-freak government which sent him to a concentration camp and the crazy Democratic control-freak government which brought us the recent Reid/Obama antics.
A form of Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps.
Irony: A gay individual making a statement against the Tea Party on a news station run by a bunch of people who discriminate heavily against gay individuals.
I believe there was a Star Trek episode in which Sulu went comepletely mad…I think the director forgot to yell “cut” 40 years ago……
Well, Mr Takei, I am offended at your blanket condemnation of an entire, large group of people that you obviously don’t at all understand. That attitude strikes me as being hideously unjust. Therefore, I will never ever ever buy a brand new Star Trek anything that you figure in,or on, nor will I ever go to a Trekkie convention that you will be attending. And if there were a whole planet of Takeis, Kirk would be radioing, “Beam me up, Scotty,no intelligent life forms down here!”