Norman Mineta, a Beautiful Politician to Star in Movie

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

This is a report of Norman Mineta’s talk at the studio of WGBH-TV, Boston on May 9, 2019. It was absolutely inspiring. In fact, for me it was thrilling.

I know you’re thinking that’s because of 9-11. Nope. The famous “Is the plane still ten miles out?” issue was never raised.

So onto the stage comes ol’ Norm, age 87, using a walker. He was preceded by various Bostonian Japanese and Chinese personages, e.g. Prof Mark Wu of Harvard Law School, Liz Cheng, general manager of WGBH, and Michelle Wu of the Boston City Council (age 34, Taiwanese).

Round-ups

Various panelists asked him questions.  The first subject was the 9-11 rounding up of Muslims. Actually no one said “rounding up,” as officially they were not rounded up.

(Are you kidding? Of course they were.  They were officially invited to come into police stations pronto, in 2001, and say if they “knew anything.”  Then they were jailed for credit card fraud. That can mean something as simple as giving an address that does not agree with the billing address on the card, in which case I should have been rounded up years ago.)

Norman Mineta said his first duty on 9-11 was to ground all the planes that were in the air. (He was US Secretary of Transportation). There were 6,438 flights aloft at that moment. He is opposed to President Trump’s making no-fly lists of Muslims.

World War II

The talk soon turned to the reason for his protectiveness of “foreigners.” That, of course is because he, like Mr Korematsu, in 1942, was “evacuated” from home in California, and put in a concentration camp for the remainder of the war.

(You may recall from Korematsu’s 1984 Supreme Court case that it came out in the wash that the government had always known that the Japanese Americans posed no threat.)

He and his parents were assigned to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, which was very cold. They got there in September 1942 and schools for kids weren’t built till May 1943.  In the meantime, to keep the kids occupied, they asked Boy Scouts of America to form a troop at Heart Mountain.

The Scout leaders said “Sorry, we ain’t going in there with POW’s, surrounded by barbed wire.”  After it was explained to them that the ‘inmates” were not POW’s, the scouts from Cody came in and acted in a brotherly way.

How To Deal with Bullies

They taught the boys how to pitch a tent, and said you’ll need to build a moat to protect against the heavy rain build-up. So they made a moat.

Then one of the “American” kids said “There is a bully in that tent down the hill. Let’s alter the drainage so the rain water will go into his tent.”  So they did that, and the bully got flooded and everyone lived happily ever after.

Meanwhile, one of the Cody, Wyoming scouts was Alan Simpson who later became Mineta’s best buddy in Congress.  Norm joined the House of Reps in 1974 and Alan joined the Senate in 1978, and I didn’t join the Senate in 2017.  Oh, sorry to bring it up again. Sour grapes.

By the way, Judge Roy Moore is still campaigning this time for “our” seat, which comes vacant again in 2020.

Ideas about Congress

Here are a few of Norman’s remarks on today’s Congress.

First, nothing gets done because the schedule is wrong. The first session of the week begins late Tuesday and the last one ends Thursday morning, so they can all go home to their electorates. (Or to the Bahamas, as the case may be – he didn’t say that.)

“When Tip O’Neil was Speaker of the House we started Monday at noon and broke up Friday at 3pm.”  Naturally, naturally.

Thanks to the [outrageously] short week “the members don’t get to form friendships and they don’t really do committee work.” (Makes ya wunda who does it for them and I’ll bet I know.)

Someone once confronted Senator Alan Simpson with:  “You’re a conservative republican and Mineta is a liberal democrat. What is your main difference?  Simpson replies “My shoe size is 17E and his is 8D.”

Our speaker tonight said there is no more crossing the floor. He does not want to think in terms of red state, blue state. He wants people to be able to work together.  “But there is almost none of that.” Good God.

Accountability

Oh, by the way, you may have heard that Attorney General William Barr, whom I seriously can’t stand because of Iran/Contra, has been held in contempt of Congress.

Wrong. The House Judiciary Committee voted for that, but it still has to go to the full 435 MPs. So to speak. I suspect some brown paper bags will be passed around (does anyone remember ABSCAM?) and the contempt citation will fizzle out. It must not fizzle out. This is exactly what we need. Accountability.

That was the first word Secretary Mineta spoke tonight: accountability. He advised “Go to the meetings, put pressure on, don’t let them get away with anything.”

A final word on Trump’s boast that he has got a lot of legislation thru.  Norm says “All they do in Congress is pass bills that name post offices after someone. Is that legislation?”

There was an Audience Q and A, as well as a live Facebook Q and A.  I waved my hand like mad but maybe my skin was not the right color. (Oh my God I don’t believe she said that!)

Who Are You Really?

Look, Mineta is not into ideology or identity politics. Couldn’t care less. Also he says he does not like a “melting pot”. He thinks of it more as yarns in different color – each color is strong on its own, but woven together they can do more.

He also says he loves it at the Olympics when the Norwegian team walks in, all looking like Norwegians and the Ethiopian team walks in all looking like Ethiopians and then the American team walks in looking like everything.  But American, you know.

Asked how he felt about the fact that the airport in San Jose has been named after him, he said when he first drove past it and saw “Norman Mineta Airport” he thought “I didn’t know my mother named me after an airport.”

Tears of Joy

He said to his audience “You must have integrity.” When he spoke of the value of truth, the lady in the back row with the red hair cried. OK, OK, reddish greyish hair, gimme a break.

As stated above, I found the whole thing thrilling. Recall the article from the other day, on JFK’s talk to the Press Club. Kennedy didn’t have to be put on airs, or on the other hand, slouch down. .He was the president for Pete’s sake and what he said mattered because he was our leader.

Tonight the audience in Boston was mostly of Japanese descent. Several said Mineta had been their mentor or hero or whatever you call it. (They had never expected to see their kin in a Cabinet post.)  Also, the bigwigs from WGBH who got up and spoke were wearing their proper prestige too, without trying to hide it.

Crikey, it was like the good old days. It was frickin’ NORMAL. And Mineta has such confidence in morality that you can see how he wouldn’t have flinched while giving that famous testimony to the 9-11 Commission.

Tesla, Anyone?

A young man asked if he thought technology had gone too far.  Mineta said the drones are a menace to plane and to privacy. But his wife has a Tesla car, and he is impressed with the intelligence of the car.  It overrides your decision to change lanes if that is not a safe option at the time.

The best part of Tesla car, in his wife’s opinion, is that as she comes out of the supermarket she does not have to walk to her car in the parking lot– she summons it. The car arrives with no driver, causing some shoppers to be startled.

The ex-Transportation Secretary also said that the Chinese are building 17,000 miles of railway for trains that will travel at 335 mph while the US aims at 135mph but in reality achieves only about 110. (Mineta was also the Secretary of Commerce, under Clinton.)

Big Plans for a Movie

Two Japanese American filmmakers were on stage. They have created a documentary about the 1942 removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans (mostly citizens) from the three coastal states, California, Oregon, and Washington.

It will be shown on TV on Monday May 20. The public broadcaster, WGBH, sends out a Worldchannel with many movies, often premiers. The CEO of WGBH did not exactly pass the hat tonight but he requested everyone to spend two minutes at their iPad making a donation.

Norm was asked if he had any criticism of the movie. He said he thought his role should have been played by Clark Gable.

One more story I have to tell you, as it really got my goat.  After the dinner (it was a huge free buffet) I heard a man ask Norm about children’s education today.  Norm reported that he had shown a high school boy a copy of the Constitution, you know, the original parchment.  The boy said “I know that’s an important document but I can’t read it.”

Why? Because it’s written in cursive and kids ate not taught cursive any more.  Arrrgh!

WHO MADE THAT DECISION AND WHY?