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MaterialConceptual
Jan 18, 2011

"It is rather that precisely in that which is newest the face of the world never alters, that this newest remains, in every aspect, the same. - This constitutes the eternity of hell."

-Walter Benjamin, "The Arcades Project"
There are some members of Ozawa's new party that want to join up with Hashimoto and Ishihara to form a right/ultra-right alliance for the next election, but neither Hashimoto or Ishihara seem that interested. Hashimoto because he opposes Ozawa's position on the sales tax, and Ishihara because he personally hates Ozawa.

If these guys could get together I'm pretty sure they could sweep their way into power in a heartbeat, but I doubt they would be able to share power amongst each other considering their massive egos.

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Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004
You vastly overestimate all three men.

Ishihara is the king of his little fiefdom, and he has no intention of stepping outside of it no matter how many outrageous statements he makes.

Hashimoto is overambitious and is unlikely to turn his populist takeover of Kansai into a national one without self-destructing.

Everyone here seems to have the Ozawa story exactly wrong. This is not the beginning of a dramatic rise to power of a political svengali. It is the end of the career of a very ambitious man who thought for certain he would be prime minister one day. He failed to position himself properly in the LDP so helped found the DPJ as an alternative path to power. He was almost instantly marginalized when that party took over, and when it became clear he had no chance at the premiership he began plotting to control things behind the scenes. He lost that gambit and is now playing his last hand, another attempt at a new party with not enough supporters left to realistically challenge the government. This is a politician whose star has been falling for the last ten years, and it is interesting to see the discussion tend in the opposite direction.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl
I don't think anybody's claiming that Ozawa's at the top of his career right now. But it's silly to claim that he was all about becoming prime minister when he was more politically powerful than half of the prime ministers of the last ten years.

Here's another way of reading the narrative.

There are two schools of thought on Ozawa. One hates him personally, one just sees him as an opportunistic weathervane. The difference? What narrative you buy into about the larger direction of Japanese politics. And it has everything to do with the consumption tax.

People who favor the first narrative effectively favor some version of neoliberalism (aka 'structural reform') and a therefore a strong prime minister who can shove legislation through. But the systemic aspects of the Japanese economy are different enough from US and Europe so that neoliberal policies don't look the same as over here. Take the consumption tax. It's tax, right? But it's a really regressive tax, in a country which has seen explosive growth in inequality in the last ten years. And all the money is going to go to debt management, so that Japan's credit rating doesn't get slashed again.

People who favor the second narrative know what's going on, which is that in many ways it will be BAD if the diet starts 'functioning' and passing legislation like crazy. Ozawa has no principled reasons to be against this drift in political culture towards gutting economic security (which under Hashimoto--to take an extreme case--would just be some kind of Berlusconi scenario) but he knows that most people intuitively hate it, so he rides the wave.

In short, the reason you have figures like Ozawa is because there's no effective representation of left opposition and the ruling party is squashed between popular opinion and keidanren. All it takes is one old-guard guy who's not an idiot or a technocrat.

quote:



Everyone here seems to have the Ozawa story exactly wrong. This is not the beginning of a dramatic rise to power of a political svengali. It is the end of the career of a very ambitious man who thought for certain he would be prime minister one day. He failed to position himself properly in the LDP so helped found the DPJ as an alternative path to power. He was almost instantly marginalized when that party took over, and when it became clear he had no chance at the premiership he began plotting to control things behind the scenes. He lost that gambit and is now playing his last hand, another attempt at a new party with not enough supporters left to realistically challenge the government. This is a politician whose star has been falling for the last ten years, and it is interesting to see the discussion tend in the opposite direction.

ErIog
Jul 11, 2001

:nsacloud:
The thing I don't really understand are the yahoos that decided to throw in with Ozawa. Even if there's some positive political points to be scored by being against the tax hike it seems like Ozawa's toxic enough to not really make it worth it.

Are these just people who were long-time Ozawa supporters that are joining him out of a sense of obligation?

Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004
Ozawa still has a machine for local elections, but clearly quite a few of his people are taking this opportunity to jump ship. There won't be an election for a while so they will have time to figure that out.

MaterialConceptual
Jan 18, 2011

"It is rather that precisely in that which is newest the face of the world never alters, that this newest remains, in every aspect, the same. - This constitutes the eternity of hell."

-Walter Benjamin, "The Arcades Project"

Lemmi Caution posted:

Ozawa still has a machine for local elections, but clearly quite a few of his people are taking this opportunity to jump ship. There won't be an election for a while so they will have time to figure that out.

Yeah Ozawa basically has what's left of the Tanaka machine, which is why he has had as much power as he has over the last two decades.

quote:

You vastly overestimate all three men.

I realize they're all pretty hopeless in their own way, but you have to think about what they're up against in the LDP and DPJ. People want "change" in this country, and the only kind of "change" they're going to get is the ultra-right wing variety. You're probably right that I was overstating the point though.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl
So, yesterday was the second or third huge antinuclear protest in Tokyo. I'll post some thoughts on this in the next day or two, but the main thing I'm struck by is very the weak response and interest here in the US. Particularly on the left. I'm not sure if it's the result of a hangover from Occupy, the weakening of interest in antinuclear issues per se (which I have complicated feelings about) or just the total cession of Japanese politics to the conservative policy status-quo machine here in the US. It says a lot that some of the best coverage of the protests has been in Vice magazine, viz:


http://www.vice.com/read/how-to-protest-like-the-japanese

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Roadside_Picnic posted:

So, yesterday was the second or third huge antinuclear protest in Tokyo. I'll post some thoughts on this in the next day or two, but the main thing I'm struck by is very the weak response and interest here in the US. Particularly on the left. I'm not sure if it's the result of a hangover from Occupy, the weakening of interest in antinuclear issues per se (which I have complicated feelings about) or just the total cession of Japanese politics to the conservative policy status-quo machine here in the US. It says a lot that some of the best coverage of the protests has been in Vice magazine, viz:


http://www.vice.com/read/how-to-protest-like-the-japanese

Stopped reading the article after I saw the words "kawaii" and "fail".

Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004
I object to the assumption that people on the left should automatically care about anti-nuclear power movements.

MaterialConceptual
Jan 18, 2011

"It is rather that precisely in that which is newest the face of the world never alters, that this newest remains, in every aspect, the same. - This constitutes the eternity of hell."

-Walter Benjamin, "The Arcades Project"
The Commmunists (Mainly middle aged and elderly people) did a little march through my neighbourhood today protesting nuclear power. I have to admit it was kind of cute.

Will2Powa
Jul 22, 2009

Lemmi Caution posted:

It's something someone with untreated mental illness dreamed up to explain his paranoid perceptions of the world.

Despite Debito being otherwise over-hysterical about discrimination against white foreigners in Japan, micro-aggressions is real and is a concept that wasn't invented by him. Also, I would definitely say that white foreigners experience micro-aggressions in Japan, despite me being otherwise somewhat even unsympathetic to their problems.

As for what micro-aggressions are, they're basically what you call "subtle racism". As contrasted with overt racism like denying service to a minority or using a racial slur, they're usually seemingly innocuous verbal expressions that either have offensive implications or serve to define the recipient's "outsider" status. One well-known example is the query of "Where are you from?" that westernized Asians get. Usually a normal question when making introductions but is often used to specifically ask what ethnicity an Asian person is, even if they're very loosely connected to that heritage through being an adoptee or a generation removed.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl

Silver2195 posted:

Stopped reading the article after I saw the words "kawaii" and "fail".

The cute is actually a calculated thing because of the legacy of protests in the '60's, some of which were violent. As in you could get killed.

Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004

Will2Powa posted:

As for what micro-aggressions are, they're basically what you call "subtle racism". As contrasted with overt racism like denying service to a minority or using a racial slur, they're usually seemingly innocuous verbal expressions that either have offensive implications or serve to define the recipient's "outsider" status. One well-known example is the query of "Where are you from?" that westernized Asians get. Usually a normal question when making introductions but is often used to specifically ask what ethnicity an Asian person is, even if they're very loosely connected to that heritage through being an adoptee or a generation removed.

That makes sense. I guess I have a problem with what he chooses to interpret as microaggressions.

I'm curious how you might interpret things that are typical microaggressions in America and if they really qualify for a Caucasian in Japan. For example being asked where you are from, when the number of "native" whites in Japanese is vanishingly small. It's a hot topic among all foreigners themselves, so is it fair to characterize that negatively when a Japanese does it? But what if you are the child of an international marriage? That seems to qualify much more strongly as microaggression as you describe it.

One I am ambivalent on is the language ability assumption. It can be frustrating to deal with people who assume you can't communicate despite evidence to the contrary, but in my experience it never happened very often. More often relief was expressed. Perhaps that counts as microaggression.

This is kind of off topic, but it's interesting and tangentially related to politics from an immigration standpoint I guess. Might be better to bring up in the Japanese culture thread in A/T.

Edit: Yeah, reading up more on this, he has really twisted the idea of racial microaggression. I can definitely think of some examples in Japanese society that qualify, but Debito's petty bullshit makes a mockery of the concept.

Gabriel Grub fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jul 7, 2012

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Lemmi Caution posted:

I object to the assumption that people on the left should automatically care about anti-nuclear power movements.

They should care, if only to say "Shut the gently caress up, nuclear is an essential part of any clean energy plan, and is both safer and much better for the environment than fossil fuels." Nobody has died due to radiation exposure at Fukushima, as opposed to the countless disasters that have happened due to the gathering of fossil fuels and the many deaths and illnesses that air pollution causes.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl

Konstantin posted:

They should care, if only to say "Shut the gently caress up, nuclear is an essential part of any clean energy plan, and is both safer and much better for the environment than fossil fuels." Nobody has died due to radiation exposure at Fukushima, as opposed to the countless disasters that have happened due to the gathering of fossil fuels and the many deaths and illnesses that air pollution causes.

Some quick notes on this:

Apart from the fact that the above post is based on a false dilemma (Japan has the option to reduce demand, which is basically what it has done)

1.) From what I understand, the issue at Fukushima is that very large numbers of people may receive doses that are right around the acceptable lifetime exposures that are set for nuclear plant workers. Nobody really knows what the health effects of that will be. It might be nothing. It might be a lot.

But anyway:

2.) The shutdown of nuclear plants that happened after the disaster didn't really have a huge social or economic effect.

3.) Japan was not chosen for nuclear power generation because of conservation concerns. It was chosen for atoms for peace by the US in the belief that it would reduce the Japanese 'nuclear allergy' and make Japan more amenable to being part of the US nuclear weapons strategy.

4.) There are lots of issues with government responsiveness in Japan that don't have to do with nuclear energy per se. The disaster at Fukushima has catalyzed response to this.

5.) This unresponsiveness is strongly related to the GOJ's demonstrated belief that people are ultimately too stupid and ignorant to handle their own affairs where nuclear power is concerned and should be essentially told to shut the gently caress up. The refusal to shut the gently caress up and do what the right-wing plutocrat tells you is sort of what these protests are about.

6.) However, risk, and risk perception is a social phenomenon. It is not some manifestation of collective idiocy that can be solved by patting people on the head or beating some education into them.

BTW, I'm not partisan against nuclear energy. I don't think the argument that plutonium is evil is any more compelling than the argument that carbon is evil. In fact, I think nuclear is the best choice in places with rapidly growing economies and serious issues with environmental degradation, like the PRC. Unfortunately, that's not how decisions in energy politics are made. Instead, they're made for geopolitical reasons that serve the interests of great powers and the giant corporations attached to them. It's true for oil, and it's true for nuclear. TEPCO is a huge, arrogant energy company with insanely excessive political power, just like Exxon or BP, and I think it's fortunate that it has been nationalized, though that's just a start.

However, I do believe that the fracturing of politics, including environmental politics, into disassociated interest politics that is willing to reduce its goals into things like temporary compromises on things like fossil fuel consumption in order to constantly broadcast the impression that it has solutions amenable to reduction into sound bites, has played a major part into turning politics into the pointless competition of talking heads which is today visible around the world.

Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Jul 9, 2012

Will2Powa
Jul 22, 2009

Lemmi Caution posted:

That makes sense. I guess I have a problem with what he chooses to interpret as microaggressions.

I'm curious how you might interpret things that are typical microaggressions in America and if they really qualify for a Caucasian in Japan. For example being asked where you are from, when the number of "native" whites in Japanese is vanishingly small. It's a hot topic among all foreigners themselves, so is it fair to characterize that negatively when a Japanese does it? But what if you are the child of an international marriage? That seems to qualify much more strongly as microaggression as you describe it.

One I am ambivalent on is the language ability assumption. It can be frustrating to deal with people who assume you can't communicate despite evidence to the contrary, but in my experience it never happened very often. More often relief was expressed. Perhaps that counts as microaggression.

This is kind of off topic, but it's interesting and tangentially related to politics from an immigration standpoint I guess. Might be better to bring up in the Japanese culture thread in A/T.

Edit: Yeah, reading up more on this, he has really twisted the idea of racial microaggression. I can definitely think of some examples in Japanese society that qualify, but Debito's petty bullshit makes a mockery of the concept.

I think for very many different reasons, including ones you've listed, that micro-aggressions in Japan(and indeed, the rest of East Asia) often take a different tack from the typical micro-aggressions you get in North America. I remember Debito using Japanese peoples expressing surprise at Westerners knowing how to use chopsticks, even when they know they've been in the country for a while or even seen the Westerner using chopsticks themselves. I think normally this would be a good example of an innocuous verbal exchange that serves to alienate, but I'm not actually sure how pervasive this is. I'm half-Asian and primarily Asian-looking on the appearance spectrum, so for obvious reasons I never had to deal with this. However, from my personal experience, the Nihonjinroh poo poo is probably a more insidious source of this kind of bullshit.

I am OK
Mar 9, 2009

LAWL
The chopstick thing is probably more because they want to make small talk and don't really know how to do so because they're overthinking the cultural gap rather than any insidious racial agenda.

Also Japanese are constantly surprised that there are Japanese restaurants in the west, so it's a bit of ignorance borne of wacky education rather than hostility.

Now if you want actual aggression, how about the old Japanese man who shouted at me in the gym locker room today before scurrying off to actually tell on me because I was dripping water.

Old Japanese men...

Will2Powa
Jul 22, 2009

I am OK posted:

The chopstick thing is probably more because they want to make small talk and don't really know how to do so because they're overthinking the cultural gap rather than any insidious racial agenda.

Also Japanese are constantly surprised that there are Japanese restaurants in the west, so it's a bit of ignorance borne of wacky education rather than hostility.

Now if you want actual aggression, how about the old Japanese man who shouted at me in the gym locker room today before scurrying off to actually tell on me because I was dripping water.

Old Japanese men...

Will2Powa posted:

I think for very many different reasons, including ones you've listed, that micro-aggressions in Japan(and indeed, the rest of East Asia) often take a different tack from the typical micro-aggressions you get in North America. I remember Debito using Japanese peoples expressing surprise at Westerners knowing how to use chopsticks, even when they know they've been in the country for a while or even seen the Westerner using chopsticks themselves. I think normally this would be a good example of an innocuous verbal exchange that serves to alienate, but I'm not actually sure how pervasive this is.

That said, I don't know how often this happens. The other thing about micro-aggressions towards Westerners, I feel, is that most Westerners probably don't care enough or been around long enough to notice; since only a very small minority are in it for the long haul. But Japan definitely has a problem with accepting foreigners assimilating into their culture. They're not as actively or openly xenophobic as many Westerners tend to exaggerate (particularly goons who seem to fall over themselves to put down Japan in anyway as some kind of misquided overreaction to weaboos), but it's clear they have problems. And knowing Japanese sensitivities, it's inevitable that it would manifest more as subtle micro-aggressions.

I am OK
Mar 9, 2009

LAWL
Maybe. I haven't been here long enough nor understand the language well enough to notice. Arseholes like that are everywhere though. People may notice Japanese micro-aggression more because it's the first time that the inevitably white, well-off person has encountered anything like that in their life. I know it was for me the time some old man (again, seriously, what the gently caress is wrong with these guys) started shoving me in the chest and shouting at me on a packed train.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl

I am OK posted:

Maybe. I haven't been here long enough nor understand the language well enough to notice. Arseholes like that are everywhere though. People may notice Japanese micro-aggression more because it's the first time that the inevitably white, well-off person has encountered anything like that in their life. I know it was for me the time some old man (again, seriously, what the gently caress is wrong with these guys) started shoving me in the chest and shouting at me on a packed train.

Yeah, that does suck, and it does have to do with race, but I think that's more of an instance of somebody out to pick a fight going after the person who stands out (which is a whole other thing). The really nasty forms of racism that exist in Japan are the life-changing, crushing and private kind, and they're mostly directed at Zainichi and people with Burakumin ancestry.

There are also the issues that immigrants from China and SE Asia have to face, but that's also a different discussion.

MaterialConceptual
Jan 18, 2011

"It is rather that precisely in that which is newest the face of the world never alters, that this newest remains, in every aspect, the same. - This constitutes the eternity of hell."

-Walter Benjamin, "The Arcades Project"

I am OK posted:

People may notice Japanese micro-aggression more because it's the first time that the inevitably white, well-off person has encountered anything like that in their life.

It's absolutely this. I thought Arudo's article was insightful in some ways and it helped me to understand what the people around me were complaining about all the time, but it's very true that the only reason this appears as a serious issue to white people is because it's their first time experiencing something other people have to put up with all the time back home. That isn't to say that there shouldn't be anti-racism efforts in Japan (I have personally had a number of experiences of racism here that were none too pleasant) but people need to put it in perspective.


On another note the chairman of the JCP gave his address for the 90th anniversary of the party if anyone is interested in knowing what the Commmunists are up to:

http://www.jcp.or.jp/english/jps_2012/20120105_04.html

Munin
Nov 14, 2004


After what has been mentioned here I'm still not quite sure how different this microaggression thing is from what tends to happen when you walk around without being aware of social mores in other countries.

As a white westerner I have been asked "where are you from" in essentially every European country I've lived in, mostly due to my accent being a bit of a hodgepodge whatever language I happen to speak. I'd generally take the chopstick comment to be the safest general compliment and ice-breaker.

If you break certain social taboos you're going to get a strange look wherever you are. I'm pretty sure I could get into some serious hot water in some bits of the US if I bumbled around oblivious that being an atheist could cause issues with some people. I once talked to a Honduran who told me me all about the wonders of free discussion in her society and how open-minded everyone was until I brought up the topic of abortion.

I am pretty sure quite a bit of this micro-aggression talk comes to people both being un-aware of the social mores of a very different cultures with some very different rules of behaviour and interaction and of being unused to being an "Ausländer" where they live (a term which has many of the same overtones as the term "gaijin").

z0331
Oct 2, 2003

Holtby thy name

Roadside_Picnic posted:

BTW, I'm not partisan against nuclear energy. I don't think the argument that plutonium is evil is any more compelling than the argument that carbon is evil. In fact, I think nuclear is the best choice in places with rapidly growing economies and serious issues with environmental degradation, like the PRC. Unfortunately, that's not how decisions in energy politics are made. Instead, they're made for geopolitical reasons that serve the interests of great powers and the giant corporations attached to them. It's true for oil, and it's true for nuclear. TEPCO is a huge, arrogant energy company with insanely excessive political power, just like Exxon or BP, and I think it's fortunate that it has been nationalized, though that's just a start.


One of my Japanese friends won't stop posting to FB anti-nuclear articles and stories about the protests going on in Tokyo.

It's pretty frustrating because I think a large part of the sentiment stems from a combination of knee-jerk reaction to the disaster and the complete ineptitude that the power company and government showed in the aftermath. It's almost impossible to talk to a Japanese person about how nuclear energy isn't bad, but that the plant itself was flawed.

I was very close to the earthquake and saw firsthand a lot of the devastation and it makes it all the more irritating when I read about how they want 100% renewable energy because I know that people are directly association 'nuclear' with those images.

Tokyo did a drat good job of reducing power consumption, and if the entire country can actually become that much more efficient to where they can rely largely on renewable energy, awesome. But as it stands I just wish it were more possible to talk about the issue in anything other than negative terms.

Will2Powa
Jul 22, 2009

Munin posted:

After what has been mentioned here I'm still not quite sure how different this microaggression thing is from what tends to happen when you walk around without being aware of social mores in other countries.

As a white westerner I have been asked "where are you from" in essentially every European country I've lived in, mostly due to my accent being a bit of a hodgepodge whatever language I happen to speak. I'd generally take the chopstick comment to be the safest general compliment and ice-breaker.

If you break certain social taboos you're going to get a strange look wherever you are. I'm pretty sure I could get into some serious hot water in some bits of the US if I bumbled around oblivious that being an atheist could cause issues with some people. I once talked to a Honduran who told me me all about the wonders of free discussion in her society and how open-minded everyone was until I brought up the topic of abortion.

I am pretty sure quite a bit of this micro-aggression talk comes to people both being un-aware of the social mores of a very different cultures with some very different rules of behaviour and interaction and of being unused to being an "Ausländer" where they live (a term which has many of the same overtones as the term "gaijin").

I know that the micro-aggression thing is the only thing I've been talking about this thread but I just need to say that you're seriously misunderstanding the concept of micro-aggression. Micro-aggression has nothing to do with someone being reacted negatively to for breaking social mores, unless by breaking social mores, you mean being the wrong color or ethnicity. The examples of chopsticks used didn't involve strangers or fresh off the boat westerners, but a westerner who has been highly adapted to Japanese culture and a Japanese person who is aware of that. That is why it becomes an example of Micro-aggression rather than a misunderstood social interaction. Also, I mentioned it earlier, but the "Where are you from?" question is an example of a micro-aggression specific to Asian people living in Western Countries and not of Westerners. It's a normal, innocuous question that is used for an ulterior alienating purpose when applied to so-called "visible foreigners".

I find the politics interesting and was interested in Japanese politics for a while, but I'm kind of out of it once I realized that Japan is basically a dead country walking, at this point.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl

Will2Powa posted:


I find the politics interesting and was interested in Japanese politics for a while, but I'm kind of out of it once I realized that Japan is basically a dead country walking, at this point.

Which differentiates it from the US/Europe, etc. how?

zmcnulty
Jul 26, 2003

Will2Powa posted:

I find the politics interesting and was interested in Japanese politics for a while, but I'm kind of out of it once I realized that Japan is basically a dead country walking, at this point.

So why post in this thread at all?

The micro-aggression stuff is interesting but feels out of place in this thread. Maybe the regular Japan thread or the culture one would be better.

Ganguro King
Jul 26, 2007

z0331 posted:

It's pretty frustrating because I think a large part of the sentiment stems from a combination of knee-jerk reaction to the disaster and the complete ineptitude that the power company and government showed in the aftermath. It's almost impossible to talk to a Japanese person about how nuclear energy isn't bad, but that the plant itself was flawed.

I understand where you're coming from, but for all intents and purposes, aren't they inseparable? In other words, does it really matter for the average person living in Japan that the technology itself isn't bad if the government and the industry continue to ruin it with incompetence and corruption?

Unless there is some sort of miracle breakthrough, nuclear fission is probably a necessity in Japan (and the world) for the time being, especially if the country is going to meet its emissions targets. However, it's difficult for me to not have serious doubts about the way things are being handled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRc_85mhF2Y

MaterialConceptual
Jan 18, 2011

"It is rather that precisely in that which is newest the face of the world never alters, that this newest remains, in every aspect, the same. - This constitutes the eternity of hell."

-Walter Benjamin, "The Arcades Project"

Ganguro King posted:

for all intents and purposes, aren't they inseparable? In other words, does it really matter for the average person living in Japan that the technology itself isn't bad if the government and the industry continue to ruin it with incompetence and corruption?

This is basically the problem. The only groups that can implement nuclear power are the government and big business, and they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. It's probably true that there is an anti-nuclear prejudice in Japan because of how the A-Bomb is taken to be the ultimate symbol of war, imperialism, and Japanese victimhood in the historical consciousness of the country.

However even if this were not the case, there is no party that the majority of Japanese feel they can trust to implement nuclear power safely. I think the end result of these protests is going to be a compromise, where some nuclear power plants will be reactivated (because of economic reasons) but large investments in alternative energy and energy saving will also be made. I think on the whole this will be a positive outcome for the country and for the world in general.

Nuclear power has a lot of positive points to it, but there is so much public opposition to it that the development of alternative energy sources should be supported (So that anti-nuclear doesn't just equal pro-coal or pro-natural gas).

Will2Powa
Jul 22, 2009

Roadside_Picnic posted:

Which differentiates it from the US/Europe, etc. how?

Immigration and a population decline that isn't quite as severe. However, Russia is in similar straits in a lot of ways. I'm still reading the thread because I still think Japanese politics are kind of interesting but they're even more futile in their lack of concrete change or reform than a lot of other countries' politics so part of the interest now is a morbid curiosity.

As for why I talked about micro-aggression, I was originally just responding to someone else bringing it up and I have a very personal interest in making sure that people understand the different dimensions of prejudice because that poo poo effects me in my everyday life.

z0331
Oct 2, 2003

Holtby thy name

Ganguro King posted:

I understand where you're coming from, but for all intents and purposes, aren't they inseparable? In other words, does it really matter for the average person living in Japan that the technology itself isn't bad if the government and the industry continue to ruin it with incompetence and corruption?

Unless there is some sort of miracle breakthrough, nuclear fission is probably a necessity in Japan (and the world) for the time being, especially if the country is going to meet its emissions targets. However, it's difficult for me to not have serious doubts about the way things are being handled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRc_85mhF2Y

You're right and yes, part (a large part perhaps) of my frustration should be aimed not at the general populace but at the officials in charge.

This is why we can't have nice things. :(

A sexy submarine
Jun 12, 2011
The clerk at the convenience store gave me a fork with my cup ramen. How loving racist is this country?
__________________/


Actually, the funniest part of this meme is that people are actually listening to Debito Arudo.

Here's a cool article from Mike Guest about 'microagressions':
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T120606001544.htm

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.

A sexy submarine posted:


Here's a cool article from Mike Guest about 'microagressions':
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T120606001544.htm

quote:

Other loaded questions like, "Why did you come to Japan?" or "Isn't Japanese difficult?" would be more welcome if rendered as "What brought you to Japan?" or "How's your Japanese coming?" respectively.

While I get and generally agree with the point that things like this aren't necessarily intended, consciously or not, to offend, the author kind of misses the obvious explanation for why they happen. I don't think it's people not considering whether their phrasing will offend, it's that they either don't know any other way to say it, or are just going for the easiest and (for them) most natural way to say it.

I've recently heard someone in an unrelated context deliberately misconstrue a situation like this for rhetorical convenience, and it really gets under my skin.

menino
Jul 27, 2006

Pon De Floor
I think it's very hard to judge somebody speaking a second language unless you have had extensive contact with them and can assess their ability to understand and use language in an appropriate context. There's a lot that can be lost in the translation.

Except of course for things like "wow she's fat", that always gets a "you have a oily face/your skin is so dark/you're short" just they know. There's a big "外国人 =dancing monkey" mindset in NE Asia.

Mercury_Storm
Jun 12, 2003

*chomp chomp chomp*

A sexy submarine posted:

The clerk at the convenience store gave me a fork with my cup ramen. How loving racist is this country?
__________________/


Actually, the funniest part of this meme is that people are actually listening to Debito Arudo.

Here's a cool article from Mike Guest about 'microagressions':
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T120606001544.htm

Haha wow. Its like "baby's first experience at being a minority" for white people, and even the slightest comment suggesting that they aren't 100% assimilated is an insult!

Whenever a Japanese person says something like "isn't Japanese difficult?" I assume it to mean they actually think their language is difficult because the number of Kanji they have had to memorize is insane. Not that they think "oh this pathetic foreigner can never possibly understand our superior language."

Granted, Debito does post about a lot of instances of actual racism such as signs on shops straight-up saying "NO RUSSIANS", but this is really, really stretching it.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
Boy I'm glad I didn't know about that Debito guy when I lived over there, he would have drove me and my coworkers insane.

Anyway, this microagression this is bullshit, it's just screwing up pragmatics and it can happen inside your own culture and own language too, it's just much more likely cross-culture and cross-language.

edit: I have experienced MACROaggression at least once, a guy threatening to beat me up because I reacted when he said "kuso gaijin" as I walked by. I walked away and he didn't follow me but up until then, I didn't know anyone would actually say "yan no ka KORAA!!" in real life. Yeah, people asking me if I know how to use chopsticks is not any kind of malicious thing on any level, that's just dumb.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Jul 19, 2012

Elec
Feb 25, 2007
I knew a girl who lived here for a few years who got completely livid and incensed that people told her 鼻が高い. Like, legit flipping out on the people who were talking about her. Yeah, I do tend to think it's rude if people around you are commenting about you to each other while you're right there, and they're not addressing you, maybe. But she literally did not understand the phrase, and in her head it just sounded like it was an insult. (In her defense, that was my own mental reaction when I first heard the phrase, similar to 顔が小さい.)

A lot of times when foreigners I know get upset over things that were said to them, they oftentimes have actually just really misinterpreted the whole situation, whether it be a linguistic misunderstanding or a cultural one.

I dunno, I guess everyone sees things from their own lens. As a Japanese-speaking honky, I haven't really perceived any "microagression" ever, because (again, anecdotally speaking) on the rare occasion any given Japanese person wants to actually discriminate against you, you will be very aware of it.

Kurtofan
Feb 16, 2011

hon hon hon

Samurai Sanders posted:

"yan no ka KORAA!!"

What does that mean?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Kurtofan posted:

What does that mean?
"You wanna fight, come on!!", he put up his fists and everything. He looked ridiculous, and had an equally ridiculous flunky-looking guy with him. It was seriously right out of a yakuza movie.

edit: this thread really isn't about politics (or old men loving each other) anymore is it...

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Jul 19, 2012

duck monster
Dec 15, 2004

Orkiec posted:

Well, he did say that he was a National Anarchist on that page.

I suspect he's just incoherent, to be honest. A slightly more articulate version of the 1970s punks that went around with anarchist AND swastika jacket patches because both seemed to annoy the gently caress out of the squares.

National anarchism is a completely schizophrenic philosophy. Combining ultra-authoritarianism with anarchism is still confused and contradictory regardless of whether its dubbed "schizophrenic" or "syncretic".

Samurai Sanders posted:

"You wanna fight, come on!!", he put up his fists and everything. He looked ridiculous, and had an equally ridiculous flunky-looking guy with him. It was seriously right out of a yakuza movie.

edit: this thread really isn't about politics (or old men loving each other) anymore is it...

Race and culture is political (and interesting).

duck monster fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Jul 19, 2012

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zmcnulty
Jul 26, 2003

duck monster posted:

Race and culture is political (and interesting).

Not really. When is the last time you heard Japanese politicians arguing about Japanese culture? I guess you could argue that geopolitical tensions (Korea etc.) are caused by race/culture. But you guys are discussing your own experiences about being a Western living person in Japan, it's completely unrelated.

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