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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: Stopped reading the article after I saw the words "kawaii" and "fail".
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Jul 7, 2012 06:01
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If anything, I'd say anime and other Japanese media tends to avoid overt political commentary. Whenever there's some sort of political message, it's always very general and "safe" (either vague environmentalism or hypocritical quasi-pacifism). Even with shows that can be interpreted as political, everyone involved will deny that that was the intent (Code Geass comes to mind). The opposite is the case with the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime, which is actually supposed to be a commentary on the Iraq War, but that interpretation didn't occur to me at all when I actually watched it.
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Aug 15, 2012 00:36
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ReindeerF posted:Hey! Since we're porting social issues in, let's talk racism in politics there. I brought this up once before somewhere, but I found it interesting since even though Japan's very insular, it's leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of North Asia in accepting Westerners into political life (very tiny leaps and bounds, but at least they exist). Last I checked, there was at least one (white, in this case) Western local official - started off as a mayor or city councilman or something? I think he was in the Diet too. I'm googling, but I can't find him yet. Are there even a small number of non-Asian foreign-born citizens who bother to contest for elections, local or otherwise? Are there any other cases of them holding office? I'd guess most new citizens (much like Asians in the US) keep their heads down and just avoid politics, but as there's been a several-decade history of Western immigration to Japan now I imagine the issue comes up a bit more often than it used to. Is this the guy you're thinking of? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marutei_Tsurunen
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Sep 1, 2012 18:22
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Kenishi posted:I seem to recall hearing that the supreme court judges in Japan aren't elected or put in place, they are recruited. By "recruited" do you mean they're bribed, or that the people appointing them have trouble finding enough suitable lawyers for the positions? Kenishi posted:Is there any chance this is a play by the LDP to gerrymander? Rejigger the districts to knock out the DPJ strength? The article says it's the opposite: It's the current maps that are gerrymandered in favor of the LDP. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Oct 28, 2012 |
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Oct 28, 2012 05:27
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Bloodnose posted:I've been meaning to catch up on this thread, but it's been inactive for a month anyway so I forgot about it. But I was just reading this rather alarming article that says Japan is making constitutional changes that will turn them into 'Literally Hitler.' I've found some blog posts saying basically the same things as the SCMP article and citing the same sources, some news stories (from December 2012 onward) saying is Abe was planning to amend the constitution without giving specifics other than lowering the threshold for further amendments and repeal of Article 9, and a February 4 article from Frontpagemag (who are pretty close to being fascists themselves) jerking off to the possibility of Article 9 being repealed. This story from a couple days ago discusses the debate over lowering the voting threshold without discussing what Abe wants to do after that: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130218003245.htm I partly feel that if Abe was really trying to become Literal Hitler, there would be more stories about it in reputable Japanese and international media sources. Having said that, Abe is just enough of a shithead that the possibility can't be dismissed; perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places. Abe is in the news right now for another reason, though: he's meeting with Obama to discuss trade and relations with China: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21528834 Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Feb 22, 2013 |
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Feb 22, 2013 04:25
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Kenishi posted:Anyone suggesting robots, as Japan's solution to them not having sex, is joking whether they realize it not. I'm pretty sure robots actually will be the solution to Japanese people not having sex.  ...Sorry.
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Feb 27, 2013 08:49
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ErIog posted:What's wrong with welfare? You say that like it's supposed to trigger some sort of boogeyman response in me where I go, "Oh noes! Welfare! The horror!" It also makes rice cost more to consumers, though. "Old people/rural people" aren't the only people involved.
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Mar 19, 2013 01:27
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Shibawanko posted:Abenomics is a ploy to finance Japan's industries through taxation and inflation, in other words, to finance the activities of the rich and the government at the expense of ordinary people, to extract surplus labor at the expense of purchasing power. Your conclusion does not follow from your premises (and I suspect that neither Repeta nor Adelstein would agree with it).
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Jul 27, 2013 03:50
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Samurai Sanders posted:Wow, I really shouldn't have looked at the 2ch thread about this decision. I always think I can just look at the poop without it getting on me but it I felt dirty by the third post. The psychological mechanisms involved must indeed be fascinating. You see the same thing on Freep.
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Oct 7, 2013 21:11
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LimburgLimbo posted:I do actually think there is something to be said about many women not wanting to work. A lot of Japanese women are pretty forthright about just wanting to be housewives, but it's a chicken and egg thing because even if they work the chance they'll rise to any notable position regardless of how hard they work is almost nil. It's possible that okozukai also has something to do with this.
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Oct 26, 2013 05:21
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Kenishi posted:I think you've missed the real point with the homosexual material. In watching how fujoshi (BL lovers) react to BL, I think the selling point isn't the fact that its two guys boning each other. That's not the "grab." I think the [subconscious] thought line goes: "Oh these two beautiful boys are in love with each other. Oooh, this is so forbidden, no one would ever do this in real life. ITS S000 HOT!." Timg'd for being slightly NSFW:  The thread title is now accurate! Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Nov 7, 2013 |
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Nov 7, 2013 06:02
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Cliff Racer posted:Is that from Short Cuts? Not sure what the original source is. I've seen it posted here (in PYF rather than D&D or ADTRW, I think) in the past.
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Nov 7, 2013 07:17
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Wibbleman posted:This could be a very positive step if they are actually able to come to some sort of agreement. I don't see it going anywhere, but it's a nice gesture.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:02
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Samurai Sanders posted:It's just loving pathetic how Japan (and Korea) are the only developed countries on this map with the worst ratings in most of those categories. Don't Japanese politicians look at that and feel something inside? Anything? Japan definitely has serious problems with gender equality, but there's a lot of important factors not being taken into account by these maps. A country with the level of rape South Africa has shouldn't qualify as green.
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Mar 8, 2014 21:09
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Samurai Sanders posted:Abe: To support women entering the labor force, let's open the door to immigrants to do housework and such This is Abe we're talking about.
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Apr 5, 2014 19:55
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ReidRansom posted:I don't know about you, but I'll readily admit my Japanese is only so so, and so it is entirely possible that post is dripping with sarcasm I'm just not picking up on. But the Japanese don't really do sarcasm, the internet is the internet, and it came from 2ch, so, you know. My own knowledge of the Japanese language is basically limited to Google Translate, but I have trouble seeing that statement as anything other than sarcastic, or at least intentionally hyperbolic.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:17
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ErIog posted:We'd all love to believe everyone on Freep is being ironic too, but unfortunately, insane right wing people posting dumb poo poo on the internet is pretty real. Sometimes they like to get together and hold rallies in favor of expelling the foreign menace too. They're a big tent of lunacy. Don't get me wrong, I could easily believe the general sentiment is sincere; I wouldn't be surprised if people were posting worse things without irony in the same thread. It's just the "the emperor is the only god" bit that gives it away; how can you be a fascist Shinto fundamentalist and a monotheist? Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 03:23
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ErIog posted:It's also not a controversial opinion among most Japanese politicians who can trace their lineage back to people in positions of power during the war. For many of them this is a personal issue. The grammar here is ambiguous. Are you saying war crimes denial is uncontroversial among most Japanese politicians, because most of them can trace their lineage to WWII-era officials, or are you saying that it's uncontroversial specifically among most of the subset of Japanese politicians who can trace their lineage to WWII-era officials?
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Feb 25, 2016 04:48
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Depends on what you mean by populism. Obviously there far-right groups in Japan, and Abe clearly shares a lot of their views, although he's weirdly pragmatic about it. He proposed some fascist-sounding constitutional amendments a while back, but in the face of public opposition he backed down and watered the proposals way down to essentially just making the JSDF explicitly constitutional, and it's unclear whether he'll succeed even at that. I think EasternBronze is only half-right; while Japan does already have jus sanguinis citizenship and very limited immigration, far-right "populists" around the world generally want rather worse things than that.
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Jan 20, 2019 03:43
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Barudak posted:Dude there was a persecuted type of french people we only know exist because of the laws and rules blocking them from certain aspects of civil society but they seem to have seemlessly integrated because we have no records of what exactly defined these people and after a certain point nobody was being blocked by the rules. The Cagots, yeah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot
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Jan 21, 2019 03:44
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7c Nickel posted:Those numbers have a different context in a society that tries to rely solely on in country births to maintain it's population. Well, yeah. But this distinction doesn’t always get sufficient focus in these sorts of articles because “Japan needs more immigration” is less sensational than “Japan needs more sex.” Edit: Actually, given current Anglosphere politics, the reverse might be true as to which is more sensational. But however you look at it, there's certainly a lot of reporting that omits important context. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Aug 5, 2019 |
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Aug 5, 2019 03:30
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harperdc posted:Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s a big old nope there chief. Germany is basically the only country that really faces its past crimes well. Japan is middle of the road in that regard, worse about it than Germany but better about it than Turkey.
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Aug 29, 2019 00:52
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I'm starting to think that punk rebel ecks's shtick of asking dumb questions in the country-specific threads is a deliberate gimmick rather than genuine naivete. Assuming it's sincere: stop doing that. Not only is it annoying, but D&D goons' answers to the kind of loaded questions you ask are likely to be incomplete and skewed anyway. Try reading news articles and/or books instead, while being aware that those are also incomplete and skewed, just less so than what you're getting from Internet randos. But I guess I'm also an Internet rando, so you're free to ignore me. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 04:09
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punk rebel ecks posted:It was a while ago. In this thread you critcized the growth of the USSR. I also recall you saying in another thread of how Russia was already developing rapidly before WWI. You can be a Marxist without being a Marxist-Leninist.
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Aug 29, 2019 17:55
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punk rebel ecks posted:Okay. The US acknowledges internment camps, native american genocide, and black oppression. Sure not to the extent that it should, but still does none the less. In contrast Japan seems to outright deny things like comfort women and that the emperor had any knowledge or control of what was going on in China or with their POWs. "They" in the sense of the government, in official statements, doesn't deny the sexual slavery thing, although individual politicians do deny it. I guess you have a point re: Hirohito's culpability, although that's in part because the US decided not to pin any blame on him. And I'm unaware of any official US government statement specifically using the word "genocide" with regard to Native Americans. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 05:18
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punk rebel ecks posted:Oh, that's good to know. I was told otherwise by people. I guess they were "experts" on Japanese culture. Also true of Japan, I believe; the far-right revisionist textbooks that cause international controversies occasionally are used in only a small minority of Japanese schools.
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Aug 30, 2019 05:30
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true.spoon posted:Like mentioned before, I think the problem in how past crimes are engaged with in the Japanese mainstream lies more in the general framing and less in outright denial. This is probably true. I would say that it's Germany that's unusual in this regard, though, not Japan.
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Aug 30, 2019 17:54
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Sauzer posted:I'm confused by what seems to be this one-sided argument. Is someone here disagreeing that Japanese politics is influenced by, among other things, its closest ally, largest export market, and the global hegemon? Because that does seem uncontroversial. "Influenced by" covers a wide range of possibilities, but I think what people mostly disagree with is the idea that Japan is fundamentally much less democratic than, say, Italy or Australia. Which I'm not sure anyone in this thread has actually said, to be fair.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:38
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Grand Fromage posted:He's one of the big twitter dudes who is professionally stupid in public, he's wrong about literally everything he ever posts. I can think of other big twitter dudes who are wrong a lot more consistently than Noah Smith. But yeah, he has a fair amount of hot takes. My general impression of Abe is that his views were a lot further to the right than his actual policies. Does anyone have a good article that gives some explanation for this? Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jul 9, 2022 |
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Jul 9, 2022 00:39
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Halloween Jack posted:So what kind of people made up Abe's electoral base? Old people, mostly, IIRC.
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Jul 9, 2022 02:55
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a pipe smoking dog posted:1. Historically no strong centralised religion which led to tradition of religion being an individual choice not strongly dictated by state or family. Japan had a pretty strong centralized religion back in the early 40s...
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Jul 9, 2022 19:14
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Vegetable posted:Cults are a big thing anywhere. India has its gurus, China has the Falun Gong-esque groups, America has Scientology… Maybe the only unusual thing is how close to electoral politics Japan’s cults manage to be. I feel like there are fewer of them in Europe, but I'm not sure how you'd measure that sort of thing objectively.
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Jul 9, 2022 19:58
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Lammasu posted:I knew Japan has an inherent distrust of organized religion, but I didn't know it ran this deep. I mean, there's "organized religion" in the abstract and there's NRMs. And the NRM in question being Korean probably doesn't help.
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Aug 27, 2022 01:30
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Charlz Guybon posted:Huh...I'm going to guess this wouldn't have gone so well given what we've seen in Ukraine. Modern Newsweek should be taken with a spoonful of salt. It could be true, but I’d want confirmation from a better source. Especially since the Anpo commits the US to defending Japan; even contemplating such a thing would be reckless enough even for Putin to justify some skepticism.
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Nov 28, 2022 16:16
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PT6A posted:I don't think any country that still uses hanging uses anything other than the long-drop method, it's not exactly a novel innovation. The English came up with it around 1872, says Wikipedia. As Google Jeb Bush and Ohtori Akio said, it hasn't always been used consistently. George Orwell posted:There is one question which at first sight looks both petty and disgusting but which I should like to see answered. It is this. In the innumerable hangings of war criminals which have taken place all over Europe during the past few years, which method has been followed — the old method of strangulation, or the modern, comparatively humane method which is supposed to break the victim's neck at one snap?
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Jan 4, 2023 03:30
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I think we’ve mentioned most of the major factors here: disorganized opposition, voter apathy, gerrymandering, and the willingness to throw unpopular PMs under the bus. (Also an odd pragmatism relative to their actual views at times; I’m pretty sure Abe was an actual fascist, but he mostly backed down when his proposed fascist-adjacent constitutional changes got pushback, IIRC.) If you take a glass-half-full view, you could argue that the “willingness to throw unpopular PMs under the bus” part shows that Japan is a well-functioning democracy despite the dominance of one party. The glass-half-empty view, of course, is that the voter apathy and the dominance of one party are signs of fundamental problems with Japan’s system of government.
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Feb 15, 2023 01:25
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Lammasu posted:How do the Japanese react to anti-Asian racism? There was that talk recently about how Japanese developers consider the term JRPG a slur. This is like the only time I've seen Japanese media talk about anti-Japanese sentiment. I was not aware of this Discourse. What’s the non-racist term for linear RPGs where you attack and dethrone God supposed to be?
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Mar 28, 2023 03:43
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