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Roadside_Picnic posted:Particularly recently, what with the radioactive food. The testing is pretty stringent, and while a few companies have tried to sneak stuff that didn't have proper labeling or didn't meet the new standards, nothing remotely close to dangerous has made it to market.
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Jun 30, 2012 06:17
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A sexy submarine posted:e: Also, to move away from this topic a bit, can someone explain this 'microaggressions' thing to me? It's something someone with untreated mental illness dreamed up to explain his paranoid perceptions of the world.
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Jul 2, 2012 06:29
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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.
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Jul 4, 2012 18:25
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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.
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Jul 5, 2012 01:02
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I object to the assumption that people on the left should automatically care about anti-nuclear power movements.
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Jul 7, 2012 07:55
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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 |
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Jul 7, 2012 11:56
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"We Japanese...": The first refuge of creeps and scoundrels.
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Aug 30, 2012 07:31
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ErIog posted:Most average Japanese women would be very confused to hear about a sexual encounter that wasn't what we in the west would consider rape. What? And what does this have to do with politics? I thought we already had a thread for bullshit conjecture about Japanese society. Gabriel Grub fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 09:12
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ErIog posted:Yes, because gender equality within a society along with sexual attitudes are totally not political matters. This is actually a thing that you are saying? I'm just not sure there's a I was very specifically talking about the quote where you said most Japanese women can't even conceive of non-rape sex. I really wish you had just lead with the relevant articles you just posted.
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Sep 1, 2012 02:44
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emote big enough.
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Sheep posted:Tsurunen is just the token white dude that is so common in east Asia It sounds like he had a long, hard fought political career before gaining his seat, but I suppose it's also possible the DPJ called up hundreds of thousands of people and told them to vote for the white guy because they needed a token one for some reason.
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Sep 6, 2012 04:11
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Adrastus posted:This is amazing. What made him think that it'd be a good idea to wave an American flag around in a crowd of ultra-nationalists, who were there to commemorate dead war criminals from WWII? It starts off very friendly until the police show up.
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Sep 26, 2012 16:22
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Kenishi posted:Is there any chance this is a play by the LDP to gerrymander? Rejigger the districts to knock out the DPJ strength? No, the LDP wants things to stay exactly as they are. In fact, this ruling keeps elections that would almost certainly sweep them into power from happening. Also, the current electoral maps are pretty clearly unconstitutional and the court is simply affirming that.
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Oct 28, 2012 05:33
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pentyne posted:obscene levels of corruption running wild through Japanese culture/politics without much concern from the citizens until a major scandal brings down some shame. Also America minus the shame part.
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Nov 24, 2012 06:47
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Japan doesn't have high unemployment as long as you count working into ones 30s at a couple service jobs that don't participate in social insurance schemes as being fully employed.
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Nov 25, 2012 03:32
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My Imaginary GF posted:What's the perception of in vitro and artificial insemination like in Japan? What I'm wondering is whether gerontological birth rates will increase with accessible treatment. This happened a couple of years ago. With all the talk about careers and daycare, I'm curious to opinions on this: http://shisaku.blogspot.jp/2013/02/nonsense-in-new-york-times.html The portrayal of the daycare situation is one of Michael Cucek's bugbears, so I knew as soon as I saw the New York Times article this morning he would have a response up today. The takeaway is that Tokyo births and daycare spaces are increasing, as the average age of mothers increases as well. As mothers tend to be older and therefore more career oriented, and as Tokyo is one of the only places in the country with an growing population, this puts additional pressure on the daycare system. The trends of increasing population and delay of first birth don't apply as much or at all to other prefectures and therefore the lack of daycare is mostly if not totally a Tokyo problem, and as Cucek (and I) like to point out, Tokyo is not synonymous with Japan.
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Feb 27, 2013 08:03
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Vegetable posted:Funny enough, just as I was tracking this thread, the NYT published an article yesterday on daycare centres in Japan. You might want to read the above discussion concerning this article. Daycare in most of the country is readily available, and daycare supply is increasing in Tokyo but being outstripped by demand. Daycare workers require a certain level of training and certification, but the compensation doesn't cut it in the Tokyo area making it harder to attract workers. Many of the daycares are government subsidized, whereby industry wages are strongly influenced by government spending, which is itself disproportionately influenced by rural constituencies who currently suffer no shortages and do not care about the Tokyo Metropolitan District's problems. It's better to look at the details of the problem, rather than relying on sweeping statements about life after the war or whatever. The LDP currently in power is certainly socially conservative and will try to promote other interests ahead getting women into the workforce, but there are a lot of forces at work and the fact that more women will be working in the future no matter what the LDP thinks is a big one.
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Feb 28, 2013 06:56
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ArchangeI posted:That is actually very surprising to hear, because I read an article just a few weeks ago that credited Germany's currently decent economic position on a radical restructuring of the workflow in German factories, the concepts of which being imported from Japan. But that apparently started in the 80ies, so what the hell happened in between? That sounds like "just in time" manufacturing, which is an inventory and supply chain management system which was indeed pioneered by the Japanese, but has little to do with office workflow and the daily habits of salarymen. It keeps inventory costs down. You don't have to do the same for office workers because they don't get paid overtime. You're just paying to keep the lights on.
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Mar 4, 2013 03:26
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Bloodnose posted:Does it really just mean like 'trouble'? Yes, with the sense that you are burdening other people with it.
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Mar 4, 2013 10:38
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I would be hard pressed to say that life was more difficult or friends harder to come by the better my Japanese got. The ability to actually communicate with people and understand more of what was going on around me was a pretty heavy offset to the insecurities of certain people.
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Mar 8, 2013 05:53
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IT BURNS posted:do the radiation levels still pose health risks in and around Tokyo? There was never any risk to Tokyo.
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Mar 12, 2013 04:35
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Aside from the 9.0 earthquakes the health risks are quite low.
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Mar 12, 2013 04:38
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So much of that applies to the current United States as well. The two major diversions I see are that there was not much tradition of lifetime employment and entrepreneurship is much riskier for those who want to strike out on their own.
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Mar 30, 2013 04:51
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Yeah, I assume there are a lot more sole proprietorships proportionally than the US. I also think it's funny that a lot of people hear "entrepreneur" and "small business" and immediately think of S-Corps and LLCs raising venture capital, and not some lady taking out a loan at a local bank to open a shop.
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Mar 31, 2013 04:35
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I was thinking of small business as an employment alternative rather than as an economic engine for the nation. A lot of less educated Japanese self-employ, whereas in America it is less of an option and those people are more likely to simply disappear from the workforce.
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Mar 31, 2013 21:35
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The activities of the occupying forces post-war had differing and continuing effects to the present-day. Japan was never really "de-Nazified" because the US had different priorities for Japan, its government, and relations with its immediate neighbors. It's not just that Germans are an especially contrite people or the Japanese especially callous. While Japan hopefully finds a way to come to terms with the past along with its neighbors, nothing like Germany has gone through is going to start 70 years and two generations down the line. The chance for Japan's war generation to learn from their country's actions and pass those attitudes on is already gone forever. Subsequent generations are never going to feel the connection to the war necessary for German-like levels of regret.
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Apr 24, 2013 02:25
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One thing that gets glossed over or simplified in the explanation of Yasukuni is that it also enshrines "volunteered" laborers who were killed, included Koreans. That may be more galling than the war criminals by themselves. Imagine a place that memorialized concentration camp victims alongside SS officers.
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Apr 24, 2013 03:04
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80% of Japanese are Buddhist 80% are Shintoist 80% are not religious
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Apr 24, 2013 05:13
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Epoxy Bulletin posted:Reminds me that I once overheard some Japanese tourists at Pearl Harbor complaining too many of the signs were only in English The signs being in Japanese sounds like a really obvious idea actually.
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Apr 24, 2013 09:19
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Here's a remarkably straightforward (for the English-language press) summary of how things are going right now: http://world.time.com/2013/04/24/japan-war-shrine-reflects-ruling-party-nationalism/
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Apr 24, 2013 09:34
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tyblazitar posted:The shrine itself isn't much to look at, pretty similar to any other shrine in Japan. I went there once (on January 2. no less, place was really packed as all the nationalists had come in their black vans to see the emperor's speech) I think you may be conflating events in your memory, because there is no way the current emperor made a speech at Yasukuni Shrine.
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Apr 25, 2013 09:12
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I had to go in to a bank after hours for something once and it was a madhouse, people running everywhere, counting money, filling out paperwork. I suppose there may have been some cleaning going on.
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Jun 13, 2013 01:43
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Sheep posted:Everything must be in your face and constantly assaulting your senses so as to keep hold of your incredibly fleeting attention. I'm glad we don't have to put up with that in America.
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Jul 22, 2013 00:09
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Mr. Fix It posted:Any interpretation where he's trying to warn against doing what is one of his party's main goals makes no sense. He is in favor of revising the constitution, but is warning that it should be done in a level-headed manner, unlike what happened at the end of Weimar Germany.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:59
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Mr. Fix It posted:Do you even know who Taro Aso is? He's a hilarious gaffe machine. He says that he meant we should learn from the disastrous changes to the Weimar constitution, but given his history and his party's platform, the more sinister interpretation is all too plausible. Except some of us can read Japanese, and it is pretty clear what he meant in the original speech. We don't have to speculate on circumstantial evidence. I'm open to arguments that I'm reading it wrong, if you can argue from the actual speech and not what the English press is saying is in the speech. Saying Aso is a dumbass, while true, does not change what he actually said.
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Aug 2, 2013 04:38
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The Nazis did not quietly change the constitution. It happened in an environment of turmoil largely ginned up by the Nazis themselves.
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Aug 2, 2013 16:47
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Mr. Fix It posted:I withdraw any statements I made impugning Aso's intelligence. Well, let's not go too far.
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Aug 3, 2013 04:37
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It's not pointless for several reasons. The Aso Nazi quote case is a perfect example of how well Japan's regional rivals understand and control messaging in the foreign press, and how the inward-looking Japanese politicians don't understand how their internal words and actions are viewed and have impact on the world stage. Aso is in the position he is because he is viewed as a feckless yes-man filling a key post to advance economic reforms while not rocking the boat. Everyone in his party acted in accordance with domestic politicking by denying any knowledge of the meaning of his speech and deflecting all questions back onto Aso, completely oblivious to the fact that the whole nation of Japan was being judged through dodgy quotes and carefully hedged reporting in all the foreign press. In their scramble to never upset anything internally they can't even recognize when they need to speak in unison in saying the obvious and dismissing exaggerated and inaccurate reporting of comments by a member of their own party and cabinet. They have no idea how and when to present a united front because they don't have the basic tools to understand how internal and international politics interlock. It is also relevant to this thread, a discussion in English of Japanese politics, because it is so frustrating having to defend the likes of Taro Aso just because the English press can't be bothered to report authoritatively on what was actually said in Japanese rather than rely on what the Korean and Chinese press said he said. Using all the appropriate weasel words of course. If you want to talk about pointless derails, the whole constitutional issue seems to be one. It is not clear what the LDP intends to accomplish with revisions, seeing that under the current restrictions Japan already has arguably the strongest military in the region, discounting even American bases. The LDP has no stated policy provisions that even require constitutional revision to accomplish. So, aside from appealing to a tiny minority base of authoritarian idiots, why is the Japanese government even having this discussion? The Japanese public is skeptical of revision, and even with revisions the prospect of foreign combat missions would remain incredibly controversial. I'd argue that it is yet another example of the government's disregard for international politics, aside from American kowtowing, in pursuit of every last ignorant vote in the nation. You could lay whaling, inability to resolve territorial disputes, and Yasukuni on this same alter. A rash of petty special interest bullshit that keeps wounds open in perpetuity, does not interest the average Japanese voter, but gives the LDP an edge in elections.
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Aug 4, 2013 08:42
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Japan will never be nuclear free.
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Sep 15, 2013 10:15
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There is no way reactors will all be off during winter, and the opposition of the public to nuclear power is overstated. Hopefully Abe will be voted out because he is a reactionary and an idiot, not because of this nuclear power nonsense. (He will not be voted out.)
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Sep 15, 2013 11:42
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In the 80s a lot of innovation regarding inventory management, manufacturing processes, and supply chains came out of Japan. They were much more efficient while achieving better QA for a while there. Those kinds of practices are standard for big companies now, though, so it is not a particular advantage of the Japanese anymore.
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Nov 11, 2013 05:11
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