moonbloom comments

Essentially a futile gesture by Biden et al which uses up fuel Japan has set aside for emergencies.

[ The coalition Biden assembled — bringing together India, China, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. to tap their strategic oil reserves — is unprecedented, Galimberti said. Altogether, the group could be adding 70 million to 80 million barrels of oil onto the market, he estimates.

“It’s kind of a coalition of oil importers,” he added. “But can they really supplant, or can they really represent a rival to OPEC-plus? The answer is absolutely not.” That’s because the group of importers are using their strategic petroleum reserves, which are limited. On the other hand, OPEC and its allies have oil reserves that can last for decades. “So there is no comparison between the two,” Galimberti said. ]

https://japantoday.com/category/business/explainer-what-is-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve

While the Japanese government has been hesitant to tap into its stockpiles as it could deplete reserves on hand for natural disasters, a senior industry ministry official said earlier it was "not an option" to refuse the U.S. request.

Yes as noted shows clearly that Japan is merely at the beck and call of the US when you get down to it.

But this is no surprise, as we know the US created and manipulated the LDP, i.e. releasing Abe's war criminal grandfather Kishi Nobusuke from Sugamo prison, installing him as Prime Minister, and getting him to push through the US-Japan Security Agreement against the wishes of the Japanese people (Kishi was forced to quit as PM a la Park Geun-hye due to the huge demonstrations).

@Wobot

Here's some relevant background:

［ In this case, the friends were Robin Chandler Duke, her husband, the late Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, and the late Japanese entrepreneur, Ryoichi Sasakawa. Robin and “Angie” Duke, a prominent New York couple, had met Ryoichi Sasakawa in the late 1970s through their common interest in supporting United Nations programs in the developing world.

Angie Duke had been interested in Japan and its culture since 1937 when, as a student, he first visited that country. Serving as Chief of Protocol under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he accompanied Prime Minister Eisaku Sato during his visit to the United States. In 1976, as Commissioner of Civic Affairs and Public Events for New York City, he was in charge of arrangements for the visit of Emperor Hirohito to the city.

The great-grandson of Washington Duke, for whom Duke University is named, Angie Duke was a diplomat with a distinguished career when he first met Ryoichi Sasakawa. ]

https://us-jf.org/about-the-foundation/history/

Same upper crust East Coast elites (the Dukes).

(The basis for the Japan Foundation was International House, which was set up by John D. Rockefeller III in the post-war era. International House established the tradition of fostering an active cultural exchange program which emphasized academic exchanges.)

scroll up after clicking the following:

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=jSXxpUQxfUMC&pg=PT55&lpg=PT55&dq=International+House+Japan+Foundation+Rockefeller&source=bl&ots=ktH41Vh5xH&sig=ACfU3U2kAdXuZ8JB3wCMfgxiNXN5oHVbFQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjct9DijuTzAhVMZd4KHckWCrAQ6AF6BAg8EAI#v=onepage&q=International%20House%20Japan%20Foundation%20Rockefeller&f=false

The Japan Foundation was established in the post-war era by John D. Rockefeller III, a close associate of John Dulles, whose brother served as the director of the CIA from 1953-1961.

The Rockefeller Foundation has been active in sponsoring academic exchanges and academic publishing since the early 20th c. As an academic gatekeeper with huge amounts of capital and insider government relationships it is able to exert an unusual level of influence over the popular narrative of that which is 'objectively' correct and true.

In a sense Kishida is correct.

The LDP is the only party in Japan made by the US, and therefore as a proxy is the only party the US and its military wants to utilize.

A standard part of the popular narrative is that NK invaded the South in 1950.

What no one mentions is what incidents the US was involved in from 1945-1950 which triggered that event.

It's a rare man who will continue his search for truth in the face of popular opposition.

Ah good 'ol Mitsubishi, pre-war zaibatsu affiliated with the emperor, guided by the same principles which one of its leaders based on his experience studying at the Wharton school of business in New York in the days of Rockefeller and Carnegie.

From the Mitsubishi website:

A proponent of cooperation and accountability in a time of transition

*Koyata's strong conviction that integrity and fairness were the foundation of all business remains a cornerstone of Mitsubishi's management philosophy today. Amidst the economic depression of the early 20th century, Mitsubishi's operations were guided by a set of core principles. With the nation hard hit by the difficult economic times, Koyata advocated responsible action and assistance to manufacturers, producers and the public Mitsubishi served. Placing an unwavering commitment to quality and fair business practices, Mitsubishi survived and prospered and in many instances took a leadership role in moving the industries in which it conducted business to profitability and sustainable prosperity.*

The reality of war-time 'fairness' for those that Mitsubishi got their hands on:

*Mitsubishi made use of forced labor during this tenure (WWII). Laborers included allied POWs, as well as Chinese and Korean citizens. In the post-war period, lawsuits and demands for compensations were presented against the Mitsubishi Corporation, in particular by former Chinese workers. On July 24, 2015, the company agreed to formally apologize for this wartime labor, and compensated 3765 Chinese laborers who were conscripted to Mitsubishi Mining during the war.[15] On July 19, 2015, the company apologized for using American soldiers as slave laborers during World War II, making them the first major Japanese company to apologize for doing so.[16]*

Mitsubishi was involved in the opium trade in China during this period.[17]

The LDP as a US-founded and backed organization has no choice but to oppose Russia, even if Russia proposes an idea which might be beneficial to both countries.

In case you didn't know already-

[ In a major covert operation of the cold war, the Central Intelligence Agency spent millions of dollars to support the conservative party that dominated Japan's politics for a generation.

"This story reveals the intimate role that Americans at official and private levels played in promoting structured corruption and one-party conservative democracy in post-war Japan, and that's new," said John Dower, a leading Japan scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We look at the L.D.P. and say it's corrupt and it's unfortunate to have a one-party democracy. But we have played a role in creating that misshapen structure. ]

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html

Predictable response by the US-founded LDP.

3 things-

1) Great article. Goes against the grain and points out that Chinese people raised Japanese orphans.

2) Confirmation of conspiracy-

[ On Sept. 18, 1931, part of the South Manchuria Railway on the outskirts of Mukden, now Shenyang, was bombed, a conspiracy planned by the Kwantung Army of Japan, which was in charge of the defense of the railway.

Calling the bombing the work of Chinese forces, the Kwantung Army quickly seized control of Mukden in the name of self-defense, and in 1932, Manchukuo was created by the Japanese army with Pu Yi, the last Qing emperor, as its nominal ruler. ]

3) The Japanese government did a similar thing when it send scores to Hawaii in the late 19th c. -

[ Plantation owners first brought workers to Hawai‘i from China, but the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 inspired planters to seek out new sources of labor. They turned to Japan, where they recruited thousands with the promise of lucrative, short-term contracts. Between 1885 and 1894, an estimated twenty-nine thousand Japanese immigrants arrived to serve as contract workers on Hawaiian sugar plantations. By the turn of the century, they had become the largest ethnic group on the islands.

Upon arrival, any dreams of prosperity were immediately dispelled. Workers encountered unforeseen hardships, inhumane conditions, and deplorable wages. [3] They worked twelve-hour days for less than six cents an hour. Overcrowded barracks and poor diets led to surges in illness. Those who attempted to run away would be beaten and jailed for breaking their contracts. ]

He's done great but Guerrero has surpassed him in the batting department.

So there you have it, government literally in bed with a gangster

Sums up the LDP perfectly, who are a bunch of crooks even without their fellowship with yakuza.

@Strangerland

Well it appears someone is not familiar with how multi-billion dollar enterprises protect their interests.

If you were to look into how the tobacco industry managed to thrive for so long despite there being clear evidence for quite a long time you would learn something.

[ Cigarettes were recognised as the cause of the epidemic in the 1940s and 1950s, with the confluence of studies from epidemiology, animal experiments, cellular pathology and chemical analytics. Cigarette manufacturers disputed this evidence, as part of an orchestrated conspiracy to salvage cigarette sales. ]

That's alright, most people don't know, either.

It seems to me that the term "porn addiction" is unscientific, and using that term makes a serious discussion about watching porn more difficult.

With the huge amount of money that is made from porn, you're never going to get a clear 'scientific' answer, as academics/researchers are always on the look-out for patronage and funding...Would you be able to answer any of the questions regarding if you think porn makes us better people, how you'd feel if your daughter said she's getting into the porn industry, etc.?....you'd be braver than most, who seem content to avoid and deflect.

We've all noticed the dramatic and sudden rise/fall in the official 'numbers,' both prior to, during, and now after the Olympics.

If it was consistently noted how many people were tested, it would at least provide some baseline from which to make some decent evaluation.

If it's just how many people came to the hospital complaining of symptoms and were found to be infected, these numbers are not worth much in terms of giving us a sense of how widespread the infections are.

How actively is testing being carried out? Is it consistent with how it was handled before and after the Olympics (knowing the Japanese government, probably not)?

How they come up with these numbers is not made clear, and could simply be yet another case of using such information to prepare for the next project, which in the near term would be buttering up the public for the acceptance of the next LDP prime minister.

Everyone knows war is the biggest racket in town, and the surest way for politicians to gain access to public funds.

If you ask any Japanese person under 50, chances are they will know the name "Lockheed Scandal" and might be able to recite the date and people involved, but won't actually be able to tell you much about the content or significance of that incident-that is because there has been a concerted effort to omit disclosure/discussion of that in textbooks and classrooms, in order that the government can carry on profiteering through the procurement of arms.

So go ahead and increase the military budget (again, for the third consecutive year), no one is going to stop you, they're too busy being overworked and dealing with the Covid-19 debacle you've led them into.

Because rapes, especially vs. minors are rarely ever punished with imprisonment or any criminal punishment in Japan, and perpetrators rarely face any societal consequences, these type of cases will simply rise more and more in the future.

You can bet that this guy will be out on the streets again in a few weeks and will repeat his crime within a year. And 90% of the crimes he commit will never be reported, and of those that do get reported, 90% will be ignored by police.

____

My daughter was molested here but the Police seemed tired and unable/unwilling to get further involved. When I mentioned a distinctive mole on the guy's face, the officer in charge looked blankly at me and made no attempt to record the fact. One officer shuffled over in his plastic slippers to ask why were there, and the one who was taking down (some of) our details turned around and quietly commented, "Oh, just another stupid guy".

My guess is they are overwhelmed, limited in the variety of laws that they can invoke, and they really do not know where to start...

Yes it is a systemic problem, meaning those in charge of the system do not have the desire or will to seriously address these issues, so repeated calls to "string him up!" "create a sex offenders registry" are just wishful thinking.

Japanese govt should order a ramp up of all grain production at all farms over the next 5 years. Japan should aim to be at least 50% food production sufficient, with China consuming more and more resources by the year.

People supporting this view should look into why Japan's food self-sufficiency took a dive from the post-war era and the Japanese government's role in that process.

After all that the Japanese government has done to discourage productive farming, it's a little unrealistic to expect the Japanese people themselves to get enthusiastic about farming on a scale that would make 50% self-sufficiency a realistic goal.

Similar thinking was used by the K-pop industry to make it successful on a global scale (i.e. setting up bots to pump up the likes on YouTube to record numbers; yes, everyone fell for it).

Sort of hard to stamp out when one of the core founders of your party (and grandfather to BOTH Abe Shinzo and current Defense Ministry head Kishi Nobuo) Kishi Nobusuke had money manipulation as one of the core tenets of his way to accept bribes-

[ Before returning to Japan in October 1939, Kishi is reported to have advised his colleagues in the Manchukuo government about corruption: "Political funds should be accepted only after they have passed through a 'filter' and been 'cleansed'. If a problem arises, the 'filter' itself will then become the center of the affair, while the politician, who has consumed the 'clean water', will not be implicated. Political funds become the basis of corruption scandals only when they have not been sufficiently 'filtered'."[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

Oh how wonderful, Kishi Nobuo keeping the flame of his class A war criminal grandfather US-supported Kishi Nobusuke alive and well.

From his post as Minister of Defense Nobu can continue to antagonize other countries in the region and thereby stimulate the 'need' to purchase more arms, draining even more money from the public coffers into his pockets and his cronies.

Normal citizens in need (i.e. afflicted with corona) can self-isolate at home and hope for the best, minimal resources will be used for them.

Great job managing the situation, LDP.

As usual, your self-interests have led to the suffering of the general population.

One look at the comments on yahoo Japan will give you some good insight into how some Japanese feel about this issue. Hardly anything that resembles anything like Olympic spirit.

Mostly about how kokumin money was wasted on such a person who shouldn’t have been in Japan in the first place.

The current climate which views foreigners (particularly non-white) in a negative light is highly influenced by the xenophobic views promulgated by the Abe administration from 2012-2020. It is unfortunate that the Japanese people themselves are not able to realize how much they have been manipulated.

And now we know why the government here is dominated by hawkish conservatives (they were also re-instated to power by Occupation authorities).

And now we know why the government here is dominated by hawkish conservatives (they were also re-instated to power by Occupation authorities).

Pretty cheap to buy political influence here.

Damn right! Buying a Minister-level politician in China or Vietnam requires at least more than 1 million USD at minimum, and you have to make a contractual arrangement to give a high percentage in royalties/profits or shares to him or her.

Buying a minister in Japan here is equivalent to buy a mid-tier bureaucrat in a province of China or Vietnam. Pretty damn low, I think!

They're very cagey about it here, i.e. breaking things up into small installments, etc., so that things look far more innocuous.

Encouraging but really just a drop in the bucket.

When you address the massive factories powering industrialization and how to make them significantly greener we'll be getting somewhere.

By the 1930s, a professional league had developed, and half-a-million people lined Tokyo's streets in 1934 to welcome Babe Ruth and 14 other American baseball players on an all-star tour.

Yes and the US did not waste the opportunity-

[ The tour included Earl Averill, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer, Lefty Gomez, Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Moe Berg and other American League players, as the National League would not allow their players to participate...The Japanese portion of the tour was filmed by Jimmie Foxx and his wife using eight millimeter black-and-white film. A copy of the film has been digitized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.[1] Moe Berg also brought a 16-mm Bell and Howell movie camera and made short films of important Japanese installations; this was thought to be one of Berg’s first missions as a spy. 

First trip to Japan[edit]

Retired ballplayer Herb Hunter arranged for three players, Berg, Lefty O'Doul, and Ted Lyons, to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities during the winter of 1932. On October 22, 1932, the group of three players began their circuit of Meiji, Waseda, Rikkyo, Todai (Tokyo Imperial), Hosei, and Keio universities, the members of the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League.

Second trip to Japan[edit]

Herb Hunter arranged for a group of All-Stars, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Gomez, to tour Japan playing exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. Although Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he was invited at the last minute to make the trip. Berg had contracted with MovietoneNews, a New York City newsreel production company, to film sights from his trip; he took a 16-mm Bell & Howell movie camera and a letter from the company attesting to this. When the team arrived in Japan, Berg gave a welcome speech in Japanese; he also was invited to address the legislature.[31]

On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya, Berg went to Saint Luke's Hospital in Tsukiji, ostensibly to visit the daughter of American Ambassador Joseph Grew. Instead, Berg went up to the roof of the hospital, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and harbor with his movie camera. This provided American intelligence with rare photos of the city. He never did see the ambassador's daughter. ]