moonbloom comments

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. ]

And SCAP did its part in not insisting that Japan come clean once the US lost China to Mao and had to have Japan do its bidding in East Asia.

YuriOtaniToday  09:06 am JST

To avoid buying weapons, Japan needs to make friends not foes in Asia. You do not need to defend yourself from a friend.

Yes of course, but then there would be a drastic reduction in defense spending, which would not sit well with the military-industrial complex and furthermore would weaken the justification for US military bases...obviously not an option for vested interests.

Close friend of Abe = We all know he won't spend much time (if at all) in jail.

"Ordinary citizens suffer restrictions, while those in power can do exactly what they want. Can we call this democracy?"

Yeah well until you and other Japanese people do something all you can do is ask rhetorical questions.

Of course no word on how many tests...

So long as you support the current economic system in place you have no grounds to complain, because the bottom line (in this system) is money people.

Just another day at work for the US-installed LDP and their cronies.

The US freed and reinstated to power Kishi Nobusuke who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands who were worked to death in Manchurian factories-

[ American historian Mark Driscoll described Kishi's system as a "necropolitical" system where the Chinese workers were literally treated as dehumanized cogs within a vast industrial machine.[27]

The Japanese conscripted hundreds of thousands of Chinese as slave labor to work in Manchukuo's heavy industrial plants. In 1937, Kishi signed a decree calling for the use of slave labour to be conscripted both in Manchukuo and in northern China, stating that in these "times of emergency" (i.e. war with China), industry needed to grow at all costs, and slavery would have to be used as the money to pay the workers was not there.[32] The American historian Mark Driscoll wrote that just as African slaves were taken to the New World on the "Middle Passage", it would be right to speak of the "Manchurian Passage" as vast numbers of Chinese peasants were rounded up to be taken as slaves to Manchukuo.[33] Starting in 1938 and continuing to 1945, about one million Chinese were taken every year to work as slaves in Manchukuo.[34] The harsh conditions of Manchukuo were well illustrated by the Fushun coal mine, which at any given moment had about 40,000 men working as miners, of whom about 25,000 had to be replaced every year as their predecessors had died due to poor working conditions and low living standards.[31]

Alongside the exploitation of men as slave workers went the exploitation of women as sex slaves, as women were forced into becoming "comfort women" as sexual slavery in the Imperial Army and Navy was called.[36] Kishi's racist and sexist views of Chinese and Korean women as simply "disposable bodies" to be used by Japanese men meant he had no qualms about rounding up women and girls to serve in the "comfort women corps".[37]

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

Other less flashy yakuza-affiliated already in the J-gov't from day one.

You believe the numbers?

Arms sales = $ (via tax payers' monies, kickbacks into politicians' pockets)

kohakuebisuToday  09:52 am JST

Dentsu have already been employed to produce a cute tritium character to overcome public fears. The treated water is also being referred to as ALPS処理水 where "ALPS" is supposed to mean "Advanced Liquid Processing System". Any similarity to a mountain range in Japan that is home to Japan's best known brand of bottled spring water is merely coincidental.

I am not making this up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcoG0nzTnm8&t=71s

Yes this is out of the same playbook that CIA operative Shoriki Matsutaro used in broadcasting pro-nuclear energy propaganda on his Nippon Telebi station as well as in his Yomiuiri Shinbun. These actions figured greatly in helping to convince taxpayers to allow nuclear power plants to be built on Japanese soil, which has brought us to this point.

If donkeys could fly...People here affirming what a Chinese official has said lol...well, he does have a point, and Aso set himself up for it.

Yes thnx to the LDP government, whose post-war nucleus was composed of class A war criminals (i.e. former PM Abe's grandfather Kishi Nobusuke; another grandson of Kishi, Kishi Nobuo, is currently the Minister of Defense) reinstated by the US, and who worked with other US-released war criminals to get nuclear power into Japan so that corporate giants GE and Westinghouse could make immense profits (all from tax payers' money) and share the windfall through kickbacks...pattern continues with sales of arms (with assistance from Kishi Nobuo).

[ Shōriki was classified as a "Class A" war criminal after the Second World War, serving 21 months in prison.[1] However, he was released in 1947 after it was determined that the accusations against him were mostly of an “ideological and political nature”.[1]

In 2006, Tetsuo Arima, a professor specialising in media studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, published an article that proved Shōriki acted as an agent under the codenames of "podam" and "pojackpot-1" for the CIA to establish a pro-US nationwide commercial television network (NTV) and to introduce nuclear power plants using U.S. technologies across Japan. Arima's accusations were based on the findings of de-classified documents stored in the NARA in Washington, DC.[3]

Anything which could contradict the 'work 'till you drop, obey your seniors' ethic is an enemy of the state.

And yet schools and universities are conducting face-to-face classes...

Well armed containment prevented the USSR from imposing Communist dictatorships on all of Europe, Japan and elsewhere. So yes it is a tried and true approach that prevented the west from being subjugated by the USSR.

Look who's been drinking the kool-aid.

Meanwhile, CIA coup d'etat of democratically-elected leader in Iran, Vietnam started by false flag in Gulf of Tonkin, no WMD oh well we invaded Iran (thereby creating ISIS), death squads in El Salvador, etc.

[ Anyone who supports totalitarianism deserves to live under it.

Indeed...just like our almost unbroken 75 year old LDP rule. ]

Exactly.

"Hong Kong has enjoyed prosperity brought about by a free and open system where diverse opinions are respected under the 'one country, two systems' framework" laid out in the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration that cleared the way for the former British colony's return to Chinese rule in 1997, Kato said.

Yes of course LDP Japan you are the expert.

These are the dudes who mandate returning travelers be put under surveillance and promise not to use public transport for 2 weeks, even if they test negative.

Being in debt will drive people over the edge, in his case literally.

Suga or whoever else happens to be the face of the LDP is obligated to make such invitations to the POTUS as a matter of foreign policy, which really means, "You are welcome to attend this event Master, for making all of this possible. And we will continue to order weapons from you, and always support your policies in this part of the world, with our military, our media, TOEIC, and our tax money. Your adopted sons, LDP."

Yea sorry but hard to have any sympathy for the guy-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9388145/Listen-Jarryd-Haynes-disturbing-call-Mitchell-Pearce-sexual-assault-victim.html

"The (Chinese) Coast Guard activity around the Senkaku islands is a clear violation of international law," added Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi.

"The U.S. side reconfirmed their commitment to our country's defense of the Senkaku islands."

[ Nobuo Kishi (岸 信夫, Kishi Nobuo, born April 1, 1959) is a Japanese politician who currently serves as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet and as Minister of Defense. He is a younger brother of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and a grandson of former Prime Minister and war criminal Nobusuke Kishi. ]

Well well nice to see you here supporting the same line that you war criminal-reinstated by the CIA grandfather did.

[ Kishi spent the first decade of his life living with his grandfather Nobusuke in Tokyo.[2] He graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University in 1981 and joined Sumitomo Corporation, where he worked until 2002...With his brother Abe's backing, Kishi was elected to the House of Councillors in 2004, representing Yamaguchi Prefecture.[2] In 2019, he publicly advocated for Japan acquiring strike capabilities as a defensive measure against North Korea, stating that Japan should not rely upon the United States for defense.[3]

And great to see the usual in-bred connections alive and well in the LDP, supporting the US military industrial complex ("acquiring strike capabilities") while simultaneously building up Japan's military.

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

And the corruption carousel continues, unabated, and it will continue to do so.

Why?- The LDP, who have pledged to uphold another country' interests in the region, is untouchable, and they know it.

It's not just desperate older men.

Younger people who obviously didn't get a solid education/incentive will turn to crime to get by, as evidenced by the incident where 3 young men were targeting older people in their homes.

As the income gap grows along with the future spectre of AI relieving people of their livelihoods (actually already taking place), these occurrences unfortunately will likely increase, especially concerning children who are unfortunate to be born to parents who don't have the financial resources to send them to better schools.

And as a poster above pointed out, we all know this is a symptom of a particular type of economic system.

Lack of opportunities/solid education for children of parents who are struggling financially will lead to more of these type of incidents as the income gap grows and AI relieves more people of their livelihoods.

One must not buck the system in Japan.

That is the ruling party's mantra, drilled into every citizen from day one, and helps ensure the continuance of the ruling party.

This 'academic' paper which Ramseyer (who was given a medal by Abe...Abe's grandfather Kishi is the one who administered the comfort women policy in Manchuria, as well as the decision to use Chinese and Koreans as slave labor in the Manichurian factories) wrote was subject to an investigation by New Yorker magazine, who actually contacted him directly-

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/seeking-the-true-story-of-the-comfort-women-j-mark-ramseyer?mbid=social_facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_brand=tny&utm_source=facebook&utm_social-type=owned&fbclid=IwAR1ybOdpomnhdP3p5-3ZlfjC5Nyt4vDNo2YXy0NBv_IKvz3y81otVOLdjGA

[ Tessa Morris-Suzuki, a senior figure in modern Japanese history and an emeritus professor at the Australian National University, also wrote to the journal to ask that Ramseyer’s article be retracted. In her letter, she noted that, “bizarrely, he transposed his earlier research from one place and historical period to another, so that a study which was originally about systems that existed in Japan in the 1920s and early 1930s was now presented as a statement about the late 1930s to 1940s wartime ‘comfort station’ system, despite the fact that this system operated in a different time, in different places and in drastically different circumstances.” ]

[ Like Morris-Suzuki, Stanley and her colleagues observed that Ramseyer’s statements in the article were often plainly contrary to the sources he cited for their support. In one striking example, Ramseyer wrote about a young Japanese girl who went to Borneo to work as a prostitute: “When Osaki turned ten, a recruiter stopped by and offered her 300 yen upfront if she would agree to go abroad. The recruiter did not try to trick her; even at age ten, she knew what the job entailed.” Stanley and her colleagues found that the girl’s testimony, in the book that Ramseyer cited, actually said that she and other girls resisted, saying to the brothel keeper, “You brought us here without ever mentioning that kind of work, and now you tell us to take customers. You liar!” The girl further recalled, “After our first night, we were terrified. We hadn’t realized this was what men and women did. It was so horrible, we could hardly believe it.” The scholars also found it “curious” that, while purporting to describe a voluntary contract system, Ramseyer referred to the employer as Osaki’s “owner.” (Ramseyer e-mailed me to say that he was “puzzled and troubled” upon reading the scholars’ allegation of his misstatement, and added, “I don’t know how this happened, but I did in fact make a mistake here.”) ]

[ Ramseyer e-mailed me to identify people—in Korea, Japan, and elsewhere—who are supportive of him... They included four co-authors of the book “Anti-Japan Tribalism,” from 2019, which includes the claim that the story of sex slavery in the case of the comfort women is a lie. One of signatories is a retired economics professor at Seoul National University who was seen in a video slapping a reporter; another is an academic who was punched while leading a demonstration for the removal of a comfort-women statue. On February 8th, six people affiliated with Japanese institutions, who identified themselves as historians, issued an open letter defending Ramseyer’s academic integrity and urging against “canceling” his work. Most don’t appear to have history degrees, and most are connected to a right-wing group that is focused on denying Japanese wartime atrocities. ]

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/2/7/hls-paper-international-controversy/

[ Hosaka also said he suspected Ramseyer’s work was influenced by his connections with the Japanese government. Ramseyer, who was raised in Japan, was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun in 2018, a Japanese government distinction for those who promote Japanese culture abroad. ]

[ In an interview with The Crimson Friday, Ramseyer said he is not aware of the precise origin of the endowed professorship, but believes that Mitsubishi Group made an approximately $1.5 million donation to Harvard in the 1970s to back the position. ]

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

[ Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介, Kishi Nobusuke, 13 November 1896 – 7 August 1987) was a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is the maternal grandfather of Shinzo Abe, twice prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020.

Known for his brutal rule of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of Manchuria" (満州の妖怪; Manshū no yōkai).[1] Kishi later served in the wartime cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō as Minister of Commerce and Vice Minister of Munitions,[2] and co-signed the declaration of war against the United States on December 7, 1941.

After World War II, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a suspected Class A war criminal. However, the U.S. government did not charge, try, or convict him, and eventually released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in a pro-American direction.

All of his friends in Manchukuo were Japanese and Kishi never associated with Chinese or any other ethnic groups in Manchuria on a social basis.[24] Kishi's dinner companions were fellow bureaucrats, businessmen seeking government contracts, Army officers and yakuza gangsters.[24] The presence of the latter was due to Kishi's involvement with the opium trade; the Manchukuo State Opium Monopoly needed distributors to move its products around the world, which in turn required contacts with the underworld in the form of the yakuza.[24] Additionally, Kishi used yakuza thugs to terrorize the Chinese workers in Manchukuo's factories into submission, and ensure that there were no strikes caused by the long hours, low pay and poor working conditions.[25] 

Starting in 1938 and continuing to 1945, about one million Chinese were taken every year to work as slaves in Manchukuo.[34] The harsh conditions of Manchukuo were well illustrated by the Fushun coal mine, which at any given moment had about 40,000 men working as miners, of whom about 25,000 had to be replaced every year as their predecessors had died due to poor working conditions and low living standards.[31]

Kishi's racist and sexist views of Chinese and Korean women as simply "disposable bodies" to be used by Japanese men meant he had no qualms about rounding up women and girls to serve in the "comfort women corps".[37]