ReynardFox comments

China promises to invest hundreds of billions into Okinawa's tourism infrastructure to turn it into Hawaii of Asia post independence.

The problem with being an island nation with no real viable economic drivers outside of tourism is that you’re only ever one recession away from economic collapse. Your entire economy is reliant on other people having enough disposable income to come visit.

Just look at the island nations of Polynesia: their economies were clobbered by the Great Recession, with some nations having their entire economies contract by over 25%. And before they even had a chance to recover, Covid-19 kneecapped them AGAIN.

With an economy that susceptible to the whims of the global economic tides, an independent Okinawa would require a larger nation to essentially become its benefactor: Okinawa would likely be forced to return to what it was the last time it was “independent” - a vassal of one of its larger neighbors.

You see this with island nations like Nauru, who are forced to play refugee camp for Australia in exchange for economic aid.

Now imagine Okinawa’s economy is hammered by the current or future economic crises that reduce tourism to unsustainable levels, and some nation comes along and says “Hey, we see your country is on the verge of financial collapse. We’d be happy to extend economic aid to you. All we ask is, in return, you maaaaybe allow us to station a few of our naval assets in your waters. Or maybe put up a naval refueling station. Or maybe let us conduct military drills on your soil now and then.”

Could Okinawa afford to say no? The answer is “Not likely”.

Okinawa’s situation is always going to be shaped by geography. Unless they figure out how to move the islands to somewhere less strategic, someone is always going to be trying to exert influence over them. That’s literally the entire history of Okinawa. Okinawa was never truly independent - it just kept trading one master for another.

Redemption, Less than 50% of the people have "spoken".

Thats how democracy works. You have a right not to vote, but doing so means you’re leaving your situation and n the hands of other people. Your voice is only going to be heard if you actually open your mouth to speak.

And despite everything Russia has done and continues to do, the United States STILL warned them in advance that ISIS was planning to attack a large public gathering like a concert. And what did Putin do? He called the warnings a "provocation" and "blackmail". That was Tuesday. And less than a week later, exactly what America said would happen, happened.

Russia will eventually fall apart. The only question is how many of its own people will be dead before that happens.

There are some videos on telegram.

This is somehow a less believable source than saying “just trust me, bro”.

@glenn1

An interesting coincidence, but still a coincidence. The moon’s gravity, while strong enough to affect the water of earth’s oceans, likely isn’t powerful enough to go wrenching around something as massive as a tectonic plate. a recent study suggests there might be some interplay in smaller quakes, but this study is far from conclusive. This was simply the result of energy building up along the major fault lines in the area releasing all at once.

What shocks me to this day is that the bus couldn’t be opened from inside when locked. Many vehicles nowadays can be opened from within, even if locked from outside.

It sounds very arrogant, frankly, and very racist," he told the newspaper.

I was unaware that human rights violations were qualities inherent to one’s race, but hey, his words not mine.

"Caring about your personal health is incompatible with caring about the state of the planet" - someone very smart, probably

“I’m willing to protest something, but only so long as there’s no risk to myself. Other people’s stuff is fair game though” - some dipstick glued to a wall.

They're gonna hit the big Dutch LNG terminal next.

At least if they did that, I’d see a more justifiable connection between their stated goals and their intended target

This is the height of privileged 'slacktivism' if I've ever seen it. And I agree with their stance on ending fossil fuel consumption. But this type of protest is not just ineffective, it's counterproductive. People who might otherwise sympathize with their goals are going to be turned off by what, on the face of it, seems like an attack on something completely unrelated to the environment or fossil fuels.

But this kind of protest doesn't just grab headlines: It's EASY. It takes no prep. Takes barely any effort. Takes almost no sacrifice. Compare this protest to the Native American protests surrounding the Dakota Access pipeline. They were out there, every day, at the heart of the industry they were fighting. They organized. They fundraised. They sacrificed. Hundreds were injured. Almost a thousand were arrested. What they did was DIFFICULT in the extreme. And people gravitated towards them and began to support their position *because their protest was focused exactly where it needed to be: *on the pipeline.

If they'd gone around pouring milk jugs on the ground for poor service workers to clean up or throwing soup on priceless artwork at a museum, I daresay people wouldn't have been NEARLY so sympathetic.

so the Democrats are actually the racists, how interesting.

Racists come in a stripes. The difference is that Democrats hold racists accountable and Republicans give them endorsements.

This woman shouldn’t be anywhere or hold any political title.

bass, if saying racist things is your criteria for disqualifying a politician from office…I got some REALLY bad news about the GOP…

The second Japanese invasion of the Ryukyu kingdom that resulted in annexation was in 1872 and not the 19th century.

Uhh Gaijin. The 1800s is the 19th century. We will in the 2000s, but it’s the 21st century.

US servicemen behave quite differently when they are stationed in Germany or other European countries. They commit far fewer violent crimes in those countries. The resentment Okinawans feel is understandable.

I’m gonna need to see the source you got that info from, chief.

If you ever wonder why people don’t want to just “let it go” in regards to a war that was “over 70 years ago”, this is why. If the Japanese were willing to dump this poison in their own back yard, you can imagine how much of that stuff is buried all over the former “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

Alright, Floridians. Time to put your money where you mouth is. DeSantis opposed using federal money to aid the Northeast after Sandy, so I better hear about how you all graciously turned down federal aid in the name of “fiscal responsibility”. Because remember, federal aid is literally Marxism.

I will always enjoy a watching a far right pundit twist in the wind, but there’s something special about the way Jones trying to pull the noose tighter on his own.

As the man once said himself, he’s a little r*tarded.

Oppression and a economic hardship are what brought down the Shah. One wonders how the Ayatollahs forgot that.

And don’t forget that all of this was done at the behest of and with the full support of the United States. People are a lot more willing to support totalitarianism if it’s homegrown.

There's no need to flaunt it on public streets.

Lord help the next guy I see kissing his wife in public. Gonna hate crime him right there and then. It’s disgusting. Heteros rubbing their degenerate lifestyle choice in everyone’s faces? They even do it in front of CHILDREN, for God’s sake.

As an LGBTQ person, I’m fine with heteros. I even have a few hetero friends. But it’s frankly immoral that they don’t keep it behind closed doors. I even heard that the local elementary school celebrates Valentine’s Day. And people are somehow just okay with this blatant indoctrination in our schools!

I don’t hate heteros. That’s their choice. But what I do hate is their heterosexual agenda. Forcing men and women to kiss in movies and on TV, all to satisfy some woke checklist meant to exclude LGBTQ people, purely for political points.

It's official, Putin is a loser. Shoulda stuck to horse pics Putin, everyone thought you were tough then.

Putin made the most devastatingly fatal error any despot could make: he believed his own propaganda. He became an unquestioning acolyte of his own cult of personality. But like with all religions, faith is nothing when it runs into cold, hard reality.

It’s the reason Xi is giving him the cold shoulder. You can accuse Xi of being many things, but one thing he is NOT is an idiot. He understands perfectly well his power is based on his ability to produce wealth, growth, and economic prosperity. If that fails, there are dozens of other politburo suits ready to take his place. So he’s not about to start throwing his weight and credibility behind the losing prospect of some balding Slavic half pint whose delusions of grandeur have been battered to splinters in Ukraine.

Why does Russia and Russians take this. Supersonic missiles can destroy every major European city in five days. Stealing peoples boats, money, houses, companies. It’s going too far.

Well, for one thing, if a single missile lands on NATO soil, the Russkies will have way more than just the Ukrainians to worry about. And given how much of a slap down that single nation is giving them, I can only imagine how laughably poorly a war with NATO would go. And unlike Ukraine, NATO wouldn’t stop at the Russian border.

Also, I find it hilarious that taking a bunch of oligarchs’ yachts is going too far, but bombing cities indiscriminately, targeting nuclear power plants and water works, and mass executing civilians and dumping them in ditches in the woods is perfectly acceptable.

At this point, anyone who thinks Russia could do anything but abandon their posts and run like hell in 5 days probably shouldn’t be trusted around anything sharper than a crayon.

I feel terrible for this poor woman, but I’ll ask the same question I always do when these perennial articles pop up:

What do you expect the Japanese government to do?

Invade North Korea?

Kidnap a few of them?

Call in the A-Team?

Barring a complete and total overthrow of the Kim regime, the matter is sadly settled.

As for Denny and the base relocation issue, I applaud the man for sticking to his guns. However, national defense (which the base relocation certainly qualifies as) is the purview of the national government. That means that it is up to the people of the entire nation of Japan, as a whole, to decide. Denny is well within his rights to voice his opposition as loudly and as often as he desires, but he’d be much better served pleading his case to all of Japan, rather than simply preaching to the converted back home. He can and should keep up pressure on the central government, but ultimately, there is only so much he can do, even within a democratic system.

The national government is under no obligation to tailor their actions to the opposition of a prefectural governor in the same way Denny is under no obligation to tailor his actions to the opposition of the Ginowan town assembly. Do those in this comments section who demand that the central government “respect the voices” of anti-relocation Okinawans also demand that Denny “respect the voices” of pro-relocation Ginowan residents? If people expect the central government to do a policy 180 because of a single prefecture, should those same people demand a prefectural governor do a policy 180 because of a single city council?

An American would never challenge , another American,if they feel they will come up on the short end of the stick,you tell them to jump ,they would say to you how high,I see lots of American are gullible to let foreigner manipulate them,I say what if I done the same ,since I am American and I know the psychological make up of American ,you can mold their minds too your liking,lots of American will read this ,but will not respond , because they know I know them psychological

Holy crap. Did Russia get blacklisted by Google Translate or something cuz this read like a spilled bowl of alphabet soup.

I have nothing against someone disregarding a silly rule

If only we lived in a world where people who disregard “silly rules” are the only ones that end up dead. Imagine how much better of a place this world of ours would be if guys like this mug dropped dead if Covid back in 2020.

Pravda: “Russian Warship Moskva Conducts Courageous Ramming Attack! Destroys 2 Expensive Ukrainian Missiles: In honor of its glorious service, Moskva has been officially reclassified as a submarine”

RT: “Russian Army Tanks Set New Altitude Record!: “No Western Design Can Hope to Fly as High as Our Turrets”, says Kremlin.

Meanwhile, the front page of Russian newspapers probably read something like “Glorious Russian Troops Set New Land Speed Record. “The speed of Russia’s finest troops have left our enemies stunned”, says Kremlin spokesorc.

But he said it is “for the police to decide what is appropriate in individual circumstances.”

If it is a “fundamental right” then no, it ISN’T up to the police to decide on the spot. These people weren’t committing a crime, weren’t inciting a crime, and weren’t professing hate speech. They were expressing their personal disapproval of a relic of an institution.

While I can certainly sympathize with the people of Okinawa over the base issue, I also understand how a democracy has to function.

A single province cannot and should not be able to dictate to the central government something as critical as defense. There is a reason military and defense affairs are the exclusive domains of central governments. It’s because those sorts of decisions often require discomfort and sacrifice and people generally don’t like to partake in either of those things of their own volition. Completely understandably.

If you want a good example of what happened when you DO let a state/provincial govt dictate military affairs, look no further than the Confederacy during the US Civil War. When things were going good, states were happy to willingly send their own troops beyond their borders. But when the tide turned, those same states were suddenly far more reluctant to send “their” boys off to some “foreign” battlefield. By the end of the war, states were outright refusing to send troops beyond their own borders, even when they were desperately needed far afield. And the central govt was too weak to compel them. In the end, many men that might have been useful elsewhere sat at home while the South collapsed.

State and provincial officials are elected to represent the interests of the citizens of their state or province. National leaders are elected to represent all citizens of an entire nation. Sometimes, what’s good for the part is not good for the whole, and what is good for the whole may place an uncomfortable burden on the part. That’s just the nature of democracy.

Why do some wish to see evil in a gesture of assistance and friendship?

Because I have been alive and conscious on this planet long enough to know you don’t send millions and millions of dollars to another country without expecting something in return. And I’ve also been alive long enough to know that Australia likes to use monetary assistance to goad underdeveloped nations into playing host to refugee camps.

How much do you want to bet that “assistance” comes with a caveat of having to play host to an offshore dumping ground for Australia’s politically inconvenient refugees?