taniwha comments

Should Shii san ever get his political party into a position of power watch out, because his 'communism' simply-is-not.

Several points to be aware of here: Communism in fact evolves out of Socialism just as the latter emerges out of Capitalism. To hold onto a system of politics and economics that is capitalist when it has exhausted itself is to see powerful nations turn to war.

The problem with the JCP is that even while it distances itself from Stalinism, it is precisely the same. As Trotsky died pointing out, a nationalist socialism is not possible, neither theoretically as Marx and his supporters theorised it, not practically as Trotsky saw himself in historical events of the time. The only kind of socialist system that works is one that is international.

This is the understanding of successive 'Internationals' (International Socialist conferences). It is the understanding of the 4th International. Note though this is not the 'reality' depicted by those writers deluded by the fantasy of everlasting capitalism who wish for us all to believe to depart from capitalism is to step back into a tyranny of dictatorship in the image of Stalin and Mao.

Ishii has this to say above:

"the JCP started to distance itself from international communism in the ’60s and develop a more democratic and nationalistic communism that focused on the concerns and values of ordinary Japanese voters."

Ishii and his brand of communism offers no hope, no break away from the move toward nationalism over these past few years, and in fact he is echoing the call by Western leaders to answer the 'problem' of globalism by returning to protectionism itself.

The end result of a world full of nations turning inwards is ultimately military action on a grand scale, because nation states and capitalism although the first derives from the needs of the last, is ultimately a contradiction. History makes it very clear, that the only way to solve the contradiction is to bust up the status quo. In other words, a world war.

Never forget that World War 1 was preceded directly before hand by a long and deep recession across the larger part of the industrialized world, and that the Great Depression directly preceded World War 2. There is a reason that nation states go to war, that reason is resources! The fact remains that the raison d'être behind the existence of nation states is the capitalism itself, specifically the drive by elites that rule each nation to increase their profits. When resources are few conflict erupts between nations.

Global trade like the Internet is a natural progression, the need to unite to share resources is the reason International Socialism is actually inevitable. The trick is to stay alive long enough to see this system finally give us all a world we can live in. We do not want to suffer a new world war, and that as I have posted here many times in the past is, gloomy git that I am, is the very likely outcome of where we are heading.

To avoid history repeating itself yet again of course calls for a revolution, but that call cannot ever be made from those who actually own means by which most people live, that too would be a contradiction, actually an impossibility.

The claim that it is because rockets are being shot into Israel that Gaza is being subjected to both military bombardment (of one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world) as well as a full blown ground assault is nothing but one sick joke.

Gaza has been subjected to a veritable crippling suite sanctions by Israel for over a year now, not to mention the on-going 'surgical' missile strikes deep into residential areas. Israel has been restricting critical services such as water, electricity, medicine and food supplies into the walled ghetto strip causing untold suffering. A very large percentage of the population are less than 15 years old. Many of the Palestinian wage earners have not been bringing home enough cash to buy meager food enough to feed the kids because Israel has also cut off money to the banks in Gaza.

There is no excuse for the ongoing murderous bombardment of a civilian population. Less than a decade ago the bombing of a civilian family home would have resulted in a public call for an investigation. Now, after the US Nazi-like destruction of Fallujah et al, the world is so numbed to the mass killing of civilians that it now takes a campaign lasting a seriously long time, three weeks so far, before people even begin to get overly disturbed.

What has been happening to us all?

Enough of the excuses for this mass murder.

The difference is in the nature of the commerce. The Somalian pirates for example are destroying commerce between nations. Most particularly they directly undermine the profitability of the Suez canal which is the main source of income for Egypt as well as threatening the profit margin of other nations requiring the short sea route the canal supplies. That shipping route affects everyone and that means the pirates are labeled internationally as criminals.

The Japanese government is exacting its own law in international waters with only its own interests at heart. They are also affecting the commerce of both NZ and Australia directly in terms of their whale watching industry. Japan is acting in this case as the rogue agent and can equally be accused of the crime of piracy just as the Sea Shephard can. That is the international law issue involved here.

Obama, like the Democratic run Congress, is beholden to the same evil powers that Bush is beholden too.

While I go along with the general argument I wouldn't be using the word 'evil' to describe the ruling elites. Every nation has them. No point in mystifying them.

They are basically beholden to their need to maintain their position of wealth and power. Within the context of economic conditions, when times are good they can afford to be benevolent but when times are tough, like now they get mighty reactionary, extracting profit from the workers and grabbing for what ever resources they see they think they have the priviliged right and the power to snatch away from the rest of the humankind.

Wars between nations and the crushing of democratic rights within each nation are the principle tools these elites use. There is a cold logic behind the method but not a lot of rationality (its all short term goals) and certainly no mysticism.

Arguably accusations of piracy can be leveled at both sides, the Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepard. While the whalers apprehending unwelcome guests is understandable, handing them over to the Japanese coastguard is not. Rather handing them over to a third party would make far more sense.

The Japanese coastguard has no jurisdiction over international waters. If the SDF or some renamed arm of it appears in the Antarctic waters effectively the Japanese government is staking a claim on what it doesn't own, and doing so using military means. In most other parts of the world, in international waters this could be seen as provocation in the extreme. Unlikely though that either New Zealand or Australia are going to go down that path. After all Japan is a prime market for what both countries are good at exporting.

The situation underlines the intractable contradiction between nation states and capitalism, and yet another example of how difficult it will be to save our natural environment and ourselves while both nation states and capitalism remain in place. Nation states were originally set up to maintain capitalist markets, and to justify forcibly creating new ones. The problem though remains the impossibility of fixing a 'dollar/yen' value to the natural world and particularly to the need to save it for future generations. Most people know it should be saved, science tells us that biodiversity is essential to a healthy environment, yet corporate profit and the driving capitalist need to ever increase profit means there is profit to be made by destroying our world. And its always only a short term profit that means there is always ever more competition to secure (i.e. destroy).

Pity the whales and the whalers. At least the crew of the Sea Shephard do their thing without a gunship standing by.

Gee. I thought I was the only one who could do glum posts. Get a look at yourselves here. Not that I disagree with most of the observations above. Yes, Japan has never recovered from the burst property bubble in the late 1980's/early 1990s. But neither has the US economy ever recovered from the decision in 1971 to axe the Bretton Wood system of fixing the US dollar to a gold standard, or the Democrat & Republican decision to deregulate the US financial sector in 1999 during the Clinton watch. The fact of the matter as globalization was harnessed to reap the most corporate profit by enabling cost cutting through cheap labour, land, and raw materials in far away 'developing economys' so too, globalisation drew up all economies into one world capitalist economy. And so what channelled great profit also ensures the collapse is systematic, spread amongst us all.

I've been virtually the issuer of glum warnings of what is happening in Japan and particularly the US, the apex of world capitalism for several years on JT. A funny thing but very few people have ever been interested in the truth, i.e. the bare economic facts, or for that matter the lessons of history until economic facts beat down their front door and barged into the kitchen.

The worst thing though is to think there is no way out. There is. It just means leaving a diseased and dying political and economic system behind, and taking the intelligent and optimistic alternative, which is international socialism. Democracy and peace for all. It'll be no utopia of course, it means the sanity of planned economy that takes care of the world and everyone in it, and in the true form of democracy where we really all do realize we live and share limited resources and the rights to them.

The alternative is to survive (not so likely this time) exactly what followed immediately after the Great Depression.

The yen has reached an astonishing high against the US dollar. This is not good for Japanese exports and not good for the US either. How long before the big Japanese investors in the US dollar begin pulling their investment? Or for that matter those other investors in the Asian block from who the US have loaned to keep their economy afloat for these past decades, pull their investments?

The collapse of world capitalism is very likely now over the peak and picking up pace. Now is the time to consider the sane alternative.

Anyone reading the New York Times this past Thursday will have read just what a bunch of outright lies the Obama campaign was based on. This was the Democratic candidate who initially at least promised to end the war in Iraq. Well, now we know in case we missed picking it up from his purposely misleading campaign speeches that in fact he has no such intention.

Now Obama is talking about 'reality'. So I guess he was not talking about that previous to his election. Obama now talks about the need to maintain up to 70,000 US troops in Iraq so to continue the occupation past the supposed dead line for withdrawal of December 31, 2011.

And what is to be made of Obama's announcement of his choice of Hillary Clinton as the new secretary of state, and George Bush appointed Robert Gates continuation as defense secretary? Well, remember that it was Clinton who Obama excoriated during the Democratic primary campaign for her support of the Iraq war. It that it was Gates not so long ago stated that there would be no pullout of US troops from Iraq for years into the future.

This then is the reality of the Obama administration policy, and my recent occasional posts on JT during the period leading up to the presidential elections stated as much.

The only really odd thing here is the complete failure of anti-war groups to pick up on the sad reality of the Obama administration unmasked. The New York Times report said this, "To date, there has been no significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least several years to come."

I guess though this isn't so odd. On one hand people will believe anything but the truth if grasping reality means letting go of the illusion they live under. On the other, there are a great many people out there, in the media, and leading these pretend opposition political parties and pretend lobby groups who will do anything to maintain the pretense for as long as possible. Reality says though, that Obama and the Democratic party represent the very same interests that ruined the American (and the world!) economy and dragged America and the world into Iraq with all the imperialist aims that has always entailed.

That's reality for you.

A few typos above but it'll do.

Sushisake3

Who are his backers? Are any of them likely to encourage Obama to start a pointless war like GWB's did? And are any of them likely to encourage Obama to yank roughly $2 trillion out of America and spend it on a foreign country and foreigners, like GWB's backers did with Iraq?

Good question. But the answer has been there waiting for everyone to fall over it for a long while. Obama is backed principally by Wall Street corporate interests, and it is those interests he will be protecting. The evidence has been there in his statements prior to his successful election campaign.

Ultimately, Obama will do much better at softening the blow for the average financially stricken American than his predecessor, simply because he represents the moderate section of America's ruling elite. They believe extreme measures without being accompanied by an apparent effort to look after the 'average' citizen will lead to a social revolt against the political structure. They are right. But this cannot be avoided. Objective conditions have smashed their way through the front door and simply denying that the capitalist system has nothing more to offer other than pain and destruction will change that fact. Capitalism has been extremely useful in that it has rocketed technological and scientific advances that mostly benefit us all, but now it has expired, as most everything does eventually. We must move on or be trapped in a terminally diseased political and social system.

Obama is unlikely to turn into a socialist. He is a protector of the present system and intends to push forward at greater speed down the path America and the world is already on. He has made serious threats of military action against Iran. He supports the war in Afghanistan. The war on terror is designed to provide a smokescreen to cover the massive and continued dismantling of democratic rights. A financial dictatorship is what we are living under at present. This will lead to a political dictatorship and that inevitably will result in a military dictatorship. The pace towards this nasty outcome increases as social pressures build, and Obama clearly understands this.

So people should stay alert and think outside of the extremely limited paradigm they are being presented with by their leaders. The destabalising effects of the continued 'war on terror' is likely to lead to major conflict between the most powerful countries in the world. A military strike against Iran would most definitely be the start of something terrible. So, yes, Obama will be investing in foreign countries, the ones targeted for the resources by America's financial elite that stand behind Obama.

I mean there is fundamentally no difference in the direction Obama has declared he is taking the US/the world, fundamentally different, that is, from that in which the present Administration has been going.

Gee, is there anyone surprised at that Obama would choose Gates for the job?

Fundamentally, there just is not any difference in the direction Obama has already declared he is taking America/the world. His pre-election run up speeches made it clear that he would carry on the war against terror indefinitely. At least he certainly didn't offer an end to it. Rather Obama offered a scrap to the peaceniks that he would pull the troops from Iraq. Talk about opportunism. And even then he never said he'd be pulling the US bases out of Iraq.

Obama has also directly threatened Iran with a military strike. Surely that would tell anyone that the Whitehouse isn't going to be returning to diplomacy as its principle tool of negotiation where foreign affaires are concerned, not anytime soon, like this side of the next millennium.

And, Obama has made it very clear in more than one speech that he will be calling for the re-instatement of the draft. Sheesh. Don't be surprised if Obama as commander in Chief is initiating the commencement of the next World War. It ain't going to be pretty.

Forget the insinuations that Obama has a socialist mission. The man is clearly not a socialist. Accusations of Obama being some kind of closet Fidel are as nonsensical as attempting to paint him as a terrorist because he may have conversations with Muslims.

The man has spent a lifetime working towards this achievement of becoming the first black American president. It would really be something had it not meant selling himself into the fraudulent two party system that serves to mask the plutocracy that really governs the US.

Obama stands in reality not for the middle class and most certainly not for the working class. He stands for incredible wealth and that is the beast he will be seen to serve in the years of his first term in office. It means that the Obama presidency will be driven by the same impulses that served up the kind of policies that filled the world with dread during the years of the Bush Administration.

Obama is a facade. If only he really had bought in the kind of changes so many Americans and so much of the world see him standing for.

Obama also thinks a military strike against Iran is not out of the question.

The truth is harsh, Obama does not stand for fundamental change in the kind of policy direction the Bush Administration has been taking the US these past 8 years. While the rhetoric from the new president will now be eloquently delivered the content will not shift from the course already determined. And that means not in the domestic as well as in the foreign arena.

Obama is a defender of the interests that paid for his and the Democrats win over the faction of the American ruling elite represented by McCain and the Republicans. But in Obama's speeches at home and abroad on his last trip to Europe he made it very clear where his political roots were grounded.

Remember it was Obama who supported the Bailout of Wall Street, it was Obama who made it clear harsh cut backs to social services and health care are in store for the American public (although he regularly painted these as beneficial to those most in need).

Just to underline how so not different in terms of broad policy direction the Obama Administration will be compared to the outgoing Bush Administration it was recently reported in mainstream media that Obama behind the scenes has asserted very recently that a US military strike against Iran will be a likelihood.

Madadverts

Besides, the US can no longer afford to retain the arrogance of the disaterous bush years...

All very true in so many ways.

But if were able to catch any of the last few months of Obama's campaign speeches, recorded in video or text, the audience he talks to principally are the financiers and supporters in other ways of the current administration. So while it is obvious Obama is eloquent, intelligent, informed, and 'in touch', the fundamental changes stop there. Obama has already signalled in those speeches that the direction of American policy both foreign and domestic will remain the same.

My guess is that because there is just so much hope and trust being placed in Obama as president by such a huge section of the US population (and a good part of the worlds as well), the disappointment felt by these people over the next few years will be huge.

The problem with 'US foreign aid' is that the benefactor benefits the most, and to the ultimate cost of the very people that are the supposed focus of their aid.

Its one hell of a fraud really.

Murdoch on terrorism.

“In this promising new century, we are still seeing naked, heartless aggression—whether it comes from a terrorist bombing in Islamabad or a Russian invasion of Georgia,” Murdoch said.

Never mind that vast majority of deaths so far in Afghanistan are those of the locals, with most of the explosions from coalition munitions dropped from planes and delivered by so called smart weapons like drones. A large majority of the most recent casualties have been local women and children killed by US missile strikes on their villages.

As for Russia and Georgia the fact remains that it was Georgia that fired the first shots were Georgian troops in Ossetia upon unarmed civilian residents of apartment blocks. and those first shots that did the most damage were from heavy weaponry, fore mostly Georgian tanks. The UN is currently investigating evidence of war crimes by Georgia in those first days that resulted in Russia sending in its own armed forces.

Murdoch is a parasite.

In one of the world’s wealthiest nations, Junpei Murasawa is a poor man.

Concepts like GDP and GNP are not measures of the mean wealth of individuals in any one country, certainly not indicators of mean well being. The reality of these labels is they are taken to mean more than they were originally intended, and this is usually intentionally for political reasons.

While Japan may be considered a 'rich country' still, it is not wealth that is spread amongst the population. It is in the hands of a very few who own the corporations and who affect most directly the running of the country itself. Reality is such that Japan's vast middle class was a creation that could only be sustained for a short period of time, from the 1960's through until he 1990's. This is not so different to most of the industrially developed economies.

The middle class has been shrinking across the world for a long while, and in Japan the pace of the shrinkage increased rapidly with the privatization program pushed by Junichiro Koizumi's government. Legislation that saw increased entrenchment of the permanent workforce and their replacement with part-time contracts, and the encouragement of the 'freeter' phenomenon has resulted in thousands /millions of the population dropping out of the category of 'middle class' and into that of the 'working poor'.

Poverty is not always bad. It's a great motivator

...of violence, family abuse, suicide, crime...

Poverty certainly isn't anything to celebrate.

Interesting how Obama at least on the topic of foreign policies virtually steals the Republican traditional right wing policies from under the feet of McCain.

John McCain as a result has been left with virtually only the energy versus environment debate in which to establish his own right wing creds, as he calls out on the podium "drill baby drill".

If the ruling elite had wanted to mollify the voting population with a Democratic president after two terms of the neo-cons while ensuring there was no change in policy direction which is to ensure American hegemony over world energy supplies and control over local dissent to the coming wars that will entail, then what better way would there be to do it then to place a charismatic, eloquent speaker such as Obama as the frontsman.

Japan is in for hard times it is only because the rest of the world, namely those very countries that you mention Japan does so much export trade with, is also in considerble hardship.

Which is the point I'm making above in reply to Some14some. Globalism means all economies are inextricably intertwined together. I am not saying Japan is deserving of a damn good whupping from a recession, only that Japan will be unable to escape the recession. History tells us that rapid rallies in the stock markets come before a big fall.

I would also suggest you refrain from comments like In my assessment, which I think is pretty realistic, Japan is in for hard times It goes without saying that you think your assessment is "pretty realistic". Everyone would like to write their own reviews. Most people don't however.

Gulp. I must have missed reading that rule in the textbook. Are you going to test us on it?

Fair point. But the same could be said for the interactions between other governments and local stockmarkets at this time, couldn't it?

Back in 1929 the US government took the same extra-ordinary measures (as Japan is taking and as most countries are taking following on from the US Bail-out) to secure calm again in the stockmarket. It did not stop the crash when it came.

Japan is in recession. The Yen is being manipulated by foreign investment because it is seen as a relatively safe currency at this time. Japan is totally dependent on its exports to China, to the US, and to Europe, and unfortunately the buyers are no longer making the orders they once did. In my assessment, which I think is pretty realistic, Japan is in for hard times, like the majority of the rest of the world in the immediate future.

Heh, in fact do any of the JT right wing radicals actually know what socialism is?

And would they care?

About Obama. As he is now apparently "on track" to an election win, it should be no more than prudent to consider what his presidency will bring to the US and indeed the world. While the speeches of both candidates and their running mates tell their supporters for the most part what they want to hear, it is far more insightful perhaps to listen to what is being said by those they will call to serve in their administration.

The current US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been widely rumoured to be assured of staying in the job should Obama take office. On Tuesday Gates gave a speech on nuclear policy to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). It serves as a clear warning of what lies ahead. He said that conditions in the world today are such they parallel those that existed just prior to WW1. Significantly he listed those US friendly states that by choice have no nuclear weapons, he listed 6, Japan and Germany were not among them and the omittal was not explained.

Gates went on to argue that the US must include nuclear weapons in what has become known as the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strike. In other words, that there must be a proviso that the US first-strike could include the large-scale use of nukes. Gates followed this astonishing threat - to all not willing to stand with it - with the call to substantially increase funding of nuclear weapons programs. As many of us also know, because this last was far more widely reported by the mass media, Gates also called for the establishment of a separate and central command for "nuclear policy and oversight" including a new dedicated headquarters office at Kirkland Air Force Base.

Gates speech far more than any by Obama or McCain for that matter indicates strongly that following the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, the US ruling elite intends to pursue a foreign policy far more aggressive than that in place at present. This will happen no matter whether its will be a Democrat or a Republican administration.

Voxman

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong again. That's three strikes feller. Take a walk.

Chalk up this kind of event as another warning of what is likely to come. The most volatile rises and falls in stocks historically happen before a crash. Prior to last week the largest recorded peaks occurred just prior to the 1929 stock market crash, which heralded the onset of the Great Depression.

The past two elections demonstrated how readily the Democratic Party was to submit to the will of the extreme right amongst the financial elite ruling the USA. I don't see any reason for that tendency to have shifted. This would then point to a win by McCain and Palin.

The stealing of two presidential elections by George Bush junior was not only brazen but up to this very day unquestioned by the Democratics, at least not officially. There has been no call by the Democratic Party to investigate how both senators Gore and Kerry in turn lost what polls clearly indicated was their win.

However, Obama and Biden have secured such a significant lead in the majority of the polls it will need to be a virtual 'terrorist' act to bring about a McCain and Palin win. This can't be discounted. But the reality is, given the reactionary speeches by Obama who has topped most of John McCain's direst threats against Iran, Afghanistan, and all and sundry likely targets for a US military strike, and after Biden's ominous warning the American people must brace themselves for certain harsh decisions by Obama that will not be popular, that the ideology of the American extreme right is in safe hands if Obama becomes president.

I wake up at 7 a.m. and come to the office around 9 a.m... I leave the office around 1 or 2 a.m. and get home in Chiba Prefecture around 3 a.m.

The guy gets less than 4 hours sleep?

JT, someone might want to fix the am's and pm's in the article. If this really is his regular schedule, his investors might want to be a little concerned about this CEOs ability to make decisions.

And its still got typos.

So what about the EU, US global summit? Think it will find the solution to funnelling more money faster to the banks and corporations in these coming times of hardship. You almost have to feel pity for that lot, don't you? How are they going to make the population continue to believe in capitalism anymore?

There should be plenty of work in doing just that for the advertising companies. Perhaps it will be the biggest challenge they've ever been given. Making the masses believe capitalism works for them.

Pressed the 'submit' instead of 'preview', it happens. Apologies. Here's what the reply.

You're addicted to conspiracy theories, mostly likely because you're addicted to the feeling that you know something that others don't.

Guess so.

There’s the one where the world's financial system collapses. Or the one where the parasitic activities of greedy corporate speculators on Wall Street and in Washington bring the US financial system became a virtual black hole that suck the world economy into its vortex. Or the one where the war in Iraq becomes a financial and political disaster for Washington. Or there’s the one where the war on terror creates more terrorism in the world rather than less, and drags in more countries like Turkey.

Oh, I forgot, they were all accidents, that no one could have foreseen, the result of no planning what so ever.

Guess those excuses will hold up in the history books.

Anyway, it seem that some of us don't know a conspiracy such as is the reason d'etre for the war on terror, and the invasion of Iraq, and the bail out of Wall Street, even if we are the ones who suffer its effect.

I've been posting on JT that all of this would happen since just before the invasion of Iraq went ahead in 2003. I also have posted the reasons why. Its in the JT archives, dude. I didn't dream up the conspiracy theories that led to the war on terror or to the coming deep and long recession, Washington did along with their buddies on Wall Street, and abroad.

You're addicted to conspiracy theories, mostly likely because you're addicted to the feeling that you know something that others don't.

Guess so. I've been posting on JT that all of this would happen since just before the invasion of Iraq went ahead in 2003. I also have posted the reasons why. Its in the JT archives, dude. I didn't dream up the conspiracy theories that led to the war on terror or to the coming deep and long recession, Washington did along with their buddies on Wall Street, and abroad.

Oh, you mean the one where the world's financial system collapses? Or the one where the parasitic activities of greedy corporate speculators on Wall Street and in Washington bought the US financial system became a virtual black hole that sucked the world economy into its vortex? Or the one where the war in Iraq would be a financial and political disaster for Washington? Or the one where the war on terror would create more terrorism in the war rather than less, drag in more countries like Turkey?

Oh, yeah, forgot, they were all accidents, no one could have foreseen, the result of no planning what so ever.

Guess those excuses will hold up in the history books.

Guess some of us don't know the difference between a pretend conspiracy, such as reason d'etre for the war on terror, and the invasion of Iraq, and the bail out of Wall Street, and a real conspiracy. Even when they are living it.