Comments on: The Washington Post: Worse than irrelevant http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/ Japan from the inside out Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:32:13 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: ampontan http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10289 ampontan Sun, 21 Oct 2007 04:46:02 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10289 Tomojiro: Thanks for that quote from the Asia Policy Point. It made my day! I wish I could use it for advertising! I especially liked the part about misspelling. I guess Asahi is misspelling "shimbun" on their English language website, too! A PR flack for the MOFA...interesting how their minds work. Only they have thought the problems out and see things from the proper moral perspective. Anyone who disagrees has to be doing it for the money. BTW, thanks for hanging in there over the weekend, guys. I was busy with errands locally on Friday, and on Saturday, I had to go to Fukuoka for business and pleasure. I had to deposit a dollar-denominated check at Citibank, and go shopping with my wife. I'll leave it to you do decide which was business and which was pleasure! And no, the check was not payment from an MOFA front company for my PR work... Tomojiro: Thanks for that quote from the Asia Policy Point. It made my day! I wish I could use it for advertising!

I especially liked the part about misspelling. I guess Asahi is misspelling “shimbun” on their English language website, too!

A PR flack for the MOFA…interesting how their minds work. Only they have thought the problems out and see things from the proper moral perspective. Anyone who disagrees has to be doing it for the money.

BTW, thanks for hanging in there over the weekend, guys. I was busy with errands locally on Friday, and on Saturday, I had to go to Fukuoka for business and pleasure. I had to deposit a dollar-denominated check at Citibank, and go shopping with my wife.

I’ll leave it to you do decide which was business and which was pleasure!

And no, the check was not payment from an MOFA front company for my PR work…

]]> By: bender http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10275 bender Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:25:51 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10275 Crisis indeed. I wonder why no major western media seems to report on nationalistic education and the ultra-nationalistic atmosphere rampant in South Korea or China while they always look around for miniscule signs of nationalism in Japan? Like, I haven't seen any wetern media cover the recent South Korean regime's effort in naming decendants of "pro-Japanese" and confiscate their assets. Now that sounds quite disgusting- punishing people for what their ancestors did- I'm sure this was how slavery was legitimized in the past. Or compile a list of "pro-Japanese" individuals so they can be purged from the main-frame of society. Sounds lot like a miniature version of the Cultural Revolution in China. I bet people there are really sure what "pro-Japanese" means, or else it can be used for any political purpose. Kind of like branding someone "unpatriotic". I guess it's as usual- it's either Japan's fault, or if not, America's. Crisis indeed. I wonder why no major western media seems to report on nationalistic education and the ultra-nationalistic atmosphere rampant in South Korea or China while they always look around for miniscule signs of nationalism in Japan? Like, I haven’t seen any wetern media cover the recent South Korean regime’s effort in naming decendants of “pro-Japanese” and confiscate their assets. Now that sounds quite disgusting- punishing people for what their ancestors did- I’m sure this was how slavery was legitimized in the past. Or compile a list of “pro-Japanese” individuals so they can be purged from the main-frame of society. Sounds lot like a miniature version of the Cultural Revolution in China. I bet people there are really sure what “pro-Japanese” means, or else it can be used for any political purpose. Kind of like branding someone “unpatriotic”.

I guess it’s as usual- it’s either Japan’s fault, or if not, America’s.

]]> By: Overthinker http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10274 Overthinker Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:37:59 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10274 Academia always does attract leftists, perhaps as all the rightists get into making money, and the leftists want to be paid for doing what they would do anyway. There is an imbalance, and should be fixed as soon as the imbalance of capitalists vs communists running multinationals is fixed. From the site Aceface linked to: "Understanding is a cooperative process. H. Res. 121 is a roadmap for that process. It lays out the markers of what is necessary for a meaningful, defensible apology to the Comfort Women as well as for other historical injustices." So here "understanding" and "conciliation" mean "accept without question as you were the aggressors after all"? "This crisis, the right believes, is the result of a foreign, imposed “postwar regime” that emasculated Japan by putting the collective focus on making money and saying sorry. Undoing all this requires a return to traditional values—to emperor worship, conventional gender roles, an active military, and moral education. Abe and his allies mourned the loss of Japan’s societal harmony." Now, Abe never suggested Emperor worship, and I will bet a lot of money on that. So talking about the most extreme ends of the Uyoku in the midst of a post on Abe resigning is disingenuous at best, deceitful at worst, in that it links the mildly-conservative "Utshukushii Kuni" idea with the more strident right-wing talk of the populist right wing and then tosses in a couple of extremist positions to make it nice and volatile. "Sixty percent of the Diet and 80 percent of Abe Cabinet are members of the rightist Japan Conference that firmly believes the histories of the POWs, the slave laborers, the comfort women and Nanking are fabrications." Whose histories? The official Chinese ones of Nanking, for example? If so, they are far from alone there. "Respectable people bought and read virulently reactionary magazines." And did they actually AGREE or were they just interested in the hype? The number of second-hand copies of rightist populism you can find at places like Book Off suggest that people but them, look through them, and decide they don't want to keep them. And I didn't actually read the byline until the end, but the preceding gems were the product of none other than Mindy Kotler. What a surprise.... Academia always does attract leftists, perhaps as all the rightists get into making money, and the leftists want to be paid for doing what they would do anyway. There is an imbalance, and should be fixed as soon as the imbalance of capitalists vs communists running multinationals is fixed.

From the site Aceface linked to: “Understanding is a cooperative process. H. Res. 121 is a roadmap for that process. It lays out the markers of what is necessary for a meaningful, defensible apology to the Comfort Women as well as for other historical injustices.” So here “understanding” and “conciliation” mean “accept without question as you were the aggressors after all”?

“This crisis, the right believes, is the result of a foreign, imposed “postwar regime” that emasculated Japan by putting the collective focus on making money and saying sorry. Undoing all this requires a return to traditional values—to emperor worship, conventional gender roles, an active military, and moral education. Abe and his allies mourned the loss of Japan’s societal harmony.”
Now, Abe never suggested Emperor worship, and I will bet a lot of money on that. So talking about the most extreme ends of the Uyoku in the midst of a post on Abe resigning is disingenuous at best, deceitful at worst, in that it links the mildly-conservative “Utshukushii Kuni” idea with the more strident right-wing talk of the populist right wing and then tosses in a couple of extremist positions to make it nice and volatile.

“Sixty percent of the Diet and 80 percent of Abe Cabinet are members of the rightist Japan Conference that firmly believes the histories of the POWs, the slave laborers, the comfort women and Nanking are fabrications.”
Whose histories? The official Chinese ones of Nanking, for example? If so, they are far from alone there.

“Respectable people bought and read virulently reactionary magazines.”
And did they actually AGREE or were they just interested in the hype? The number of second-hand copies of rightist populism you can find at places like Book Off suggest that people but them, look through them, and decide they don’t want to keep them.

And I didn’t actually read the byline until the end, but the preceding gems were the product of none other than Mindy Kotler. What a surprise….

]]> By: bender http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10271 bender Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:16:05 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10271 Can anyone tell me what's wrong with these Japan-bashers? They always seem to present lack of basic understanding of (or intentionally neglect) the strong anti-military/anti-war/anti-nationalism atmosphere in Japan that's so obvious- heck, being branded as a "<em>uyoku</em>" is a killer in Japan for all I know! These guys (and gals) want to instead show Japan as some unapologetic, militaristic, and nationalistic regime. Makes me wonder what these people are really up to... there are so many constituents in Japan who gets to run amok bashing Japan and of course the US all over, believing that they are representing "humanity or "righteosness""- but in fact are chasing ghosts, and merely acting as allies of inhumane and super-nationalistic regimes surrounding Japan. They might be remnants of pro-Soviet leftists who hate anything that's the US of A. The pathetic part of these people that they do not address <em>present and continuing</em> human rights issues like Tibet, East Turkestan and the like. Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with these Japan-bashers?

They always seem to present lack of basic understanding of (or intentionally neglect) the strong anti-military/anti-war/anti-nationalism atmosphere in Japan that’s so obvious- heck, being branded as a “uyoku” is a killer in Japan for all I know!

These guys (and gals) want to instead show Japan as some unapologetic, militaristic, and nationalistic regime. Makes me wonder what these people are really up to… there are so many constituents in Japan who gets to run amok bashing Japan and of course the US all over, believing that they are representing “humanity or “righteosness”"- but in fact are chasing ghosts, and merely acting as allies of inhumane and super-nationalistic regimes surrounding Japan. They might be remnants of pro-Soviet leftists who hate anything that’s the US of A. The pathetic part of these people that they do not address present and continuing human rights issues like Tibet, East Turkestan and the like.

]]> By: tomojiro http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10270 tomojiro Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:01:47 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10270 Correction: Amaeing → Amazing Correction: Amaeing → Amazing

]]> By: tomojiro http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10269 tomojiro Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:59:14 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10269 Yep, I have checked it. And other sites which she has linked. Quite interesting and revealing. Amaeing that there are so many ways to earn a living! Yep, I have checked it. And other sites which she has linked.

Quite interesting and revealing. Amaeing that there are so many ways to earn a living!

]]> By: Aceface http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10268 Aceface Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:46:06 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10268 Should check this site too.Tomo.Australian National University people established this site. Kotler writes a lot in here too. http://www.china-japan-reconciliation.blogspot.com/ Should check this site too.Tomo.Australian National University people established this site.
Kotler writes a lot in here too.
http://www.china-japan-reconciliation.blogspot.com/

]]> By: tomojiro http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10265 tomojiro Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:53:36 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10265 "Man,the APP is really a messed up bunch of people in it’s accuracy on fact." Incredibly sappy website! But maybe because of that, funny! I found this line. http://www.jiaponline.org/resources/blogs.html “The Marmot's Hole, much read, unsympathetic blog on Korea by Robert Koehler” UNSYMPATHETIC,ha! I wonder whether she understands what really “sympathy” means. “Man,the APP is really a messed up bunch of people in it’s accuracy on fact.”

Incredibly sappy website! But maybe because of that, funny!

I found this line.
http://www.jiaponline.org/resources/blogs.html

“The Marmot’s Hole, much read, unsympathetic blog on Korea by Robert Koehler”

UNSYMPATHETIC,ha! I wonder whether she understands what really “sympathy” means.

]]> By: Aceface http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10262 Aceface Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:41:39 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10262 My bad it's Asia Policy Point.not Asian. My bad it’s Asia Policy Point.not Asian.

]]> By: Aceface http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10261 Aceface Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:16:39 +0000 http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-washington-post-worse-than-irrelevant/#comment-10261 Man,the APP is really a messed up bunch of people in it's accuracy on fact. From Asian Policy Point HP."Japan's Conservaive Nationalist Project"(Never knew such thing was ever existed,count me in!) About Blogger and academic Ikeda Nobuo. "Est. March 2007 by a former head of NHK TV, Noburo Ikeda, who was forced to resign after he allowed the station to be intimidated by politicians wanting to change the content of a program on the Comfort Women. Blog posts familiar English-language articles disputing the comfort women’s history." How many mistakes have I founf in this short sentences? First of all,his name is NOBUO,not NOBURO. Secondly,Ikeda was a Chief Producer of NHK,not "a former head of NHK TV". Thirdly,he quit in 1993 not in 2001 when NHK broadcasted the ETV Special on confort women.Ikeda has nothing to do with the program in question nor was he forced to resign.He quit his job and chose to become an academic. (So far there are no NHK employee was forced to resign over this incident,including Chief producer Nagai Akira who WAS directly involved in making of the program and made press conference claiming the existence of political intermediation to NHK by Abe Shinzo and Nakagawa Shouichi and condemned the chairman and NHK leadership.) Fouthly,He is not right wing nor nationalist by any means.As the regular reader of his Japanese blog knows quite well. And one more thing.Isn't that blog's name was "Occidentalism",not "Orientalism"? Man,the APP is really a messed up bunch of people in it’s accuracy on fact.

From Asian Policy Point HP.”Japan’s Conservaive Nationalist Project”(Never knew such thing was ever existed,count me in!)

About Blogger and academic Ikeda Nobuo.
“Est. March 2007 by a former head of NHK TV, Noburo Ikeda, who was forced to resign after he allowed the station to be intimidated by politicians wanting to change the content of a program on the Comfort Women. Blog posts familiar English-language articles disputing the comfort women’s history.”

How many mistakes have I founf in this short sentences?

First of all,his name is NOBUO,not NOBURO.

Secondly,Ikeda was a Chief Producer of NHK,not “a former head of NHK TV”.

Thirdly,he quit in 1993 not in 2001 when NHK broadcasted the ETV Special on confort women.Ikeda has nothing to do with the program in question nor was he forced to resign.He quit his job and chose to become an academic.
(So far there are no NHK employee was forced to resign over this incident,including Chief producer Nagai Akira who WAS directly involved in making of the program and made press conference claiming the existence of political intermediation to NHK by Abe Shinzo and Nakagawa Shouichi and condemned the chairman and NHK leadership.)

Fouthly,He is not right wing nor nationalist by any means.As the regular reader of his Japanese blog knows quite well.

And one more thing.Isn’t that blog’s name was “Occidentalism”,not “Orientalism”?

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