However, in Mr. Harris’s defense, I would like to stress that it is not the duty of the apparatchik to describe the “bigger picture.” That is for the philosophers and poets, who don’t have to worry about things like decorum and tenure.

-Ryan

1. The American administration made pretty damn sure that practically the same group of right-wing fanatics who had made Japan a misery in the wartime and pre-wartime period stayed in power. The CIA even employed Yakuza to root out Japanese left wingers.

2. The American administration crushed the Japanese left wing, leaving it with no viable opposition to the ruling party. An utter disaster for the Japanese people, who still have little control over how they are governed or how their lives are determined. Japan STILL provides a nice little airbase in the Pacific from which America can point its weapons at the whole of East Asia, as well as a nice little capitalist barrage against the red elements in Russia and China.

One party – right-wing nationalists – in power practically all the time since the war, with no meaningful opposition.

2. A police force tied inextricably to ultra-rightwing groups, and to the Yakuza, which employs extracts confessions under duress, and has an unrealistic 99 per cent conviction rate, where public demonstrations are practically forbidden, and where people who oppose the government get thrown in jail on trumped-up charges.

3. A system in which any politician who speaks out of line gets his house burned down or gets shot.

4. A system where a university professor had death threats for suggesting that the Japan Sea be called something more neutral in negotiations with Korea. A system where ultra-rightist thugs cruise around the streets in sound trucks and beat up anyone who gets in their way, and nobody does anything about it.

5. A system where the press is controlled by an elite club which excludes journalists who criticize the government (anti-police riots in Osaka the other week not reported on the major TV channels. Funny that).

6. A system in which the government deliberately enforces race and gender discrimination, in the face of its commitments to UN treaties on human rights, where the mafia runs one of the biggest people trafficking operations in the world, protected by the police who refuse to release details to international law-enforcement bodies.

7. A system where politicians can stand up and say that ‘human rights’ are an un-Japanese concept and that legislation should be rolled back, and where the government maintains a counterproductive stalemate with Korea and China by allowing extremists undue influence over policy decisions.

I could go on, about how the postwar miracle was built on appallingly squalid working and living conditions, about how the big companies are run by an oligarchy that controls and dominates people’s every movement, about how working hours are inhuman and the suicide rate sky-high, how a complete lack of welfare provision leads to destitution (and yet more suicide) but don’t let that bother your little delusion that Japan is a free and democratic country and that some Barack Obama type is going to come along and change things.

Also, remember that despite the huge level of debt, Japan is a huge creditor to the US and has one of the highest savings rates in the world, is relatively unaffected by subprime, and when it comes to the crunch can put a lot of people to work in care and nursing homes for the incontinent swarm.

“I imagine that if you had been writing in Roman times your name would live on as one of the great Sources”

What a tool ! what planet do you live on ?!

The LDP is in power, the DPJ is not…