Aug. 28, 2018
A great article to understand the people who control the TBS news department and are producing extremely maliciously biased reporting through the incredibly messy editing of the TBS program mentioned in the previous chapter is found in the lead feature, "Japan, Take Back Your History!", between Yoshiko Sakurai and Naoki Hyakuta in the monthly magazine WiLL, released on the 25th.
Preamble omitted.
GHQ's "mental renovation" of Japan
Ijima.
As the term "fake news" by President Trump became a hot topic after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the impartiality of the press has become a global issue.
In Japan, major media outlets' one-sided criticism of the Abe administration and manipulation of public opinion through deliberate editing are also rampant.
When did this kind of biased reporting start?
Hyakuta
I am currently writing a book on Japanese history.
What I am keenly aware of after re-studying it is that the GHQ's "mental reform" of the Japanese people is still lingering in the minds of the Japanese.
Sakurai
The occupation policy of GHQ was unparalleled in world history in its harshness.
Hyakuta
The Japanese mind was destroyed by the "War Guilt Information Program" ( masochistic view of history), which instilled a sense of atonement.
The U.S. ideological education against Japan incorporated the brainwashing know-how that the Chinese Communist Party had used on Japanese and Kuomintang POWs at Yan'an, and Sanzo Nosaka was also apparently cooperating with the GHQ occupation policy.
In particular, the press code was terrible.
For example, criticism of GHQ, the Allied Powers, or the Tokyo Trials was prohibited.
For some reason, criticism of the Korean people was also forbidden.
Sakurai
Since it was forbidden to mention that the U.S. created the Constitution to promote nationalism, it was impossible to look at Japan with an open mind.
Of course, the existence of the censorship system itself was also not to be revealed.
Hyakuda.
In addition to censorship, book burning also took place.
Publications in libraries and university archives inconvenient for the Allies were destroyed from one side to the other.
Speaking of book burning, the most famous book burnings in history were those by Qin Shi Huangdi and the Nazis.
It is cultural and historical destruction of the worst kind.
Sakurai.
The U.S. has resorted to the same thing.
The U.S., which claims freedom of speech, thought, and belief, applied a double standard to Japan.
Jun Eto was the one who correctly pointed this out, wasn't he?
Hyakuta
More than 7,000 books were confiscated in total, and those who resisted, saying that they were important documents and should be left behind, were harshly punished with sentences of up to 10 years in prison.
Article 10 of the Potsdam Declaration stated, "The Government of Japan shall promote democracy. It shall establish freedom of speech, religion, thought, and respect for fundamental human rights.
In other words, this is a clear violation of the "Potsdam Declaration" that goes beyond mere double standards.
Distorted Academia
Sakurai
The expulsion from public office was also terrible.
More than 200,000 people entrusted with important positions in Japan, including government offices, could not work.
Hyakuta
Ichiro Hatoyama, who was on the verge of being nominated as prime minister, was also banned from public office.
Because even candidates for prime minister were punished if they were inconvenient to GHQ, ordinary people were even more ineligible to speak out.
It was awful in the educational world.
Sakurai
Even the best professors at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University were disposed of in large numbers.
Hyakuta
Before the war, anarchists and those with revolutionary ideas were driven out of the imperial universities.
After the war, however, they returned to the teaching staff one after another, having won the approval of GHQ, and eventually came to control university education.
This ideology permeated higher and secondary education and has continued to this day.
Sakurai.
There were cases in which scholars with honest ideas turned to GHQ to be favored by it.
A typical example is Toshiyoshi Miyazawa, a constitutional scholar.
Hyakuta
He was critical of the Japanese Constitution, saying it was an "imposed constitution" by GHQ.
However, when he saw his colleagues being purged by GHQ, he completely changed his mind.
Sakurai.
It had changed 180 degrees.
Hyakuta
He began to advocate a new theory, the "August Revolution Theory.
Simply put, Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration in August 1945 was a kind of revolution, as it changed from imperial sovereignty to popular sovereignty.
In other words, the Constitution of Japan is a correct constitution created through a revolution.
Sakurai
After that, Mr. Miyazawa continued reigning as the Constitutional Law course head at the University of Tokyo.
Hyakuata
At universities, which are vertical societies, Miyazawa's Constitutional Law was passed down by assistant professors and assistants as "grateful words."
In fact, it seems that the August Revolution theory is still taught as correct at the University of Tokyo.
Considering that the August Revolution theory has become the prevailing theory in the bar examinations as well, it is no wonder that the Japan Federation of Bar Associations has become a strange organization.
The "exam-taking elite" who got into Tokyo University through an entrance exam that consisted entirely of memorization are forced to study such a ridiculous theory.
Whether in the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Education, the bureaucrats currently making headlines must have graduated from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Law.
Because they cannot think for themselves, they can only hinder politics by saying things like "pretending to agree but secretly disagreeing."
Sakurai
Many bureaucrats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs do not think about the national interest, aren't there?
Hyakuta
Another person I would like to introduce is Kisaburo Yokota.
He, too, was an authority in the law department of the University of Tokyo. Still, he insisted that the Japanese Constitution was not forced upon Japan. During the occupation, he published a book entitled "The Emperor System," which advocated the abolition of the Emperor System.
However, in his later years, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he gathered his students to buy and dispose of his books at an antiquarian bookstore in Kanda.
He thought, "It is indeed a bad idea to abolish the Emperor System."
That is why his books are hard to find.
Sakurai
You do terrible things without even feeling ashamed of them.
It is nothing short of a tragedy that academia has been distorted.
The Asahi Shimbun's Change of Heart
Hyakuta.
On the flip side, that is how strict GHQ was.
Losing a job in Japan, which was "the poorest country in the world" at the time, was literally a matter of life and death.
Sakurai
In the sense that they had to support their families as well, the situation for those who were expelled was genuinely terrible, as if they were being pushed into a life-or-death abyss.
Hyakuta.
Another thing I would like to mention is that there is no way that the Civil Administration Bureau of GHQ, which led to the expulsion from public office, had enough personnel to list over 200,000 Japanese people.
So, who helped with this?
Sakurai.
The Japanese.
It means that there were Japanese who cooperated with GHQ and expelled the Japanese.
Hyakuta
Socialists and communists used the opportunity of expulsion from public office to eliminate their political opponents.
There were also many cases in the corporate world where people rose in the ranks by ousting their superiors and colleagues.
The expulsion of teaching staff was particularly severe, with 100,000 faculty members eventually forced to resign.
Many prewar Normal School graduates quit.
Sakurai.
Normal schools are known for nurturing excellent human resources.
It was a real shame.
It was also during this period that the Asahi Shimbun changed.
"As the U.S. advocates that "justice is power," it cannot be denied that the use of atomic bombs and the killing of innocent people are more serious violations of international law and war crimes than the attack on the hospital ship and the use of poison gas."
GHQ scandalized the publication of Mr. Ichiro Hatoyama's statement, and the Asahi Shimbun was suspended from publication for two days.
Since then, the Asahi Shimbun has changed its tone to the current one, which actively conveys a masochistic view of history, and its "anti-Japanese disease" has not been cured to this day.
Hyakuta.
Although freedom of expression returned after the occupying forces left, the seven years of occupation were more than enough time for socialists and communists to put down roots in newspapers and universities.
Sakurai.
I want current Asahi journalists to examine their company's history and learn how their predecessors' reporting has changed.
Hyakuta.
When MacArthur returned to the U.S. in 1951, the Asahi Shimbun wrote in its Tenseijingo article: "No foreigner has had such a broad and profound impact on the Japanese people as General MacArthur. Few foreigners are as well-liked by most Japanese people as he is. Since Bataan, from the age of sixty to seventy, he has labored hard, never taking a Sunday or a birthday off. I feel deep respect and regret for General MacArthur, who left Japan as a martyr to his beliefs without seeing the conclusion of peace as the 'Great Bridge of the Pacific."
It is like a North Korean or Chinese newspaper (laughs).
Sakurai
It sounds like a love letter (laughs).
Hyakuta.
Although it was never realized, there was a movement to create a "MacArthur Shrine," and the presidents of the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers at the time were among the initiators.
It is expected to enshrine real people in shrines, such as Nogi Shrine, which enshrines Maresuke Nogi, but they are all deceased.
How could they glorify a person who is still alive?
For the Asahi Shimbun, MacArthur was a "living god."
This article continues.
2024/7/7 in Wakayama
