'Selfish and selfish, they will violate other people's freedoms with impunity for their own, and they ignore reality and talk all pretty.'
May 09, 2018
I told a friend that the May issue of Voice, a monthly magazine released on April 10, was a whole of articles to read, but I realized I had left out many of them.
The following is from Kent Gilbert's article "The Depression of Japan and the U.S. Poisoned by the Bureaucracy, and the Sins of the Educated Elite Who Cannot Objectively Correct Their Behavior."
Although the monthly magazine Voice is priced at 780 yen, it is full of these articles.
Every Japanese citizen who can read the printed word must rush to the nearest bookstore on May 10 to subscribe.
Otherwise, you will never know the truth of things.
Most readers will be outraged, as I am, that as of today, 5/10/2024, Japan is almost a perfect copy of what is wrong with the U.S. in being one or more laps behind.
Emphasis in the text other than the headline is mine.
The Communist Party is Liberal!
As I wrote in detail in my book "Liberal Poisoning: The Melancholy of Japan and the United States" (PHP Shinsho), which I published in the middle of last month, the way the term "liberal" is used in Japan seems to the life of me, to be strange.
For example, on the occasion of the October 2017 lower house election, an article in the Asahi Shimbun (October 2, 2017, evening edition) reported on Yukio Edano's intention to launch the CDP.
The formation of a new party by Edano and others will create a three-way race for the House of Representatives to be held on October 10: "the Liberal Democratic Party and New Kōmeitō," "Hope," which will include a coalition of the Democratic Progressive Party, and "Edano's new party and liberal forces, including the Communist Party, that will join forces with it.
As typified by this report, the Japanese media at the time of the general election labeled the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and the Communist Party (C.P.) as "liberal forces.
I thought to myself, "What? The Communist Party is liberal?" -This classification is too strange to me, having grown up in the U.S., where the activities of the Communist Party were outlawed by federal law in 1954.
*To those on the left who have been telling us to learn from Germany, I have mentioned several times in this column that then we should learn from Germany's outlawing of the Communist Party. When I re-read this article and mentioned it to a friend who is one of the best-read people in the world, he immediately responded. Japan is the only developed country that has not outlawed the Communist Party! *
As you can see in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the current People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as China for convenience), communism and socialism are systems in which free speech and press are not allowed, censorship and suppression of speech are commonplace, and so on. They are closed societies with strong totalitarian tendencies.
Yet, what does it mean to call the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), which has its roots in the Japanese branch of the Comintern (Communist International) and several leftist parties in Japan that always advocate only "opposition for the sake of opposition" to the ruling party, no matter how many times they change their party names?
When I had such a question, I was very interested to hear that T.V. Tokyo used the following definition of the term in its program "TXN Lower House Election S.P.: Akira Ikegami's General Election Live" broadcast on the occasion of the October 2017 lower house election (as of January 2018, also introduced on the program's web page). (As of January 2018, it is also available on the program's webpage at http:／/www. tv-tokyo. Co. jp/ikegamisenkyo/devil/)
The "Liberal" Left: Self-proclaimed Leftists Who Don't Want to Be Called "Leftists
How frank or ironic.
However, this is the correct definition and common usage of "liberal" in Japan.
If that is the case, then I can understand why, for example, Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a member of the House of Representatives who moved from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), said loudly during the same general election, "I believe in the power and importance of the liberal movement.
The fact that the term "liberal" is used as a self-description by those who do not want to be called "leftists" suggests that the term "liberal" is understood in Japan exclusively as an image of greatness.
However, I can't help but feel uncomfortable about that as well.
I don't know about the situation in Europe, but I know that at least in conservative states in the U.S., the word "liberal" is nowadays, if not in the 20th century, perceived by many people as follows.
They are "black-hearted, smelly, repressive, critical, and annoying," "arrogant, thinking they are the only ones who are absolutely righteous," "irresponsible people who are only a rookie and never admit their faults," "selfish and self-serving, willing to infringe on others' freedom for their freedom," "all pretty words without regard to reality," "a bunch of nonsense," "a bunch of lies," "a bunch of lies without regard to reality," "a bunch of nonsense. They say beautiful things without regard to reality.
Words are living things.
I feel that these perceptions have even become "common sense" among some, if not all, people in the U.S. at a certain level.
Don't follow the same path as the U.S.
Initially, in the U.S., a way of life that respected religious precepts was called "conservative." At the same time, the words and actions of those who wanted to assert their "selfishness" were considered "liberal.
Today, however, the term "liberal" increasingly refers to a position that vociferously advocates the rights of minorities and emphasizes welfare policies for them.
The activities of such people have gone too far, and what once meant "liberal" has now become a very oppressive situation in which one cannot help but associate "liberal" with "totalitarian" nuances.
As those mentioned above "The Depression of Japan and the U.S. Infested by Liberal Poison" indicates, in the U.S., the word "liberal" has moved away from its original meaning of "liberal," "generous," "open-minded," "magnanimous," and "unprejudiced," and is now recognized as the exact opposite: "an entity that spreads poison in society. I think it is important for Japanese people to understand that the "liberals" are now recognized as "poisoners" in society.
In particular, the U.S. is unfortunately far ahead of Japan in creating a "totalitarian and suffocating society" in which liberals have made the exact opposite of "freedom.
Japanese people should consider the "merits and demerits of liberalism" carefully and learn about the current state of American failures, their causes, and how to respond.
We absolutely must not follow the same path as the U.S.
Put, "Do the Japanese really want Japan to become a suffocating society like the U.S. is today?" "Are you aware of the dangers of liberalism?" I want to say, "Are you aware of the danger of liberalism?
Hillary's "Black Shadow
When Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election in the United States, many Japanese people wondered, "How did such an intelligent and politically experienced candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is ardently supported by liberals, lose to Trump, who has absolutely no political experience? who has no political experience at all?" he wondered.
Meanwhile, many people in the U.S. stopped trusting major media reports after the election.
It is no wonder, then, that except for a few small outlets, such as FOX News, the majority of the major media outlets were liberal, and from the beginning to the end of the campaign, they were overly supportive of Hillary's campaign.
They reported that Hillary would win, and repeated polls showed she was leading the whole time.
On November 9, 2016, the day of the presidential election, I appeared on four live programs from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. (Japan Standard Time) on terrestrial T.V., radio, and B.S. I was surprised at the unexpected turn of events.
The unexpected turn of events had NHK Radio, which places particular importance on scripts, in a panic.
I had cast an absentee ballot for Trump, and my wife and sons in the U.S. had told me that "Trump will win for sure! But it was not until the day before the vote was cast that I realized he might win.
In retrospect, I think the Japanese media coverage was so biased toward the "anti-Trump" side of the race.
It may be a result-oriented argument, but why did Hillary lose the 2016 presidential election despite such massive support by the overwhelming majority of the major media, including "fake news" and psychological "impression manipulation"?
The reasons also reveal the true nature of "liberals" in contemporary America.
To cite just one example, Hillary's use of a private email address for official business during her tenure as Secretary of State is a bigger problem than reported in Japan.
Not only was there a risk of leaking state secrets, but because she used a private email server to communicate as Secretary of State, which in Japan is equivalent to Foreign Minister, the correspondence could not be recorded as an essential official government document. Many of her activities during her tenure were shrouded in mystery.
As a matter of course, all documents, including emails, created by the Secretary of State and other cabinet members and government officials are treated as public records, and all contents are automatically stored in government archives and released to the public after a certain period of time.
It is believed that Hillary, who is well aware of this, deliberately did not use a public email address because she did not want third parties to know about the evil she was doing behind the backs of those around her.
She has destroyed tens of thousands of her emails that originated from a private server.
Not only did she delete the information, she is said to have completely destroyed the data on her hard drive.
What was she trying to hide?
She has always been haunted by a "black shadow.
To be continued.
2024/5/10 in Kyoto
