Witch hunts, East and West.

It seems the US is immersed in yet another witch hunt against a heretic troublemaker who dares contradict the foundational dogma of the Cathedral. I'm more surprised by the balls of the man who made a dissertation on Mexican IQ on freaking Harvard, than in the totally predictable crackdown when his views came out in the news. Of all the stupid, irrational, me-too denunciations that have denounced Richwine all around the media, the one that caught my eye the most was the one from Will Wilkinson in the Economist. I thought of making a thorough fisk of the piece, but it's all over the place already, and I doubt I could say anything that anyone doesn't know.

I'll try to be original and talk of something else. While the US was busy depriving Jason Richwine of his livelihood, something much bigger was going on in Japan. A which hunt of larger scale, and larger consequences that what any naive researcher might do in Cathedral HQ. Right now Japan is in one of the most important times in their history. Anyone who reads the news might have noticed that Japan is all over the news, with its new central bank governor, massive currency printing, Abenomics as Keynesianism done right and all that. It seems to be working (for what they wanted it to work for), but Abenomics is not what Abe is about at all. Abe is for redefining Japan's constitution and its international standing. Japan has for 68 years been a defeated nation, remade into the main American satellite in East Asia. Japan has done good under American suzerainty, but the status quo is not sustainable any longer. Japan is losing population, Korea is every day more hostile, the US is more dysfunctional every day, and China has become very, very big. At this rate, China's growth will make Japan irrelevant, and the US will abandon its satellite to make good with the new regional boss.

Korean woman circa 1905

Now before you go and browse the heavily edited Wikipedia article, I'll summarize the issue very simply. Basically since the old days, the Japanese Army, wherever it was stationed, home or abroad, organized brothels so that the soldiers could bust a nut regularly, for army morale and all that. South Korea argues that the women in the brothels were kidnapped by the Japanese army and forced into having sex with the soldiers, and they argue that most of the women were Korean. So Japan is guilty of slavery, and of women! It doesn't get any more evil than that. Maybe if they were black.

Japan's right wing argument is basically that all that is bullshit. The Japanese Army had better things to do than to go out of their way to kidnap local girls. Japan, at least since the Edo times, has had a famously active prostitution industry, and what the Japanese Army did was to go to the red-light district closest to base and reach an agreement with the local pimps to get some prostitutes to visit the soldiers. And that's all they did. During the war, they did that wherever their army was stationed. And in case there weren't enough hookers around, they shipped them from home. "Home", back then, meant Japan and Korea, so hookers were also procured from Korean towns. Nobody went around hunting local Korean girls because 1st. the Army has better things to do, 2. Korea wasn't enemy territory, but part of the nation. All the army did was outsource hooker provision from local pimps. If they went around kidnapping or fooling local girls, that's nobody's business.

You may choose which side you want to believe, the evidence of course is sketchy. I know what sounds more plausible though. Clean, good vs evil stories tend to be false, especially when one side has all the incentives to lie. Yet, the narrative of the evil Nazi allies enslaving the daughters of the poor has strike a nerve in the Cathedral's consciousness. That and all those Samsung profits that are being conveniently funnelled into American politician's pockets. The New York state senate just passed a resolution supporting the plight of the (mostly dead) Korean comfort women. The NY state senate?

Obviously Japan's politicians are very worried about this trend. It's not good when the New York Times doesn't stop writing about sex-slaves this and sex-slaves that, pushing you to apologize to a neighbor who is hell-bent in destroying your native industries and who you suspect is selling out to the Chinese. Japan had a honey moon 10 years ago when Korean food and Korean soap-operas became popular (with official support, of course), unleashing the so-called Korean Wave with captivated so many undersexed housewives. But enough is enough, and Korea's leftist agitation must not go unanswered. So thought Hashimoto Tooru, a young lawyer and TV commentator who cashed in his TV fame, and became the most momentous politician in recent history when he captured Osaka in 2008. For last year's elections he founded the Japan Restoration Party, and went into national politics.

In a country dominated by political dynasties which often have their roots in the pre-war aristocracy, Hashimoto has a very interesting history. He kinda sounds like the perfect poster child for liberalism, one of the exceptions that leftists like to use to deny HBD. Hashimoto's father was a Yakuza goon of Burakumin ancestry. His father killed himself when he was a child,  so his mother raised him and his sister. Eventually the kid went to college, and then passed the national bar exam to become a lawyer. Becoming a lawyer in Japan is like getting the Nobel Prize. It ain't easy. Which means that the very few lawyers that work in the country have a very nice income guaranteed for life. Hashimoto has used that money to father 7 children.

Well, back to the point, contrary to what his upbringing would make you think, Hashimoto is not a leftist hustler, but has become a renown figure of the right. His Japanese Restoration Party mirrors the Meiji Restoration, where Japan pushed the colonial powers back and became an awesome international empire in its own right. Hashimoto owns his political fame to trademark showbiz style. He speaks his mind, fights the journalists when they disagree with him, and has a popular Twitter feed where he makes his opinions open to all. That is very uncommon in Japan, where you're suppose to talk Victorian, be nice and polite, and then do whatever  you do. Hashimoto, being an outsider, tried to be cool. With dire consequences.

Now that the elections loom close, and Abe seems posed to win big, people have started talking on the new Constitution. Hashimoto, as a supporter of changing Article 9, and establishing a proper national army, has been talking on Twitter of his positions on why Japan has a legitimate case to reestablish a military. That legitimacy depends also greatly in defusing the comfort women issue. That's what he said. It's really something:

-As a result of losing the war, Japan has to accept that what it did is considered aggression. That's what it means to lose a war. That's not an issue with China and Korea, it's an issue with all the victors of the war. If you deny that Japan was an aggressor, you have to start a world war again and win it. That's ridiculous.-As a defeated nation, Japan must accept to be deemed the aggressor. Of those who deny that Japan was an aggressor, there are many who value Bushido. Well, a defeat is a defeat. You have to accept it graciously. And it's also a fact that we caused great suffering and damage on our neighbouring countries. We have to reflect, and apologize.- As part of that, Japan can't just say, it's been 70 years since our defeat, now we're even. The appraisal of the victims and third parties is important. The solution must come from Japan's behavior and time.- Having this big principle in mind, still there are important misunderstandings that are causing Japan to be unduly insulted, and we must respond to them. And we also have to have a proper understanding of the historical conditions of the time. That is not to rationalize our conduct, but to avoid undue insults.- The fact that through aggression and colonial rule, we caused great damage and suffering to our neighbouring countries, as a defeated nation, we must accept, reflect and apologize. However, the fact is the powers of that time all had colonial possessions. And on the comfort women system, the fact is all the militaries around the world had systems to cope with the sexual urges of their soldiers.- Obviously, the fact that it was OK back then, doesn't mean it should be applied today. However, we should understand properly the conditions of the time. Not to rationalize our conduct, but to avoid undue insults.- The fact that humans, and especially men, need a way to cope with their sexual urges is an undeniable fact. In modern society this is mainly done through marriage, or through relationships, but in other historical periods, there were other ways. It is a fact that in countries other than Japan, the unmet sexual urges of soldiers were met through a system of comfort women.- The criticism that the world is making about Japan's comfort women system, is because it  is presumed that Japan, as a matter of national policy, went around kidnapping women with violence and extortion and forcing them into being comfort women. I am not a historian, so I do not know all the specific facts, but on a 2007 Diet resolution, it was established that there is no evidence behind that allegation.- Of course if evidence were to come out we should apologize, but as of now, the government official position is that there is no such evidence. Some days ago, a resolution was made about some new evidence that might come up soon. That's why people go on saying that there were forceful kidnappings, and related organizations should go on collecting evidence.- There was an incident about Japanese soldiers in Indonesia forcing Dutch women into prostitution. That is obviously unacceptable. This incident in particular went on a war crimes trial and death sentences were pronounced. If you asked me today whether comfort women were good or bad, well of course I don't think they were a good thing, but if you look at all other countries in the world, it's a fact that they all had ways of coping with sexual urges of their soldiers.- There are many ways of coping. You can use the local brothels, you can set have the military administer the brothels like Japan did. When the US military invaded Japan, the Japanese government set up the Recreational and Amusement Association (RAA). I am sorry for those who became comfort women against their will. Administrators might have lied to women when hiring them.- That's part of the tragedy of war and that's why we shouldn't go to war. Just because reparations have been legally addressed between Korea and Japan, it's not becoming of a politician to shut up old comfort women with legalese. Even if the legal problems have been addressed, there are other ways of speaking and dealing with people.- But it is also an undeniable fact that there is no evidence to say that Japan, as a matter of national policy, went around kidnapping Korean women and forcing them into prostitution. If the world is misunderstanding the issue, Japan must speak out to avoid being unduly insulted. I mean, bringing the US into the picture isn't fair. USA has always denounced prostitution, even today.- But it's still a fact that in the surroundings of US military bases, the sex industry flourishes. When the US invasion army arrived, Japan set up the RAA. But McArthur's GHQ banned it. Nonetheless, private prostitution flourished. Even if you officially ban it, the fact is the soldier's sexual urges don't go away. You need to think of ways of coping with that.- When I recommended the commanding officer at Futenma base to use the local sex industry, I didn't mean for him to do anything illegal. According to Asahi Shinbun, the US military spokesman said "We wouldn't do anything illegal, Hashimoto is ridiculous". What I told him was to use the legal sex industry. To stop being a phony.[Prostitution is illegal in Japan since McArthur, but officially only penetration is illegal, and there are tons of different venues where you can get every tiny different sexual service you can think of. That's why there's a sex industry, but not prostitution. Legally, of course. \]- The US military forbids its personnel to use even the legal sex industry. Even if you ban them from suing it, their sexual urges don't just go away. If US soldiers use the local sex industry, not necessarily it would solve the sex crimes they commit in Okinawa. We haven't proved any causation. But please just stop with the Victorian facade.- Thing is instead of dealing seriously with human's sexual urges, they just close their eyes. Even in developed countries, it happens that women do that kind of work against their will. We must fight that. But in Japan, people are free to chose their profession, so why do you deny the sex industry?- As I see it, to denounce the legal sex industry in Japan, is discrimination against the women who chose to work there. There is no problem whatsoever in US military personnel making use of the japanese sex industry.

Translation is mine.

You can imagine Hashimoto being very careful with every word he wrote, thinking he is just right, reasonable and logical. He even allows himself to criticize old politicians treatment of Korean comfort women, telling them to be nicer in how they speak. He basically said two things: The comfort women were not slaves, and the US is full of shit. Both of which are pure and pristine truth. So what kind of reaction did he get to that?

Sex-slaves! But he just made the point that they weren't slaves? Who cares, go get him!! Burn him at the stake! Every little Cathedral-ish minion in Japan, every lesbian, every feminist, every mangina, every Korean, every Chinese, every religious figure has trashed him. "Why don't you tell your daughters to be hookers!" The poor man went on trying to justify his points in Twitter for 3 long days. Heroic, really. I'd translate more but it just gets repetitive. But today, lastly, he gave up. Abe told him to shut up, and he was even forced to cancel a planned trip to Washington, where he surely would have met with high ranking officials and be treated as what he was always thought to be: future prime minister.

Now, even his own minions, delegates at the Osaka city council, have told him to shut up. Sic transit gloria mundi. All for telling the US Marines to stop raping local teenagers and bang some hookers when they get horny, like everyone else. But you can't talk sense with the Cathedral. The Cathedral *is* being phony. The Cathedral mandates that it's better to rape a 12 year old now and then, than to allow soldiers to use prostitutes. The Cathedral mandates that you can trash an entire country, if someone puts forward a compelling narrative about victimized women, and pays politicians to promote it. The Cathedral isn't being phony. The Cathedral *is* phonyness. What is the Cathedral if not the hypocrisy processing parts of the brain running amok? What is the Cathedral if the purposeful denial of reality in order to feign holiness? Hashimoto told a Cathedral officer to "stop being phony". I'm sure it didn't compute.

> The NY state senate? NY eh. Curious.

Sad to hear of this. I hope at least a few ten-millions will listen to his reasonable speech and think for themselves.

So what is Japan to do? Well first it needs to jumpstart the economy. Done. Then it needs to stop being yet another USG satellite. Which means it needs to become a real nation.

Well and good, but how does TPP figure into this? I believe Abe's pushing it pretty hard, and entering it has lots of potential consequences besides flooding the Japanese market with cheap foreign rice. One is permitting foreign companies to sue the Japanese government for discriminatory practices (like having public works tender documentation in Japanese, that's very discriminatory). Another is opening up the insurance and health markets for foreign companies. I should think a real nation wouldn't tolerate such impositions, or even consider negotiating about them.

The 5yr bonds are having some turbulence? http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GJGB5:IND/chart But I think I read that the central bank buys 70% of them anyway? Man, it's beyond my understanding. Apparently Roubini thinks Kyle Bass is wrong, thinks that they at least have some chance of averting a debt crisis.

> The NY state senate? The NY state legislature has been very openly corrupt since forever. I don't think they do anything gratis: http://www.stateintegrity.org/newyork\_story\_subpage

...For fourteen years Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno very publically funneled millions of dollars into his district to build train stations, minor league baseball stadiums and parks that were all named after him. Bruno and his Democratic counterpart in the legislature, Speaker Sheldon Silver, could personally decide what legislation made it to the floor for a vote and punish legislators for speaking out. A budget process defined by backroom negotiations with the governor and the two majority leaders resulted in the popular phrase “three men in a room.”

Being an ethnic Chinese, I think Hashimoto's position is reasonable. However, I doubt Abenomics would work for the long haul. There are two problems with the Japanese economy. 1. Demographic implosion. This problem is not going to be solved any time soon. 2. Japanese industries no longer as competitive as they were back in the eighties. Entire electronic industry has gone down the toilet and the Koreans have come out on top. Even in cars, where they are still the best companies for the mass auto, the Koreans are starting to chip away at that edge with respectable cars for a good price.Unless they come up with something that people want to buy, no amount of monetary easing will fix their woes. Another problem they have, they are still, in many sense, a vassal state for the U.S. For example, this whole thing with the Island dispute, Hillary Clinton carried out the U.S. pivot to Asia (read pivot to China) thing, soon, we have a Japanese Mayor talking about buying the Islands which started this whole dispute. Now you can say that this was a Rogue element from the right doing this, I don't think these actions are done without coordination between the U.S. and Japan at the highest level. The result is no skin off the nose for the U.S., but major and permanent economic damage to Japan. The revival of Japan will be crushed between the rivalry between China and the U.S. for control of Asia. As to China being ugly, I think every ascendant power behaves this way. A late rising Germany fighting with other European power for colonies, Soviet Union with Eastern Europe, U.S. with the Monroe Doctrine. The British creating countries against the interest of local populations for the sake of the empire. The charms only come after one gains control of the power.

That's the big question. If Japan goes into the TPP is only to make good with USG. To what extent Abe is sincere about that, I don't know. If he wanted USG support so badly he wouldn't go around saying that the Imperial Army was cool. I'd actually like some competition to the 医師会, but anyway. We'll see later this year.

Don't worry about them. They'll manage. South Korea's and Taiwan's fertility is even lower. And the people poorer. Worry about them. Ascendant powers are all scary to their neighbours, but neither Britain nor Germany were 10x bigger than their neighbors. China is just too big.

Fascinating and brilliant. Thanks. Hashimoto sounds like an honest guy. So I guess he's screwed.

I love it when he says "as a defeated nation". I.e. if we had won we wouldn't have to deal with this crap, but we lost, so we are the bad guys.

I think I just felt the abyss stare back.

tough luck, good luck with the resurrection of Japan

At least the smart people aren't going abroad.

Yeah, that's a phenomenal viewpoint, I guess you could call it a backhanded concession. I find that sort of.. umm.. realpolitikal honesty very refreshing and appealing. Unfortunately, the public discourse has been reduced to a network of snitches sniffing around for heresy like 5-year olds running around shouting "Mommy, Mommy! Tooru said a Bad Word" with a mischievous smile on their faces. Tooru surely is in trouble now! I believe very few journalists actually are such shrinking violets that they're personally shocked or offended by lines such as this. They are just hyper-aware of What You Can Say and what you can't. That's their Job. That sort of mentality isn't too difficult to comprehend, actually. I'm a freelancer with a rotating customer base. When I get a new gig, I flip into a 100% company man right off the bat. If someone wants to pay me to write their Sustainability & Climate Change statements, then that's exactly what I'll do, with all the gloss and carefully placed word choices that put the data in the best possible light. I can imagine a journalist behaving in a similar manner unless he's consciously opposed to the zeitgeist.

(Wordpress seems to like eating my comments for some reason — reproducing the gist) Maybe Abe is using the nationalistic stuff to round up support for changes to the constitutional amendment process. The most damaging parts of TPP will probably require amendments. By the way have you heard anything new about updating the 1896 Civil Code?

I wouldn't think so, Abe has long been a hard line rightist. A sell-out of that cynicism would be quite unprecedented in modern history. No idea on the Civil Code. What's the point of changing it exactly? Married women keeping their surnames?

Sustainability & Climate Change statements, then that’s exactly what I’ll do, with all the gloss and carefully placed word choices that put the data in the best possible light.

What's with neoreaction and Cathedral insiders? Foseti you et al. should get together and have a repentance ritual once a year.

Well, I'm cynical enough to think of it. Let's hope you're right. By the way, I rather like the moniker "Cynical Enlightenment". That was one point, or permitting the use of maiden name as professional alias. I remember vaguely that there was also something about making children responsible for upkeep of their parents, and some other stuff, but I read Japanese too slowly to research teh Japanese internets comfortably.

A quick google search bring up something about giving inheritance rights to extramarital children. Uh-oh. Not that they usually have anything to inherit.

Honesty scares the Cathedral the way sunlight spooks vampires, and for much the same reason.