Right-wing rewriting of history can be very dangerous.

Not that right-wing, THIS right-wing:

The ghost of wartimes past

MANY Japanese were surprised that a hotel chain, under a cloud for shoddy earthquake-proofing standards, should sponsor a competition for the best essay to deny Japan’s wartime role as an aggressor and sponsor of atrocities. But then the chain’s boss, Toshio Motoya, is a vigorous historical revisionist (and big supporter of Shinzo Abe, prime minister in 2006-07). More astounding, then: the competition winner, Toshio Tamogami, was none other than the head of Japan’s air force.

Mr Tamogami’s offering is a warmed-through hash of thrice-cooked revisionism. Japan, he writes, fought a war of self-defence, protecting its legal territories of Manchukuo (North-East China) and Korea against communists. Pearl Harbour was an American-laid trap. Japanese occupations were both benevolent and a liberation of Asia from the yoke of Western imperialism—indeed, neighbours (20m of whose deaths were caused by the Japanese) now look fondly on wartime Japan. Japan must “reclaim its glorious history”, Mr Tamogami ended with a barrel-rolling flourish and a want of irony, “for a country that denies its own history is destined to fall.”

The prime minister of six weeks, Taro Aso, from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), moved swiftly. Within hours of the essay’s publication on October 31st, Mr Tamogami, a general, was out of a job. China and South Korea expressed shock at his views, but accepted that they did not reflect the government’s. Mr Tamogami did not help his case by complaining that Japan’s freedom of expression was on a par with North Korea’s. As well as the ¥3m ($30,000) essay prize, he gets a ¥60m retirement bonus from the defence ministry.

End of story? Not quite. For a start, Mr Tamogami, it transpires, took Mr Motoya for a joy-ride in a fighter jet. And since his sacking, it turns out that of the 230-odd aspiring writers of historical fiction, 78 were officers in Japan’s air force, most of them close to their general. Of course, it is understandable that some professional warriors might chafe at Japan’s American-dictated pacifist constitution; and at a victor’s interpretation of history that discredited Japan’s proud armed forces. But for so many to write revisionist claptrap in a hotel-sponsored competition is rum indeed. The unfortunate impression is of those radicalised officers’ messes of the 1930s, out of which the Japanese army mugged civilian rule: the rest was, well, history.

So the prime minister has some explaining to do, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan will make all the hay it can. It wants Mr Tamogami to testify before the Diet. It may press the prime minister about his own views. His government, like its predecessors, endorses apologies, first formulated in the mid-1990s, expressing guilt and remorse for wartime suffering. In office (and as foreign minister before that) Mr Aso has also eschewed visiting Yasukuni, where war criminals as well as Japan’s 2.5m war dead are enshrined.

Yet in the past Mr Aso, in a shoot-from-the-hip way, has echoed many of Mr Tamogami’s right-wing views. He has, for instance, praised Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910-45, even though his family fortune derives from a mining company that used Korean slave labour during the second world war. As prime minister Mr Aso has been on good behaviour. Yet the day after Mr Tamogami’s sacking, he casually picked up a volume of views similar to the general’s from a Tokyo bookstore.

Mr Aso is certainly doing his bit to improve tricky relations with neighbours, China and South Korea in particular. Unlike many revisionists, he embraces the post-war order, wants an internationalist role for Japan, and does not see bogeymen behind every tree. Yet now he has the challenge of reassuring Japan’s neighbours over the Tamogami affair without undermining his own conservative base.

The public reaction to the affair reinforces how beleaguered these days are Japan’s history-deniers, says Jeffrey Kingston, a historian of Asia at Temple University in Tokyo. Even Yasukuni has toned down the exhibits in its notorious museum, where until recently militarism was celebrated and all atrocities denied. The most notable denial was of the Nanjing massacre of tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands of Chinese in December 1937. Now the museum admits that killings took place, but suggests they were of enemy soldiers disguised as civilians. This is the problem with the historical fantasists. Even as they moderate their public message, they leave you waiting for the “but”.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/...ry_id=12570595

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Japan needs to have its collective nose rubbed in the shit of WW2.

Bio-weapons used in China that are STILL killing people today.
Chemical weapons
Bataan death march (forced march of prisoners, without food/water through a jungle, killing any who fell out)
Nanking (mass rape, 300k+ deliberate killings, bayonetting of babies, beheading contests)
Unit 731 (live vivisection of allied prisoners with their vocal cords cut to keep them from being too distracting, and it gets worse)

A good summary, for those who can stomach it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Or try the host of other links:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...apanese+war+cr

I'm glad we don't have people like that in America.

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Originally Posted by Shastafarian

I'm glad we don't have people like that in America.

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Ask any of the right-wingers on the board about what we did in the Philippines when they had the audacity to declare independence from the US in 1898.

That little gem is glossed over in a lot of history textbooks, and was not one of the best chapters in US history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

as opposed to the garbage and lies they teach about woodrow wilson ?

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Originally Posted by implacable44

as opposed to the garbage and lies they teach about woodrow wilson ?

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What do the Japanese have to say about Mr. Wilson?

what do the japanese have to say about the philippines - US war ?

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Originally Posted by implacable44

what do the japanese have to say about the philippines - US war ?

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???

No clue.

oh well you mentioned how the US history books and their failure to discuss this - so i just pointed out the same failure in us history books to disclose who woodrow wilson really was

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Originally Posted by implacable44

oh well you mentioned how the US history books and their failure to discuss this - so i just pointed out the same failure in us history books to disclose who woodrow wilson really was

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ooooh. Sorry, I misunderstood you at first.

Who really was Woodrow Wilson? (i.e. what are your views)

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

Ask any of the right-wingers on the board about what we did in the Philippines when they had the audacity to declare independence from the US in 1898.

That little gem is glossed over in a lot of history textbooks, and was not one of the best chapters in US history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

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WTF would you ask "Right Wingers" about that?

Human beings are capable of being very, very cruel to fellow Human beings. More often than not, they behave this way under the banner of some State.

Communists, Fascists; hell, right now in the Middle East is a large faction actively denying the Holocaust. It is obscene for you to claim this is a "Right Wing" action - people rewrite history, and understand and explain the present, to their own selfish ends.

THAT is why we need a free population. THAT is why we need a free, and independent, press. THAT is why things like the Fairness Doctrine, and Chris Mathews statement about it being his "duty" to make sure the Obama Presidency succeed are so chilling to me. Mathews at least SAID it; the rest of them might just DO it.

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Originally Posted by 101A

THAT is why we need a free population. THAT is why we need a free, and independent, press. THAT is why things like the Fairness Doctrine, and Chris Mathews statement about it being his "duty" to make sure the Obama Presidency succeed are so chilling to me. Mathews at least SAID it; the rest of them might just DO it.

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I can understand being disappointed and disapproving of such things. But, honestly, after the last eight years, THIS is what you find chilling?

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Originally Posted by MaryAnnKilledGinger

I can understand being disappointed and disapproving of such things. But, honestly, after the last eight years, THIS is what you find chilling?

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startling that you have no issue with a "journalist" like Chris Matthews saying it was his duty to get someone elected. I am stunned.

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Originally Posted by implacable44

startling that you have no issue with a "journalist" like Chris Matthews saying it was his duty to get someone elected. I am stunned.

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Look, if you're going to have a crush on me, you're really going to have to learn to read better. I didn't say I had no issue. I said it was disappointing and that I disapproved. But given some of the things that happened in the last several years I reserve "chilling" for things much worse.

for example ? what is "chilling" to you about the past 8 years ?

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Originally Posted by implacable44

for example ? what is "chilling" to you about the past 8 years ?

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The leaders of my country sanctioning torture.

who sanctioned it ? and what is torture to you ? let's find out what torture is to you right now - and then what would be acceptable if your daughter or son were in a camp somewhere and you needed information to save them -- would your definition change ? would your perspective change ?

your "crush" comment is useless without pics.

Chilling to me is the amount of spending we do as a country - Chilling is the bail outs .. Chilling is the thought of the UN or world court having any influence at all in the United States and with our laws. .. Chilling is our borders .. chilling is campeon and ramos still in jail for doing their jobs.... Chilling is nationalizing banks and insurance companies.

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Originally Posted by implacable44

who sanctioned it ? and what is torture to you ? let's find out what torture is to you right now -

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I'm not playing this game with you. It isn't funny to me. And I don't really think you believe half of what you type.

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Originally Posted by implacable44

and then what would be acceptable if your daughter or son were in a camp somewhere and you needed information to save them -- would your definition change ? would your perspective change ?

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You need to stop watching 24. Jack Bauer isn't real. Is he showing up in your dreams with Oscar Wilde now?

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Originally Posted by implacable44

your "crush" comment is useless without pics.

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I'm too old for you. Now get my braids out of the inkwell and go play.

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Originally Posted by MaryAnnKilledGinger

I'm not playing this game with you. It isn't funny to me. And I don't really think you believe half of what you type.


You need to stop watching 24. Jack Bauer isn't real. Is he showing up in your dreams with Oscar Wilde now?


I'm too old for you. Now get my braids out of the inkwell and go play.

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I hope you don't believe any of the stuff you type.

I don't watch 24. Have no use for that show.

too old ?

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Originally Posted by MaryAnnKilledGinger

I can understand being disappointed and disapproving of such things. But, honestly, after the last eight years, THIS is what you find chilling?

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How is it you know what your country's leaders did over the past 8 years?

What if THAT check on their power didn't exist?

If the media didn't report it, Abu Ghraib, as an issue, wouldn't exist, would it? Would Mathews leak those pictures, if they happened on Obama's watch. Based on what his "duty" is, I'm betting he wouldn't. THAT is what is chilling to me.

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Originally Posted by implacable44

I hope you don't believe any of the stuff you type.

I don't watch 24. Have no use for that show.

too old ?

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If it wasn't for 24, the country wouldn't have elected a black man.

Just ask President Palmer (the first one)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...vid_Palmer.jpg

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Originally Posted by 101A

If it wasn't for 24, the country wouldn't have elected a black man.

Just ask President Palmer (the first one)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...vid_Palmer.jpg

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ha ha-- I only know him as Jonas from the Unit. I refuse to even ackonwledge he sells car insurance.. it would ruin the character for me.

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Originally Posted by 101A

How is it you know what your country's leaders did over the past 8 years?

What if THAT check on their power didn't exist?

If the media didn't report it, Abu Ghraib, as an issue, wouldn't exist, would it? Would Mathews leak those pictures, if they happened on Obama's watch. Based on what his "duty" is, I'm betting he wouldn't. THAT is what is chilling to me.

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I just don't associate Chris Mathews as a journalist worth getting the chills over anymore than I do Rush Limbaugh. Mathews gave up real journalism for talk-show antics long ago.

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Originally Posted by MaryAnnKilledGinger

I just don't associate Chris Mathews as a journalist worth getting the chills over anymore than I do Rush Limbaugh. Mathews gave up real journalism for talk-show antics long ago.

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Yeah, but the rest of them didn't really act that much differently than he did - but they also didn't admitted to any feelings in their legs.

What about the Fairness Doctrine? Any problems with that?

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Originally Posted by MaryAnnKilledGinger

I just don't associate Chris Mathews as a journalist worth getting the chills over anymore than I do Rush Limbaugh. Mathews gave up real journalism for talk-show antics long ago.

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and Olberman ?

The Fairness Doc?

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Originally Posted by 101A

Yeah, but the rest of them didn't really act that much differently than he did - but they also didn't admitted to any feelings in their legs.

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If you mean talk show hosts, I agree. If you're one of those "liberal media bias" people then we're not going to agree and there's no use examining that.

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Originally Posted by 101A

What about the Fairness Doctrine? Any problems with that?

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I don't support reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine. But then I also think the FCC should have about 1/10th of the power it has now in general.

i think conservative radio and media was a big boost for the democratic party.