Japan deputy PM rejects resignation calls over Nazi remarks

[bananas]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Japan's gaffe-prone deputy prime minister on Friday rejected calls for his resignation after stoking international condemnation by saying Tokyo could learn from the Nazis' swift overhaul of Germany's constitution.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservative Liberal Democratic Party has said it wants to upgrade Japan's self-defence forces into a full-fledged military, with some advocates citing the threat of a belligerent North Korea and China's military buildup.

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On Monday, Aso pointed to a stealth overhaul of the German constitution which cemented the Nazis' grip on power, as Tokyo faces vocal opposition over its own reform push.

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"The German Weimar constitution changed, without being noticed, to the Nazi German constitution. Why don't we learn from their tactics?"

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Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hflBIyGQCaKmoaT4VO_fOmyMBjuw?docId=CNG.715e8cb26d092485d1076ed840a406d9.3b1

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Don't be fooled by the name, Japan's "Liberal Democratic Party" is very right-wing.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. I have heard that Nazi admirers also have an affinity for the Japanese.

I thought it had to do with the fact that both Germany and Japan were Axis powers during WWII, but it seems that it's a racial thing. They claim that because the Japanese lived on an island, they were able to develop a racial purity that other countries around them lacked. They make comparisons between the Japanese and the so-called Aryan race. Whether neo-Nazi delusions have anything to do with this story, I can't say. I never thought that there were also Japanese admirers of the Nazis, but I suppose every country has its RW assholes to contend with.

[davidpdx]

2. Some of the Asian countries can be very touchy about the "whole-blooded" people

thing. In that sense, it is a bit like Germany was back then. It is slowly starting to change though. I live in Korea and it is much more multicultural that it was when I got here almost 10 years ago.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Interesting.

There is a whole lot that Americans are clueless about concerning Asians and their various cultures. Westerners and east Asians just have a completely different mindset and lots of things about our culture versus theirs simply doesn't translate well. Asian friends of mine have tried explaining some of it to me, and frankly I don't really 'get' a lot of it, but what I do learn changes my perception of things.

[davidpdx]

5. You almost have to be immersed in it long term to understand the mindset

Even after being here as long as I have I still find myself having a hard time understanding some things. The disorganized manner in which things are done drives me just bonkers.

I don't know if you know who Geert Hofestede is, he is from The Netherlands and he is famous for his research on national culture. One of the dimensions is power distance which is the discrepancy in power that is accepted between groups. Korea is very high on power distance. I've had bosses say things to me and basically stopped them and told them that while they may get away with speaking to a Korean that way, they better not act that way with me. Here is a link to Hofstede's site: http://geert-hofstede.com/ if you look under "national culture" you can compare two countries based on his cultural dimensions.

[AsahinaKimi]

8. Actually some may argue in Japan

That the Japanese people came from a mixture of people, including Koreans, and South Pacific Islanders. (And, also the Ainu which is a total non Asian group all together. The Ainu were on Japan before many Asians showed up.)

[kristopher]

4. There has been a hard right shift in a party that was already right wing

The LDP is always had a constituency of hard liner right wing thugs. But the prolonged economic downturn the country has suffered, the loss of status on the world stage to China, and the trauma of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns have shaken the country to its core and made the populace very vulnerable to those that prey on fear.

And a side note here - the LDP is the party of nuclear power.

The reason I bring that up in the context of the OP can be found in this compilation of 3 articles from 1976 and 1977. The 'hard' energy path comes with probable consequences to the social order, and we are starting to see the manifestation of that influence in the UK, Japan and the US today.

In this landmark piece from 1976, Amory Lovins describes the two energy choices then facing the nation. There is the "hard path" and the "soft path". This path resembles federal policy of the time and is essentially an extrapolation of the recent past. The hard path relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity. The second path combines a prompt and serious commitment to efficient use of energy, rapid development of renewable energy sources matched in scale and in energy quality to end-use needs, and special transitional fossil-fuel technologies. This path diverges radically from incremental past practices to pursue long-term goals. Lovins argues that both paths present difficult—but very different—problems. The first path is convincingly familiar, but the economic and sociopolitical problems then facing the nation loomed large and insuperable. The second path, though it represents a shift in direction, offers many social, economic and geopolitical advantages, including virtual elimination of nuclear proliferation from the world. For Lovins, it is important to recognize that the two paths are mutually exclusive. Because commitments to the first may foreclose the second, Loins argues that we must choose one or the other—before failure to stop nuclear proliferation has foreclosed both.

http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

[davidpdx]

6. I've heard similar comments from Americans living in Japan

I know at least two people know.

[Sunlei]

7. Did Japans Prime Minister forget about what happened when they tried that tactic?

The old 'swift attack' tactic on Pearl Harbor didn't work out to well for Japan.

Disregarding the 2,000 year old tsunami markers didn't work out well either.