Return of the Nutjobs

A man dressed in camouflage and carrying what appeared to be a Molotov cocktail was arrested early Friday in front of the home of ruling Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, police said.

The man, who identified himself as Tokyo rightist group member Hiroyuki Tsukui, 40...Japan Times

There was a book published in 1942, now available free online,* titled: Government by Assassination, by Hugh Byas, about the pre-war Japanese government and the number of assassinations of Japanese politicians who had angered various extremists in the country. Some of those extremists could even be considered to have been right-wing nutjobs.

Of course things have changed today and there is little tolerance for any such actions. We can expect the government to launch a thorough investigation and if necessary, crack down on any groups involved. Or, like all the recent nutters, he could be found to simply be an individual acting purely on his own who was perhaps innocently carrying a Molotov cocktail for warmth.

9:30pm: After watching the evening news and the unfolding Ozawa scandal, I think Government by Scandal is more appropriate for modern Japan.

*Be warned that the download is the Adobe Reader PDF crap. I skimmed that book in college and recall that it was about what one would expect for a WW2 era book about an enemy. I would like to look through it again, but I'd rather have a root canal without Novocain than deal with trying to read something of that length in the slow, bulky, buggy Adobe garbage. Apple's preview doesn't work any better on that file either. The very motivated can read it online.

Revisionist appointed chairman of the board of education

in Saitama. He is one of the key players in insisting on whitewashing Japan's WW2 actions in school texts. Apparently, those who appointed him either agree with his views, or at the least find no problems with him. Abe may be gone, but his extremist buddies ain't .

Shiro Takahashi, a professor at Meisei University and former deputy chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, will be the first member of the group, which has sparked controversy with its nationalist history textbooks, to chair a prefectural board of education. From the JTonline.

Abe's Beautiful Country

With no non-Japanese and without too much of them thar evil foreign ideas about human rights.
The uneducated Education Minister Ibuki got chewed out by the UN's anti-racism head the other day for sorta seeming to be a racist idiot. Ibuki actually said more:

In his speech about "education resuscitation" in a meeting of a Liberal Democratic Party chapter in Nagasaki Prefecture, Mr. Ibuki said the Yamato race has ruled Japan throughout history and that Japan is an extremely homogeneous country. He also expressed the idea that there should be limits to the enhancement of human rights. Likening human rights to butter, he said, "However nutritious butter is, if one eats only butter every day, one acquires metabolic syndrome. Human rights are important. But if they are respected too much, Japanese society will end up with human rights metabolic syndrome."(From the Japan Times)

This is what Abe, who appointed this retro-bushidoist and has said he sees no problems with any of Ibuki's comments, and his buddies like Fujiwara Masahiko (aka baldy with the hideous combover) want. This is the beautiful country. The words, books, and actions of these extremists all point toward an inward, nationalistic, undemocratic Japan. They may not get all they want, but the direction that the elite want to push the country is very obvious. Don't worry, the US will be dumb enough to help as will most of the rest of the non-East Asian world. They'll all ignore it. Were it going in in Germany or Austria, hell would be raised.

But we don't really expect much more of Japan anyway.