2 posts tagged “history”
Opening up the Op Ed section of the WSJ this morning, there was a piece on a flap in Japan, probably old news now, about a JSDF General wining a prize for writing his version of how the Pacific War started (Roosevelt trapped Japan) and that Japan's war was not a war of aggression. I lived and enjoyed for the most part, my over twenty years in Japan, traveled through much of the country, have Japanese in-laws and friends and a son who of course is part Japanese, but seeing this grotesque, bare-faced lie crop up again guarantees a 50-point rise in my blood pressure.
The article is remarkable for two reasons. One, this latest in a long line of historical misspeaks must have been a particularly egregious one; the WSJ is on whole , fairly slow to pick up on stuff like this, let alone put it in its Op Ed page. The second is that this continued, blinkered denial of what did actually happen is both infuriating and frightening since these are not 'crackpots', but this is (or was) a senior government official. And this is not the first time a senior government official was caught with his zori in his mouth- can't recall the name of the person now, but there was the official who at first denied there were 'comfort women'.
Its also scary in the sense I've sensed parallels between Japan and post WWI Germany, that a sizable portion of the German populace (and military) did not feel they were defeated, or to blame for WWI. And of course all it took was a man of evil vision to nurse these grievances and tap into historical anti-Semitism (and a note here, there is no, evil German gene in this regard. The late historian, Barbara Tuchman, in her book, The Distant Mirror, devotes a chapter on violent anti-Semitism in all of Europe during the 13th century), to set off the second great world cataclysm. Nor do I think I am alarmist. During one of our Japanese psyh classes back in the Sake Dojo Days, taught by a Japanese psychologist, I still recall this from him, and this is a quote,” The Japanese are like a suitcase, they can be picked up and taken anywhere.".
As the article as touches on, history can be a chronicle of convenience. U.S. soldiers were not altar boys during WWll, as my late father once told me of an incident he witnessed, but the difference here is that such acts were not systematic- U.S. soldiers were not indoctrinated that they were the Asian version of ubermensch, and thus justified in committing horrible acts upon others. What my late father witnessed was rather a case of what combat can do to otheriwse normal people.
Sometimes historical inaccuracies are amusing. Recall going to a small public library in an equally small village in the UK, to wait out another rain storm, pulling out a book on British history and flipped through how our War of Revolution was treated. Besides being reasonably unbiased I came across the Battle of Yorktown and discovered the places names were hopelessly scrambled (place in the wrong states).
Need to get this out of my system and move on.
None of the 3 candidates I votes for secured office/place in history. Disappointed? Yes. Perhaps the President-elect will prove a good choice, but what bothered me and many others who did not cast their ballots for him are the peripherals, as I call them, who offered their support but no attempt was made to put any distance between them and him.
Why the the Republicans fail? Partly just a gut level reaction to vote against the current President. The Republicans have also after basically uninterrupted governance since Reagan (the Clinton's should send a card every year to Ross Perot, thanking him for his assistance) have gotten fat, dumb, indolent , complacent and have lost their way. The Republican Party may also showing signs again reverting to its bad pre-Reagan habit of eating its own children. I now have a Democratic Congressman-elect, who is so distasteful even Democrats held their noses and voted, all because the sitting Republican Congressman was deemed '"impure and treated badly. So he said, "Hey, it ain't worth it, so I'm just going to resign and I'll see you in November."
There was also political weariness of the same old same old. That is what kept Clinton from securing the party nomination for herself and stained McCain somewhat as well. McCain for his part, played to an audience that was already his, and he did not project himself as the maverick he can be: I should know as I was part of an auto industry lobbying visit with McCain's staff, a quietly testy one, over a bill on automobile regulation in which it was clear the Senator was carrying the water for our opponents,
I have wondered what happened to the PUMAs (Party Unity, My Ass!), supposedly a large bloc of women voters, who supported Clinton, very unhappy and disenfranchised with the nominating process, who were supposed to make sure they would do what they could do to ensure McCains' election.
The economy? Sure, but the blame lies not just with one person or party, many on both sides of the Sile are culpable
Wither Bush? One thing I have carried with me is what I learned from a history professor, in that one cannot make snap historical judgements, or create insta-history as so many in this town continue to do. History is a slow process of letting the dust settle, having people divorce themselves for the passions of that time and reflect more maturely and measuredly.
Harry Truman may have had a lower approval rating when he left office than Bush now has. Eisenhower is commonly thought of as a middling President, yet it was his Federal Highway Act which created our Interstate system of roads, made suburbia possible and the life style we have to day. Gerald Ford, was subjected to a volcanic blast of fire for his decision to pardon Nixon and it probably cost him his reelection, but it was over time, the right thing to do. So with Bush, we will have to wait and see.
So now there is euphoria and dancing in the streets, but as I told my son to tel his tormentors on the school bus, wining an election is one thing, effective, successful governance is quite another. That said, despite the nagging from my wife, I'll take away the campaign sign I have on the front lawn when the neighbor 2 doors down takes away his :-)
