Japan in 1960 was insane. 

Yukio Mishima is my hero

not gonna lie, best ad integration I have seen in awhile. Will be checking this out because of your ad read!

I love your channel and content, but I think it's funny that you always say AMERICA instead of US when you're talking about democracies and imperialism. I guess some roots run too deep.

And before someone says something, even according to the UN, America is a continent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme It just feels weird the way you use these terms when you're talking about these subjects. It simply doesn't fit. It feels like I'm watching a documentary on CNN or Fox News. Anyway, doesn't matter...

scammers will love this advertisment!

True 😂

The world of the 1940s (and by extension the early 1950s) was comprehensively shaped by international conflict. Growing pains during the period of re-construction (late 1950-60s) were inevitable and equally widely felt.

Comparing this to the videos of how machines and human systems learn, we can see there's a tradeoff but we could overcome it with "good memory". Stationary algorithms aren't smart, and we'll die as a species if we steadfastly stay at the gates of this golden age instead of coming right through on an age of love for all life and truth. We could learn!

@@jose.montojah how can we learn?

In Germany the 50s and 60s are seen as the boring decades

Of course…

He came from a long line of monsters

... With links with the Yakuza. Like Koizumi and tons of LDP politicians.

That is disgusting.

@@kormagogthedestroyerso he’s at fault for his grandpa 😆

arguably just a prevalent aspect of Japanese culture.

@@SmellyBodega Lmao, maybe

I hope you use better sources than this for your information, unless this as complex as you can handle otherwise as we used to say go for it. Ever think about just asking them? They should still be knocking about, unless they were screwed by poor genes.

famaree

@@minirock000 it's possible he can't because they ARE still alive, but some people just don't talk about hard times, trying to keep it in the past. - the soldier who saw and did heinous things in war, and now says war is hell and tells his kids and grandkids to never enlist, but refuses to go into details, hoping if he keeps it in the past, it will haunt him slightly less often. - the japanese citizen who was rendered homeless and did desperate things to survive the aftermath of the A-bombs or the firebombings that destroyed their home - the holocaust survivor with a number on their arm that won't talk about the concentration camp, but wakes up screaming in a mix of yiddish and german at night, because they dreamt it was still 1942. (this one's personal. my great aunt survived the camps, but the things they did to her broke her completely and she never really left that camp mentally, it haunted her like it was yesterday, right up until the day we had to put her in the ground. she never spoke about it by choice, the only things we knew about her time in the camp was what we could make out of her incohent screaming when she would wake up in the middle of the night. and i'm glad that's all we know. i know just enough yiddish and german to get the jist of the horrors she relived in her midnight panic attacks, and i don't want to know any more than that.) - the man who was lost at sea and had to resort to cannibalism to survive, and never talks about it, but hoards food in his attic for the rest of his life as a result of his trauma. some people wear their scars out in the open, some people bury them deep...either for their own sake, or for yours. going from being a "warrior empire" to being bombed into the stone age and then dealing with the political, social, and economic strains of the next 20 years while being essentially completely rebuilt under the guidance of your former enemy, sounds to me like something some people might choose to leave in the past 'where it belongs'. this period from 1945 to 1960 is also the height of certain unpleasant leftovers from the war, like the way surviving kamikaze pilots were treated, often considered cowards and traitors because they were supposed to die to protect japan, and now japan is burning and they return home in one piece, sometimes even their own families treated them like ghosts and just pretended they weren't even there. if your father or uncle was a surviving kamikaze and for decades your family acted like he was already dead and told you to ignore him, and your last memory of him is him laying alone on his deathbed and none of your family seemed to even care, that might be something you want to leave in the past. some people handle their traumas by just bottling it up.

Er, any guy with the name Yang Wen- Ii, is Chinese, not Japanese.

@@frenzalrhomb6919 The series was written by the Japanese author Yoshiki Tanaka. Yang Wen-li is the character in the story who says the line.

Haven't read the novels, but I've rewatched the OVA several times. Love it. Though I think some people give it more credit than it deserves for presenting autocracy vs democracy on an even playing field, when I think the story quite clearly argues that democracy is preferable. The lasting through-line, the underlying critique of democracy is always primarily that it can decline into autocracy, like with the first emperor Goldenbaum. Meaning, the bad thing with democracy is that it can turn into autocracy, which isn't really a criticism of democracy itself. Also, when portraying Reinhard as a good autocrat, he is done so by adopting democratic ideals, if not the democratic political structure. He seemingly listens to the needs of the people and adopt progressive legislation (such as less censorship and more free speech), and he defers to expert ministers in matter he himself isn't an expert rather than imposing his leadership. The good thing with autocracy, LOGH argues, is that it can kinda be like a democracy if the leader is good. All of this isn't necessarily my views or my arguments on the matter, but it's just what I perceive are the viewpoints and arguments that LOGH presents (but I think they are eloquent - especially for a space opera). I enjoyed this video overall, but I think he dropped the ball at the end, presenting a stability vs wide horizons causality that I honestly think lacks real world applicability - he even gave an example with Russia contradicting it and I would add China to that list seeing its drastic economic changes in the latest decades. Though politics nowadays seem tumultuous in many western democracies (and they are), in general it seems that democracies are historically speaking more stable than autocracies IMO, and autocracies are just by their nature more susceptible to sudden change given that fewer individuals need to change their minds (or be changed outright) to change society. And in real life, those changes in autocratic countries are seldom of the kind Reinhard espouses...

it sounds rosy but what does the evidence say.

"A good autocracy might be better than even a good democracy" Would Singapore fall into this category?

I love cereal

He wasn't wrong.. Cereal/oatmeal got me thru school

@@SuperCatacata we can also live off ramen, bugs, possum so if you’re overlords tell you to grab a fork you better do it. Of course they will still be eating strawberries, chicken, beef, mushrooms. But yeah you go ahead and live off cereal.

@@SuperCatacatacereal has effects on your testerone levels

Kellogg's cereal is a nutrient formula. You genuinely can eat most Kellogg's or kraft food and survive on it fine. Kraft dinner for example is a balanced nutrition its genuinely good for you. And Kellogg's corn flakes have protein infused and b vitamins and don't need preparation. They're genius inventions of food. And have save millions from dying of starvation. Myself included. When I was like 18 I had only KD for a good 6 months. Cost about $80. I wouldve died if it didn't exist. And if you just eat random noodles like spaghetti you'll die not the same thing.

I was about to say...

Kind of like tism...

Aot

it's worked out so far

@@ultimategamer876 Japan is an immovable aircraft carrier against the Soviet Union during the cold war

CIA failed hard. Good thing that Ikeda moderated his party.

​​@@kingace6186actually, the CIA ended up being VERY successful. They actually funneled cash into LDP election campaigns for years, guaranteeing their political dominance.

@@kingace6186 Anime is a direct result of CIA meddling in Japan. Look up Operation Mockingbird and MK Ultra.

Cowardice?

Isn't that the whole point?

It was the other way around, less supports came first, then when the assassination happened, people suddenly feel less restraint to speak about it as the event had brought out the most hateful people.

Or perhaps he was the source of the friction that blocked reasonable social compromise.

Was Shinzo Abe not well supported before? I thought that he was well admired

OMG, Johnny, thank you so much! Your work is a massive inspiration for us, and you probably noticed how your fingerprints are all over this one. This means a lot to us coming from you. If you've ever got the time, we'd love to connect and pick your brain about some things. Thanks again, and keep up the amazing work!!

Johnny Harris! No way!

Speaking of Inspiration and all that, Your schedules are probably *plenty* full as-is, but two ideas i want/have partially done (as a wannabe muckraker doing these types of videos lol) are: Could either of you cover the war in the breakup of Yugoslavia. In particular the use of Chemical Weapons including Incapacitating Weapons like BZ? Could do a part 1 covering the war and genocide itself although this has already been done well by others. Could be like “The Breakup of Yugoslavia was a MESS” with a pretty *map* thumbnail etc. Part 2 would be A Series on Chemical Weapons titled “A New Kind of Warfare” / “An Alternative War” or something like that emphasizing those points made in a really neat article I read a while back on incapacitating weapons. This could tie into your history of the MIC @johhnyharris quite well too. FINALLY this would tie into North Korea as if I understand correctly their stock of chemical weapons is a major threat if war breaks out. *ALSO* the whole “Chemical Weapons Free by 2023” milestone (or how the USA had Chemical Weapons and a biological weapons program to begin with) was basically completely under the radar news wise. This could be a “How we got rid of a whole class of WMDs…and how this relates to nukes” video on it’s own! Basically how we went from MASSIVE stockpiles of Chemical Weapons to none. I’m rambling a bit but there is plenty of content there, and i would be glad to help (although no stable patreon money yet due to still getting stable employment reasons) I have done some low level digging myself, but most of the data/reports are in the chemical weapon use are old. The stories are there but *rotting* My second idea is related to that issue of Stories Rotting. Basically do what vox did for the Before and After of NYC with Urban Freeways and all that, but WAY more *Maps* for other cities, most people think just the big cities had streetcars but all sorts of places did and it ties into current economic situations (along with things like redlining). Asking around in areas on people’s experiences here in the USA with the “Urban Renewal” demolition of Housing for Highways, and Streetcar lines that have been torn down is important as once those “average joes” die out that story dies out too. My Muckraking skills aren’t too finely honed yet, but digging for old maps + aerial photos of cities for those nice graphics are important too. I’m rambling, and RU-vid comments are a bad way to do all this, but those are two-ish ideas i have, which i also believe are important. Their window is closing to an extent due to data getting old, and people who were there getting older and dying. Also they tie well into current events (WMDs in the context largely Nuclear Proliferation Post-Cold War Treaties Ending, but also Unit 731 Truth and Reconciliation, The Fight for New Urbanism and recent trends on people viewing that etc)

Do you actually watch RU-vid videos?

But these videos are true

Japan has been a one party state since 1955. Albeit that same one party government are the ones who Industrialized and built Japan into a powerhouse, it struggles to even be called a democracy.

Gotta look into Korea too, if the nazis were left wing military state Korea was a right wing one

@@miladmoradi9987 East asia and democracy dont go well together it seems.

​@@miladmoradi9987then why were the LDP voted out of power in 2009?

@@miladmoradi9987 😂 oh yeah, that so chief? Ask the villagers in inner China/Russia, who live on $5 a week and no toilets whether they’d trade their life for that “one state” country which leads in nearly every important metric, but military.

Place 😐 Place Japan 😍

@@ElectrostatiCrow Place :) Place, Japan :) (He is mesmerized by the beauty of this world)

People who don’t get it 👇

​@@historysuit9418*People who get it but hate the joke because it's personally offended people who like Japan and anime

⁠@@adfi5316how is it offending webs

It's also all the weebs saying Japan is a victim for only surrendering after Nagasaki instead of blaming Japan for prolonging the total war it started which plenty of its people supported.

The usa does not care about crime or Justice just power and money. Look no further than our politicians.You wanna look at World War 2?We hired most of the scientists and weapons creators and human Experimenters, look through our own history. Theres also the Tuskegee man. The CIA's heart attack gone the f. B. I killing Martin Luther king. Mk ultra. Fast and furious operation the list is endless

@@BlubberBuddha Their neighbours would like to have plenty of words with you...

lets discuss how the uk killed more people in india during ww2 than germans killed europeans/minorities in europe.

then lets discuss the role the uk played in establishing the cia in america so that they could forever remain in covert control of it and use it to rebuild the british empire

Thanks for your amazingly thoughtful comment.

Oh man, the battles over Narita were absolutely insane, that would be another wonderful topic for someone to make a video on. Japan's left is interesting in that to a large degree it suffered from the anti-communist needs of the United States enforcing crack downs (Though the LDP was obviously more than happy to comply...) but also the in-fighting that you mentioned really never allowed the left to crystalize behind a single candidate. It was always individual issues and the protests were always popular but could never really transition into actual electoral success. Though actually I guess "leftist infighting" isn't a rare thing...

In what way is Japanese politics technocratic? Everything I've seen suggested that elderly (the majority) Japanese policy makers lag far behind in adopting the use of technology. In 2019 the nation's cyber minister admitted to having never used a computer. The proliferation of using paper versus digital storage is something you come to notice right away when you need to do anything regarding official documents. In some local governments, floppy discs are still being used.

​@@clockhandedtechnocratic does not mean they will be tech savvy. It just means authority is given to "professionals" and "experts", doesn't matter if they are actually one.

@@clockhanded You could've just googled what a Technocracy is but noooooo

THANK YOU VERY FUCKING MUCH :DDD

@@spectacles-dm💀

@@spectacles-dm💀

Agree

It's so aggressive I love it

Good point indeed

_'climaxing in 1968'_ I think later than that. It was the torture and murder of 14 United Red Army members by their comrades, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.

_'climaxing in 1968'_ I think later than that. It was the deaths of 14 United Red Army members at their comrades' hands, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.

Shinzo Abe was unalived because he broke bread with a cult, not because the guy who unalived him disagreed with Abe's policies.

@@gagamba9198 you're completely right, radical political action went on into the 1970's. I referenced 1968 thinking just in terms of mass political action, thanks for complementing the info. @hayaokakizaki4463 I don't think that disqualifies the incident as political in nature, the perpetrator felt personal annimosity towards Abe beucase of what the Church of Unification did to his mom, but also said that he allowed the church too much influence in government.

100%

Exactly what I was thinking.

​@@PressGaneyLive reeks of the group of "people" that invented/created cia, invented and spread communism killing HUNDREDS of millions in the process, the group that is responsible for both worldwars and tens of millions of dead europeans, the group responsible for every single war ever since and before ww, the invention of transgenderism, feminism, banks, cetain "epidemics" and the "cures" for them that also killed HUNDREDS of millions etc etc, the group that always seeks the decimation of the german poeple, and the european kind as a while, and japanese also. Guess who they are.

It was the 60's. Everything did.

I just saw the intro and was about to post same thing

Well... they probably are now

Oh I don’t think current Japan would be able to do anything this courageous like this generation in the 60’s did, but we’re also decently governed right now so 🤷‍♂️ hopefully our politicians remember the past enough to keep corruption and personal ambition to a minimum

It's not that they're incapable, it's that they are undermotivated. The goverment simply adopts the talking points of serious demonstrations, like Ikeda did in 1960; it also happened with the environmentalist demonstrations of the 70s, and suddenly Japan became obsessed with clean air and water.

i'm sorry what? Do you know anything about Japan?

thats from an exoticization lens, where people who arent western are seen as fundamentally different and incapable of doing thinks like "normal" westerners

he was too useful to let waste

the historical record exists, a conviction isn't needed

@@hnnnggh that barely makes sense. and mostly because we're talking about dead people

Mewing vs Mouth breathing

lmao ikr

The Virgin Communist VS The CHAD Right Wing Extremist

Was looking for this comment lmao

@@WhatDemocracy Mate they didn't state that. Japanese had been invading countries all around East Asia before the Pearl Harbor attacks even happened. And they killed A LOT of people.

Those playing card graphics alone are works of art! I agree, the video looks fantastic

Too many unjustified labels attributed to the people involved I guess the bias are hard to hide

No fucking cussing goddamn it SHIT!

For Drones of Work rather than free thinkers

If they tought you interesting things then Americans wold find out how truly terrible America (the ruling class) has been throughout history

learning about slavery and civil war era was important. illegal immigration might lead this country down the same path.

It’s Wikipedia pop history

Exactly, the documentary overall was great. But presenting "on the left" war and chaos with opportunity, and on the right "stability" which is "amazing when everything is good" but limits opportunity seemed dishonest because it was presented like a blanked statement. It really doesn't fit the standards of the rest of the documentary.

im too low iq to understand your comment, specifically the "if you demonstrate the worst is possible, you can't argue that the best is impossible." how does that make sense?

"Democracy" is a scam to distract minimum wage bums

Dude is a partisan hack paid by china

Really appreciate the tip. Thanks for tuning in.

I was bugged by this too. It felt like details were being left out and patted the back of liberal democracy too much. I enjoyed most of the vid, but a little more nuance could've been implemented at the end

That is what we're here for! Thanks for tuning in :)

Hopefully you never run into anyone who knows what their talking about. As a regular traveler to asia with family their, this is all slanted to a liberal socialist western view based on very recent modern politics. It also takes 0 account of the hypersonic differences between western Anglo pro distant liberal sensibilities and tolerances vs cino confucianism atheism and homogeneity. His ending is by far the biggest give away his head is up his ass. As Asians will always pick safety over freedom. As it’s a cultural and societal Theme. Unlike Americans they are not rabid individualists. They are conformists by nature. The time when freedom and opportunity outrage safety will never come. Otherwise Yukio Mishima wouldn’t be dead. Oh, I guess he forgot that part of the 1960-70’s of japanes politics😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 This is the skibidi toilet equivalent of cino poli-sci. Go watch a Japanese person chsnnle before you try and impresses people bruh.

THIS. Also, I find it suspicious to charge the left with instability, violence, revolution (mentioning anarchy), where the right side is pictured as a serene and stable if somewhat conservative environment (but never mentioning fascism). As if fascism isn't violence, war and repression against which the left wages war to begin with. Lost all focus after that.

Uh.... You might to look at Nordic countries again lol. Sweden is very much unstable and is on the verge of being out of history for good. Danemark made a huge shift to the right, where even the leftist parties policies are branded as right wing in most of Europe. Norway is isolating itself from Europe and live on oil exploitation.

Yes. Blindly assuming that a tradeoff must be made, that democracy works is ignorance and/or brainwashed indoctrination. In our current iteration of human society all governments have operated by the principle of stateism. That pride of locality and exclusivity which all governments indoctrinate to make ppl worship the land and flag that represents it, which excuses violence onto others from different localities. I do not advocate for one world government, instead for the government to get out of our way, so that we can be free to try new ways of nurturing respect for each other.

The Nordics. 😂😂😂

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with Socialist Characteristics™.

Damn straight. The spectrum is a circle not a line - we all belong together and united. Anyone or any government that seeks great control is 180° from us on that circle. We need everyone to understand this so we stop fighting each other over the stuff those power grabbers WANT us fighting over.

We need to all fight against extremism by being open-minded and open handed. We must stop treating opposing political parties as an invading force.

Hoog helped the channel in the early days in a big way. Imperial is a friend. Would love to get acquainted with the others. Any collab would be great fun. Honored to be compared to them :)

⁠@@spectacles-dm how could I forget Hoog! Truly you are a master at your choice of creation. Don’t know how it would be done but people like you should be given the funds to produce docuseries on Netflix/Amazon

Barely Sociable and Kento Bento cannot be ignored here…

Interesting, other countries with less rigid political structures have similar issues as it concerns demographics. Atleast the Japanese don't have the income inequality and homelessness problem at a scale as great as other developed nations.

@@mulamulelilumadi4717 Indeed, it is a very complex problem. The issue in Japan with it's rigidity is only about said rigidity's impact on the nation's ability to address the issue itself. It is not a cause, only more of a roadblock to full implementation of solutions when discovered. However, there are documented solutions, but they are not "good" solutions when one looks at the social cost/GDP impact/outcome of said increases in specific demographic in developed nations with much higher rates of reproduction. This is a HUGE problem, one with many, many, facets and causes. It is one where there is no "one solution" because it's a problem both of vast scale and vast, intricate, causes. An economic solution will not impact the portion of decreased rates of reproduction in regard to physical problems, such as in certain demographics in Europe and the USA where said demographic has significantly reduced physical capacity for reproduction (documented medical fact). So an economic solution won't net the results in that specific case as that portion of degradation must be addressed in and of itself with a physical/medical solution. The scale of it is daunting, but as with how one moves a mountain, you do it one piece at a time. It is a problem though that is hampered by a lot of social and political.. entanglements. But it is a real problem and one that does not care about your feelings or political goals. Those peoples who do not recover from it, will die out over time. It's how nature works and nature cares nothing for the various vices and vicissitudes of mankind.

the problem is so much worse in Japan because there's virtually no immigration, but birthrates are declining everywhere so that "solution" isn't really one at all. It'll likely be a while before the world's population stabilizes and countries figure out how to deal with that.

​@@Hideyoshi1991 There is only on way to fix that. Make the native population reproduce by propaganda, tax write offs etc. Make the culture to favour families with lots of children.

Falling birthrates is something happening globally and so far no country seems to have broken the code on how to solve it. South Korea has allegedly used 250 billion $ on measures to stop or turn this development but is today the country with the lowest birthrate in the world and still falling.

I thought it was interesting until the thesis too. Autocracies aren't necessarily stable and democracies aren't necessarily unstable. Even his own example of Russia completely undermines this point. It is highly unstable yet entirely dominated by a single megalomaniac. Denmark is highly stable yet is one of the most democratic nations on Earth.

@@SignificantNumberOfBeavers As an anarchist I also find the idea that representative democracies correlate with wide horizons also questionable.

Yeah it didn't make sense in the end, like there were so much good points only to fall into a middling conclusion? How'd that happen?

His claims about Russia are also inaccurate

Another "This channel has no content" Russian or CCP government propaganda worker.

Well said, I hate how many of these TV-like YT channels have popped up in recent times, who shamelessly promote the official, compliant narrative of western democracy and rainbows. Instead of user created content, it feels like your watching 1000 different flavours of CNN. Totalitarian, corporate control over once free media.

Yeah, that thesis at the end was a hard turn

What is it?

Actually COVID caused Japan to finally pull itself out of their 30-year deflation through forcing the government to spend money in ways that pumped more currency into the system. See, inflation is self-correcting because eventually prices reach a point where people are just unwilling to pay and thus prices have to be lowered in order to sell anything. Deflation however is self-perpetuating, because deflation creates the problem where prices are low, so people are uncertain and hold onto their money out of fear they'll have less down the line, which means things don't get bought, which lowers prices even more causing people to not buy, and when businesses can't sell anything then they can't afford as many workers which means less people with money and money they don't have to spend means things don't get bought which means businesses don't have money and I think you understand the circular problem here. Japan was trapped in that situation since 1991, they're finally escaping it now with some minor recessions along the way.

"oligarchy" :( "oligarchy, Japan" :D

All democracies end up like that do you seriously believe that democracy is the "will of the people "?

@@dirckthedork-knight1201 They are, generally. If politicians didn't have to care at all about what their constituents want, they wouldn't have to constantly fundraise for their reelection. People like to say "if voting didn't matter then they wouldn't let you do it", but the counterargument to that is "if voting didn't matter then they wouldn't expend such massive amounts of time and money gerrymandering"

the opposition is actually doing great now, they unite together and are getting more and more support. Japan is simply a society that values stability and keeping things the same (or "stable") for the sake of it, so voting a surefire choice or not caring (Especially the youth with the constant political nihilism by commentators online worstening the problem). It is a democracy, they elected the opposition party in the late 2000s, which got the worst PR possible in the horrible management of 2011 that is still stuck in people's minds these day, can you blame them for still feeling unsure and taking time to learn to trust other parties as well?