Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

More than half of Japanese citizens disagree with amendment of article 9 of the constitution, which prohibites State's possesion of arms. Even among youngsters who never exprienced or know the stories about the war there exists strong opposition.

Even after 60 years, people's opinion about the Pacifist constitution is not greatly changed. No one wants the war. But some politicians want to change it.

Well, my opinion is since I am realist I agree with constitutional amendment.  But not now, in the future. One of the reason many people oppose the amendment is they fear that if the constitution is amended, our troops would be easily sent to anywhere by stupid politics. Recently Japan sent troops to Iraq to follow the order of Bush. Our country lacks civilian control functions in the politics. That means our country's democracy is not functioning well.

We have yet to review the mistakes we made in the past. Older generations never reflected how they were wrong in the past. We've been suffering the traumas of the past and have yet overcome it. One example is denying of Masscre of Nanking. We always regret the consequences of the war, not the cause of the war we provoked. We rarely talk about Manchuria and Pearl Harbor.

We have to study the cause of the past mistakes.

That is what we have to do to get ready for the amendment.

Some oppose it simply because they are passionate pacifist. They say they want to make their country completely non military state like CostaRica. But that is totally impossible taking current situation Japan is in into account.

We have the troops so called "Self-Defense Force" and foreign mercenaries mainly stationed in Okinawa island already. That means we need military force to protect our national interests. Also it is not good for our country to heavily rely on US military presence. US is our most reliable ally but the foreign troops who always prioritize their own national interest ahead of others after all.   

Prime Minister Koizumi is idiot.

He is just making our country worse. He visited the controversial shrine which honours war criminals responsible for Japan's invasion of China. The shrine insists the war was just and liberated Asians from western imperialism. That is not true. The Japanese army killed many, many Asian civilians there.

Asian victims and their familes never forget that.

Half of Japanese citizens including me oppose his visit to the shrine. business people, too.

Prime Minister says it was private visit. Private? He went there with press. Since he is a PM, he can never be a private person.

For Americans, it should be great news, as Japan's relationship with China got worse, US government can get more dealing cards when it comes to negotiate with Japan or China. For China and Japan, it is just a bad card.   

The top picture is the sanctury of the shrine.

The shrine has the museum that shows how bravely Japanese army fought in the war. The war Japan failed.

The below is picture of famous zero-sen air-fighter.

Japan's ruling party of last half century won the election. It was a surprising victory. They now occupied more than 60% of the total seats. 

It was really stupid choice by voters. They haven't done great things. They've increased the tax and sent troops to Iraq. They worsened the relationship between China and Japan. Why the voters chose them? The opposition party and the people were just foolish.

Anyway, I don't want to talk about it. This country is getting worse and worse, the people's mind and standard of living is lowering.  

Say good bye to Japan. There is no democracy here.

A man who has been known as "Deep Throat" exposed himself to the public.

Deep Throat was Mr. Mark Felt who was No.2 ranking officer of FBI at the time Nixon was accused of Watergate scandal.

Some say this exposion changed the watergate from journalism justice to inner politics quarrel because now we found Deep Throat was No.2 of FBI. FBI at that time was threatened by Nixon because of the organizational reform plan the president was trying to implement. FBI wanted to prevent that, then they used the Washington Post to turn the president down.

However, Watergate proved how American journalism was healthy at that time. Japanese media is in fact pets for the government. Our constitution insures freedom of speech but the media is so attached to politicians in order to protect their exclusive press club.

But American media today is becoming like Japanese. Media became conglomarit for big corporation. One example is NBC is owned by GE which has been providing products to US army, so they are not against war in Iraq. Media put the business ahead of seeking the truth.
Conglomarit is not the only aspect that changed American journalism. Public opinion became so conservative. Since 911, patriotism became the most important thing for Americans. People do not want to hear anything that sounds unfavourable to their government. Fox news is the symbol of this phenomenon.

Even the US government admits Iraq has no link with 911 attack and doesn't have WMD, FOX news watchers don't know such facts.

Our nation went through the same path in the past. In 1930's when Great Depression agonized the country's economy, the imperial army started invasion of China. Although the invasion started with fake incident that Chinese army bombed Japan owned railway and Japanese media knew it, they did not report it to the public but they rather supported the army's action which led to Rape of Nanking in 1937 and Pearl Harbor attack.

What should we learn from that?