Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Anti-US military base activist, Mr. Ashitomi spoke to young students from Palestinean, and Israel with interpreter.

He talked about why he set up the tent to monitor nearby US marine base, Camp Schwab.

Japanese government recently agreed with the US marine on expansion of the current marine base for the relocation of the Futenma base in Okinawa.  

Part 1 is environmetal issue related to the construction of new base. Part 2 is peace issue.

Anti-US base activist talks 反米軍基地活動家の話し　Part 1

Anti-US base activist talks 反米軍基地活動家の話し　Part 2

You can learn more detail in this blog's tag, Okinawa, which you can access by clicking the below.

The story took place in Highs School in Germany. One high school teacher taught students what the dictatorship (Autokratie) is.

Students never understood what it was and believed things like Third Reich would never happen again.

Then the teacher decided to do psychological experiment in his class and the students' attitude gradually changed in scary way.

The story was not well-done, not convincing althought it was based on a true story.

However, I understand fear of charisma featured in the film because I recently experienced something like that by the man in the below photo.

He has become public icon since fall of 2008 after being dismissed as Japanese Air force chief due to his publicly released essay which justified Japan's past invasion. Details are described in this article. He has published several books since then. I bought one of them.

He is in fact charismatic and neo-fascist-like but at the same time very realistic because of his knowledge gained in his career.

No one wants to be isolated in the society. So people want some kind of symbol to strengthen the unity.

Yes, it can revive as described in the film. Especially those who are not smart, and youngsters can be easily manipulated.  

Being attracted to it sometimes makes you feel great like drugs.

We need to be cool about what a learder says in order to avoid tragedy.

The author of the book is Japanese sports journalist who worked as a part-time teacher in a chartered high school in Reno, Nevada 2006.

The students come from very poor families and dropped out from regular school. Most of them live with single parents.

They do not have good knowledge nor manner. They grew up in a very bad environment where parents don't have money and time to take good care of them.

The author witnessed the reality of America's poor bottom class. The author himself grew up in the similar environment in Japan so he somehow felt mutual with them. He had guts and loved students so he worked hard to get them know how wonderful and necessary it is for them to learn new things so that they can make a new way of living getting out from ghetto they were in.  

The author taught them Japanese culture as Sumo, Manga, fairy tales. On one class he told them Japan's most famous fairy tale "Urashima Taro" a story of a fisherman who saved a turtle from bullying by children on the beach and later be guided by the turtle to the palace under the sea. But when he came back to the ground, so much more time than he felt had passed, he had no one to know him.

He asked the students what they think about the story. Students were very much impressed by that and one of them replied to him "the story gave us a lesson that we shouldn't expect return from good thing we do."

Recently in Japan, books on America's poor class have been published like the below ones I've already introduced on this blog.

Super Class society, The truth of America 

Empire of Poverty (Hinkon-Taikoku), America!

This one is especially unique since that is hands-on experience of the author as foreign teacher who taught his home culture to troubled students abroad.

I wonder if this book is made into film some day. It should be like "Freedom Writers" or "Take the lead."

A story of British queen who established the Golden Age of British Empire in 16th century.

The film described how she managed the country, how she unified the nation when it comes to the war with Spain.  

It is not easy to unify big population, that is why a country needs a symbol of unification like queen, king, or president.

Sometimes the leader had to be cruel to maintain leadership and charisma.

I am recently relearning how past leaders of my country established this unified state such as Tokugawa Shogunate and young warriers who established modern type of government in late 19th century. They used Emperor as symbol of unification. 

Unity or Anachism, that is critical point of every society.

If not united, people are torn apart, kill, rob each other and easily invaded by other nations.

Well, Japan was lucky in that sense because it was island nation and had good leaders like Britain.  

In early 20th century Japan experienced similar situation of Queen Elizabeth's Britain did.

The war with Russian empire, countering unbeatable fleet sailing from Russia on the Sea of Japan.

Thanks to British made warships and financial help from Britain, Japan imperial navy could beat the fleet and saved our nation.

The below is exhibited former imperial navy's flagship, Mikasa located Yokosuka, Japan.

Well, real pacifists know how to manage the nation and win the war.