Saved by the Bowel

Uggghhh! I opened up the Asahi Shimbun this morning, thinking myself basically safe from the most egregious of nonsense, only to be greeted with this advertisement for a book by right wing hotcake and president of the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals Sakurai Yoshiko:

Courtesy: The Asahi Shimbun

"Parents must properly scold their children."
"The Teacher is not my friend."
"To be with a family member at the moment of death"

These things that Japanese have forgotten, let us bring them back!

The Graces of the Japanese

Let us become Japanese who have pride!

Oh gag me...with straw men...and that bloody word hokori again.

Yes, the nation is shamed by its ravening hordes of improperly scolded children who are way too chummy with their teachers and skip out on Grandma's crossing over to the golden land.

Uh, no.

But for Sakurai, an even more insidious evil lurks just over the horizon. At her blog she reports on the possibility of a perfidious E Pluribus Unum...and the purblindness of the current political leaders to the potential isolation and abandonment of A Beautiful Country®:

3月12日、米海軍のキーティング太平洋司令官が、中国軍幹部から太平洋の分割支配を提案されたと、米国上院軍事委員会で証言した。同軍幹部は、ハワイ以東を米国が、以西を中国が支配しようと真顔で提言したという。

中国が描くのは、米ソが二分して支配したかつての世界秩序のかたちだ。そして、中国は旧ソ連邦的な対米敵対姿勢を採らない。米国はそのぶん中国に誘引されやすい。米中が手を打てば、台湾は即中国にのみ込まれ、馬政権が台湾自決主義を尊重しても無意味になる。また日本は深刻な孤立に直面する。

こうした事態には自力で立ち向かうしかなく、日本はまさに今、最悪の事態を念頭において覚悟を固めなければならないのだが、福田康夫・小沢一郎両氏にはそんな考えは露とも浮かばないのであろう。まさに政治の貧困で日本は力を落としていくのである。

"In testimony on March 12 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, PACCOM Commander Keating said that he received a proposal from an admiral of the Chinese Navy to divide-and-rule the Pacific. That admiral offered, with a straight face, that the U.S. control everything east of Hawaii and China control everything west.

What China is describing is a form of the former order where the U.S. and Soviet Union divided the world in two and each ruled. What is more, China is not adopting the anti-U.S. confrontational stance of the Soviet Union. It is easy for the U.S. to be enticed by China. In this, Taiwan is already swallowed up by China, making the Ma (Ying-cheou) government's respect for Taiwan's autonomy meaningless. Once again, Japan faces severe isolation.

We must prepare to grapple with this situation* using our own powers. Japan at this very moment must make its will firm** keeping in mind the worst possible potential outcome. Such a thought probably never crosses the minds of either Fukuda Yasuo or Ozawa Ichiro. Truly, it is through the poverty of its politics that Japan's power is being thrown away."

Truly, I cannot express with any brevity my relief at the thought that Sakurai and her allies are no longer frequent and honored guests at the prime minister's table.

Tonight, let us lift a glass of special thanks and shout, "Hurrah for chronic bowel disorders!"


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* Normally, I would translate "kō shita jitai ni wa" as "in this kind of situation" but here she is clearly only talking about a division of the Pacific between China and the United States.

** To be fair, "kakugo o katamenakereba naranai" can also be less militantly translated as "must make preparations for."