Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Yasukuni Shrine, Meiji Oligarchy and Shinto Fascism: Then and Now

Yesterday was election day in Taiwan, and the pitch of the anti-China warmongering rhetoric from the neoliberal-neoconservative Japanese political block under the defacto leadership of Aso Taro has been conspicuous in the mass media.

In addition, a scandal surrounding the Japanese Self Defense Forces and the shrine has also just come to light, so the timing is right for this long overdue post. The headlines are full of citable evidence that enables these background factors to be synced with present developments in real time.

This blog was the first to raise, in English (or Japanese, for that matter), the attempts to exploit the Meiji Restoration by using the Japanese term “Ishin” from “Meiji Ishin” (i.e., “Meiji Restoration”) in the name of a new political party, and this post addresses topic matter along the same thematic lines. The bigger picture is that some of those with the reigns of political power currently in their grip in Japan are descendants of those that helped bring about the fall of the Tokugawa bakufu with the aid of the U.S. and UK to establish the Meiji Oligarchy (明治藩閥), and all of those parties seek to portray the Meiji Restoration as the pinnacle of Japanese history. 

I will post this in rough draft form and try to revisit it later to revise.

DEEP BACKGROUND

First, the Yasukuni Shrine was established after the Meiji Restoration to honor those that died in the battles to overthrow the Edo Bakufu (Tokugawa shogunate) and restore the emperor as sovereign after about 1,000 years of rule by military houses that were all headed by individuals related to the royal house with one exception: Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The Meiji Restoration was carried out in large part by the two feudal domains (“han”) of Choshu and Satsuma located at the western end of the Japanese archipelago. After the U.S. opened up the country with the Black Ships, and imposed unequal treaty terms, including extraterritoriality on Japan, the UK engaged in arms smuggling and trade with Choshu and Satsuma through Hong Kong, and the U.S. provided training and support to those seeking to overthrow the government as well.

These events happened after the West failed to infiltrate and undermine the Japanese polity by employing Christianity as a Trojan Horse of sort, a typical colonial modus operandi. Oda Nobunaga had to suppress the Christians after he had initially allowed the first church (called a Christian temple) to be established in Kyoto.

The West had to make recourse to force to open the country, and eventually resorted to supporting the anti-Bakufu “loyalists” that wanted to restore the emperor as sovereign with appeal to the authority of Shinto mythology. There was a movement called sonno-joi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) that preceded and then spearheaded the zealot movement, which, counterintuitively had been enabled, to a certain degree, by the tolerant policies toward religion of the Bakufu, leading to divergences even within the house of Tokugawa itself. Traces of that can probably be traced back to the nationalistic Confucian school of thought that came to be known as the Mito School of Mito domain which, under the tutelage of Tokugawa Mitsukuni (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_Mitsukuni) in the form of the Mito school of that produced a mytho-centric compilation of the  history of Japan (“Great History of Japan”), and later a document entitled “Shinron” (New Theses”) by Aizawa Seishisai. It’s expedient here to quote the Wikipedia entry on the later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aizawa_Seishisai):

In 1799 he became involved in the compilation of the Dai Nihon-shi (Great History of Japan) being undertaken by the Mito school.
In 1825 he wrote his Shinron ("New Theses"), a collection of essays that dealt with issues such as Tokugawa defence policy and how the ships were a threat to Japan. Aizawa also tried to describe conditions in the West and theorize why those states had gained so much control; in his opinion Westerners used religion to inculcate conformity in the masses.
He also claimed that Christianity was used by the colonial powers to subvert native cultures and governments by creating a fifth column that would collaborate with and facilitate military conquest by Europeans. He discussed the religious policies established by the Toyotomi government and continued by their successors, the Tokugawa shogunate, in this context.
Furthermore, he believed that if Japan's way of life was to survive, it would need to take up its own state religion in order to prevent cultural assimilation via Christianization and discussed the concept of kokutai ("national polity") in this context. The Shinron would become an important work for the sonnō jōi movement and his theory of the Kokutai would be developed by future thinkers.

Suffice it to say that the "history" of Japan composed by the Mito school scholars was not objective in any modern sense of the word, and though I haven't read it, its narrative can be surmised from what others have written about it (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1tg5hgw). 

H. D. Harutoonian wrote a review of the book by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi called, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825 in which the first English language translation was presented, and the review is excerpted below for context.

But, above all else, it was Aizawa Seishisai's Shinron (1825) which catalyzed the Mito discourse into a classic argument capable of convincing samurai of the dangers confronting the realm. It mobilized a generation of "loyalists" to act in their own interest...

For a work which acquired the status of a national classic and has proven a source of inspiration in modern Japanese society for those who especially worry over questions of identity and foreign influence, it is appropriate that at last we have available in English Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi's translation of the Shinron, accompanied by a long and informed account of the genealogy of its production and of its intended meaning for late Tokugawa society. Aware that the text's popularity "took on a life of its own" (p. x) despite Aizawa's more immediate intention, Wakabayashi appears to be less committed to explaining this dynamic, and the subsequent canonization of Shinron as a classic, than he is with accounting for the particular conditions prompting its production, in order to show how a cul- turally xenophobic statement was constructed under the sign of Western learning.

Clearly, Wakabayashi is committed to the historiographical convention which has sought to demonstrate that the collapse of the Tokugawa was precipitated by outside forces (the West), and that the incorporation of Western knowledge established the foundations for Japan's later successes in modernization. Yet, the very conditions that charged the Shinron with so much meaning for young samurai could, in fact, militate against its "enjoyment" and "usefulness" for general readers, especially if the translation were not supplied with a historical gloss. {omission} Aizawa and the Shinron will never appeal to a general reader of English precisely because the Shinron's status as a classic in Japan relies upon the power of the text to constantly evoke the image of reference and representation as a historical trope signifying a crisis specific to the Japanese experience. Fortunately for the modern reader, Wakabayashi has concentrated his energies to supply the necessary supplement. 

As stated earlier, Wakabayashi's purpose is to provide a genealogy of the idea of expulsion (joi), which figured so prominently in Aizawa's text. {omission} Apparently, he wishes to revise interpretations of the late Tokugawa period that have insisted upon seeing Aizawa and the Mito inflection of Confucianism as instances of retrograde cultural xenophobia, the last stand of Japanese reaction, so to speak, inimical to the achievement of independence and modernity. {omission} In order to make this move, it is vital to show that the "expulsionism" associated with the earlier policy of seclusion (sakoku) and the type promoted later by Aizawa and the Expulsion Edict represented two quite distinct moments, which were not necessarily related in a single causal series. {omission} In this regard, Wakabayashi must argue that what Aizawa learned from the West and, thus, occupied the heart of his own discourse was the identity of Western national power and the unifying role of a civic religion. Yet, this results in weighting an observation derived from Western history over the nativist elements that Aizawa enlisted everywhere to give this identity expression, without offering the necessary explanation as to why the former should have appealed more than the latter to eager samurai activists.

The policy of “joi” (expel the barbarians) had been around since Oda Nobunaga had to suppress the Christians after it was discerned that the evangelizing mission encompassed a divisive political subterfuge, so that aspect was not new to Japan in the 18th century. The Tokugawa also had to engage with that problem, eventually decided to close the country to foreigners.

Thus the Tokugawa faced a dilemma in that it could not simply repudiate the growth of mytho-centric history in the face of the problem with foreigners trying to infiltrate and undermine Japanese society in response to which it had closed the country and promoted all forms of Japanese culture and religion, including so-called “national learning” (kokugaku (国学)), which started as a literary movement aimed at restoring understanding of ancient texts. Various threads converged to see this nativistic movement evolve into quasi-popular support to restore the emperor as sovereign of a basically theocratic state. The Tokugawa was actually not opposed to reforming the system of governance of the country and there were great strides made toward reconciling the shogunate and the court before Emperor Komei met his untimely demise by smallpox.

Tokugawa Keiki (also known as Yoshinobu) continued to implement reformist policies, but that was opposed by the radicals among the court nobles, including seven whom had fled Kyoto to take refuge in Choshu, as well as the prefectures of Choshu, then Satsuma, Fukui, and Tosa. Tokugawa Keiki was spoken highly of by the Westerners who had a chance to interact with him, and appears to have been a very capable statesman.

I’ve talked about Marius Jansen’s book, Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration numerous time, so this post is going to introduce another monograph about the Meiji Restoration focusing on Choshu (Choshu by Albert M. Crag, Choshu in the Meiji Restoration (https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Albert-M-Craig/dp/0739101935/ref=sr_1_9?crid=3ESU3YNUKS4ZT&keywords=choshu%2C+albert+m.+craig&qid=1705152148&s=english-books&sprefix=choshu+albert+m.+craig%2Cenglish-books%2C244&sr=1-9)),

as well as a book on the Yasukuni Shrine edited by John Breen: Yasukini, the war dead and the struggle for Japan's past (https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/John-Breen/dp/1850659079/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1CQBNFK4RGDQM&keywords=Yasukuni%2C+the+war+dead+and+the+struggle+for+Japan%E2%80%99s+past&qid=1705154153&s=english-books&sprefix=choshu+albert+m.+craig%2Cenglish-books%2C1057&sr=1-4)



I’ve posted about Kishi Nobusuke and Abe Shinzo, who represent a tie to the Choshu faction of the Meiji Oligarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_oligarchy), and I have briefly described some connections of Aso Taro to the Satsuma faction of the Meiji Oligarchy (https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2019/11/americas-unholy-trinity-of-evangelical.html), but of course there is more to the story. It could be said that Aso Taro is now performing the role of leading hawk in Japan, since the former Defense Minister Kishi (great grandson of Kishi Nobusuke and from Yamaguchi prefecture (formerly Choshu)) was forced to resign after stating that Taiwan represented a “red line” for Japan vis-à-vis mainland China in 2023.

NEAR BACKGROUND

After the incursion of the Black Ships, the Tokugawa government was assailed as the cause of the weakness of Japan on the grounds that Confucianism and Shinto mythology mandated that the emperor be the ruler. So the Tokugawa was labeled as a sort of usurper of imperial power by outsider domains ("tozama" domains) seeking to exploit the court.

There were courtiers that advocated rejecting the demands of the American for trade treaties and to open ports, but the bakufu knew that they could not resist the force of western military might. One of the first domains to side with such courtiers, who came to be regarded as the radical faction, was Choshu, and one reason for this is that Choshu had retained a somewhat special relationship to the court, having once funded an enthronement ceremony when there were no other funds, based upon the purported derivation of the Mori line of feudal lords of the domain to a woman who was impregnated by the first son of Emperor Heizei (Heian period). For some reason was compelled to leave Kyoto for the far west of the country. The only source for this material in English is found in Craig’s book on, as per the following 2 pages. 



Choshu neighbored Satuma, and eventually they joined forces to topple the bakufu, but other feudal lords had earlier expressed their disapproval of the bakufu’s granting of treaties to the U.S., etc., noteworthy among them being Tokugawa Keisho (also known as Yoshikatsu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_Yoshikatsu) and Matsudaira Keiei (also known as Yoshinaga/Shungaku: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsudaira_Yoshinaga). These two individuals can be evaluated as having betrayed the bakufu through action or inaction and colluded with elements seeking to topple it and transfer political power to the court, but I will only go into detail as relevant to the topic of this post. Here, in the second and last pages I’ll reference in this post from Craig’s book, it can be seen that Matsudaira Keiei had agreed to collude with Satsuma’s Okubo Toshimichi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckubo_Toshimichi) to oppose a second punitive expedition against Choshu.



What is relevant here is that Okubo Toshimichi was the great grandfather of Aso Taro. Aso Taro is connected to the Meiji Oligarchy on both the maternal and paternal sides of his family, another aspect of which will be taken up below.

Moving into the post WWII era, after the U.S. pardoned Class-A war criminal like Kishi Nobusuke and others associated with the Meiji Oligarchy, the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine appears. There have been a couple of informative papers written on this topic recently, though from somewhat different perspectives. There have also been a couple of books published since Breen's book, and though I have not read them, as per the screenshots below, there is a preview for the tome by Mark Mullins available on Amazon, so I checked the index, etc., and found no entry for Matusdaira Nagayoshi, a significant figure in this post. There are numerous entries for Abe Shinzo, and a few for Aso Taro, but the corresponding content is not available in the preview.







I am not going to go into depth here, but I do want to make a connection that appears to have been overlooked in regard to the potential role of Aso Taro in the appointment of perhaps the most controversial head priest to have ever been appointed as head priest of Yasukuni Shrine: Matsudaira Nagayoshi (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%BE%E5%B9%B3%E6%B0%B8%E8%8A%B3). There is no English Wikipedia page (only Chinese and Korean, aside from Japanese), so I have linked to the Japanese page, but Breen provides the following information about him.



 To advance the argument that Yasukuni Shrine has always been as much about political power as religion, I will quote an important passage in the Breen book from one of the above pages (p. 13).

...the first dedicated Yasukuni chief priest was a samurai from Choshu by the name of Aoyama Kiyoshi who had no specialist knowledge of Shinto. Aoyama's appointment established at Yasukuni tradition of chief priests frequently hailing from a military background with no Shinto training.

That political power and religion are united in a theocracy is academic (hahaha), but it bears emphasizing here, under the circumstances. 

The individual named Matsudaira Nagayoshi with a background in the Japanese imperial navy that was apparently arbitrarily selected through an opaque process and established as "head priest" ("guji" (宮司)) of the shrine then proceeded to enshrine 14 executed Class A war criminals that the government under the CIA installed LDP political party created by Nobusuke Kishi had established in 1955 had long since been promoting, but the Shinto priesthood had firmly rejected, as is described in Breen's book. 

Moreover, Matsudaira Nagayoshi, as it turns out, is the great grandson of Matsudaira Yoshinaga, the feudal lord of Echizenzen domain (now Fukui prefecture) that was colluding with the Satsuma official Okubo Toshimichi (Aso Taro's great grandfather) against the bakufu.

One can only speculate as to the appointment process of Nagayoshi, but given the prominence of Aso Taro in the government and Nagayoshi ancestral connection to the Meiji oligarchy through his great grandfather, whom, as is recorded in Craig's book, was working behind the scenes in cahoots with Okubo, it is not such a leap to imagine that Aso Taro et al. played a role in Nagayoshi's appointment. That would have enabled the LDP politicos (and there was no meaningful other political party to speak of at the time) to accomplish to things. 

First, they could bring into the fold an individual connected to the Tokugawa clan whose ancestor had conspired against the bakufu with the leaders of the so-called loyalist (royalist might be more appropriate, but that lacks the theocratic dimension as well) of the restoration movement. In other words, he has a pedigree of one of the great military houses in Japanese history, and affiliation with the Meiji Oligarchy (Matsudaira Yoshinaga was made a Marquis (I believe) in the British style aristocracy adopted by the Meiji oligarchs). As his Wikipedia page records, however, it wasn't long before he realized that the government he had helped to install was not necessarily a good one.

  In new Meiji government he served in a number of cabinet-equivalent posts, including Chief Executive of Internal Affairs, but soon resigned all posts in protest of the domination of the Meiji government by members of the former Chōshū and Satsuma domains.

Second, they facilitated the enshrinement of the Class A war criminals against the will of the Shinto religious establishment to achieve their own narrow political interests. 

Here, to readers in the West, it may not be clear why the Chinese, Koreans, and even Russian government warns against resurgent militarism in Japan, so I hope that this post sheds a little light on some of the factors in the background.

Finally, before taking briefly taking up the current events, another aspect of Aso Taro's family background merits attention. That relates to his grandfather, the former prime minister Yoshida Shigeru (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Yoshida). According to an NBC news article that is still available online (https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17385978), there had been a plot by ultranationalists connected to U.S. military intelligence that had planned to assassinate Yoshida and carry out a coup in 1952. Much of the information in the article is probably reliable, but we know from other disclosures that it was in fact a secret U.S. foreign policy from 1950 to promote right-wing politicians in order to have the pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan revised (as I have blogged about with reference to official U.S. diplomatic history), and that it was the CIA that funded the creation of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by Kishi Nobusuke in 1955 (as I have blogged about). Here is the first page of that article.

Last but far from least in this section is the rejection of the enshrinement of the Class A war criminals and basic intrusion of the Yasukuni Shrine into the Shinto religious world. First and foremost among the reactions is that of Emperor Showa at the time, who ceased visits by the royal family to the shrine in 1975, as per the following page in Breen's book from the chapter by Takahashi Tetsuya.  



Almost all of the scholarship I have read, including the preview of Mullins' book, for example, writing on this topic point out, the actual Shinto religious establishment has basically always been opposed to such actions by the Yasukuni Shrine, actions taken arbitrarily and unilaterally. Here, it bears stating in no uncertain terms that the emperor of Japan is the figurehead of the Shinto religion, and carries out Shinto rituals associated with Shinto mythology and practice that have been passed down through the ages. I would imagine that he is considered to be the head priest, or sort of the Pope of Shinto by the rest of the Shinto religious establishment, but that is out of scope here and beyond my limited knowledge of actual Shinto as an organized religion.

Accordingly, though the title of this post includes the term "Shinto Fascism",  in one sense, Yasukuni Shrine is somewhat outside of the established Shinto religion, but it's role since the Meiji Restoration cannot be ignored or made light of, so it is considered a "controversy" in Japan, but the courts refuse to recognize visits by government officials as violating the separation of the constitutional separation of church and state. 

RELATED CURRENT EVENTS

It would appear that Aso Taro is a little more on the right-wing side of the political spectrum than was Yoshida Shigeru, but the record is not clear on that, as per the Wikipedia article. And once again, subsequent history per the public record demonstrates the indisputable efforts of the U.S. government to install ultra-nationalist right wing politicians that pay visits to Yasukuni Shrine and the its association with Japanese militarism.

If you need any more convincing evidence about the latent issue of Japanese militarism and its association with Yasukuni Shrine, a scandal broke this week do the the coordinated visit to the shrine by high level officials in the Japanese SDF and members of their unit, as per the following article.



In closing, I'm going to make this brief and just post a few front page articles from the English language main stream news media in Japan from the past week about Aso Taro, and the gist is readily apparent; i,e., the evocation of the so-called right to self defense in this case would appear to be a clear violation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. The full articles can be accessed via the links found in the images. 








Tuesday, August 22, 2023

The Funny-money CIA Honey Bunny Gallery

About 6 years after I posted the piece about the yoga etc. pseudo hippy vegan fraudsters being fronted by by Nicole Porter et al. (https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2017/01/who-is-karen-jones.html), a piece has appeared by an "intelligence blogger" about a woman named Chandra Creasy, with a similar modus operandi to Nicole Porter et al . https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/07/cia-gates-x-file-2-pretty-yoga-coach-at-the-top-of-us-counter-intelligence-which-leads-an-alleged-weapons-black-market/

It's always good to be wary about such pieces, because though it is likely that the information is all basically true, it is likely that Russia intelligence is behind the publications, aiming not only to discredit the funny-money warm mongering CIA honey bunny, but also to control the narrative as well as the media disseminating it itself.










Tuesday, January 17, 2023

ヒカル 大和 イヤメリカ人 ー 第1章

 ヤンキー・ゴー・ホーム・スタバ植民地

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above content of this post is a sketch of an opening foray of a fictional work I have been planning as a sort of escapade at some point.

There is some potential humor and fun to be had for all, much with respect to various types of irony, but I don't have time to frolic and indulge at present.

I rather have some serious posts to write, but legal proceedings are keeping me preoccupied.

 

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

1950 Memorandum regarding the Japanese Peace Treaty and U.S. aims to enable Japan to revise the war renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan

This is an official diplomatic correspondence sent to the then secretary of state (John Dulles) and is found in the official government released publication Foreign Relations of the United States. It was classified as Top Secret. I introduced it as evidence in the lawsuit against the CIA, State Department et al., to no avail.

It is one source revealing the fact that it was secret U.S. policy to facilitate revision of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan only 3 years after it was promulgated in 1947. 
In order to describe U.S. machinations at the time in relation to the current actions of ultra-nationalist Japanese politicians in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), like Nishida Shoji, it will be useful to go back to the Meiji Restoration and describe the manner in which the Meiji Constitution (Constitution of the Empire of Japan) was implemented, and the features that characterize it, placing it in historical context.
The LDP, which, as described on this blog in the post about Kishi Nobusuke, was established in 1955 by a Class-A war criminal using funds provided by the CIA through an organized crime figure.

In the post I will write about the Meiji Constitution--sooner or later--I will expand on the significance of the fact that the people that the U.S. has established in power in present day Japan, including Kishi and his grandson, the assassinated Abe Shinzo, as well as Aso Taro and his grandfather, Yoshida, who was also a prime minister, etc., were from the same two areas, Choshu and Satsuma, that the West sold arms to in order to enable the adherents of Sonno joi "Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonn%C5%8D_j%C5%8Di) to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate. Those two areas subsequently formed the majority of the government known as the Meiji oligarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_oligarchy).




   

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Who is Shoji Nishida: Part 2 (Views/Actions against the Constitution of Japan) (Part 3 will feature new evidence in criminal case, and article by suspected CIA operative Jake Adelstein about him from 2012)

 As mentioned in the first post I did about Shoji Nishida (Nishida Shoji: https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2022/04/who-is-shoji-nishida.html), in which I briefly introducing his connection to my wife's right-wing associates working in government agencies, etc., that blogpost was the only source in English with a headline that named him in relation to the criminal charges that have been filed against him and the Kyoto Prefectural chapter of the LDP. I myself missed the article, published by the Asahi Shimbun on March 22, 2022, as he is not in the title of the article ("Lawyers accuse Kyoto Prefecture LDP chapter of vote buying") was not returned in the search results at the time : https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14578748 , and Nishida is mentioned only once in the article.

While there had been no new news since that post until last week, when new evidence emerged against Nishida, this post will focus on his work with and for the assassinated Abe Shinzo (https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2019/11/who-was-japanese-war-criminal-nobusuke.html) with the aim of revising the Constitution of Japan. 

As I have briefly mentioned before on this blog and covered in the lawsuit against the CIA et al, it has been the U.S. government's secret foreign policy to promote revision of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan so that Japan could be made to join in U.S. led wars against Russia, China, North Korea, etc., communist countries in East Asia against whom the D.C.<==>Wall St. revolving door-centric U.S. capitalist order seeks to create fascistic capitalist countries to send to fight against.

In short, the U.S. capitalists base part of their foreign policy on promoting the establishment of right-wing fascists in order to incorporate them into their predestined fight against communists. 

It is, of course, based on a false dichotomy between "capitalism" and "communism," which should be obvious from the evolution of the Communist Party of Russia and of China with their economic rationalization and modernization, etc., but that is a theoretical discussion for another post.

In this post, I am presenting below the English translation in full of an article published by the Kyoto Minpo newspaper published in June 2019, which is still available for viewing online at their website: https://www.kyoto-minpo.net/archives/2019/06/08/post-23362.php 

Their thoroughgoing presentation of content posted on his own homepage provides a fairly in depth view of the point in his ultra-nationalistic political views that represent a threat to the Constitutional and social order of Japan, and which are parallel to the aims of CIA operatives I have blogged about to some degree here, including CIA fascists like Robert D. Eldredge (https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2016/10/kristopher-tate-and-robert-d-eldridge.html). I should right another post about Robrt D. Edlridge, but there is only so much time to devote to such suspected CIA sociopaths once they have been exposed as such.  

Accordingly, this post focuses on introducing the sociopolitical and historical context of the aims encompassed by efforts to revise the Constitution of Japan as promoted by CIA influenced politicos like Abe Shinzo and Nishida Shoji. I was fortunate enough to come across this article in my recent online research, as it does a very good job of presenting these important points with reference to the original sources on Nishida's own homepage.

So, without further ado, here is the English translation of the Kyoto Minpo article.

LDP Member of the House of Councillors (Upper House of the National Diet of Japan) Repudiates Popular Sovereignty/Holds Irregular Views on the Constitution of Japan, Maintaining that “Current Constitution of Japan is Invalid”, Whitewashes Japan’s War of Aggression, and Calls for Restoration of the Imperial Rescript on Education

Supports the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (i.e., the Meiji Constitution) and calls for debate on “acquiring nuclear weapons”

Heading for reelection in the July election, the LDP member of the Upper House of the Japanese Diet, Nishida Shoji (Kyoto District), makes a full frontal attack denying the principles of popular sovereignty and pacifism enshrined in the Constitution of Japan, repeatedly claiming that the Constitution itself is “invalid.” He belongs to the group of Diet members ("Nippon Kaigi Kokkaigiin Kondanakai") affiliated with the Nippon Kaigi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Kaigi). As a vociferous supporter of Abe Shinzo’s administration efforts to revise the Constitution of Japan, he headed the LDP committee that drafted a proposal (2012) promoting revision of the Constitution of Japan to change Article 9 and make Japan into a “country that wages war”.

Said he had “aimed to capture” the Diet’s Committee for Studying the Constitution of Japan

Nishida’s views on the Constitution are summed up in a article he authored entitled, “Report Directed to the Prime Minister” (published by East Press in October 2013). In a chapter entitled, “Lies about Revising the Constitution,” and under the subtitle of “The Current Constitution of Japan is a Basic Law of Occupation,” he states that the Constitution of Japan “was created by the GHQ while Japan was under occupation in an era in which the Japanese people were not sovereign,” and that Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan is “not a pronouncement renouncing war, but about pronouncement abandoning the nation’s sovereign right to self-defense, which is inconceivable for an independent nation.” He then asserts that “if many of the people of Japan came to understand that this is not our Constitution, it would become invalid at that point.”

The House of Councillors Committee for Studying the Constitution of Japan, too, in February 2017 issued a statement that, “The Constitution of Japan was created by GHQ during the occupation for the purpose of fulfilling the aims of the occupation,” “comprising (the goal of) changing the Japanese historical standpoint to that of the Federalism of the United States.”

In the same publication by Nishida cited above, he goes on to state that after the Constitution of Japan is “invalidated” it will be followed by the “Constitution of the Empire of Japan” (i.e., Meiji Constitution). Nishida maintains that, “There are those who claim that sovereignty being vested in the Emperor is feudalistic, but Japanese tradition, history, and culture demand that the authority of the Constitution be symbolized by the Emperor,” and supports the pre-WWII constitution (i.e., Meiji Constitution). In the same publication, he continues, “People in present day Japan are always asserting their own rights in a selfish manner, and that is a problem,” and calls for restoring the Meiji Constitution, asserting that it “teaches us humility better than the current constitution,” and that “it includes legal provisions for coping with emergency situations, and a schema for defending the safety of the country.” Nishida’s assertions deny the theory of the “natural rights of man” (i.e., the theory that all men are entitled to liberty and equality before the law as human rights).

On his homepage, “Nishida Weekly,” Nishida posts online videos of himself fielding questions in a question-and-answer session he calls, “One Question, One Answer” In the December 2012 edition, he claims that under the theory of the natural rights of man, sovereignty cannot be explained as being vested in “Japanese people,” and that “Too many people, upon hearing the phrase “popular sovereignty,” think that the People are at the top of society.” He goes on to state that, “Popular sovereignty provides for a “right of succession” received from our forebears who protected the history and traditions of this country, and naturally, along with rights come duties and obligations as two sides of the same coin,” denying constitutionalism (i.e., restricting the exercise of power by the state with the Constitution in order to protect human rights).    

“Denial of human rights” is reflected in the proposal to revise the Constitution of Japan”

Nishida’s thinking is reflected in the proposal put forth by the Liberal Democratic Party to revise the Constitution of Japan. In the “Q&A on the LDP Proposal to Revise the Constitution of Japan,” it states that “Provisions touching on (natural human rights, etc.) have been completely revamped.”

The Abe administration decided to change its interpretation of the Constitution of Japan in July 2014, to permit the government to exercise the right to collective defense, which is something that successive Japanese administrations had prohibited since the end of WWII. That destroys the principle of pacifism enshrined in the Constitution of Japan that “Wars will not be fought overseas,” but Nishida had been leading calls to “re-interpret and revise” the Constitution of Japan before that. In the same publication, Nishida reasons that since the Self Defense Forces actually exist in Japan, the Constitution of Japan has already been revised, claiming, “Learning from this precedent, we can interpret that exercising the right to collective self-defense is permissible.”

Nishida is also known for advocating “debate on the acquisition of nuclear arms.” In his One Question, One Answer online video series (April 2016), he states, “In order to maintain a state of peace, the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a part of our military power should be debated,” adding that “those who would forestall any thought of the debate involving the word nuclear hold the lives of the people of Japan in contempt.”

He whitewashes the war of aggression Japan waged against its neighbors, claims that the comfort women problem is a “fabrication,” and calls for reinstating the “Imperial Rescript on Education.”

Regarding the comfort women problem, Nishida states, “It started from a fabricated story published by the Asahi Newspaper, and got blown out of proportion until it developed into a diplomatic problem between Korea and Japan” (One Question, One Answer, June 2016). He criticized LGBT couples in an online video in Nishida Weekly (November 2017), stating that LGBT couples “are not productive,” and in dialog with Mio Sugita (LDP member of House of Councillors) he agreed that, “the comfort women were not sexual slaves,” and that “they (comfort women) were not coerced into following the military.”

Nishida has no remorse for Japan’s invasions of its neighbors, claiming it “contributed to modernization”

With regard to the Imperial Rescript on Education, which served as the ideological mainstay for promoting militarism in prewar Japan, in the “Policies” section on Nishida’s homepage, he states, “I want to make the most of the spirit of the Imperial Rescript on Education,” and adds that, “The Imperial Rescript on Education was also abolished by GHQ. Content-wise, the Imperial Rescript on Education conveys the values of Japanese tradition, it can be understood in any age, and in any country. I want to use the Imperial Rescript on Education in order to restore the dignity of the Japanese people, and to convey the spirit of the Japanese to the next generation.”

Regarding Japans colonization of the Korean peninsula (1910: “Japanese Annexation of Korea”), Nishida states that, “Korea became a part of Japan, but that was based on agreement between the two governments,” and “Japan did not intend to implement colonial policies such as those of the United States,” acknowledging Japan’s war of aggression on Korea and whitewashing it (One Question, One Answer, December 2018).

Ÿ   Denies the legitimacy of the Constitution of Japan

ž   The present Constitution of Japan was created under occupation by the GHQ during a period when the Japanese people did not have sovereignty. (Omission) Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan is not a pronouncement renouncing war, but about pronouncement abandoning the nation’s sovereign right to self-defense, which is inconceivable for an independent nation. (Omission) If many of the people of Japan came to understand that this is not our Constitution, it would become invalid at that point (Report Directed to the Prime Minister).

ž   The Liberal Democratic Party has issued a proposal for revising the Constitution of Japan. It clearly states the obligation to defend the country, and sets forth a system of legal provisions that enable the protection of the people of Japan in times of emergency. However, the current Constitution of Japan is a constitution that was imposed on Japan by GHQ during the occupation of Japan; therefore, it must be stated that the current Constitution of Japan does not have the status of a constitution, but only that of the basic law under the occupation. Originally, a constitution is something that represents the character of a country (under “Policies” on Nishida’s homepage).

ž   Under the theory of the natural rights of man, sovereignty cannot be explained as being vested in “Japanese people.” Too many people, upon hearing the phrase “popular sovereignty,” think that the People are at the top of society. (Omission) Popular sovereignty provides for a “right of succession” received from our forebears who protected the history and traditions of this country, and naturally, along with rights come duties and obligations as two sides of the same coin (One Question, One Answer, December 2018).

Ÿ   Acknowledging Japan’s wars of aggression and whitewashing them

ž   “I want to make the most of the spirit of the Imperial Rescript on Education…” The Imperial Rescript on Education was also abolished by GHQ. Content-wise, the Imperial Rescript on Education conveys the values of Japanese tradition, it can be understood in any age, and in any country. I want to use the Imperial Rescript on Education in order to restore the dignity of the Japanese people, and to convey the spirit of the Japanese to the next generation (under “Policies” on Nishida’s homepage).

ž   In 1910 Japan annexed of Korea, Nishida states that, “Korea became a part of Japan, but that was based on agreement between the two governments. Japan did not intend to implement colonial policies such as those of the United States. To the contrary, Japan poured a tremendous amount of money into the Korean peninsula,  contributing greatly to the modernization of the Korean peninsula (One Question, One Answer, December 2018).

When asked, “Councillor Nishida, what do you feel when you visit the Yasukuni shrine?” Nishida responded that, “When I am in Tokyo, I visit the Yasukuni shrine almost every day, and when I read the poems written by the emperor, I feel as if the words have come to be addressed to me. (Omission) I realize, when I visit the Yasukuni shrine, that the reason we are living in peace as we do today is because the souls of the heroes enshrined here sacrificed their lives. Starting with the background of the present Constitution of Japan that was imposed on us by GHQ, I have been exerting myself as a Councillor to enlighten the Japanese people of the deception to which they have been subjected since the end of WWII, but many Japanese people do not even think about why we live in a state of peace today, and they have not yet been awakened. To the souls of the heroes enshrined at the Yasukuni shrine who fought and gave their order to protect the country, I feel sorrow and shame (One Question, One Answer May 2017). 




Sunday, August 21, 2022

Hacked again, so this time I'm posting some log data, eventually to be brought up with the police, etc.

 Every couple of months of late my computer gets hacked in a manner that disables my access/use of Facebook and Youtube.

Initially, they were hacking the Hosts file, but since I figured out how to fix that, they hacking has become more sohpisticated, but limited to the same effects, which is probably aimed at preventing me from filing a criminal complaint immediately under Japanese law.

So, here are some logs. There s redundancy, as I simply used the Windows functionality to copy the basics then the details of each event taken as a representative sample. This could be the work of any number of sociopathic organizations, including the CIA/NSA, yakuza, and other international white-collar criminal organizations, all of which are connected to one government or another, it would seem.

If anyone actually has the time to go through this and can point out a fix, I'd appreciate it.