Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

I mean. They can accept Imperial Japan killing millions through Asia just fine while saying "They are Not So Different from all other empires!", but as soon they realize that Japan was fascist, they decide that it needed to be defeated.

That is not a noble awakening, is childish hypocresy.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 19th 2019 at 7:27:20 AM

I couldn't, but not because of her politics.

Natalie Wynn's entire schtick isn't really something that news organizations do mainstream or otherwise, and that's not because of ideology.

Contrapoints fulfills a fundamentally different function then News and comparing the two seems kind of odd.

Imperial Japan being more blatantly cruel didn't mean they were a different creature than, say, the British at the time. And I don't know what Leftist you're talking about that would be fine with letting an Empire try to conquer more colonies, the Communists of the time for instance were not huge fans of the British if I recall.

I think its more, "empire bad, fascist empire worse".

Japan being fascist did make them more of a concern though.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Apr 19th 2019 at 8:32:57 AM

Imperial Japan was worse than your average 1900 empire, this is not British apologism, it is a fact. Imperial Japan acted if it was Spain during the Conquest of America, with a mindset and brutality that horrified the other empires of the era.

You are proving my point. If they didn't identity as fascist, somehow that would made them better? Is nonsense.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 19th 2019 at 7:35:55 AM

As far as I know, they didn't identify as fascist. I could be wrong, but Taisei Yokusankai was not an explicitly fascist party like the NSDAP. They were merely a very nationalist empire.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Apr 19th 2019 at 8:40:07 AM

Yes, there's a weird habit of saying, "The Imperial Japanese weren't any different than X" or "The Nazis weren't worse than Y."

They really were.

They may not have identified as fascist but that doesn't mean they weren't fascist, I would say Imperial Japan's ultranationalist reactionary ethnic-supremacism would most certainly qualify as fascist.

I agree, but that was not what I was being asked. I was asked if they would have been better if they didn't identify as fascist, I pointed out that they in fact did not in the first place.

>Kazuya

To clear the air: I think the British Empire was bad. I think Imperial Japan was worse. I don't think it was an entirely different thing than Britain, just much worse. I don't know what Leftist would support the latter over the former.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Apr 19th 2019 at 8:47:11 AM

Well, to rerail this, I wonder, why Imperial Japan don't appears more on American Media?

Shame over historical racism toward the Japanese, and a related fear that such a portrayal would be racist.

And let's face it, the portrayal of Japanese people in USA media during that time was really, really racist.

There's also the more pragmatic fact that present day Japan and the USA have a rather mutually beneficial relationship (albeit one with a lot of issues). It'd be a bad idea to rock the boat. Especially given the fact that a lot of Japanese people (older ones at any rate) don't want to be reminded of Imperial Japan or acknowledge Imperial Japan's war crimes. They'd be mad as hell if someone at Hollywood made a movie about the Rape of Nanking. Especially since the current head of state of Japan Shinzo Abe is the grandson of a war criminal.

Personally though, I'm not terribly sympathetic about that. You don't get to forget your nation's dirty laundry.

Edited by M84 on Apr 19th 2019 at 9:47:28 PM

Seriously, Imperial Japan should feature a lot more in American media given their impact.

I wonder how it would be if Japan suffered a more extrmeme process of De-Imperialization.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 19th 2019 at 9:28:59 AM

For the record, there's about 90 years between these two events. Off the top of my head, I know that Abraham Lincoln met with a Japanese man who would go on to establish Japan's first newspaper. Ulysses S Grant went to Japan on his world tour and shook hands with the emperor, then mediated a territorial dispute between Japan and China. Japan and the US teamed up to beat up Chinese insurgents during the Boxer Rebellion.

Theodore Roosevelt negotiated peace between Japan and Russia, while secretly supporting Japanese imperialism in Korea. He actually urged them to treat Asia like the US treated Latin America. For some reason it never occurred to him that encouraging imperialistic hegemony would eventually involve taking Western possession in Asia. Way to think ahead, Teddy.

Yes, that comparison is just odd.

I guess is like the old commentary about how conservative comedy is a oxymoron. Leftist comedy mocks the powerful, Right Wing comedy mocks the weak.

Anyone thinks if society might stop using the left and right labels? They get real weird and nonsensical.

Sidenote. But I'm interesed in Protagonist' project. Seeing a openly right wing fiction that avoids the typical right wing cliches would be interesting.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 19th 2019 at 10:12:34 AM

Centrism is part of what got us into this mess. Centrists, or "fence-sitters" as they're commonly called, are part of that whole group that said "I don't wanna vote, I don't like either of them!" in 2016.

Could we not make assumptions about fellow posters like that?

Having spoken with Kazuya on this issue I can safely say that is not the case.

Centrists or extremists like Right Libertarians/Green Party supporters.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 19th 2019 at 9:14:48 AM

I'll second M84's statement. Please don't forget that different place have different situation with the left or right or the progressive or conservative and so on. I still remember the time when I learn about American conservatives and I find myself confused by their support for small government or personal freedom since the conservatives in my place is all about expanding the power of the government and use it to micro-manage the life of its citizens, so we don't stray from the proper path. Of course, at this point, I already know that American conservatives' stance about the small government and personal freedom stuff are pretty inconsistent, but back then, it's weird as fuck.

As someone who's been accused of being on the extreme end of both for making the exact same statements but to different audiences, I guess I can see what you mean.

I understand the feel.

I'd argue that that means people are uninformed or ignorant, though, not that having shorthand classifications for political leanings is a bad idea.

@Kazuya: Thanks. I'm currently working on it as I type this.

Nah, mocking centrists will never get old.

In theory centrism feels like the perfect political stance, after all with so many different views in the world, there's no way to make everyone completely happy, making compromises and avoiding extremes will ensure that everyone will at least be as happy as they can be without impinging on the happiness of others.

In practice, however, centrism is an ideological stance of 'got mine' apathy. It's the purview of those who have enough privilege to not (any longer) be directly touched by the worst excesses of the status quo and enough entitlement to mentally downplay the plight of those who are.

Centrism makes perfect sense if both are adults.

Yikes. Obviously. Centrism between one sane side and a completely insane other is dumb, but when both sides are making sense, then you need to get at least some type of.compromise, that's why there not just center, but also center-left and center-right.