I love your channel and content, but I think it's funny that you always say AMERICA instead of US when you're talking about democracies and imperialism. I guess some roots run too deep.
And before someone says something, even according to the UN, America is a continent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme It just feels weird the way you use these terms when you're talking about these subjects. It simply doesn't fit. It feels like I'm watching a documentary on CNN or Fox News. Anyway, doesn't matter...
The world of the 1940s (and by extension the early 1950s) was comprehensively shaped by international conflict. Growing pains during the period of re-construction (late 1950-60s) were inevitable and equally widely felt.
Comparing this to the videos of how machines and human systems learn, we can see there's a tradeoff but we could overcome it with "good memory". Stationary algorithms aren't smart, and we'll die as a species if we steadfastly stay at the gates of this golden age instead of coming right through on an age of love for all life and truth. We could learn!
23:15 This segment about unavoidable tradeoffs reminded me of a quote from a famous Japanese sci-fi series: "A good autocracy might be better than even a good democracy, but a bad democracy is far better than a bad autocracy." -Yang Wen-li, from 'Legend of the Galactic Heroes' by Yoshiki Tanaka.
Haven't read the novels, but I've rewatched the OVA several times. Love it. Though I think some people give it more credit than it deserves for presenting autocracy vs democracy on an even playing field, when I think the story quite clearly argues that democracy is preferable. The lasting through-line, the underlying critique of democracy is always primarily that it can decline into autocracy, like with the first emperor Goldenbaum. Meaning, the bad thing with democracy is that it can turn into autocracy, which isn't really a criticism of democracy itself. Also, when portraying Reinhard as a good autocrat, he is done so by adopting democratic ideals, if not the democratic political structure. He seemingly listens to the needs of the people and adopt progressive legislation (such as less censorship and more free speech), and he defers to expert ministers in matter he himself isn't an expert rather than imposing his leadership. The good thing with autocracy, LOGH argues, is that it can kinda be like a democracy if the leader is good. All of this isn't necessarily my views or my arguments on the matter, but it's just what I perceive are the viewpoints and arguments that LOGH presents (but I think they are eloquent - especially for a space opera). I enjoyed this video overall, but I think he dropped the ball at the end, presenting a stability vs wide horizons causality that I honestly think lacks real world applicability - he even gave an example with Russia contradicting it and I would add China to that list seeing its drastic economic changes in the latest decades. Though politics nowadays seem tumultuous in many western democracies (and they are), in general it seems that democracies are historically speaking more stable than autocracies IMO, and autocracies are just by their nature more susceptible to sudden change given that fewer individuals need to change their minds (or be changed outright) to change society. And in real life, those changes in autocratic countries are seldom of the kind Reinhard espouses...
As a Japanese, I felt the explanation is too simplifized and dualistic. People who are called "Protests" or "New Japan" in this video were actually instigated and organized by radical communists who want to start a revolution with violence. Most rebel unions ironically mimiced old Japanese army organization system to use their force, so they also had "Old Japan" aspect. All of them didn't follow western "Democracy and Freedom" ideology at least. Moreover, many Japanese had been suffered from consciousness of guilty about WWⅡ especially post-war era. Then some of them were absorbed in "Anti Japan" ideology and did devastating terolisim although they were also Japanese. You can simply understand it "Confused age", but I'd like to share more complicated background.
Every foreigner wants to fabricate Japanese history and culture 😂. The whole entire country of Japan and its people is like a fan-fiction for foreigners, especially westerners. Its almost like a fetish at this point.
My grandparents grew up in the 60s in Japan. And I never understood why they were so… solemn and felt very isolated. The more I look into the historical development of post-war Japan, the more I realize what my family had to endure up until this point. Edit: Okay, y'all, calm the fuck down lmao. My family in Japan were and are native to Okinawa, it was a heavily rural and militarized location used by both Imperial Japan and the United States. Before and during the early parts of the American occupation, they were farmers. Despite my Japanese ancestry, I was born in America and consider myself American. American troops landing in Okinawa saved my family from starving in tunnels underneath their family well, my grandmother's kimono is preserved in the local Himeyuri Peace Museum, a shrine there dedicated to the young students who suffered mistreatment and depravity from being conscripted into a war they had no hand in. My grandmother was six during the invasion and was around her twenties during the time period of the video. My great-grandfather died in the defense of Okinawa, I did not know him, I don't know why he fought, I cannot say what he believed or didn't. I in no way endorse the Sino-Japanese War, the occupation of Korea, and the use of women as objects for male 'comfort'. It was a horrible time, orchestrated by horrible men, yet unfortunately carried out by people like you and me. I get the sentiments but y'all starting to sound like Curtis LeMay down there, lmfao.
I hope you use better sources than this for your information, unless this as complex as you can handle otherwise as we used to say go for it. Ever think about just asking them? They should still be knocking about, unless they were screwed by poor genes.
@@james-faulkner it's possible he can't because they ARE still alive, but some people just don't talk about hard times, trying to keep it in the past. - the soldier who saw and did heinous things in war, and now says war is hell and tells his kids and grandkids to never enlist, but refuses to go into details, hoping if he keeps it in the past, it will haunt him slightly less often. - the japanese citizen who was rendered homeless and did desperate things to survive the aftermath of the A-bombs or the firebombings that destroyed their home - the holocaust survivor with a number on their arm that won't talk about the concentration camp, but wakes up screaming in a mix of yiddish and german at night, because they dreamt it was still 1942. (this one's personal. my great aunt survived the camps, but the things they did to her broke her completely and she never really left that camp mentally, it haunted her like it was yesterday, right up until the day we had to put her in the ground. she never spoke about it by choice, the only things we knew about her time in the camp was what we could make out of her incohent screaming when she would wake up in the middle of the night. and i'm glad that's all we know. i know just enough yiddish and german to get the jist of the horrors she relived in her midnight panic attacks, and i don't want to know any more than that.) - the man who was lost at sea and had to resort to cannibalism to survive, and never talks about it, but hoards food in his attic for the rest of his life as a result of his trauma. some people wear their scars out in the open, some people bury them deep...either for their own sake, or for yours. going from being a "warrior empire" to being bombed into the stone age and then dealing with the political, social, and economic strains of the next 20 years while being essentially completely rebuilt under the guidance of your former enemy, sounds to me like something some people might choose to leave in the past 'where it belongs'. this period from 1945 to 1960 is also the height of certain unpleasant leftovers from the war, like the way surviving kamikaze pilots were treated, often considered cowards and traitors because they were supposed to die to protect japan, and now japan is burning and they return home in one piece, sometimes even their own families treated them like ghosts and just pretended they weren't even there. if your father or uncle was a surviving kamikaze and for decades your family acted like he was already dead and told you to ignore him, and your last memory of him is him laying alone on his deathbed and none of your family seemed to even care, that might be something you want to leave in the past. some people handle their traumas by just bottling it up.
This was so interesting! I always thought Japan was a perfect democracy after WW2 and then started an economic miracle. But what really happened is wild.
Japan has been a one party state since 1955. Albeit that same one party government are the ones who Industrialized and built Japan into a powerhouse, it struggles to even be called a democracy.
@@miladmoradi9987 😂 oh yeah, that so chief? Ask the villagers in inner China/Russia, who live on $5 a week and no toilets whether they’d trade their life for that “one state” country which leads in nearly every important metric, but military.
@@kingace6186actually, the CIA ended up being VERY successful. They actually funneled cash into LDP election campaigns for years, guaranteeing their political dominance.
The thumbnail drew me in, the details and knowledge kept me interested, and seeing you cite your sources out after I finished watching was the cherry on top.
Only because he was politically useful. Unfortunately, most Japanese war criminals got off scott free or were pardoned after the war, like the entirety of Unit 731.
It was the other way around, less supports came first, then when the assassination happened, people suddenly feel less restraint to speak about it as the event had brought out the most hateful people.
The US allowed war criminals to stay in power to the point many of them are still revered today. Ironically, this is why Japan still believes they are the victim in WWII.
It's also all the weebs saying Japan is a victim for only surrendering after Nagasaki instead of blaming Japan for prolonging the total war it started which plenty of its people supported.
The usa does not care about crime or Justice just power and money. Look no further than our politicians.You wanna look at World War 2?We hired most of the scientists and weapons creators and human Experimenters, look through our own history. Theres also the Tuskegee man. The CIA's heart attack gone the f. B. I killing Martin Luther king. Mk ultra. Fast and furious operation the list is endless
then lets discuss the role the uk played in establishing the cia in america so that they could forever remain in covert control of it and use it to rebuild the british empire
Crazy fact: Isoroku Yamamoto, the Naval Admiral who orchestrated the Pearl Harbor Attacks, and who was in charge of the entire Japanese Navy for the majority of WWII... Was a student at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA. before the war...
Really not that crazy. The only people who could go to university in Japan during those times were the society’s higher ups that came from wealthy families.
I’ve always wanted to see a video in the post war Japan. Like the student revolutions, the assasinations, and just… SO MANY REVOLUTION ATTEMPTS it’s such an overlooked but interesting aspect of Japan
Being able to explain very complex things in such a concise and simple way while also sneaking in a Warhammer reference has got to be a new intellectual milestone.
You're kidding right? Here are the facts. To the author I wrote: You started strong: good research, analysis, and commentary. But then you quickly slid into the pit of Right Wing bias when you described the events of the late 1940's and early fifties as violent demonstrations perpetrated by the Left. Even though you had already indicated, which was true, that the VAST majority of Japanese people wanted to keep the Constitution as is, and equally did not want any excuse for Japan's Nationalists to retool the country for re-expansion and war. And what violence was instigated in those early protests were false flag machinations conducted by the foot soldiers of the LDP (then and now) the YAKUZA. Because along with all those politicians released from jail in the late forties, over 20,000 Yakuza were released as well. The US State Department had decided that whatever befell the Japanese people at the hands of these ruthless thugs (who were the main instigators of both exapansion into Korea in the early part of the twentieth century and China in the thirties) it was 'worth' it to keep China contained. Finshing with your conclusion of violence/horizons/freedom/stability wrapped up in such broad and simplistic terms was ridiculous and further proves the Right Wing bias of this presentation. Lastly, the assassin in 1960 was paid for by the Yakuza. And those criminal enablers and fixers for the LDP still roam quiet Japanese streets to this day in their deliberatly menacing black vans blasting out their threats and propaganda all in cahoots with, not their LDP masters, but their LDP stooges. With everything from Labor racketeering, the 90's economic crisis, and even the Fukushima disaster, all down to the way the Yakuza puppet masters have manipulated the poor Japanese people since the late 1940's. The USA was complicit in all the corruption by continuing to tolerate and support this evil via their own crime gang known as the CIA since the first war criminal and the first Yakuza were released from prison in the late 1940's. Your failure to acknowledge any of the above renders this video useless on any level.
This video was kind of an over simplification that feels really biased. How the parties were described was weird, breaking them into red and blue or good and bad, even though their values and positions were different from the contemporary understanding of these parties. The meaning of 'democrat' especially changes a lot depending on context.
Great video on how Japanese politics got to how it is today. Boring, technocratic, and probably the true embodiment of what an End of History truly looks likes. My grandma was a university student during the Anpo protests as a right-winger, but many of her friends dropped out of university and devoted themselves to left-wing politics. One of them got pregnant and then become disillusioned with politics altogether. My grandfather who was quite conservative until his death did vote against the LDP once out of complete disgust for them, he would only do this again in the 90s. Also, at the time it seemed like the socialist parties were the party of small businesses as he was a factory owner while the LDP was the party conglomerates. And in the late 60s and 70s, there was a wave of left-wing student protests which were incredibly violent. My mother's tutor from UTokyo got sent to prison for throwing a molotov at a police officer. Also during this time one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world came from Japan. And the political infighting within the Japanese left was so bad that I think it was not until the early 2000s when there wasn't at least one person who was injured or killed from sectarianism. And I am sure a lot of people here visited Narita airport which probably represents some of the best things about Japan, but it was the battleground of a years long battle between an unusual alliance of farmers who did not want to give up their land and leftists against Japanese riot police and construction workers which got incredibly violent. There is quiet a few footage you can find of the "Sanrizuka" movement on RUclips that shows just how crazy things got. But if anyone is interested in literature from the 1960s, check out the short stories "Seventeen" and "Death of Political Youth" by Oe Kenzaburo. It is based off of the guy who murdered Inejiro Asanuma. Some of the most intense literature I have ever read.
Oh man, the battles over Narita were absolutely insane, that would be another wonderful topic for someone to make a video on. Japan's left is interesting in that to a large degree it suffered from the anti-communist needs of the United States enforcing crack downs (Though the LDP was obviously more than happy to comply...) but also the in-fighting that you mentioned really never allowed the left to crystalize behind a single candidate. It was always individual issues and the protests were always popular but could never really transition into actual electoral success. Though actually I guess "leftist infighting" isn't a rare thing...
In what way is Japanese politics technocratic? Everything I've seen suggested that elderly (the majority) Japanese policy makers lag far behind in adopting the use of technology. In 2019 the nation's cyber minister admitted to having never used a computer. The proliferation of using paper versus digital storage is something you come to notice right away when you need to do anything regarding official documents. In some local governments, floppy discs are still being used.
@@clockhandedtechnocratic does not mean they will be tech savvy. It just means authority is given to "professionals" and "experts", doesn't matter if they are actually one.
OMG, Johnny, thank you so much! Your work is a massive inspiration for us, and you probably noticed how your fingerprints are all over this one. This means a lot to us coming from you. If you've ever got the time, we'd love to connect and pick your brain about some things. Thanks again, and keep up the amazing work!!
Speaking of Inspiration and all that, Your schedules are probably *plenty* full as-is, but two ideas i want/have partially done (as a wannabe muckraker doing these types of videos lol) are: Could either of you cover the war in the breakup of Yugoslavia. In particular the use of Chemical Weapons including Incapacitating Weapons like BZ? Could do a part 1 covering the war and genocide itself although this has already been done well by others. Could be like “The Breakup of Yugoslavia was a MESS” with a pretty *map* thumbnail etc. Part 2 would be A Series on Chemical Weapons titled “A New Kind of Warfare” / “An Alternative War” or something like that emphasizing those points made in a really neat article I read a while back on incapacitating weapons. This could tie into your history of the MIC @johhnyharris quite well too. FINALLY this would tie into North Korea as if I understand correctly their stock of chemical weapons is a major threat if war breaks out. *ALSO* the whole “Chemical Weapons Free by 2023” milestone (or how the USA had Chemical Weapons and a biological weapons program to begin with) was basically completely under the radar news wise. This could be a “How we got rid of a whole class of WMDs…and how this relates to nukes” video on it’s own! Basically how we went from MASSIVE stockpiles of Chemical Weapons to none. I’m rambling a bit but there is plenty of content there, and i would be glad to help (although no stable patreon money yet due to still getting stable employment reasons) I have done some low level digging myself, but most of the data/reports are in the chemical weapon use are old. The stories are there but *rotting* My second idea is related to that issue of Stories Rotting. Basically do what vox did for the Before and After of NYC with Urban Freeways and all that, but WAY more *Maps* for other cities, most people think just the big cities had streetcars but all sorts of places did and it ties into current economic situations (along with things like redlining). Asking around in areas on people’s experiences here in the USA with the “Urban Renewal” demolition of Housing for Highways, and Streetcar lines that have been torn down is important as once those “average joes” die out that story dies out too. My Muckraking skills aren’t too finely honed yet, but digging for old maps + aerial photos of cities for those nice graphics are important too. I’m rambling, and RUclips comments are a bad way to do all this, but those are two-ish ideas i have, which i also believe are important. Their window is closing to an extent due to data getting old, and people who were there getting older and dying. Also they tie well into current events (WMDs in the context largely Nuclear Proliferation Post-Cold War Treaties Ending, but also Unit 731 Truth and Reconciliation, The Fight for New Urbanism and recent trends on people viewing that etc)
Nobosuke a criminal? how dare you! What America did to Japan was a crime against all of humanity. The U.S. caused this with American Imperialism, Perry and the illegal unprovoked and totally unwarranted attack on Tokyo in 1853. This is just more ash can artsy propaganda.😎
"So the Us occupied japan out of the kindness of their heart, and can you believe that the japanese people was angry against the army of the country that just killed millions of innocent civilians? How savage! And they were about to become evil socialists too! Unbelievable. Luckily the US successfully imposed their government on them, and this was a good thing and not at all a barbaric injustice!" This video basically.
This is a great video about 1960, but a rather limited view of Japan's recent political history because although it is true that 1960 was a decisive year, protest and revolutionary ideas continued throughout the decade, climaxing in 1968, like most other similar movements around the world. There's also the fact that the fascist tendencies of Japan weren't extinguished after the war, hell in 1970 Yukio Mishima attempted a rather miserable failed coup, and apologia for the attrocities committed by Imperial Japan continues to this day. Political assassination, infamously, has happened as recently as the Shinzo Abe's murder in 2022, so yeah, it is rather reductive to say that after 1960 Japan chose stability and that was that.
_'climaxing in 1968'_ I think later than that. It was the torture and murder of 14 United Red Army members by their comrades, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.
_'climaxing in 1968'_ I think later than that. It was the deaths of 14 United Red Army members at their comrades' hands, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.
@@gagamba9198 you're completely right, radical political action went on into the 1970's. I referenced 1968 thinking just in terms of mass political action, thanks for complementing the info. @hayaokakizaki4463 I don't think that disqualifies the incident as political in nature, the perpetrator felt personal annimosity towards Abe beucase of what the Church of Unification did to his mom, but also said that he allowed the church too much influence in government.
Well edited, informative video. This format is consumable for people over 25 and the graphics appealing enough to keep the youth engaged long enough to sneak information into their brains before their attention wanders. Teachers, even professors, should use thisbin their classrooms
Crazy how people never took a glance on how Cold War affect Japan. Hell, even this one topped how chaotic Asia with the Cold War mania all around, even on the Blue Turfm
No more compliments to be made mate. Fucking stunning production you talented fuck! Amazing quality! Informational! Good sources! Cohesive! I've been subscribed to you since the beginning of your channel, and I absolutely love how you treat your channel and videos. Top tier content and well researched.
@@WhatDemocracy Mate they didn't state that. Japanese had been invading countries all around East Asia before the Pearl Harbor attacks even happened. And they killed A LOT of people.
Fascinating mini-documentary, only interrupted by the claimed diametric opposition between "low stability" and "autocracy" at the end ... which was immediately shown to be untrue in relation to modern Russia. Still, it suggested a useful framework for understanding Japanese political history.
Exactly, the documentary overall was great. But presenting "on the left" war and chaos with opportunity, and on the right "stability" which is "amazing when everything is good" but limits opportunity seemed dishonest because it was presented like a blanked statement. It really doesn't fit the standards of the rest of the documentary.
Fantastic and beautifully made video. It’s fascinating to see other versions of Japan, especially for me seeing as I live here. They certainly went for stability, narrowing individual horizons somewhat, but having an unprecedentedly peaceful society.
It is also very generalistic and focuses a lot on specific events in a short period of time , lacking proper context and wide-viewed sight. One single or two single events might not be representative of the period in time those events ocurred. Also broad context helps understand the bigger.picture.
Oh I don’t think current Japan would be able to do anything this courageous like this generation in the 60’s did, but we’re also decently governed right now so 🤷♂️ hopefully our politicians remember the past enough to keep corruption and personal ambition to a minimum
It's not that they're incapable, it's that they are undermotivated. The goverment simply adopts the talking points of serious demonstrations, like Ikeda did in 1960; it also happened with the environmentalist demonstrations of the 70s, and suddenly Japan became obsessed with clean air and water.
thats from an exoticization lens, where people who arent western are seen as fundamentally different and incapable of doing thinks like "normal" westerners
As a companion, similar analysis but for Canadian democracy, specifically the Charlottetown and Meech accord event, Quebec separatism and how powerful is the Canadian Prime Minister.
Wow! Thank you creating this great video!! I've heard these names mentioned from time to time throughout my life but never payed attention to what they stood for. Now I know. Very educating and very interesting. Once again, thank you!
Thank you! This video is absolutely amazing. Japan is fascinating. Really shines a light on how society and democracy evolves. We can't move along if we're all arguing, yet we can't go anywhere if we never are. First I've seen from you, great work I'm now a fan!
Very well-research. I learn a lot from this. My only criticism with this video is a flaw in its conclusion, 23:30. That is not the Left-Right political spectrum (the X-axis) of a political compass. That is the Up-Down political spectrum (the Y axis) to measure civil order. The Up half represents authority based politics, and the Down half represents individual based politics. The examples this video used were two political extremes: Authoritarianism ("far-up" lol) and Libertarianism ("far-down" lol). It's important not to confuse the two axes. Because the Left-Right spectrum is meant to measure priority: egalitarian values vs hierarchical values. The Japanese LDP under Kishi was authoritarian AND militaristic. The JSP under Asanuma was constitutionalist AND revolutionary socialists. Two complex extremes. So it is not possible to accurately lump them in basic spectrum. You have to use a political compass. +The LDP under Ikeda was transformed to constitutional liberalism, a moderate solution. At least, that's how I gauge it.
I was bugged by this too. It felt like details were being left out and patted the back of liberal democracy too much. I enjoyed most of the vid, but a little more nuance could've been implemented at the end
this channel makes me so happy being a history student and a graphic design and storytelling enthousiast. really makes you want to pursue youtube as a carreer path (bad idea)
I somehow knew very little about postwar Japan- it was rarely if ever discussed and certainly not in history classes. Even as a history nerd I knew little. Thanks for this. This was one of the most interesting RUclips videos I have seen in some time. I am subscribing. :)
Spectacles, Nexpo, fern, lemmino and Imperial are creating pieces of art for us to watch for free. The level of content is unrivalled by standard tv from those 5 and many more. A collab of those 5 would be an insaneeeeee series/video
Hoog helped the channel in the early days in a big way. Imperial is a friend. Would love to get acquainted with the others. Any collab would be great fun. Honored to be compared to them :)
@@spectacles-dm how could I forget Hoog! Truly you are a master at your choice of creation. Don’t know how it would be done but people like you should be given the funds to produce docuseries on Netflix/Amazon
Depends what school level. Elementary? High school? Why would they teach something so specific? There are areas of study that deal with minutiae like this in higher education, but this very specific time in a very specific country's history isn't all that relevant in a general education setting.
Well... idk if the US would like this history lesson to be taught to its citizens. They're not particularly the "good guys" in this story. The CIA working with the US's best interest in mind created a conservative, fascist leaning party and propped up a war criminal, member of the elite class, that no one liked. This party then proceeded to do away with laws that were probably incredibly popular like the right to unionize and the dismantling of monopolies. While trying to create a new treaty that no one liked and everyone knew would financially help the new leader of the LDP. They also delved into a bit of fascism when they used the police force to oppress and restrict the opposition, while holding votes. Not very democratic if you ask me. Kinda reflects poorly on the US for propping up this new fascist gov. As a bit of a side note I find it really weird that the creator of this video didn't mention once how this new government the CIA propped up was legit fascist. Seems like a bit of whitewashing on his part, a bit weird if you ask me. If they taught this in schools in the US kids would lose their idea of American exceptionalism. This idea of American exceptionalism is a major playing factor in US propaganda and brainwashing. If the US didn't care about that we could learn the most interesting things about US history. The only issue is that in a lot of the interesting history that the US is involved in the US tends to not be the "good guy", by societal standards I guess. A pretty recent example of this is Critical Race Theory (CRT). Many politicians (or the ppl funding them) don't want it in the schooling system because it basically just teaches about the African American struggle and differences that group experiences in the US. And well, by learning about this it really shows how horrible the US gov can be. By not allowing CRT in the education system it allows the US to keep this american exceptionalism brainwashing in order. But honestly even if they told stories like this or other governments the CIA propped up around the world (there's a shit ton) many US citizens probably still wouldn't take it as the US being bad guys. I mean just look at some of the comments in this video. I feel like to understand this to the degree I explained it you'd need critical thinking which they don't teach properly in the US education system. There's a really good book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" that goes a bit into good detail about how horrible the US education system is at teaching children. I highly recommend it. Also thanks for reading my rant. But yeah TLDR; American Propaganda is why we don't learn about cool shit like this.
I loved this. Idk why but I shed a tear when Ikeda decided to give his rival a eulogy instead of taking the advantage and pressing his party's agenda. That's what we need more these days. We have to be more compassionate and respectful of one another regardless of political beliefs. Japan is probably the most peaceful country in the world, certainly in Asia. But it also isnt a pushover in dealing with other countries. Its something we can all learn from.
Amazing, I've always loved the subject of post-war Japan and, weirdly, haven't really been able to scratch that itch as much as I'd hoped. Even stuff like Japanese car makers histories and what happened in the schools around that time are weirdly drowned-out, and I'm glad to see more content like this.
Great video. The fact that you framed the matter in terms of trade-offs is refreshing. Perhaps its the economist in me, but I find that government policy is not really about solutions, but trade-offs, despite what many politians and idealists presume.
This is the kind of political history I would never learn about if it wasn't for you guys. Love this channel. Can't wait to give a snobby lecture about Japanese politics to my friends in a bar.
Hopefully you never run into anyone who knows what their talking about. As a regular traveler to asia with family their, this is all slanted to a liberal socialist western view based on very recent modern politics. It also takes 0 account of the hypersonic differences between western Anglo pro distant liberal sensibilities and tolerances vs cino confucianism atheism and homogeneity. His ending is by far the biggest give away his head is up his ass. As Asians will always pick safety over freedom. As it’s a cultural and societal Theme. Unlike Americans they are not rabid individualists. They are conformists by nature. The time when freedom and opportunity outrage safety will never come. Otherwise Yukio Mishima wouldn’t be dead. Oh, I guess he forgot that part of the 1960-70’s of japanes politics😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 This is the skibidi toilet equivalent of cino poli-sci. Go watch a Japanese person chsnnle before you try and impresses people bruh.
I believe that the attention, drawn to this protest movement by it humiliating Eisenhower, of the US media made the Anpo/Kishi protests a KEY model for US protests on civil rights and then Vietnam, during the next decade. The corporate media being largely pro-Democrat, they had covered Ike's embarrassment, and therefore made people aware of the movement overall.
It still baffles me, how Muricans will consider dropping those two nukes on civillians as something "Japan did". The refusal to take responsibility and admit that it was an atrocity in itself is astounding everytime I run into that sentiment.
It was a one time decision by a very new President relying on advisors who all wanted it tested. And USSR invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath, but USA expected a million dead. If there was no other way to force a surrender and avoid a continued land war devastating China and Korea...
@@mallarieluvsgirls Most of the times this is discussed with an American, they'll without hesitation say something like "the Japanese were monsters, _they t0rtur3d prisoners and k1lled babies_ !!!" ...like the nukes somehow only k1lled adults and like dy1ng from radiation poisoning isn't one of the most horrible ways to d1e. The hypocrisy on this subject is inconcievable.
I think you did very well with the historical parts, I'm not so sure about the conclusion though. Countries like the Nordics show you can have high stability and wide horizons at the same time. The pattern has more exceptions than cases that follow the rule and is just fundamentally not how socio-political advancement happens. Instead how educated the populace is and how many people there are has a lot more to do with it.
THIS. Also, I find it suspicious to charge the left with instability, violence, revolution (mentioning anarchy), where the right side is pictured as a serene and stable if somewhat conservative environment (but never mentioning fascism). As if fascism isn't violence, war and repression against which the left wages war to begin with. Lost all focus after that.
Uh.... You might to look at Nordic countries again lol. Sweden is very much unstable and is on the verge of being out of history for good. Danemark made a huge shift to the right, where even the leftist parties policies are branded as right wing in most of Europe. Norway is isolating itself from Europe and live on oil exploitation.
Yes. Blindly assuming that a tradeoff must be made, that democracy works is ignorance and/or brainwashed indoctrination. In our current iteration of human society all governments have operated by the principle of stateism. That pride of locality and exclusivity which all governments indoctrinate to make ppl worship the land and flag that represents it, which excuses violence onto others from different localities. I do not advocate for one world government, instead for the government to get out of our way, so that we can be free to try new ways of nurturing respect for each other.
@@mrsupremegascon "Danemark made a huge shift to the right" The apparent rise of the far-right in Europe is due to the rise of the far-left policies in the first place. Far-left views are only held by a very very _very_ tiny extreme yet loud minority. The extreme far-left policies is so extreme that it alienates virtually everyone outside of it. It makes center-left policies look like far-right ones. Vice versa. When your views are so extreme on one side, of course those outside your views look like extremists from the opposite side.
The idea that Japan is a democratic society really starts falling to pieces when you look into figures like Kodama Yoshio and among LDP founders like Kishi. Democracy is more than putting a piece of paper in a box.
I mean, the so called “democracy” in post war Japan was forced upon by the US. If the general population in Japan doesn’t embrace democratic cultural norms in their daily lives, its an incomplete democracy as a society. It explains why majority of Japanese people(especially the younger generations) don’t go voting during elections.
Look, it's fine if you're a communist or socialist. Just say "I am a communist/socialist and I would like to impose communism/socialism on Japan and other countries". The framing of this video is plainly biased, but not in a pro or anti-America sense. On the one hand, the author is very openly praising America's imposition, _on pain of nuclear annihilation_ , an essentially socialist government and constitution, even going so far as to cite a notorious passage written by a 22 year old Jewish woman, who shortly after only narrowly escaped charges of communist subversion by US military intelligence (seriously, look it up). The author also praises the destruction of Japan's wartime government, it's leaders, and its institutions. And then a moment later it's lamented as a terrible, dark turn of fate for Japan when the US allows them to re-build on the condition that they be more anti-communist. The message is obvious to those who are paying attention: "it's good when America makes other countries socialist or communist. It's bad when the opposite is true."
Wow. I was familiar with some of the history here but this knitted very effectively the nuances of a very turbulent time. Btw. This piece inspired me as a songwriter to use some of the narrative here for a concept album. Which gets me excited so thank you. If it works out well expect credit in the sleeve! L’Chaim!
i wish you went a bit more into asanuma's political beliefs and history including the whole thing with his support for fascism in WW2 and his plan to restore the co-prosperity sphere with mao, kim, and soekarno; guy was nuts
Important sidenote about Ikeda: The GDP of Japan would have doubled even without Ikeda's policies. Ikeda, as an economist himself, had befriended nearly all of the macroeconomists--who were the only ones capable of predicting GDP growth--in Japan. Therefore most Japanese citizens had no way of knowing that Japan's GDP = Japanese citizens' average profit would increase due to the economy growth rate post-war. Ikeda was hailed as a genius, but in reality he just made a promise that citizens thought would be impossible, and won the election. Edit: This video was fantastic. It is kind of sad that although what Kishi tried to do in changing the treaty was in fact beneficial for Japan's safety, the fact that Kishi was doing it was enough to cause a mass protest.
Any device, anywhere in the world, at any time.
Get AnyDesk now at anydesk.com/spectacles
Yukio Mishima is my hero
not gonna lie, best ad integration I have seen in awhile. Will be checking this out because of your ad read!
I love your channel and content, but I think it's funny that you always say AMERICA instead of US when you're talking about democracies and imperialism. I guess some roots run too deep.
And before someone says something, even according to the UN, America is a continent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme
It just feels weird the way you use these terms when you're talking about these subjects. It simply doesn't fit. It feels like I'm watching a documentary on CNN or Fox News.
Anyway, doesn't matter...
scammers will love this advertisment!
Fun fact Nobusuke Kishi was also the grandfather of Shinzo Abe.
Of course…
He came from a long line of monsters
... With links with the Yakuza. Like Koizumi and tons of LDP politicians.
That is disgusting.
@@kormagogthedestroyerso he’s at fault for his grandpa 😆
The 60’s were wild wherever.
True 😂
The world of the 1940s (and by extension the early 1950s) was comprehensively shaped by international conflict. Growing pains during the period of re-construction (late 1950-60s) were inevitable and equally widely felt.
Comparing this to the videos of how machines and human systems learn, we can see there's a tradeoff but we could overcome it with "good memory". Stationary algorithms aren't smart, and we'll die as a species if we steadfastly stay at the gates of this golden age instead of coming right through on an age of love for all life and truth. We could learn!
@@jose.montojah how can we learn?
In Germany the 50s and 60s are seen as the boring decades
23:15 This segment about unavoidable tradeoffs reminded me of a quote from a famous Japanese sci-fi series:
"A good autocracy might be better than even a good democracy, but a bad democracy is far better than a bad autocracy." -Yang Wen-li, from 'Legend of the Galactic Heroes' by Yoshiki Tanaka.
Er, any guy with the name Yang Wen- Ii, is Chinese, not Japanese.
@@frenzalrhomb6919 The series was written by the Japanese author Yoshiki Tanaka. Yang Wen-li is the character in the story who says the line.
Haven't read the novels, but I've rewatched the OVA several times. Love it. Though I think some people give it more credit than it deserves for presenting autocracy vs democracy on an even playing field, when I think the story quite clearly argues that democracy is preferable. The lasting through-line, the underlying critique of democracy is always primarily that it can decline into autocracy, like with the first emperor Goldenbaum. Meaning, the bad thing with democracy is that it can turn into autocracy, which isn't really a criticism of democracy itself. Also, when portraying Reinhard as a good autocrat, he is done so by adopting democratic ideals, if not the democratic political structure. He seemingly listens to the needs of the people and adopt progressive legislation (such as less censorship and more free speech), and he defers to expert ministers in matter he himself isn't an expert rather than imposing his leadership. The good thing with autocracy, LOGH argues, is that it can kinda be like a democracy if the leader is good. All of this isn't necessarily my views or my arguments on the matter, but it's just what I perceive are the viewpoints and arguments that LOGH presents (but I think they are eloquent - especially for a space opera).
I enjoyed this video overall, but I think he dropped the ball at the end, presenting a stability vs wide horizons causality that I honestly think lacks real world applicability - he even gave an example with Russia contradicting it and I would add China to that list seeing its drastic economic changes in the latest decades. Though politics nowadays seem tumultuous in many western democracies (and they are), in general it seems that democracies are historically speaking more stable than autocracies IMO, and autocracies are just by their nature more susceptible to sudden change given that fewer individuals need to change their minds (or be changed outright) to change society. And in real life, those changes in autocratic countries are seldom of the kind Reinhard espouses...
it sounds rosy but what does the evidence say.
"A good autocracy might be better than even a good democracy"
Would Singapore fall into this category?
this reeks of CIA
100%
Exactly what I was thinking.
It was the 60's.
Everything did.
I just saw the intro and was about to post same thing
The video says as much regarding the combination of liberal and democratic parties
As a Japanese, I felt the explanation is too simplifized and dualistic. People who are called "Protests" or "New Japan" in this video were actually instigated and organized by radical communists who want to start a revolution with violence. Most rebel unions ironically mimiced old Japanese army organization system to use their force, so they also had "Old Japan" aspect. All of them didn't follow western "Democracy and Freedom" ideology at least. Moreover, many Japanese had been suffered from consciousness of guilty about WWⅡ especially post-war era. Then some of them were absorbed in "Anti Japan" ideology and did devastating terolisim although they were also Japanese. You can simply understand it "Confused age", but I'd like to share more complicated background.
I'm not born in realtime generation, so I'm glad you to point out my mistakes.
詳しい説明ありがとうございます。動画の内容分かるの凄いですね。英語聞き取れるんですか？
From 'confused' in the 60s to 'clueless' today.
Every foreigner wants to fabricate Japanese history and culture 😂. The whole entire country of Japan and its people is like a fan-fiction for foreigners, especially westerners. Its almost like a fetish at this point.
@@aoao9664 字幕読みながら見て何とか…って感じです。もっとゆったりした気持ちで聞き取れるようになりたい
My grandparents grew up in the 60s in Japan. And I never understood why they were so… solemn and felt very isolated. The more I look into the historical development of post-war Japan, the more I realize what my family had to endure up until this point.
Edit: Okay, y'all, calm the fuck down lmao. My family in Japan were and are native to Okinawa, it was a heavily rural and militarized location used by both Imperial Japan and the United States. Before and during the early parts of the American occupation, they were farmers. Despite my Japanese ancestry, I was born in America and consider myself American. American troops landing in Okinawa saved my family from starving in tunnels underneath their family well, my grandmother's kimono is preserved in the local Himeyuri Peace Museum, a shrine there dedicated to the young students who suffered mistreatment and depravity from being conscripted into a war they had no hand in.
My grandmother was six during the invasion and was around her twenties during the time period of the video. My great-grandfather died in the defense of Okinawa, I did not know him, I don't know why he fought, I cannot say what he believed or didn't.
I in no way endorse the Sino-Japanese War, the occupation of Korea, and the use of women as objects for male 'comfort'. It was a horrible time, orchestrated by horrible men, yet unfortunately carried out by people like you and me. I get the sentiments but y'all starting to sound like Curtis LeMay down there, lmfao.
arguably just a prevalent aspect of Japanese culture.
@@SmellyBodega Lmao, maybe
I hope you use better sources than this for your information, unless this as complex as you can handle otherwise as we used to say go for it.
Ever think about just asking them? They should still be knocking about, unless they were screwed by poor genes.
famaree
@@james-faulkner it's possible he can't because they ARE still alive, but some people just don't talk about hard times, trying to keep it in the past.
- the soldier who saw and did heinous things in war, and now says war is hell and tells his kids and grandkids to never enlist, but refuses to go into details, hoping if he keeps it in the past, it will haunt him slightly less often.
- the japanese citizen who was rendered homeless and did desperate things to survive the aftermath of the A-bombs or the firebombings that destroyed their home
- the holocaust survivor with a number on their arm that won't talk about the concentration camp, but wakes up screaming in a mix of yiddish and german at night, because they dreamt it was still 1942. (this one's personal. my great aunt survived the camps, but the things they did to her broke her completely and she never really left that camp mentally, it haunted her like it was yesterday, right up until the day we had to put her in the ground. she never spoke about it by choice, the only things we knew about her time in the camp was what we could make out of her incohent screaming when she would wake up in the middle of the night. and i'm glad that's all we know. i know just enough yiddish and german to get the jist of the horrors she relived in her midnight panic attacks, and i don't want to know any more than that.)
- the man who was lost at sea and had to resort to cannibalism to survive, and never talks about it, but hoards food in his attic for the rest of his life as a result of his trauma.
some people wear their scars out in the open, some people bury them deep...either for their own sake, or for yours. going from being a "warrior empire" to being bombed into the stone age and then dealing with the political, social, and economic strains of the next 20 years while being essentially completely rebuilt under the guidance of your former enemy, sounds to me like something some people might choose to leave in the past 'where it belongs'.
this period from 1945 to 1960 is also the height of certain unpleasant leftovers from the war, like the way surviving kamikaze pilots were treated, often considered cowards and traitors because they were supposed to die to protect japan, and now japan is burning and they return home in one piece, sometimes even their own families treated them like ghosts and just pretended they weren't even there.
if your father or uncle was a surviving kamikaze and for decades your family acted like he was already dead and told you to ignore him, and your last memory of him is him laying alone on his deathbed and none of your family seemed to even care, that might be something you want to leave in the past.
some people handle their traumas by just bottling it up.
This was so interesting! I always thought Japan was a perfect democracy after WW2 and then started an economic miracle. But what really happened is wild.
Japan has been a one party state since 1955. Albeit that same one party government are the ones who Industrialized and built Japan into a powerhouse, it struggles to even be called a democracy.
Gotta look into Korea too, if the nazis were left wing military state Korea was a right wing one
@@miladmoradi9987 East asia and democracy dont go well together it seems.
@@miladmoradi9987then why were the LDP voted out of power in 2009?
@@miladmoradi9987 😂 oh yeah, that so chief? Ask the villagers in inner China/Russia, who live on $5 a week and no toilets whether they’d trade their life for that “one state” country which leads in nearly every important metric, but military.
CIA: Don't worry, we'll control Japan
CIA trying to control Japan:
it's worked out so far
@@ultimategamer876 Japan is an immovable aircraft carrier against the Soviet Union during the cold war
CIA failed hard. Good thing that Ikeda moderated his party.
@@kingace6186actually, the CIA ended up being VERY successful. They actually funneled cash into LDP election campaigns for years, guaranteeing their political dominance.
@@kingace6186 Anime is a direct result of CIA meddling in Japan. Look up Operation Mockingbird and MK Ultra.
my mans literally said "from ballot boxes to boxing bouts" and just went on like he didn't just say something genius
The thumbnail drew me in, the details and knowledge kept me interested, and seeing you cite your sources out after I finished watching was the cherry on top.
Though he was arrested and jailed, Kishi was not charged, tried, or convicted of _anything_ .
he was too useful to let waste
the historical record exists, a conviction isn't needed
@@hnnnggh that barely makes sense. and mostly because we're talking about dead people
This is true for almost all Japanese officials after the war unfortunately
Only because he was politically useful. Unfortunately, most Japanese war criminals got off scott free or were pardoned after the war, like the entirety of Unit 731.
Interesting how that assassination and the assassination of shinzo abe both ended with less support for the one assassinated
Cowardice?
Isn't that the whole point?
It was the other way around, less supports came first, then when the assassination happened, people suddenly feel less restraint to speak about it as the event had brought out the most hateful people.
Or perhaps he was the source of the friction that blocked reasonable social compromise.
Was Shinzo Abe not well supported before? I thought that he was well admired
The US allowed war criminals to stay in power to the point many of them are still revered today. Ironically, this is why Japan still believes they are the victim in WWII.
It's also all the weebs saying Japan is a victim for only surrendering after Nagasaki instead of blaming Japan for prolonging the total war it started which plenty of its people supported.
The usa does not care about crime or Justice just power and money. Look no further than our politicians.You wanna look at World War 2?We hired most of the scientists and weapons creators and human Experimenters, look through our own history. Theres also the Tuskegee man. The CIA's heart attack gone the f. B. I killing Martin Luther king. Mk ultra. Fast and furious operation the list is endless
@@BlubberBuddha Their neighbours would like to have plenty of words with you...
lets discuss how the uk killed more people in india during ww2 than germans killed europeans/minorities in europe.
then lets discuss the role the uk played in establishing the cia in america so that they could forever remain in covert control of it and use it to rebuild the british empire
"uncensored on patreon" it's ok bud I've seen it a dozen times back when the internet was free.
Good times, man. Good times.
When we had websites like liquidgeneration
Crazy fact: Isoroku Yamamoto, the Naval Admiral who orchestrated the Pearl Harbor Attacks, and who was in charge of the entire Japanese Navy for the majority of WWII... Was a student at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA. before the war...
Japan has and always was a rich capitalist country, ww2 was a calculated decisions that ultimately worked out in japan favor.
Almost every dictator is history was given a western education even in the current day.
Really not that crazy. The only people who could go to university in Japan during those times were the society’s higher ups that came from wealthy families.
@@DAC936He wasn’t a dictator he was just an admiral
Can’t lie I had just a
Place: …
Place, Japan: !!!
Place 😐
Place Japan 😍
@@FictionHubZA
Place :)
Place, Japan :)
(He is mesmerized by the beauty of this world)
People who don’t get it
👇
@@historysuit9418*People who get it but hate the joke because it's personally offended people who like Japan and anime
@@adfi5316how is it offending webs
I’ve always wanted to see a video in the post war Japan. Like the student revolutions, the assasinations, and just… SO MANY REVOLUTION ATTEMPTS it’s such an overlooked but interesting aspect of Japan
Being able to explain very complex things in such a concise and simple way while also sneaking in a Warhammer reference has got to be a new intellectual milestone.
I was about to say...
Kind of like tism...
Aot
It ain't.
You're kidding right?
Here are the facts.
To the author I wrote:
You started strong: good research, analysis, and commentary. But then you quickly slid into the pit of Right Wing bias when you described the events of the late 1940's and early fifties as violent demonstrations perpetrated by the Left. Even though you had already indicated, which was true, that the VAST majority of Japanese people wanted to keep the Constitution as is, and equally did not want any excuse for Japan's Nationalists to retool the country for re-expansion and war.
And what violence was instigated in those early protests were false flag machinations conducted by the foot soldiers of the LDP (then and now) the YAKUZA.
Because along with all those politicians released from jail in the late forties, over 20,000 Yakuza were released as well. The US State Department had decided that whatever befell the Japanese people at the hands of these ruthless thugs (who were the main instigators of both exapansion into Korea in the early part of the twentieth century and China in the thirties) it was 'worth' it to keep China contained.
Finshing with your conclusion of violence/horizons/freedom/stability wrapped up in such broad and simplistic terms was ridiculous and further proves the Right Wing bias of this presentation.
Lastly, the assassin in 1960 was paid for by the Yakuza. And those criminal enablers and fixers for the LDP still roam quiet Japanese streets to this day in their deliberatly menacing black vans blasting out their threats and propaganda all in cahoots with, not their LDP masters, but their LDP stooges. With everything from Labor racketeering, the 90's economic crisis, and even the Fukushima disaster, all down to the way the Yakuza puppet masters have manipulated the poor Japanese people since the late 1940's.
The USA was complicit in all the corruption by continuing to tolerate and support this evil via their own crime gang known as the CIA since the first war criminal and the first Yakuza were released from prison in the late 1940's.
Your failure to acknowledge any of the above renders this video useless on any level.
Channels like this make me want to start my own channel to talk about similar, niche topics. This is some really polished work man. Love it.
This video was kind of an over simplification that feels really biased. How the parties were described was weird, breaking them into red and blue or good and bad, even though their values and positions were different from the contemporary understanding of these parties. The meaning of 'democrat' especially changes a lot depending on context.
Great video on how Japanese politics got to how it is today. Boring, technocratic, and probably the true embodiment of what an End of History truly looks likes.
My grandma was a university student during the Anpo protests as a right-winger, but many of her friends dropped out of university and devoted themselves to left-wing politics. One of them got pregnant and then become disillusioned with politics altogether.
My grandfather who was quite conservative until his death did vote against the LDP once out of complete disgust for them, he would only do this again in the 90s. Also, at the time it seemed like the socialist parties were the party of small businesses as he was a factory owner while the LDP was the party conglomerates.
And in the late 60s and 70s, there was a wave of left-wing student protests which were incredibly violent. My mother's tutor from UTokyo got sent to prison for throwing a molotov at a police officer. Also during this time one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world came from Japan. And the political infighting within the Japanese left was so bad that I think it was not until the early 2000s when there wasn't at least one person who was injured or killed from sectarianism.
And I am sure a lot of people here visited Narita airport which probably represents some of the best things about Japan, but it was the battleground of a years long battle between an unusual alliance of farmers who did not want to give up their land and leftists against Japanese riot police and construction workers which got incredibly violent. There is quiet a few footage you can find of the "Sanrizuka" movement on RUclips that shows just how crazy things got.
But if anyone is interested in literature from the 1960s, check out the short stories "Seventeen" and "Death of Political Youth" by Oe Kenzaburo. It is based off of the guy who murdered Inejiro Asanuma. Some of the most intense literature I have ever read.
Thanks for your amazingly thoughtful comment.
Oh man, the battles over Narita were absolutely insane, that would be another wonderful topic for someone to make a video on.
Japan's left is interesting in that to a large degree it suffered from the anti-communist needs of the United States enforcing crack downs (Though the LDP was obviously more than happy to comply...) but also the in-fighting that you mentioned really never allowed the left to crystalize behind a single candidate. It was always individual issues and the protests were always popular but could never really transition into actual electoral success. Though actually I guess "leftist infighting" isn't a rare thing...
In what way is Japanese politics technocratic? Everything I've seen suggested that elderly (the majority) Japanese policy makers lag far behind in adopting the use of technology. In 2019 the nation's cyber minister admitted to having never used a computer. The proliferation of using paper versus digital storage is something you come to notice right away when you need to do anything regarding official documents. In some local governments, floppy discs are still being used.
@@clockhandedtechnocratic does not mean they will be tech savvy. It just means authority is given to "professionals" and "experts", doesn't matter if they are actually one.
@@clockhanded You could've just googled what a Technocracy is but noooooo
Such good concise writing. Thanks for this vid.
OMG, Johnny, thank you so much! Your work is a massive inspiration for us, and you probably noticed how your fingerprints are all over this one. This means a lot to us coming from you.
If you've ever got the time, we'd love to connect and pick your brain about some things.
Thanks again, and keep up the amazing work!!
Johnny Harris! No way!
Speaking of Inspiration and all that, Your schedules are probably *plenty* full as-is, but two ideas i want/have partially done (as a wannabe muckraker doing these types of videos lol) are:
Could either of you cover the war in the breakup of Yugoslavia. In particular the use of Chemical Weapons including Incapacitating Weapons like BZ? Could do a part 1 covering the war and genocide itself although this has already been done well by others. Could be like “The Breakup of Yugoslavia was a MESS” with a pretty *map* thumbnail etc. Part 2 would be A Series on Chemical Weapons titled “A New Kind of Warfare” / “An Alternative War” or something like that emphasizing those points made in a really neat article I read a while back on incapacitating weapons. This could tie into your history of the MIC @johhnyharris quite well too. FINALLY this would tie into North Korea as if I understand correctly their stock of chemical weapons is a major threat if war breaks out. *ALSO* the whole “Chemical Weapons Free by 2023” milestone (or how the USA had Chemical Weapons and a biological weapons program to begin with) was basically completely under the radar news wise. This could be a “How we got rid of a whole class of WMDs…and how this relates to nukes” video on it’s own! Basically how we went from MASSIVE stockpiles of Chemical Weapons to none. I’m rambling a bit but there is plenty of content there, and i would be glad to help (although no stable patreon money yet due to still getting stable employment reasons)
I have done some low level digging myself, but most of the data/reports are in the chemical weapon use are old. The stories are there but *rotting*
My second idea is related to that issue of Stories Rotting. Basically do what vox did for the Before and After of NYC with Urban Freeways and all that, but WAY more *Maps* for other cities, most people think just the big cities had streetcars but all sorts of places did and it ties into current economic situations (along with things like redlining). Asking around in areas on people’s experiences here in the USA with the “Urban Renewal” demolition of Housing for Highways, and Streetcar lines that have been torn down is important as once those “average joes” die out that story dies out too. My Muckraking skills aren’t too finely honed yet, but digging for old maps + aerial photos of cities for those nice graphics are important too.
I’m rambling, and RUclips comments are a bad way to do all this, but those are two-ish ideas i have, which i also believe are important. Their window is closing to an extent due to data getting old, and people who were there getting older and dying. Also they tie well into current events (WMDs in the context largely Nuclear Proliferation Post-Cold War Treaties Ending, but also Unit 731 Truth and Reconciliation, The Fight for New Urbanism and recent trends on people viewing that etc)
Do you actually watch RUclips videos?
But these videos are true
AMAZING FUCKING WORK. LOVING THIS CHANNEL
THANK YOU VERY FUCKING MUCH :DDD
@@spectacles-dm💀
@@spectacles-dm💀
Agree
It's so aggressive I love it
Nobosuke a criminal? how dare you! What America did to Japan was a crime against all of humanity. The U.S. caused this with American Imperialism, Perry and the illegal unprovoked and totally unwarranted attack on Tokyo in 1853. This is just more ash can artsy propaganda.😎
"So the Us occupied japan out of the kindness of their heart, and can you believe that the japanese people was angry against the army of the country that just killed millions of innocent civilians? How savage! And they were about to become evil socialists too! Unbelievable. Luckily the US successfully imposed their government on them, and this was a good thing and not at all a barbaric injustice!"
This video basically.
Incredible. You guys are my favorite channel. So happy that finally you got the recognition you deserve!!
But is this Japans JFK mystery?
This is a great video about 1960, but a rather limited view of Japan's recent political history because although it is true that 1960 was a decisive year, protest and revolutionary ideas continued throughout the decade, climaxing in 1968, like most other similar movements around the world. There's also the fact that the fascist tendencies of Japan weren't extinguished after the war, hell in 1970 Yukio Mishima attempted a rather miserable failed coup, and apologia for the attrocities committed by Imperial Japan continues to this day. Political assassination, infamously, has happened as recently as the Shinzo Abe's murder in 2022, so yeah, it is rather reductive to say that after 1960 Japan chose stability and that was that.
Good point indeed
_'climaxing in 1968'_
I think later than that. It was the torture and murder of 14 United Red Army members by their comrades, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.
_'climaxing in 1968'_
I think later than that. It was the deaths of 14 United Red Army members at their comrades' hands, culminating in the Asama-Sanso incident in 1972 viewed by 90% of the public on TV, that shifted public perception, especially amongst their same-age peers. Thereafter criminal activities were perpetrated mostly overseas by a variety of leftwing militant groups such as the Red Army and the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front.
Shinzo Abe was unalived because he broke bread with a cult, not because the guy who unalived him disagreed with Abe's policies.
@@gagamba9198 you're completely right, radical political action went on into the 1970's. I referenced 1968 thinking just in terms of mass political action, thanks for complementing the info.
@hayaokakizaki4463 I don't think that disqualifies the incident as political in nature, the perpetrator felt personal annimosity towards Abe beucase of what the Church of Unification did to his mom, but also said that he allowed the church too much influence in government.
Well edited, informative video. This format is consumable for people over 25 and the graphics appealing enough to keep the youth engaged long enough to sneak information into their brains before their attention wanders. Teachers, even professors, should use thisbin their classrooms
18:16 omg i just shed a tear...this was beautiful! what a legend! i bow before you
Crazy how people never took a glance on how Cold War affect Japan. Hell, even this one topped how chaotic Asia with the Cold War mania all around, even on the Blue Turfm
Great video. Very well produced and educational. +1 for the “Greetings from Kansas City” t-shirt!
Except story about Marie Antoinette and problems to make difference between socialism and communism.
No more compliments to be made mate. Fucking stunning production you talented fuck! Amazing quality! Informational! Good sources! Cohesive! I've been subscribed to you since the beginning of your channel, and I absolutely love how you treat your channel and videos. Top tier content and well researched.
@@WhatDemocracy Mate they didn't state that. Japanese had been invading countries all around East Asia before the Pearl Harbor attacks even happened. And they killed A LOT of people.
Those playing card graphics alone are works of art! I agree, the video looks fantastic
Too many unjustified labels attributed to the people involved
I guess the bias are hard to hide
No fucking cussing goddamn it SHIT!
Fascinating mini-documentary, only interrupted by the claimed diametric opposition between "low stability" and "autocracy" at the end ... which was immediately shown to be untrue in relation to modern Russia. Still, it suggested a useful framework for understanding Japanese political history.
Exactly, the documentary overall was great. But presenting "on the left" war and chaos with opportunity, and on the right "stability" which is "amazing when everything is good" but limits opportunity seemed dishonest because it was presented like a blanked statement.
It really doesn't fit the standards of the rest of the documentary.
Fantastic and beautifully made video. It’s fascinating to see other versions of Japan, especially for me seeing as I live here. They certainly went for stability, narrowing individual horizons somewhat, but having an unprecedentedly peaceful society.
spectacular, never thought a youtuber could be this concise
It’s Wikipedia pop history
It is also very generalistic and focuses a lot on specific events in a short period of time , lacking proper context and wide-viewed sight. One single or two single events might not be representative of the period in time those events ocurred. Also broad context helps understand the bigger.picture.
11:15 This is literally the Gigachad vs Virgin meme.
Mewing vs Mouth breathing
lmao ikr
The Virgin Communist VS The CHAD Right Wing Extremist
Was looking for this comment lmao
I've watch enough DBZ to know Mr. Satan when I see him.
Yknow, I'd always assumed that Japanese people were just sort of culturally unable to do protests or demonstrations. Glad to know i was wrong.
Well... they probably are now
Oh I don’t think current Japan would be able to do anything this courageous like this generation in the 60’s did, but we’re also decently governed right now so 🤷♂️ hopefully our politicians remember the past enough to keep corruption and personal ambition to a minimum
It's not that they're incapable, it's that they are undermotivated. The goverment simply adopts the talking points of serious demonstrations, like Ikeda did in 1960; it also happened with the environmentalist demonstrations of the 70s, and suddenly Japan became obsessed with clean air and water.
i'm sorry what? Do you know anything about Japan?
thats from an exoticization lens, where people who arent western are seen as fundamentally different and incapable of doing thinks like "normal" westerners
this was an amazing video. Thank you for your view on this. So much to unpack here.
Thank you for making this video. Lots of information that explains why things are as they are.
I recently became a subscriber and think this video proves you deserve more views! It was very professional in its presentation.
Great video, loved the writing around 19:30
leaving the keywords of the quote a few seconds after the rest disappears is such a cool thing
Otoya Yamiguchi inadvertently saved japan.
Some of thr best voice-over work I've ever heard on YT. Well done, subscribed 😎
As a companion, similar analysis but for Canadian democracy, specifically the Charlottetown and Meech accord event, Quebec separatism and how powerful is the Canadian Prime Minister.
Yes good analogy.
My god this is an amazing channel. Keep up the amazing work!
This video is super well-made and structured. Sick!
Thats hot
Wow! Thank you creating this great video!! I've heard these names mentioned from time to time throughout my life but never payed attention to what they stood for. Now I know. Very educating and very interesting. Once again, thank you!
Thank you! This video is absolutely amazing. Japan is fascinating. Really shines a light on how society and democracy evolves. We can't move along if we're all arguing, yet we can't go anywhere if we never are.
First I've seen from you, great work I'm now a fan!
Very well-research. I learn a lot from this. My only criticism with this video is a flaw in its conclusion, 23:30. That is not the Left-Right political spectrum (the X-axis) of a political compass. That is the Up-Down political spectrum (the Y axis) to measure civil order. The Up half represents authority based politics, and the Down half represents individual based politics. The examples this video used were two political extremes: Authoritarianism ("far-up" lol) and Libertarianism ("far-down" lol). It's important not to confuse the two axes. Because the Left-Right spectrum is meant to measure priority: egalitarian values vs hierarchical values.
The Japanese LDP under Kishi was authoritarian AND militaristic. The JSP under Asanuma was constitutionalist AND revolutionary socialists. Two complex extremes. So it is not possible to accurately lump them in basic spectrum. You have to use a political compass.
+The LDP under Ikeda was transformed to constitutional liberalism, a moderate solution. At least, that's how I gauge it.
I was bugged by this too. It felt like details were being left out and patted the back of liberal democracy too much. I enjoyed most of the vid, but a little more nuance could've been implemented at the end
Definitely felt like a left wing westerner's perspective of left-right politics being ham-fisted onto the narrative of post war Japan.
Thanks for the thoughtful video
Here's a comment to boost this video. Love your work, keep it up!!!!
Insane how well made this video is. BRAVO!
A well sourced, well structured, interesting video with great visuals! Wow!
this channel makes me so happy being a history student and a graphic design and storytelling enthousiast. really makes you want to pursue youtube as a carreer path (bad idea)
This is a phenomenal video. Thanks!
This video was so good, i really apreciate it, well done.
Very cool video. I always appreciate when I learn something I didn’t even know I should know about.
I somehow knew very little about postwar Japan- it was rarely if ever discussed and certainly not in history classes. Even as a history nerd I knew little. Thanks for this. This was one of the most interesting RUclips videos I have seen in some time. I am subscribing. :)
Spectacles, Nexpo, fern, lemmino and Imperial are creating pieces of art for us to watch for free. The level of content is unrivalled by standard tv from those 5 and many more. A collab of those 5 would be an insaneeeeee series/video
Hoog helped the channel in the early days in a big way. Imperial is a friend. Would love to get acquainted with the others. Any collab would be great fun.
Honored to be compared to them :)
@@spectacles-dm how could I forget Hoog! Truly you are a master at your choice of creation. Don’t know how it would be done but people like you should be given the funds to produce docuseries on Netflix/Amazon
Barely Sociable and Kento Bento cannot be ignored here…
crazy how the school cirriculum is allergic to teaching anything actually intresting
For Drones of Work rather than free thinkers
If they tought you interesting things then Americans wold find out how truly terrible America (the ruling class) has been throughout history
learning about slavery and civil war era was important.
illegal immigration might lead this country down the same path.
Depends what school level. Elementary? High school? Why would they teach something so specific? There are areas of study that deal with minutiae like this in higher education, but this very specific time in a very specific country's history isn't all that relevant in a general education setting.
Well... idk if the US would like this history lesson to be taught to its citizens. They're not particularly the "good guys" in this story. The CIA working with the US's best interest in mind created a conservative, fascist leaning party and propped up a war criminal, member of the elite class, that no one liked. This party then proceeded to do away with laws that were probably incredibly popular like the right to unionize and the dismantling of monopolies. While trying to create a new treaty that no one liked and everyone knew would financially help the new leader of the LDP. They also delved into a bit of fascism when they used the police force to oppress and restrict the opposition, while holding votes. Not very democratic if you ask me. Kinda reflects poorly on the US for propping up this new fascist gov. As a bit of a side note I find it really weird that the creator of this video didn't mention once how this new government the CIA propped up was legit fascist. Seems like a bit of whitewashing on his part, a bit weird if you ask me.
If they taught this in schools in the US kids would lose their idea of American exceptionalism. This idea of American exceptionalism is a major playing factor in US propaganda and brainwashing. If the US didn't care about that we could learn the most interesting things about US history. The only issue is that in a lot of the interesting history that the US is involved in the US tends to not be the "good guy", by societal standards I guess. A pretty recent example of this is Critical Race Theory (CRT). Many politicians (or the ppl funding them) don't want it in the schooling system because it basically just teaches about the African American struggle and differences that group experiences in the US. And well, by learning about this it really shows how horrible the US gov can be. By not allowing CRT in the education system it allows the US to keep this american exceptionalism brainwashing in order.
But honestly even if they told stories like this or other governments the CIA propped up around the world (there's a shit ton) many US citizens probably still wouldn't take it as the US being bad guys. I mean just look at some of the comments in this video. I feel like to understand this to the degree I explained it you'd need critical thinking which they don't teach properly in the US education system. There's a really good book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" that goes a bit into good detail about how horrible the US education system is at teaching children. I highly recommend it. Also thanks for reading my rant. But yeah TLDR; American Propaganda is why we don't learn about cool shit like this.
ive been waiting for this vid
I loved this. Idk why but I shed a tear when Ikeda decided to give his rival a eulogy instead of taking the advantage and pressing his party's agenda. That's what we need more these days. We have to be more compassionate and respectful of one another regardless of political beliefs. Japan is probably the most peaceful country in the world, certainly in Asia. But it also isnt a pushover in dealing with other countries. Its something we can all learn from.
Excellent content and well done!
Good choice of topic and thumbnail!
Nice video dude
Your work is on par with the top channels in this niche 👍
The editing on this video is insane. Congrats
Amazing, I've always loved the subject of post-war Japan and, weirdly, haven't really been able to scratch that itch as much as I'd hoped. Even stuff like Japanese car makers histories and what happened in the schools around that time are weirdly drowned-out, and I'm glad to see more content like this.
Amazing work, Well done.
Really appreciate the tip. Thanks for tuning in.
These really are stellar. Don't know why I haven't watched more of em
Great video. The fact that you framed the matter in terms of trade-offs is refreshing. Perhaps its the economist in me, but I find that government policy is not really about solutions, but trade-offs, despite what many politians and idealists presume.
Very distinct topic i was always curious thx
wow, this is really well done. Super informative.
Love learning a little something without realizing I’m learning. Great video.
I am so happy I discovered this channel with the last video. This one is amazing.
This is the kind of political history I would never learn about if it wasn't for you guys. Love this channel. Can't wait to give a snobby lecture about Japanese politics to my friends in a bar.
That is what we're here for! Thanks for tuning in :)
Hopefully you never run into anyone who knows what their talking about. As a regular traveler to asia with family their, this is all slanted to a liberal socialist western view based on very recent modern politics.
It also takes 0 account of the hypersonic differences between western Anglo pro distant liberal sensibilities and tolerances vs cino confucianism atheism and homogeneity.
His ending is by far the biggest give away his head is up his ass.
As Asians will always pick safety over freedom. As it’s a cultural and societal
Theme. Unlike Americans they are not rabid individualists.
They are conformists by nature.
The time when freedom and opportunity outrage safety will never come.
Otherwise Yukio Mishima wouldn’t be dead. Oh, I guess he forgot that part of the 1960-70’s of japanes politics😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
This is the skibidi toilet equivalent of cino poli-sci.
Go watch a Japanese person chsnnle before you try and impresses people bruh.
You fooled me into thinking this was a history video
Yeah, that thesis at the end was a hard turn
What is it?
I believe that the attention, drawn to this protest movement by it humiliating Eisenhower, of the US media made the Anpo/Kishi protests a KEY model for US protests on civil rights and then Vietnam, during the next decade.
The corporate media being largely pro-Democrat, they had covered Ike's embarrassment, and therefore made people aware of the movement overall.
Amazing job on the video, content and quality. Nice work Specs
I don’t know how the world survived the 60’s
It still baffles me, how Muricans will consider dropping those two nukes on civillians as something "Japan did". The refusal to take responsibility and admit that it was an atrocity in itself is astounding everytime I run into that sentiment.
The idea that America's hand was forced is still extremely common in history classes today.
It was a one time decision by a very new President relying on advisors who all wanted it tested. And USSR invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath, but USA expected a million dead. If there was no other way to force a surrender and avoid a continued land war devastating China and Korea...
the fact they think they’re any better than japan is delusional. they taught them that lmao
@@mallarieluvsgirls Most of the times this is discussed with an American, they'll without hesitation say something like "the Japanese were monsters, _they t0rtur3d prisoners and k1lled babies_ !!!"
...like the nukes somehow only k1lled adults and like dy1ng from radiation poisoning isn't one of the most horrible ways to d1e. The hypocrisy on this subject is inconcievable.
Who says that?
I think you did very well with the historical parts, I'm not so sure about the conclusion though. Countries like the Nordics show you can have high stability and wide horizons at the same time. The pattern has more exceptions than cases that follow the rule and is just fundamentally not how socio-political advancement happens. Instead how educated the populace is and how many people there are has a lot more to do with it.
THIS. Also, I find it suspicious to charge the left with instability, violence, revolution (mentioning anarchy), where the right side is pictured as a serene and stable if somewhat conservative environment (but never mentioning fascism). As if fascism isn't violence, war and repression against which the left wages war to begin with. Lost all focus after that.
Uh.... You might to look at Nordic countries again lol.
Sweden is very much unstable and is on the verge of being out of history for good.
Danemark made a huge shift to the right, where even the leftist parties policies are branded as right wing in most of Europe.
Norway is isolating itself from Europe and live on oil exploitation.
Yes. Blindly assuming that a tradeoff must be made, that democracy works is ignorance and/or brainwashed indoctrination. In our current iteration of human society all governments have operated by the principle of stateism. That pride of locality and exclusivity which all governments indoctrinate to make ppl worship the land and flag that represents it, which excuses violence onto others from different localities. I do not advocate for one world government, instead for the government to get out of our way, so that we can be free to try new ways of nurturing respect for each other.
The Nordics. 😂😂😂
@@mrsupremegascon
"Danemark made a huge shift to the right"
The apparent rise of the far-right in Europe is due to the rise of the far-left policies in the first place. Far-left views are only held by a very very _very_ tiny extreme yet loud minority. The extreme far-left policies is so extreme that it alienates virtually everyone outside of it. It makes center-left policies look like far-right ones. Vice versa. When your views are so extreme on one side, of course those outside your views look like extremists from the opposite side.
Damn, you are good at these videos. Very well done~
Absolutely loved this breakdown and your narration as well. Thank you for such a well made and informative video. Much appreciated!
The idea that Japan is a democratic society really starts falling to pieces when you look into figures like Kodama Yoshio and among LDP founders like Kishi. Democracy is more than putting a piece of paper in a box.
Japan doesn't need democracy
I mean, the so called “democracy” in post war Japan was forced upon by the US. If the general population in Japan doesn’t embrace democratic cultural norms in their daily lives, its an incomplete democracy as a society. It explains why majority of Japanese people(especially the younger generations) don’t go voting during elections.
Look, it's fine if you're a communist or socialist. Just say "I am a communist/socialist and I would like to impose communism/socialism on Japan and other countries".
The framing of this video is plainly biased, but not in a pro or anti-America sense. On the one hand, the author is very openly praising America's imposition, _on pain of nuclear annihilation_ , an essentially socialist government and constitution, even going so far as to cite a notorious passage written by a 22 year old Jewish woman, who shortly after only narrowly escaped charges of communist subversion by US military intelligence (seriously, look it up). The author also praises the destruction of Japan's wartime government, it's leaders, and its institutions. And then a moment later it's lamented as a terrible, dark turn of fate for Japan when the US allows them to re-build on the condition that they be more anti-communist. The message is obvious to those who are paying attention: "it's good when America makes other countries socialist or communist. It's bad when the opposite is true."
america has never and will never make another country communist
What a video. Keep it up lad !
this was very insightful and surprisingly emotional.
Wow. I was familiar with some of the history here but this knitted very effectively the nuances of a very turbulent time. Btw. This piece inspired me as a songwriter to use some of the narrative here for a concept album. Which gets me excited so thank you. If it works out well expect credit in the sleeve! L’Chaim!
Say what you want about him, but Yamaguchi probably single-handedly saved Japan from becoming a Communist dystopia. Sounds pretty heroic to me.
1960’s Japan is child’s play compared to South Korea. It was a Military Junta at one point, the Park Chung Hee established S Korea’s third republic.
i wish you went a bit more into asanuma's political beliefs and history including the whole thing with his support for fascism in WW2 and his plan to restore the co-prosperity sphere with mao, kim, and soekarno; guy was nuts
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with Socialist Characteristics™.
This was great!
Thanks for putting it together.
In Japan now and this explains ALOT. Thanks for the quick history lesson.
pretty remedial argument for centrism at the end there
Judging how great japan is i didnt expect this to be pro commie harris. I mean pro communism
Magatards allergic to history as usual
Don't you have a minority group to accuse of eating people's pets or something weirdo
3:48 "suddenly" you speak as if it took 15 years for the USSR be relevant internationally, they won the war in Europe.
commie sympathizer?
Important sidenote about Ikeda: The GDP of Japan would have doubled even without Ikeda's policies. Ikeda, as an economist himself, had befriended nearly all of the macroeconomists--who were the only ones capable of predicting GDP growth--in Japan. Therefore most Japanese citizens had no way of knowing that Japan's GDP = Japanese citizens' average profit would increase due to the economy growth rate post-war. Ikeda was hailed as a genius, but in reality he just made a promise that citizens thought would be impossible, and won the election.
Edit: This video was fantastic. It is kind of sad that although what Kishi tried to do in changing the treaty was in fact beneficial for Japan's safety, the fact that Kishi was doing it was enough to cause a mass protest.