Emperor Hirohito vexed at Yasukuni's honoring war criminals: report

well I'll be damned!
hope Koizumi and Abe are reading this!

 

My respect for both emperors has just doubled!

 

So he should be... that's also his final place of rest.
Damned if I'd want to be in there with some of those creeps
floatin' around the ceilings.
Still, power to him for this and as nitro puts it,
one hopes Koizumi takes note.
Nah, not very likely.

 

Wonder how do the black van crowd reconcile their emperor-worship with this? If the emperors say going to Yasukuni is bad, shouldn't they obey the imperial will?

 

Sounds like the Emperor is a good guy with the guts to tell the looney right wingers to stay away. They won't listen but given the restrictions of royal protocol that is a strong statement.
The black van boneheads will just carry on as usual.

 

LDP becomes the Japanese Republican Party?

 

as said, my respect for the guy has increased dramatically.

basically the royals realise that Japan needs to seriously address this issue, as it can't be ignored any longer.

 

Taisho and Showa are both buried in the Musashi Imperial Cemetery in Hachijoji. I don't think there's any reason to believe that the present Emperor will be buried at Yasukuni.

 

Okay so can we set the royal abolition referendum next month. LDP might as well change their name since they believe the name internationally misrepresents their stance in the political spectrum

"Republican Party of Japan"

I like the feel of the name.

 

Oh wow if this Emperor guy didn't say anything more for one minute longer, I would've believed Japan was a republic with the Bush as President.

 

nitro: I don't think it matters much whether these two read it or not. It is the Japnese public had better read it. After all, it is the Japanese public who allowed LDP and Koizume and Abe and Aso to be where they are, isn't it. Public conscience is what matters most.

Emperor Hirohito and Emperor Akihito deserve mention, they provide conscience for the general Japanese public. The public has to decide to follow the lead of the emperors or to allow Koizume or Abe or Aso to go on. The world is watching.

 

Oh yeah, all Koizumi-san must do is allow the Emperor to enroach into political issues against him and then react "increduously" by asking for his abdication or by Act of Diet.

Junichiro "Urquhart" Koizumi wins the day. Hey the dude does have this "Ian Richardson" look doesn't he?

 

"it is the Japanese public who allowed LDP and Koizume and Abe and Aso to be where they are"

can't say I've seen a people vote for the PM before, just the cronies in parliment voting someone in.

 

I love the whole "House of Cards Trilogy" Though must say Ian Richardson's portrayal as a Marchiavellian archtype leans more to the stereotypical look as a cold and calculating Tory old guard.

However Koizumi is more of a no-brainer, he was not elected by a power struggle based on the merits of his own conscience but as a inter-factional compromise within the LDP. But the political enroachment of the constitutional monarch of the present day is a serious breach of un-written constitutional convention, Hirohito better watch out, otherwise he'll be 'cloistered'.

 

I don’t think he is troubled for a second. He is just doing what is the best to preserve power and is the best for him and the IHA. If necessary he will shift in no time and might not even be bothered to give explanation.

 

Ummm...I may be wrong here, but I think there's some confusion on this thread.

Hirohito = Emperor Showa (died 1989)
Akihito = Emperor Heisei (present incumbent)

 

hirohito was a war criminal himself, maybe not on the "personal" level as tojo and those other bloodthirsty butchers, but nonetheless he was a war criminal. So this isn't bunk lads.

 

Heard this before. But, isn't it ultimately the public is responsible for who get PM'ship? Or, democracy is only a name is Japan? I had my suspicions about a Japanese version of democracy, which says a few rules the mass. Care to clarify?

 

Hirohito was the previous emperor, as he's dead he can't be accused of meddling in politics. The current emperor is Akihito.

Besides, Koizumi kun always claims his visits are as a private citizen, so even in the unlikely event of the current emperor speaking out against Yasukuni visits Koi kun would struggle to make a case for it being political interference.

 

woah...wasn't expecting that

 

no respect for the man. he himself is a war criminal. he was the leader of Japan during its militaristic period. his brother was in charge of the japanese army during the nanking massacre and was actually there. dont tell me the 2 brothers didnt talk.

he was probably smart enough to distance himself from the nut cases after the war. but how many of those war criminals are his friends???

All Japans actions during the war the emperor never spoke out against them.

 

Notwithstanding the fact of course that those Class A war criminals were executed for crimes they carried out under the orders of Showa himself, who arguably should be among them.

Emperor Hirohito was himself a war criminal and should have been hanged.

One wonders how he detached himself from the crimes of the wartime government he presided over to take such a correct moral view of the enshrinment of his fellow criminals at Yasukuni.

That said, this does indeed make a powerful argument against the owners of the shrine for having done this, if true.

Peace

 

I am hard-pressed to think of a single use for the imperial system except for the purpose of manipulating the Japanese public.

 

Akihito strikes me as a worldly, well informed kinda guy.
His interest in English literature is well known. Recently he sought out
the Irish Nobel Laureate at Oxford. His wife digs Italian flicks and once expressed
a life-long wish to meet Marcello Maestrioanni. The kids have all been around the block a bit, saw away on fiddles etc.

This does surprise me but at the same time doesn't surprise me. I'd guess they all see through the rightists and their idiot agandas

 

Oh. Well then, could it be that they did not visit because they felt those 14 friends of theirs did not bring honors to them?

 

Good cop bad cop routine.

 

Does anyone beleieve this is true? Hiro and Aki Hitos could have been there hundreds of times, but it hasn't been reported on. This snippet is a well times PR release.

 

Kimigano - so the emperor is a liar!

 

Kimigano - in fact you are right. The imperial family could in fact be Martian, but this fact has simply not been reported on. This is just a well timed PR release to continue deceiving the hu-mans.

 

I thought this was well known. The nationalists' take is not about whether he disapproved or stopped visiting, but rather that he stopped fulfilling his duty. As with the current emperor.

 

... but where IS the Japanese empire? It's one thing to be an emperor with no clothes, but an emperor with no empire is, to my mind, more ridiculous.

 

The Emperor and Gen. MacArthur had a special relationship and worked to rebuild a devastated Japan. His word was his bond. It is a great loss to see all the "pros" not active anymore except Mr. Herbert Bix as far as scholarship.

Here's an interesting bit of info - during the 1960 US-Japan Mutual Securtiy event, Pres Eisenhower was to meet w/ Crown Prince Akihito, not the Emperor. Any guesses why?

 

To many Koreans, words and acts of both emperors are accepted as their sincere wishes to reconcile two countries. The current emperor suprised many Koreans by saying the blood connection between old Korean royal family and Japanese royal family (2001. 12). He also suprised many Koreans by visiting place where Koreans were burried in Sipan (2005. 6.28). Now, here goes the previous emperor's thought on Yasukuni. If, only if PM Koizumi Presley could learn something from the emperor...