Fugacis's past comments

  • 0

    Fugacis

    Right, this is where it starts to take the biscuit. I remain agnostic about who the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands should belong to, and the proper resolution of Japan's imperial land grab in the last two centuries does need to be brought to account.

    But the only people who "own" Okinawa are the Okinawans themselves. Not Japan, not China, not the US. There are people living there who have the right to determine their own destiny and manage their own affairs - whether that means staying as part of Japan, going independent, joining China, or any option in between.

    Bear in mind that Korea was once a vassal state to China as well. If they make the suggestion that they have "ownership" of Korea based on the past imperial hegemony, I'm sure that Koreans on both sides of peninsula would be happy to tell them where to shove it.

    God almighty, the Chinese Revolution really has gone about full circle if China's leaders feel the need to act like an empire again.

    Posted in: China should reconsider who owns Okinawa: People's Daily

  • -11

    Fugacis

    I hope she can get something out of this. Unfortunately, it's just impossible to know how one will react to being presented with these things until after the fact, and it's pretty hard to be the one to say no to doing that, especially with the task being seen as a form of public service.

    Above anything, she needs extensive counselling, but counselling or subsidy towards counselling should be offered and granted to all lay judges in these cases as part of a standard debrief. She shouldn't be having to fight in court to get the recognition that she was put through something that no civilian should have to be put through without due care. She shouldn't have had to effectively gamble with her mental health on whether she would be able to hack it; the criminal justice system should have this base covered, and if they don't maybe this tort case will make them look to offering proper care.

    Posted in: Lay judge sues gov't over mental trauma due to murder case

  • 0

    Fugacis

    Japanese and Korean companies have their role in the pollution too. The smoke-belching factories and toxic spilling chemical plants all across China merely cater to international demand for low cost, mass produced goods - and Japanese and Korean companies are major drivers of this economic arrangement. I hope that all parties can get serious about this: the Chinese need to step in and get back to enforcing their environmental standards and tackling the local corruption and dysfunctional economies in the inner provinces; and the Japanese and Koreans need to get serious about standing up to the corruption, political power and vested interests in the zaibatsu and chaebol and demand that they take ethical and environmental concerns into account.

    Unfortunately, the Chinese government is going to have a hard time making any progress on pollution and environmental degradation, even if they wanted to. A good book on this is When a Billion Chinese Jump, by Jonathan Watts.

    Posted in: Japan, China, S Korea to cooperate on air pollution

  • 0

    Fugacis

    There isn't another religion in the world that carries on like this any more. It's sick.

    What, the predominantly Hindu Tamil Tigers don't count? Or the Christian Lord's Resistance Army? I think we can conclude that many do carry on like this nowadays, not just Islam.

    In any case, this decades-old religious/ethnic strife won't be going away any time soon. The invasion of Iraq was mishandled disastrously, as was the reconstruction, and probably deliberately so by the US. You can't just invade and force a place to be a democracy; the shift towards peaceful cohabitation and democracy will probably take decades.

    How to integrate the Sunni and Shi'ite communities is similarly going to take forever. Maybe a power-sharing structure like that in Lebanon would work - with an agreement that the President should be Sunni and the Prime Minister Shi'ite, and possibly rotating so that in the next term, the President will be Shi'ite and the Prime Minister Sunni.

    Shi'ite triumphalism has been a big problem in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein; some more public gestures of conciliation wouldn't go amiss.

    Posted in: Bombs, mosque attack kill 17 in Baghdad

  • 0

    Fugacis

    The body was taken initially to another funeral home, where it was greeted by about 20 protesters.

    Oh just let the dead lie, please! Going after someone in death as well as life says more about you than them.

    Posted in: Boston bombing suspect to be buried

  • 3

    Fugacis

    I suspect a lot of the discomfort people feel in seeing these posters lies in their unwillingness to accept that Japan's high suicide rate is in any way their problem. Being faced with it so starkly and matter-of-factly forces them to think about an issue they hope and assume someone else will address.

    "It's not my problem." is at the heart of their unhappiness with the campaign.

    Bingo. I think that's what a lot of the complaints are about - confronting them with an unpleasant reality that those around them are suffering and may need help. Far too many people would rather it were kept out of sight and out of mind. They'd rather not hear it, and would just say a half-hearted "ganbare kudasai", with no real care at all for the people around them.

    The isolation, the cold hearts and barriers between people, and the opprobrium and even scorn poured on people who express these cries for help by people like Disillusioned are what cause the despair that makes it all the more likely that someone will just end their life when they could have been helped.

    As one of the twitter posts said, "this is reality", and people have to deal with it. Seeing one of those posters may make you feel a bit sombre, but consider how the people expressing those thoughts themselves feel, and consider yourself lucky. And if you hear someone saying things like this, don't turn a cold shoulder; listen to them, and talk to them.

    Posted in: Depressing suicide prevention posters cause controversy in Kobe

  • -2

    Fugacis

    Abe told a parliament committee that South Korea and China were important partners for Japan and he did not want the shrine controversy to become a diplomatic or political issue.

    Then don't visit the shrine, and tell your colleagues not to either. And while you're at it, stop issuing denials of Japanese wartime atrocities, and stop these militaristic overtures about changing the constitution and abolishing human rights in Japan in favour of nationalist polity.

    Too hard? Then hand over to someone with a better grasp of diplomacy. It will be a diplomatic issue, because Japan appears to be a continual unrepentant oppressor with only a veneer of "pacifism" and an article in its constitution - which Abe is making efforts to overturn - between it and renewed military aggression.

    Posted in: Japan, China, S Korea to skip finance talks amid tensions

  • 7

    Fugacis

    Every year, Emperor Akihito goes to remember and honour those who died in the Second World War, and all other wars in which Japan has been party. He does it at a secular war memorial at the Nippon Budokan.

    There is no reason why all those lawmakers had to choose Yasukuni Shrine to make this "tribute", and why they could not accompany the Emperor to the Budokan to make a secular tribute without all the imperialist and militarist baggage that Yasukuni Shrine entails. They do it as a stubborn gesture of militarism, to make a statement that Japan's war was somehow honourable.

    Yasukuni Shrine is a relic of State Shinto, a now expunged national religion that viewed the Emperor as a living god and the head of an all-encompassing Japanese "family". It considers every life lost in all of Japan's wars to now be a kami in service of the emperor - including the Taiwanese, Korean and Manchurian imperial subjects that it pressed into service. The shrine officials decided that the 26 class A war criminals had also fought and died "in the service" of Japan. By so doing, they consider war crimes to have been justifiable and honourable.

    The families of several Taiwanese - aboriginal and sinitic - and Koreans have made protests to have their relatives disinterred and removed from the shrine. The very wood construction of the shrine itself was made of timber harvested from Taiwan.

    To pay tribute at Yasukuni, rather than the National Budokan or just the local shrine or temple where their lost family were registered, is to glorify and reify that national mythology. It is inexcusable and there is no such thing as an apolitical visit there.

    Frankly, the place should be torn down, and then maybe Japan can remember its war dead in a healthier way.

    Posted in: Leafy Yasukuni shrine stirs raw emotions

  • -1

    Fugacis

    Tried as an enemy combatant!?! God help us, if the Republicans have their way the US really will slide into dictatorship.

    Boston is not a warzone, and the brothers Tsernaev are not 'enemy combatants'. Whether or not they are US citizens, and whether or not they were acting on the command of a wider network, it is utterly dangerous and chilling to paint crimes committed in the US like this (not to mention the rather blatant racism whereby mass killings committed by white Americans are just "the actions of lunatics", whereas a bombing committed by two Caucasians with Muslim names is "terrorism").

    To give them this status and abuse international codes of warfare erodes the rights of Americans of all kinds; it introduces the harsh and restrictive laws of war into a peacetime country, bypassing civil and political rights and treating anything vaguely defined as "hostile" to be a threat. This is quite apt to be abused.

    First it will be acts like this; then anti-war demonstrations, the OWS movement, protest marches, even "seditious speech" will be treated in the same way: with US citizens snatched with black bags over their heads and transferred to Guantanemo Bay without trial, and subjected to torture. They will pick the most marginalised group to pilot this on first.

    I'm glad the current US government has the good sense not to pull this idiocy, even if for the wrong reasons.

    Posted in: Boston bomb suspect charged; religious motive seen

  • 0

    Fugacis

    The use of physical or economic violence with a motive of instilling fear and terror in a population in order to coerce or subjugate them to the interests, desires or convictions of the perpetrator.

    And yes, state terrorism is included in this definition.

    Posted in: How would you define terrorism?

  • 1

    Fugacis

    You know, it's easy to point the finger and say "Ha! She should have known what to expect!", but I don't think that quite insulates the system from its culpability. I imagine there is more to this story.

    Knowing Japan, there was probably very little in the way of explanation of what this case would involve, other than "scenes of violence that may be distressing". But even if she was told, no one can actually know whether they can handle those scenes until after they have actually seen them. I don't think anyone posting above could seriously say with any certainty that they would not lose their lunch, even if they had conceived before that they'd be fine.

    But furthermore, given the idea of "civic duty" that this is presented to people with, there was significant implicit pressure for her to go ahead. I think most people would - to say otherwise would be to lose face and let someone down.

    I don't think the criminal justice system gets off the hook just by saying "well we tell them what to expect". Given the inherent risk of severe psychological harm, the following should be in place:

    1. There should be back-up, or shadow lay judges in case one needs to pull out mid-way through, as it is impossible to know when this will happen.

    2. There should be counselors on hand that the lay judges can talk to during recess, or any time, about anything within the trial that has distressed them.

    3. There must be a full debrief after the verdict for all lay judges.

    4. The criminal justice system must be willing to accept the full risk that all of the lay judges it is getting in to do this - even if they stated that they were prepared - will present with Acute Stress Disorder as a result, and should offer to subsidise any counselling that may be required as a result.

    5. Possibly, cases involving some levels of violence should have qualifications for its lay judges, to ensure that they are people who have come into contact with extremely stressful scenarios and can tolerate these levels of stress (e.g. firefighters, medical professionals, rescue workers).

    Posted in: Female lay judge to sue over stress caused by crime scene photos

  • 1

    Fugacis

    There is no debate, because as in all things the Tory government never let is have a debate on whether that vile woman gets the taxpayer's money to subsidise her funeral. Of there had been, I suspect many of US would have told them to sod off.

    But no, as always the little people have no say, and people who are told there's not enough money for social welfare are told there's enough to pay for an opulent funeral for the woman who was all about rolling back the state, except when It came to indulging her ego.

    Posted in: Thatcher's body lies in chapel as funeral debate rages

  • 2

    Fugacis

    Do they think that somehow broken English is easier to understand?

    In the case of relaying relatively simple information quickly and effectively where a language barrier exists, yes it is. While more complex aspects of English grammar have their uses and shouldn't be thought irrelevant or dispensable, they can be superfluous to a simple imperative message.

    It just depends what level we're talking at.

    Posted in: Why do some native English speakers use broken or grammatically incorrect English, when trying to communicate with someone who isn't a native English speaker, but who may understand some English? Do they think that somehow broken English is easier to understand?

  • 1

    Fugacis

    While having a party and wishing to dance on her grave indicates a very unhealthy and obsessive hatred, I'm not going to criticise people for being glad that she's gone. All across the country there are stories of this man who committed suicide after he was made homeless and jobless by her reforms; and that family that split up because of the stress of having to fight and strike for jobs.

    It's easy to be angry at someone. But to create the kind of hatred that lasts across decades, and across generations, there has to be a deep wrong and injustice done. The injustice is not only in the economic horror she unleashed on this country that lasts to this day; but also in the government's aim to rewrite history, to exclude the voices and experiences of whose whose lives she wrecked and present her as some kind of national saint. That is why people were out today.

    Posted in: Anti-Thatcher party held in London's Trafalgar Square

  • 0

    Fugacis

    Well, that's the punishment they've got. It's fitting and proportionate as far as I'm concerned. I cannot be doing with people who think they have the right to kill others - and that includes on behalf of the state too.

    a combined international force should have invaded Somalia and initiated martial law until all the criminals were punished.

    Famously international occupations are extremely effective at solving these problems, as the people of Iraq, Vietnam, and indeed Somalia can surely attest...no?

    If execution is too harsh, put them in solitary confinement with no light of day.

    That's torture, and it's disgusting. No thanks.

    Posted in: Somali pirate gets 11 years in prison

  • 2

    Fugacis

    She should not have a state - or ceremonial - funeral. Not at all. No politician should really, but especially not Thatcher. A ceremonial funeral paid for by the state should be for someone who unites the people, and means something to the whole nation. Winston Churchill - for all his many faults - was the man who upheld Britain's resistance in the Second World War, and thus unites the country in that aspect. Even the Queen Mother and Princess Diana were royals, and thus national figureheads.

    Thatcher did not unite our country behind her. She divided Britain more than any Prime Minister before or since: between those who loved her and hated her; between North and South; between the haves and the have-nots. For the government to lavish this state praise on her in our name is to insult the scores of people who have great cause to hate her memory. A riot, or disturbance, of some kind is inevitable, and if the government don't want such undignified scenes at her funeral, they should have let her have a private funeral at a chapel in Grantham.

    The state lavishing this money on her funeral - while slashing even the pittance that remains of this country's welfare and social infrastructure on the farcical grounds of "savings" - is a pure insult to the millions of people her policies left on the rubbish heap.

    Posted in: Cameron says Thatcher made Britain great; others snub her

  • 0

    Fugacis

    I won't be celebrating Margaret Thatcher's death, but nor will I be joining in the gushing chorus of crocodile tears. By her actions and her words when she had power, she proved herself to be a completely morally bankrupt human being.

    The best I could possibly say for her is that she believed in her ideals and fought to see them through. But that is damning her with faint praise, as her "ideals" were greed, money-grubbing, and a war on the poor, the legacy of which Cameron's government is doing its best to uphold. She was a fanatic for a detestable cause, and hundreds of thousands of people have been paying the price in poverty and alienation ever since. She supported the most appalling regimes, including South African apartheid and Pinochet's military junta in Chile, both of which murdered thousands of dissidents with her tacit support. In everything she did, she proved to be a heartless, egotistical, and spiteful person, ruining and taking lives with sadistic glee.

    Given the devastating effects of what she did, I will not support anyone who is cheering tonight, but nor will I condemn them in very strong terms.

    Posted in: Former British PM Margaret Thatcher dead at 87

  • 5

    Fugacis

    From what I recall, while Japanese people have hunted whales in the past, it's far from something might be called a historical tradition - more a marginal activity. Whale meat only became popular in the post-war period, amid massive food shortages, as an austerity food, like the much reviled snook was in Britain.

    Now, I think it's two things: one is to continue to subsidise a dying industry that nevertheless still has a lot of political capital in rural coastal areas (particularly ones that happen to be LDP strongholds; and the other is for an increasingly out of touch and irrelevant Japan to thumb its nose at the West.

    All in all, it represents all that is sordid and rotten in Japanese politics: vested interests, corruption, embezzlement, national egoism, and acting against the public good.

    Posted in: Whale 'research institute' a flashpoint in global dispute

  • 1

    Fugacis

    Being the 2nd largest economy indicates little to nothing about human development, and you know it. China is a densely populated country of over a billion people, and most of them are poor. That doesn't change at all quickly, and neither does it with countries like India, Indonesia, etc. Are you actually interested in the complexities of Chinese politics and human, or are you just trying to take to your first world pedestal and preach at those ignorant poor people to stop being poor?

    Posted in: China culls birds as bird flu death toll mounts

  • 1

    Fugacis

    Why does Avian flu always start around in Hongkong and Shanghai? That's what I would like to know. Never started around in Australia, Scandinavian countries, Canada? Am I the only one who raise this simple question like this?

    Because bird flu tends to germinate much more easily in countries with high population density, hot and humid conditions, low tech farming and hence lower hygiene standards. E.g. southern China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, etc. This is like Epidemiology 101.

    But I'm pretty sure you knew that already, and your actual motive was a jab at China.

    Posted in: China culls birds as bird flu death toll mounts

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