JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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yabits
Carter-Reagan-Obama?
I wonder if this alleged view of Obama as "messiah" isn't just the projection of such feelings by blinder-wearing right-wingers on their messiah, Ronald Reagan. I say blinders because you'd have to be blind to overlook the fact that Reagan turned tail and ran in Beiruit after the Marine barracks were bombed. (Thus showing the terrorist elements of the Islamic world that you could get Americans to run away if you sufficiently bloodied them. Lots of lessons were taken away from that one, and formed into plans.)
Reagan, who sent his emmissary, Don Rumsfeld, to shake hands with Saddam Hussein, thus signalling to the world that the United States was willing not only to talk with bloody dictators, but to do business with them, meaning that basic human rights means jack squat. Reagan, who was not timid when it came to trading arms for hostages with the same Iranian dictatorship that people are protesting against today.
Barack's excellent adventure is certainly taking the US to a better position in the world than right-wingers' display of their fantasyland.
Posted in: Republicans call Obama timid on Iran
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yabits
He's certainly not the Bush who couldn't send emissaries fast enough to toast the murderers of hundreds in Tiananmen. And he's certainly not the Bush who constantly lied to the American people to trump up an attack which ended up getting thousands of innocent people killed.
Thank goodness for that.
Posted in: Republicans call Obama timid on Iran
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yabits
It's funny reading all these timid, limp-wristed slaps against Obama.
Why aren't Republicans out in force on Pennsylvania Avenue, showing solidarity with their Iranian counterparts? Oh, I keep forgetting, their Iranian counterparts just "won" the election over the people who want change.
Posted in: Republicans call Obama timid on Iran
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yabits
Indianans Lugar and Bayh may come from opposing parties, but they are right on in their assessment of the situation. Many other Republicans are praising Obama's tactics, refusing to fall in with the duped hardliners.
Obama seems to be doing an equally effectice job of driving a wedge between ordinary Iranians and their duped hardliners too.
Posted in: Republicans call Obama timid on Iran
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yabits
Conservatives would be well advised to give silence a try.
LOL!! Another conservative needing a history lesson. The real question is when has an Islamic regime made a peaceful transition to a more secular, more republican form of government. And the answer to that can be found in the demise of the Ottoman empire and the rise of modern Turkey.
The question about regimes "allowing" themselves to be voted out of power indicates one of the most malevolent strains of thought in all of human history. Conservatives after WWII were willing to blow the world up and end human history in the false belief that "once communist-always communist." Conservative dogma stressed that it was impossible for communist regimes to make a peaceful transition to non-communist rule.
We now see the same malignant strain of rationalization applied to the Islamic world.
Posted in: Iran's leader: End protests or risk bloodshed
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yabits
Double or multi are apt descriptions. Instead of the "division" implied by the word "half," those who completely absorb two or more cultures are far greater in the richness of their experiences than the mono-cultural person.
Posted in: Bicultural jazz singer Emi Meyer explores her Japanese side
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yabits
Madverts, I keep getting the image that I'm witnessing a lecture on how to run a tight ship by Wilhelm Klink.
Posted in: Iran's leader: End protests or risk bloodshed
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yabits
Very good points, Triumvere.
Add to them the fact that the last time an outright reformist was offered on the ballot (Khatami), he trounced his hardline opposition.
The motivation for the Iranian hardliners to rig the elections is easy to understand. The combination of a less belligerent United States with the disastrous economic policies of Ahmadinejad threatened a perfect storm that would bring about a new Iran.
There are those who look at the superficial aspects of the Iranian election and call it "Potemkin," but the reality is much more nuanced and complex.
Posted in: Iran's leader: End protests or risk bloodshed
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yabits
The Starbucks part can't be true since liberalism is now in ascension while the coffee company has been in decline. But that "dialectical struggle" is simply the ability for one brain to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time without the threat of overload.
As for patriotism, the ability to understand multiple perspectives of an issue causes liberals to forego the cheap and easy flag-waving and "USA..USA" jingoism. There is a deeper form of patriotism which loves the nation so much that one is not afraid to ask and expect of it much better things -- rather than settle for the lowest and easiest common denominator.
Posted in: Republicans accuse Obama of socialism
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yabits
Sailwind writes: "A liberal brain is known to have a ... benign "Smarter Than Thou" tumor..."
This probably originates from the growing awareness that conservatives don't seem to mind in the least showing the world that they are "Dumber than thou."
Posted in: Republicans accuse Obama of socialism
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yabits
Funny, when you realize that all wealth is created by labor. The capital that is used to "prime the pump" to allow labor to create additional wealth was itself created by labor. Go back and read the words of Lincoln's first State of the Union message.
Socialism is therefore a system that attempts to return more wealth to the real wealth creators.
Posted in: Republicans accuse Obama of socialism
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yabits
The hypocrisy extends itself when you consider the daily hounding that former congressman Gary Condit, and former governor Elliot Spitzer received for their acts of sexual misconduct.
Posted in: Senator Ensign resigns from GOP leadership after affair
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yabits
A total embarrassment, for sure.
What President Obama is doing is denying the current corrupt Iranian leadership the kind of "enemy" that they can use to rally the people against. Obama is making difficult for them what his predecessor made so very easy. He has been playing this nearly perfectly, and even Bush's former Iran policy advisor agrees.
Of course, that won't stop a lot of Republicans from wanting Obama to fan more of the flames that could get hundreds or thousands of Iranians killed. What has started in Iran with Obama's approach and this election is the blueprint of a new Iranian Islamic Republic. As with Europe's former communist countries, there were not enough young people in pipeline who believed in the system. Iran is that trend on steroids.
Posted in: Iran's leader: End protests or risk bloodshed
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yabits
So much for a monolithic dictatorship.
Posted in: Iran's leader: End protests or risk bloodshed
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yabits
The magazine was not connected to the Democratic Party in any way. You said that the Democratic party played dirty tricks on Steele. Such a thing never happened.
Everyone has a choice. But I would hope that people would choose to tell the truth, first and foremost.
You have a vested interest in your own political stance to say something like that. What kind of person would rate a leader by how much they've done for them personally, rather than by how much they've done for the general population? A Republican, apparently.
Posted in: Senate apologizes for slavery, segregation in U.S.
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yabits
Yeah, they're called "employers."
Posted in: Senate apologizes for slavery, segregation in U.S.
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yabits
I would suggest you did a little more research before you made such baseless claims, which amount to nothing more than parroting right-wing sources.
George H.W.Bush's cabinet: 15 white males, 3 women (white), 2 Hispanic men, and one African-American male.
George W. Bush's cabinets: 21 white males (the man did believe in recycling), 5 women (one African-American and one Asian), 3 Hispanic men, 4 African-American men, and 1 Asian man.
Bill Clinton: 14 white males, 5 women (one African-American), 4 Hispanic men, SIX African-American men, and one Asian man.
So much for the superior "diversity" of the Bushes.
Posted in: Senate apologizes for slavery, segregation in U.S.
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yabits
Wrong, Alphaape, there were no "tricks" played on Steele by the "Dem party." None whatsoever. A couple of Democratic campaign workers, of their own volition and with no approval whatsoever from the Party, took it upon themselves to rifle through Steele's trash. The only way this came to light was because when the two workers reported what they did back to the Party, the Party fired them at once and reported their actions to the authorities.
If you're going to badmouth the entire Democratic Party for this, it shows how poor and unfair your judgment is. Actually, the guy who tried playing tricks on voters was noneother than Steele himself. He purposely left off his party affiliation on his campaign ads, and surrounded them with plenty of BLUE color and not a trace of RED.
It didn't work.
Posted in: Senate apologizes for slavery, segregation in U.S.
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yabits
Regarding the aforementioned "first Republican" Abraham Lincoln's words on labor and capital, teleprompter claims, citing no evidence whatsoever, that Lincoln never said them. Well, the link below has the entire transcript of Lincoln's first State of the Union message to Congress on December 3, 1861. Here are the words again, posted directly from the transcript, towards the end of the speech:
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/73.html
One can only wonder why certain conservatives feel no shame at uttering such easily discreditable false statements.
Posted in: Republicans accuse Obama of socialism
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yabits
Sailwind writes: "You should also do a little reseach before flapping your gums. Goldwater claims a proud civil rights record in his home state of Arizona."
That may be the case about Arizona, nevertheless Goldwater came out against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He may have been the only outright non-segregationist to vote against it.
For all the praise you heap on him, Goldwater took the following lesson from the 1964 election: "Goldwater did not want to campaign for the segregationist vote; he had even hoped that his personal opposition to discrimination would win him the votes of black people. But he had believed all along that the Southern white vote was basically conservative and potentially Republican. Republicans, he told Georgia activists in 1961, ought to stop chasing the votes of African-Americans and "go hunting where the ducks are." And the ducks in 1964 turned out to be white Democrats in revolt against integration. Goldwater's campaign slogan, "In Your Heart You Know He's Right," was an arrow aimed directly at them. It was a clear allusion to a prejudice that dared not speak its name."
Over 40% of African-Americans gave Eisenhower their votes, and over 30% voted for Nixon in 1960. Anti-Civil-Rights-Act and courter of Deep South white supremacists, Goldwater got 6% of the African-American vote.
From "He Knew He Was Right" by Louis Menand. http://rickperlstein.org/storm/nyer
Posted in: Senate apologizes for slavery, segregation in U.S.