JapanReview.Net Editors

Johnson's own "Blowback"

I regularly read JapanReview.Net and am impressed by the quality of the editorial, not necessarily by the choice of the books reviewed.

Your choice of Chalmers Johnson's Blowback is a case in point. Basically, this "book," or more correctly propaganda, deserves little—if any—attention. As everybody in the know admits, the author is an old-school Sinologist from the 1960s and touts as one of his past "glories" his affinity with Maoism and Mao's devastating policies including, among other things, the Great Leap Forward. As many admit, again, Chalmers Johnson is more likely to be a proxy for a left-wing CIA agent than a well-reasoned critic of world affairs.

Moreover, Johnson repeats the same old mantra despite the change of the times—China's emergence as an economic behemoth and the real imminent threat to American ideals of free trade and currency regime. He is not only ignorant to such a change, but deliberately dismissive of it. Meanwhile, he continues to bash an irrelevant economy called Japan.

With this CIA-leftist agent at large, America's security will continue to be at risk and at the expense of American taxpayers.

Paul Scalise—Agent of Influence?
By: Craig Nixon, Reply by Paul Scalise

On reading Paul Scalise’s review of Dogs and Demons, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Scalise falls into the harlot category of the Japanese spin machine. Had he spent a significant amount of time in Japan without his hands deep within the pockets of the Japanese financial industry, he would have a radically different view of Alex Kerr's book. How the Japanese just love people like him; a Westerner who in a flash—without thinking—will come to Japan's defense; a mere prostitute who will all-too-readily “take the goods and not spill the beans.”

I am sure JapanReview.Net editors have read Ivan P. Hall's book Bamboozled! How America Loses the Intellectual Game with Japan (M.E. Sharpe 2003). Very informatively, it demonstrates how powerful the Japanese manipulation machine is; it makes the unreal, real, and real, unreal. People like Mr. Scalise are all-too-eager to give this machine a helping hand for reasons unexplained. What possesses him—and people like him—to defend Japan in such a Rottweiler fashion, or come out and say such inane things as"I love Japan"? Why don't I hear things like "I love Brazil" or “Kenya” or “Italy”? The only thing that I can think of is that the spin doctors—the manipulators—are so incredibly good at their job that people like Mr. Scalise swallow their propaganda whole.

All too often Japan gets away with murder and the rest of the international community keeps each other in check, while Japan is always able to get away with "it"—whatever "it" may be. The Japanese seem to always avoid criticism because this "Never offend Japan" mentality exists. Meanwhile, Japan can insult any nation it chooses, and in particular the U.S. (which happens to be a daily event.) Any nation that even thinks of saying something truthful about Japan is labeled a “Japan basher” or “Japan hater” or “racist.” Alternatively, they “don't understand the Japanese mind.” The latter, in particular, really grates me the wrong way. The Japanese have come up with a way of being totally obnoxious, rude, insulting, and racist without anyone even knowing it.

Case in point: the Japanese like to say "We have taken your (fill in the blank) and made it better." By saying "better," they are saying we have taken your low quality (fill in the blank) and made it to our high and lofty standards that only "We Japanese" know and can understand. That's like saying the California sushi roll is "better" than regular sushi. Hardly the case, the California roll happens to fit the taste of the folks in another land; it doesn't necessarily make it "better." They twist and turn and squeeze out the foreignness and call it Japanese, thus, "better".

Let me ask you: if Japan is so innocent in world affairs, why do their neighbors hate them so? For that matter, why don't they have any friends at all? Please don't tell us that it stems from economic envy or that the U.S. is really their friend; it is merely a convenient relationship for the two that is (and has been) waning.

Why do we never hear about the international child abductions that are carried out by Japanese nationals? (cf. Children's Rights in Japan) Why don’t we ever hear about the harboring of Alberto Fujimori, an international criminal wanted by Interpol? We never hear about the terrible, overt and blatant discrimination the Japanese carry out on Japan's minorities; we never hear about how the police all-too-eagerly lay much too overly inflated blame on the incredibly small foreign community about the alleged crime the foreigners have committed; we never hear about international human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution; foreign nationals are held to a segregated set of laws that don't fully protect the foreign nationals simply because these people are foreign and not Japanese nationals and therefore should not be entitled to full protection of the law.

Each one of these topics is just the tip of the iceberg. If Western commentators knew the true face of the Japanese, they wouldn't be so forgiving, accomodating, or dewy-eyed.

Craig Nixon
Tokyo Japan