Good for Hilary. I like her, I just didn't want our presidential line to go, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton. If Chelsea is half the fighter her mom is, I'd vote for her for president in 20 years or so, though.

Yeah I'd take a stand on something like this...

And not, you know, what Saudi Arabia does to women in the modern day and age.

Highroller48: Imagine the reaction if we tried to call Slavery "involuntary subsitence farming"?

We've called it indenture, serfdom, company towns, debt management, sharecropping, and prison labor without raising any particular eyebrows here or abroad as recently as the 1970s. When one term for forced labor with no means of quitting fell out of style/became illegal, we just gave it a new name, equivocated ourselves a technicality, and moved on.

So apparently it worked pretty well, given it prevented us from fully stamping out the practice for over a century after it had been officially abolished.

cman: Spin is beautiful. You can make bad things sound better if you are good.

Like "undocumented workers" over "illegal immigrants", "Super Stars" over "Professional Wrestlers", "progressive" over "liberal", and my favorite, "birther" over "racist"

If you think the word "liberal" is bad, then you represent everything that is wrong with America today. It doesn't matter if you're conservative, people that use "liberal" as a slander are grade A stupid.

Dancin_In_Anson: kingoomieiii: Shoehorned half-joke for the express purpose of using an antiquated racial slur.

Are you my dad?

Doubtful. My kids have a sense of humor.

slowclap.jpg

wee: kingoomieiii: Japan gave the Nazis a real run for their money in terms of absolute human rights disgrace during WWII. They REALLY swung for the fences acting on old grudges.

They were arguably as bad as the Nazis, if only because of things like Unit 731 (though we were complicit by letting war criminals go in exchange for bio war information). Sure, that's not the orchestrated killing of 6 million people, but Stalin had Hitler beat if you are scoring purely on those terms.

The Germans at least recognized POWs as being human, too. The Japanese didn't treat POWs very well.

BTW, Ghost Soldiers is a decent book about the Bataan surrender, the imprisonment, and the Army's prison break three years later. The author channel Stephen Ambrose's style a bit too much, but an interesting read nonetheless.

IMO the Japanese were worse, because in the Germans' case, they at least tried to distance themselves from the dirty work as much as possible -- at first by leaving it to the true fanatics (the so-called Einsatzgruppen), and later, when it became too expensive to actually go around shooting civilians, by making it a mechanized (and thus dehumanized) process in the concentration camps. This says to me that they acknowledged that most of their soldiers probably can't stomach such cruelty, even against supposed sub-humans.

The Japanese, however, actually encouraged their regular Army units to participate in massacring and raping civilians, and used POW's as bayonet practice. That means that they're even more interested in dehumanizing their enemies than the Nazis.

Two things:

1. This is one of the few times I think a hero tag is warranted without someone putting their life on the line. Japan needs to own up to the shiat it's done -- comfort women and the Rape of Nanjing, especially. If this is true, then good on Hillary.

2. FTA: Language nerds could liken that question to a descriptive vs. prescriptive debate. Should we use the term that's been prescribed to them, "comfort women," or one that describes their experience, "enforced sex slave"?

This has nothing to do with descriptive vs. prescriptive. This is basic euphemism, Atlantic-article-writer-who-once-took-an-intro-linguistics-course. Please stick to your bailiwick of political reporting.

randomjsa: And not, you know, what Saudi Arabia does to women in the modern day and age.



Apparently, they also do it to men.

Never liked that euphamism.

Good for Hillz.

Any Japanese diplomat who has a problem with it is invited to eat a bag of salty pretzels.

/What? I was being diplomatic.

cman: Spin is beautiful. You can make bad things sound better if you are good.

Like "undocumented workers" over "illegal immigrants", "Super Stars" over "Professional Wrestlers", "progressive" over "liberal", and my favorite, "birther" over "racist"

"Porn Star" over "Whore"

It's like my momma always told me: when you're at a funeral, never comfort the widow in the butt.

Highroller48: Imagine the reaction if we tried to call Slavery "involuntary subsitence farming" Agricultural Training Programs

More like. This is and always has been farked up.

Dancin_In_Anson: kingoomieiii: Shoehorned half-joke for the express purpose of using an antiquated racial slur.

Are you my dad?

Doubtful. My kids have a sense of humor.

They probably developed one as a defense mechanism to deal with the harsh reality of living with a racist psychopath.

wee: kingoomieiii: Japan gave the Nazis a real run for their money in terms of absolute human rights disgrace during WWII. They REALLY swung for the fences acting on old grudges.

They were arguably as bad as the Nazis, if only because of things like Unit 731 (though we were complicit by letting war criminals go in exchange for bio war information). Sure, that's not the orchestrated killing of 6 million people, but Stalin had Hitler beat if you are scoring purely on those terms.

The Germans at least recognized POWs as being human, too. The Japanese didn't treat POWs very well.

BTW, Ghost Soldiers is a decent book about the Bataan surrender, the imprisonment, and the Army's prison break three years later. The author channel Stephen Ambrose's style a bit too much, but an interesting read nonetheless.

And then 7 million more.

cman: Spin is beautiful. You can make bad things sound better if you are good.

Like "undocumented workers" over "illegal immigrants", "Super Stars" over "Professional Wrestlers", "progressive" over "liberal", and my favorite, "birther" over "racist"

I didn't realize "liberal" had such negative connotations. I have always been proud of being a liberal.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Bloody William: For fark's sake, the Germans are less upset when we bring up Nazis and the Holocaust than the Japanese get when we point out anything bad or crazy they did during WWII.

Collectively, the Japanese seem to be in pretty deep denial about what they did during WWII. The Chinese and the Koreans, however, are very happy to remind them.

It really depends a lot on who you're talking about. Japanese government is actually fairly conservative (and, also tends to be rather corrupt in a... lackadaisical sort of way). The average Japanese person doesn't really give a whit one way or the other about China or Korea (Korean pop music and soap opera are really popular in Japan right now), but parts of the government PR have a standard issue line against certain things, and there's always the politician or two that needs to poke China or Korea with a stick (or the xenophobic activist group outside the TV station protesting that Korean soap operas are diluting the greatness of Japanese TV culture or some nonsense).

They could do better educating kids about WWII, but we could also do better educating kids about westward expansion and forced Native American "adoption", is what I'm sayin' here.

all i'm saying is that as a product of the american public school system, i learned about the holocaust.

i've never heard anything ever at all about the atrocities that japan visited upon chinese, korean & its own freaking population, until (god help it) i saw someone link about that camp 71 - ON A FARK THREAD.

so two points made: for whatever reason, american public schools choose not to discuss japanese war crimes.

fark can be educational.

/mind asploded

Jim_Callahan: Highroller48: Imagine the reaction if we tried to call Slavery "involuntary subsitence farming"?

We've called it indenture, serfdom, company towns, debt management, sharecropping, and prison labor without raising any particular eyebrows here or abroad as recently as the 1970s. When one term for forced labor with no means of quitting fell out of style/became illegal, we just gave it a new name, equivocated ourselves a technicality, and moved on.

So apparently it worked pretty well, given it prevented us from fully stamping out the practice for over a century after it had been officially abolished.

Now we call it "On-Call Time" :p

/I'm ok with this.jpg

Though... in all fairness... it's pretty easy to pick on Japan for something they did 70+ years ago. Not so easy to call out our allies (and others) in the Middle East who treat women like shiat RIGHT NOW. Japan isn't going to send kamikazes suicide bombers over for it...

kingoomieiii: nekom: And we didn't use nuclear weapons on them during WWII either, we just had a few bombs with an unrequested fission surplus.

Listen, it's been said time and again. The Japanese military (as confirmed by internal memos) was 100% willing, and actively planning, to grind every single Japanese soldier and civilian against the United States until they were all gone. A blaze of glory.

They accepted surrender only because we made it clear we could defeat them without them ever being able to shoot back.

Actually, it was the Emperor who stepped in and ordered his people to "bear the unbearable".

It was the first time most Japanese had ever heard the sound of their divine being's voice.

It was an act that put the Emperor in immediate danger not from Allied forces, but from his own military, who launched an attempted coup to stop the speech from being broadcast.

This act might have been the ONLY reason why MacArthur didn't call to put Hirohito's neck in a noose like Tojo's.

Arkanaut: wee: kingoomieiii: Japan gave the Nazis a real run for their money in terms of absolute human rights disgrace during WWII. They REALLY swung for the fences acting on old grudges.

They were arguably as bad as the Nazis, if only because of things like Unit 731 (though we were complicit by letting war criminals go in exchange for bio war information). Sure, that's not the orchestrated killing of 6 million people, but Stalin had Hitler beat if you are scoring purely on those terms.

The Germans at least recognized POWs as being human, too. The Japanese didn't treat POWs very well.

BTW, Ghost Soldiers is a decent book about the Bataan surrender, the imprisonment, and the Army's prison break three years later. The author channel Stephen Ambrose's style a bit too much, but an interesting read nonetheless.

IMO the Japanese were worse, because in the Germans' case, they at least tried to distance themselves from the dirty work as much as possible -- at first by leaving it to the true fanatics (the so-called Einsatzgruppen), and later, when it became too expensive to actually go around shooting civilians, by making it a mechanized (and thus dehumanized) process in the concentration camps. This says to me that they acknowledged that most of their soldiers probably can't stomach such cruelty, even against supposed sub-humans.

The Japanese, however, actually encouraged their regular Army units to participate in massacring and raping civilians, and used POW's as bayonet practice. That means that they're even more interested in dehumanizing their enemies than the Nazis.

not sure how to play "nazis vs. japanese: who's the biggest war criminal??"

but i think i can comfortably disagree with that part of your statement.

like you pointed out: it was too costly to keep shooting people, so they mechanized their "production".

i don't think that had any connection to the nazi brass having any sympathy for their troops, but more to do with how lowly they viewed the people they were exterminating.

also: the japanese tortured and killed their OWN PEOPLE - google camp 71 i think it was. just don't eat prior to viewing.
also: the native Okinowans (sorry bout spelling) found out just what japan thought of them. curious how that plays out these days.

inner ted: TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Bloody William: For fark's sake, the Germans are less upset when we bring up Nazis and the Holocaust than the Japanese get when we point out anything bad or crazy they did during WWII.

Collectively, the Japanese seem to be in pretty deep denial about what they did during WWII. The Chinese and the Koreans, however, are very happy to remind them.

It really depends a lot on who you're talking about. Japanese government is actually fairly conservative (and, also tends to be rather corrupt in a... lackadaisical sort of way). The average Japanese person doesn't really give a whit one way or the other about China or Korea (Korean pop music and soap opera are really popular in Japan right now), but parts of the government PR have a standard issue line against certain things, and there's always the politician or two that needs to poke China or Korea with a stick (or the xenophobic activist group outside the TV station protesting that Korean soap operas are diluting the greatness of Japanese TV culture or some nonsense).

They could do better educating kids about WWII, but we could also do better educating kids about westward expansion and forced Native American "adoption", is what I'm sayin' here.

all i'm saying is that as a product of the american public school system, i learned about the holocaust.

i've never heard anything ever at all about the atrocities that japan visited upon chinese, korean & its own freaking population, until (god help it) i saw someone link about that camp 71 - ON A FARK THREAD.

so two points made: for whatever reason, american public schools choose not to discuss japanese war crimes.

fark can be educational.

/mind asploded

Non Japanese Asians have a lot less social pull in the US than Jews.

inner ted: all i'm saying is that as a product of the american public school system, i learned about the holocaust.

i've never heard anything ever at all about the atrocities that japan visited upon chinese, korean & its own freaking population, until (god help it) i saw someone link about that camp 71 - ON A FARK THREAD.

so two points made: for whatever reason, american public schools choose not to discuss japanese war crimes.

fark can be educational.

/mind asploded

I was the same way. I didn't learn about the Comfort Women until an intro Japanese history course (1848-Present) in college. Didn't learn about the Rape of Nanjing until a class on the history of sex and gender in Japan. AND I didn't learn about the Khmer Rouge until a class on theater and dance in contemporary Asia (N.B. I had heard about the Khmer Rouge, but had no idea about it other than it was associated with Cambodia).

I honestly don't think it was a lack of intellectual curiosity on my part. I'm half-Japanese, went to a good university, and took all three AP Histories in high school. These things were just never discussed in any of my classes* until I took some rather specific Japanese/Asian history classes in college.

/I talked to my younger brother, who is a year younger than me and didn't take AP classes in high school, and he said they learned about the Khmer Rouge in his U.S. history class.

randomjsa: Yeah I'd take a stand on something like this... And not, you know, what Saudi Arabia does to women in the modern day and age.

Says the guy who wholeheartedly supported George W. "Never met a Saudi ass he wouldn't lick" Bush. If we ever forget how much value you add to the overall discussion, we can always count on you to jump up and remind us.

Had Japan won the war they could have referred to them as "Repeatedly Glorious New Vessel for Japanese Birthrights."

But they didn't. They lost the war. And as a result they have to take the arse-farking that comes from losing a war. That's the consequence of having lost; it's what happens. If you don't like it then you should have fought harder and won the goddamned thing.

Until then you'll shut the fark up unless you want to go another round where we'll start by turning every major city into a parking lot where Geiger counters pin out.

Highroller48: Imagine the reaction if we tried to call Slavery "involuntary subsitence farming"?

Nowadays we call it "student loans"

Rincewind53: I love Hillary Clinton so much. I would gladly vote for her in 2016. GLADLY.

This. Good on her; I'd shake her hand if I could.

Glad to see Hillary Clinton is taking a little responsibility for the American soldiers and sex tourists who go to Asia and the Pacific (also the majority of Asian child sex slaves are grouped around US military bases). This is an excellent first step. US men are more than 70% of the world's international and underage sex tourists, and Asia is their destination. if Clinton can get some traction in Japan, then maybe other the tourist sex trades and underage can become more regulated, if not stopped. It might also set a precedent for military bases, which would be great.

Firs health care, now this...I am so totally impressed with the USA this year. Suddenly, it is like they have some realists in positions of power who are willing to see their actual problems, and propose large-scale, actionable solutions.

2012 is the year my opinion of the USA is radically changing for the better.

Hetfield: randomjsa: And not, you know, what Saudi Arabia does to women in the modern day and age.

[img20.imageshack.us image 373x311]

Apparently, they also do it to men.

For the 100th time, you do realize that image is shopped, don't you?

Bloody William: For fark's sake, the Germans are less upset when we bring up Nazis and the Holocaust than the Japanese get when we point out anything bad or crazy they did during WWII.

Also, it wasn't the rape of Nanking, it was the comforting of nanking.

Hey. I've lived in Japan for six years. And I think there's enough truth to the generalization that I'm going to make, that Japanese people, and Japanese people thinking about what their country should do, have a real problem when it comes to accepting guilt. The scale of a whole country accepting guilt is so hideously uncomfortable for them that they just don't want to deal with it. It's denial. And it's entirely within character.

That doesn't make it utter bullshiat, though. But please understand, it isn't that Americans are criticizing them for it. They'd have the same reaction if anyone said it. They're just not used to it when their bestest buddy actually calls them on their shiat.

And at a certain point, they will have to get over it. The upside is, once they get over it and come clean, that will help everyone else get over the REAL issue (the abused women). So that will be alright.

Skarekrough: Had Japan won the war they could have referred to them as "Repeatedly Glorious New Vessel for Japanese Birthrights."

But they didn't. They lost the war. And as a result they have to take the arse-farking that comes from losing a war. That's the consequence of having lost; it's what happens. If you don't like it then you should have fought harder and won the goddamned thing.

Until then you'll shut the fark up unless you want to go another round where we'll start by turning every major city into a parking lot where Geiger counters pin out.

Tell that to the rednecks who insist on building monuments to, and flying the flag of, the "lost cause" down here.

Hillary Clinton: "I'll ruin you like a Japanese banquet!"

GAT_00: For the 100th time, you do realize that image is shopped, don't you?

You sound fat.

Just want to say good for her.

nekom: And we didn't use nuclear weapons on them during WWII either, we just had a few bombs with an unrequested fission surplus.

This.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: No one is getting over this until the current generation or two dies out. Japan could set up those women and their progeny for life and issue 100 official apologies and there would still be hard feelings about it. That's just how those things go.

Yeah, I know. Koreans and Chinese people enjoy a good grudge, and it's not going to be easy. But the line used by the LDP is "Well, if they're never going to forgive us, why even bother?" And then the US taps them on the shoulder and says "It couldn't hurt. Do the right thing."

Good for Hillary. A real friend doesn't just say the stuff you want to hear, a real friend says the stuff you have to hear, even if you don't want it at the time.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: You do realize that it's a crime for American citizens to participate in illegal sex trades, particularly underage prostitution, anywhere in the world, right? I'm not sure how much more you think they can do. You want marines charging through shanty-towns killing Mama-sans?

In terms of the military, the US military could do tons more to police itself in the brothels that propels the local economies around their bases, yes. There is lots to do to get local authorities on board for reducing sex tourism as well.

Still, the steps that could be taken are rather more complicated than something that simple policing could solve. You're right - that image is absurd. I have compared various sex trade related interventions with international relief workers, Canadian sex workers, and academics. In the southeast Asian regions, many "poor" families have redefined their poverty based on materialism rather than subsistence or education. It is common for a rural family to encourage a daughter or two to enter sex trades associated with tourist dollars so the family can afford tvs and smartphones, etc.. The motivations for sex work are not solved by police, but I think that maybe Apple could realistically talk to people to find some way to discourage buying iPhones by selling thirteen year old daughters for sex, or that local authorities could be rewarded financially for policing tourists.

The local authorities will not be interested until the tourists' governments and companies do something more tangible to show they are not merely writing laws or funding stressed-out NGOs to mask the public image, but are really addressing the problem at its roots.

Hillary Cinton is taking an important first step with an ally, and that is good. I see her move as the opening pawn in a long game.

Gyrfalcon: Girls in impoverished 3d-World nations, or anywhere where dowries are expected, are a liability to their families because they have to come up with money to marry them off. If you want to start alleviating the problem, Apple and other techno-firms could help by providing a dower fund so that any girl can be provided with a suitable dowry when or if it's needed. That way, families will not have to sell their daughters to provide food for their sons.

That is a very cool idea and could be extremely effective.

Keep in mind though, subsistence is not the huge problem that Westerners are taught it is. These families can normally feed themselves (natural disasters notwithstanding). It is the marketing and aggressive selling of tech that has become a major impetus for child prostitution. Once we realize it is not so much food and dowries, but that here in the West we ignore that families will sell children (to our men) to buy our products, we can do things like change how the products are marketed or sold or even used. So Apple could encourage sharing products instead of giving everyone their own iPhone, because while iPhones are amazing, their owners are culturally and historically situated in a different economic reality.

coco ebert: enforced

Yeah, it really is redundant.

/good for H-dog, keepin' it real.

Meh, on the one hand, I agree completely with her assessment of the "comfort women" and what they should be called, and I'm sick of all the political tip toeing around we do with other nations and their horrible human rights practices. On the other hand, there's a damn good reason I'm not a diplomat. Hillary's job is to make nice with places like Japan and not needlessly antagonize them over shiat like this, because it will and seems like it might have already, case international incidents