5/23/2022

JRB,

On your visit today I hope you respect Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution & encourage PM Fumio Kishida (FK) to maintain the pacificist stance that he was taught in school. As you will recall, after WWII, General MacArthur was putting the pieces of Japan back together again, he recognized the important role that education would play in changing the hearts & minds of the Japanese people. He knew that “the pre-war Japanese education system was an incubator for a nation of ultra-nationalist samurais & one of the perennial causes of Japan’s war of aggression,” so he saw to it that the 1st policy of the new Ministry of Education was to ‘abolish militaristic attitudes while firmly preserving the national polity and to create in their place attitudes conductive to a peaceful nation’. It also emphasized the need to cultivate ‘a commitment to the love of peace’. Moreover, it informed teachers that ‘the responsibility of the war should be borne by the Japanese nation and they must apologize most humbly to the world for the sins they have committed’. I learned all that from an article in New Voices.

            I wish that the USA would take this kind of humble view of our atrocities & this whole CRT thing would stop so we can learn from our mistakes! Our kids deserve to know the truth. I digress.

            Please don’t try to sell FK weapons or ask him to increase his defense spending. According to ORF, in 2018, 40% of Japanese thought that 1% of GDP was the right level of defense spending; less than 15% favored spending 2% of GDP, even though China has expansionist designs & North Korea’s nuclear sword hangs over them, they know that WINTA!!

            Please also tell FK to stop training personnel from the junta in Burma. If you want to know more about this, take a look at yesterday’s press release from Human Rights Watch: “Myanmar: Japan-Trained Officer Among Abusive Forces: Tokyo Should Cut Military Ties, Pressure Junta to End Atrocities.”

            BYBS,

            RCA