This post has come at a bizarrely fitting time for me - I'm currently revising for a history exam on Friday about Japanese culture/society/art etc during World War 2, at the moment focusing in particular on how Japan managed to inculcate its population in the drive for support for the military's efforts on the mainland and further afield. The main point is basically that, despite the official line that seems to have been adopted ever since the Tokyo War Crimes Trials and through postwar Japanese education that the military duped the population and led them astray, in actual fact the process was far more give and take, one in which propaganda took the form of a relationship between the government and the people, allowing the spread of 'grassroots fascism' (Yoshimi Yoshiaki). Your mention of a 'perpetual circle of synergy' passing from top to bottom and back again particularly reminded me of the way opinion surveys (!) would be handed out after propaganda speeches by government ministers so that the people could give their feedback on the points they felt were particularly persuasive and worthy of emphasis in future speeches, creating an atmosphere in which everyone felt as though they were playing their part and that they were part of something far larger than themselves, a real sense of mission.

Apologies for the sudden steering of a Daikanyama anecdote into the murky waters of imperialism!

Adam

War is over! If you want it.

Actually, your description reminds me of a funny and politically trenchant scene in the new Matsumoto film, Dai Nihon Jin. Matsumoto plays a superhero who can expand to enormous size (the transformation depends on Shinto rituals and large quantities of electricity) in order to fight Toho-like monsters threatening Tokyo. At the end of the film he's joined by four Power Ranger types dressed in stars, stripes and red white and blue. They're beating up a hapless, babylike "monster" in an overly violent, and yet totally ineffective way -- ripping off his underpants, stomping on him, pulling out clumps of hair. It goes on for a long time, then Matsumoto is asked to join in. "Daijobu," he says. I'm okay. But the Americans insist. They join hands, and their collective power zaps the baby monster in a huge explosion. The Americans then insist on carrying M over the sea to their realm, where they dine on abstract-looking, inedible food and have a bizarre conversation completely at cross-purposes. On the way, M's Japanese slipper (he's got up as some kind of sumo wrestler, whereas the Americans are uniformed tag team wrestlers) falls off into the sea. He asks to stop and retrieve it, but the Americans ignore him.

This is a comedy take on Japan's enforced participation on the pathetic "coalition of the willing", and Matsumoto's unwillingness -- he looks perplexed and disgusted by the authoritarian antics of the team, their pointless violence -- speaks volumes about how Japanese feel about today's imperial fascism, the kind Bush and Blair have perpetrated.

"This is a comedy take on Japan's enforced participation on the pathetic "coalition of the willing", and Matsumoto's unwillingness -- he looks perplexed and disgusted by the authoritarian antics of the team, their pointless violence -- speaks volumes about how Japanese feel about today's imperial fascism, the kind Bush and Blair have perpetrated."

i'd say their taste in prime ministers--most of whom continue to cower to the imperialistic demands of the U.S.--speaks volumes too. as does their apparent tolerance for newly devised "patriot act"-type legislation (nationalism now to be taught in schools, a clamping down on supposedly "seditious" political activities [hilarious], ever-new talk of revising the post-war constituition in order to give themselves more war-making powers, etc). anti-authoritarian? anti-imperialist? anti-war?

well, one continues to hope, anyway.

michael

It is a very specific instruction on patriotism to amend the occupation authorities 1947 version. I'm sure we all would like to know the details!
I'm sure Abe's intent is not Imperialism or Americanism but identity true to Japan's future roles in the world.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061216a1.html

http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/Paradigm/crawford.rtf

However the Education Dept.of Japan is now trying to make the six day school week a reality.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070527a1.html

It is a very specific instruction on patriotism to amend the occupation authorities 1947 version. I'm sure we all would like to know the details!
I'm sure Abe's intent is not Imperialism or Occupationist but identity true to Japan's future roles in the world.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061216a1.html

http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/Paradigm/crawford.rtf

However the Education Dept.of Japan is now trying to make the six day school week a reality.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070527a1.html

My point is really just that if we want to find the closest thing in today's world to fascism and imperialism, it's not in Japan we should be looking. It's much, much closer to home. This is the big picture, and we need to keep it in mind.

File me! If you want it.

ichi nichi de

The last few postings are impressively laid out and contrasts the teutonic socialist spectacle of your other postings.
You both seem very at home in all the confusion that is always bustling with unfamiliarity, to at least, me.
Lennon seems to be universal.

www.tomolennon.com/

In this picture at least Roger bears strong resemblance to another famous New Yorker.

That's right, he used to wear little round Lennon frames, now he wears Woody frames!

actually he looks like J lennon and woody allen had a beebe and it was he.

I too bought an iMac 24-inch, four week ago, and I was wondering if you have had any problems. I had a string of things go wrong - iTunes not opening, Photobooth not working, culminating in the OS X not even starting up. My replacement is ok so far (a week), although the boot up sound has stopped working.

Chris M.

None of that happened to me! I had a panic at the start when the power on button didn't seem to work, but I may well have been pushing the wrong button.

The "if you want it" line was from the Badfinger song that was penned by McCartney, NOT John Lennon. Get your facts straight.

Dear Internet Pedant,

a mediocre 1969 McCartney song that started "If you want it here it is come and get it..." has nothing to do with the brilliant (also 1969) billboard campaign by John and Yoko that simply said "War is over! If you want it." It's a pretty common English phrase.

Being smug on the internet is over... if you want it!

Momus

Was that not a theme song for a Beatles flic dealing with game show antics about diving for a million dollars in a large pool of human waste?

hee hee, Momus, you're so good with your anonymous critics

sounds similar to henry jenkins' ideas on what he calls "pop cosmopolitanism", which he says incorporates both top-down and bottom-up "convergences"

if you haven't already, the essay on pop cosmoplitanism is in his book fans, bloggers, and gamers: media consumers in a digital essay.

http://henryjenkins.org/

ahem: "...media consumers in a digital age"