(The Tokyo Tower 333 meters high since 1958, the photo taken by EEE Reporter)Sons & Daughters of Samurai but Not of Terrorists
Even in the samurai era in Japan, namely before the late 19th century, there were many cases of an official letter of divorce having been submitted by a samurai to his domain lord.
Especially when status of the parents' house of a wife was higher than her husband's, it is estimated, a divorce could be triggered even from the wife's side.
This must be one of the reasons that the last samurai regime under the Tokugawa family could survive for 250 years, in addition to Tokugawa's complete control of all the gold and silver mines in Japan.
Anyway, more specifically, samurais accounted for 7% of the total population in the Tokugawa era, while farmers 80% whose descendants have now really enjoyed democratic privileges as a majority.
SECTION I: Japan in Spring of 2010
In June 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was about to visit Japan but decided not to, since there were so many anti-American demonstrators in Tokyo.
Eisenhower later said, "Prime Minister Kishi said those demonstrators were just a minority while most of the Japanese people supported the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which I believed and planned to visit Tokyo..."
(http://blog.kajika.net/?eid=996303)
Nonbusuke Kishi is the third president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (while the incumbent LDP president Mr. Sadakazu Tanigaki is the 24th).
Since 1955 till 2009, the LDP as the very pro-American party has enjoyed power in Japan except 10 months around 1993 when Mr. Ichiro Ozawa (presently No.1 DPJ politician under the Hatoyama regime) left the LDP.
Today, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led by Prime Minister Mr. Yukio Hatoyama and Secretary-General Mr. Ozawa is regarded as more pro-Chinese than pro-American by international political communities. And, some Western experts on Japan are wondering why Japan can be more pro-Chinese while Japan seems to need to leverage its alliance with America to cope with Chinese military and economic expansion, which however tells how shallow their views on Japan and China are.
Most of the Japanese people support the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty more than in 1960, but the meaning of being pro-American has vastly changed in this half a century, especially, in the wake of the 9/11 Terror and the Lehman Shock, both caused by American arrogance and foolishness.
Most of the Japanese people do not respect the Chinese Communist Party at all, but the meaning of anti-Chinese has vastly changed in this half a century, especially, since the Chinese people proved their ability to adopt modern technologies and adapt their society to modern market economy admitting necessary economic freedom and leaving ideology, both supported by efforts of Japanese businesses.
Based on cool assumption that there is no war in East Asia between China and the U.S., the Japanese people have accepted the anti-American stance of P.M. Mr. Hatoyama and DPJ leader Mr. Ozawa through 2009-30-8 general election.
But now, a trend is shifting again, not only because the people have come to be alarmed to the anti-American feature of the ruling DPJ. P.M. Mr. But also, Yukio Hatoyama is losing popularity mostly due to the lack of his sincere behaviors in terms of morals, justice, and dignity as the top of one of the greatest nations in the world, as indicated in the U.S. Marine base relocation issue around the Okinawa Island facing Taiwan and China over the East China Sea.
According to The Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, the politicians the Japanese voters think to be the most suitable for the Japanese prime minister at the present time are:
No.1 - Yoichi Masuzoe (LDP), No.2 - Katsuya Okada (Foreign Minister), No. 3 - Seiji Maehara (Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation), No. 4 - Naoto Kan (Finance Minister), No. 5 - Yoshimi Watanabe (Min-nano-to), No. 6 - Yukio Hatoyama (Prime Minister), ...
SECTION II: "THE PACIFIC"
The more the War on Terror is prolonged, the more American people are requested to review the Pacific stage of WWII, namely a war against Japanese troops which mainly consisted of sons of farmers or ex-farmers led and guided by the samurai paradigm.
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By Will Lawrence
Published: 4:11PM BST 01 Apr 2010
Tom Hanks interview on The Pacific
Tom Hanks, executive producer of new TV drama series The Pacific, talks about the horrors faced by US Marines as they fought the Japanese in the Second World War.
...
"The war in the Pacific was a different beast from the conflict in Europe," says Hanks, during our recent interview in Los Angeles. "In Europe, by and large, when the bad guys knew that they were beaten, they'd put up their hands and say, 'We give up' and they were taken off and put in prisoner-of-war camps, and that was that. This did not happen on the islands of the Pacific. The war in the Pacific was a war of terror and suicide and attrition, that's all it was. There was killing and killing and killing until there was nobody left to kill."
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"Of the 24,000 Japanese entrenched on the island of Iwo Jima," says Hanks, "only 215 survived". The invasion of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa was even more disastrous for the US forces – which suffered more than 50,000 casualties, an enormous figure in any era of warfare. The US Government decided that the only resolution to this conflict, and the intolerable loss of American lives, was atomic.
The Imperial Army's zealous, extreme behaviour, which encouraged its defeated troops to transform themselves into suicide bombers, or kamikaze pilots, invites comparisons with the current conflict in Afghanistan, where the West is once more battling an enemy whose methods of engagement do not conform to its own. Hanks concedes that the parallels are hard to ignore...
'The Pacific' starts on Sky Movies Premiere/SMPHD on Easter Monday at 9pm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7527926/Tom-Hanks-interview-on-The-Pacific.html
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A key elite general of the Imperial Navy who devised the kamikaze attack tactics committed a suicide, and another general in command leading kamikaze fleets made himself the last kamikaze sally of the Imperial Military with some brave pilots in 11 fighter planes and bombers toward Okinawa leaving others having been so resolute on the base in the Kyusyu Island, when the generals were informed that the Imperial Government of Japan decided to unconditionally surrender to the U.S. and its allies in the summer of 1945.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet-Stock/6210/ThelastwillTakijiroOnishi.html
(http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze/writings/books/ugaki/index.htm )
Even today, some sons of ex-kamikaze pilots who were yet ordered to sortie are found in the Japanese Parliament called the Diet.
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It is very interesting that the Devil himself tried to lead Jesus Christ to an utmost sin.
It is pride in your righteousness that can be aimed at, if you know you are righteous.
The Devil will also tell you that he knows you are righteous, so that God needs you.
It will be a fatal mistake if you show your sense of superiority in terms of righteousness to the Devil.
The God says always to be righteous but not to be proud of your righteousness against the Devil.
No matter what traps the Devil might set, you may think, you can win while showing your superiority in terms of righteousness to the Devil.
All you have to do is just to tell the teaching of the God to the Devil without finding a chance in his offer of showing your righteousness to him, namely the Devil, the most mysterious concept in its origin, while the God created man.
(http://www.scriptureandmusic.com/Music/MIDI/Amazing_Grace_AL1.mid
Source: http://www.scriptureandmusic.com/Music/Music_Index.html
Indeed, some music would make people, non-celebrated or celebrated, humble even in the front line.)
Mat 4:5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
Mat 4:6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Mat 4:7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.