Coming close to the shore
Mt. Fuji 10 miles to the right hand side
(A Pacific Coast, Two-Peninsulas Away from Tokyo)Truth, Theory, and Testimony
Yukichi Fukuzawa said that he wanted to achieve three great tasks, having lived 30 years as one of the leading intellectual persons of Japan in the late 19th century:
1. Enhance grace of men and women all over Japan so as not to shame civilization.
2. Make people benign even by leveraging Buddhism, Christianity, etc.
3. Promote academic research and study of high quality through big investment.
Born as a local samurai boy in 1835 and having died as a great author and educator in the modernized Meiji Japan in 1901, Fukuzawa was a kind of miracle man of the era shifting from the samurai Japan to Westernized Japan.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13986-1/the-autobiography-of-yukichi-fukuzawa/
Details of his life include various astonishing facts and incidents even for Japanese of today.
SECTION I: Government Note - Money of the 21st Century
There is an interesting argument on the government note, money issued not by the central bank.
(http://sun.ap.teacup.com/souun/835.html)
There are various ways to boost effective demand among consumers and voters to invigorate economy and induce economic growth.
But, the issuance and provision of the government note is the most revolutionary one.
The government has three methods of obtaining money to be used for execution of the national budget: taxation, sale of government bonds, and introduction of the government note.
Each method is based on its unique paradigm. And, parties concerned support or deny each method. The introduction of the government note is not supported by those with established rights and privileges in the society.
Today, all the players in the economy target acquisition and accumulation of money. Especially interest to original principal is a major tool to attain this goal. So, the government bond to which interest is paid can be welcomed by those with established rights and privileges in the society. But, the government can issue and use the government note without a need for paying interest to anybody, taking away a big chance to reap profits from money lenders and financial institutions. Accordingly, they are all against the idea of the government note. Naturally, economists on their side are all against the idea of the government note.
My idea is as follow:
(1) Separation needed between a concept of taxation and execution of the budget.
(2) The Government can control money flow more effectively than the central bank, since it has power of legislation.
(3) The central bank functions as a bank based on a binding paradigm of conventional economy; the government can evolve and adopt innovative methods more flexibly.
(4) The financial sector must not earn money from money but from their service to other sectors; banks and so forth must only make a profit when their clients make a profit.
(5) Make banks and the like a servant of the industry, the society, and the people; they must not be richer than their masters.
SECTION II: Prime Minister Visited Yasukuni on August 15, 2006
The then Prime Minister Mr. Junichiro Koizumi dared to pay respect for fallen soldiers, including ex-A-Class War Criminals of WWII, at the Yasukuni Shintoism Shrine of Tokyo on August 15, 2006.
It is said that P.M. Mr. Koizumi has a strong supporter group who helped him in election for a long time in the past with an expectation that Mr. Koizumi would as prime minister visit Yasukuni on August 15, the day when WWII ended for Japan.
However, China has been against this idea. If a Japanese prime minister should visit Yasukuni on August 15, it means, China thinks, that Japan denies responsibility and war crimes it had committed in China during WWII.
As China strongly persuaded the U.S. to accept the Chinese view, the U.S. also showed discomfort to the idea of a visit to Yasukuni by a Japanese prime minister of August 15.
But, P.M. Mr. Koizumi carried out his long-suspended plan to visit Yasukuni on August 15 as prime minister.
But, a month before his visit to Yasukuni, he flew to Israel to pray before the Wailing Wall like a Judaist in July 2006.
(The Japan Times)http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060714b2.html
Then, he came back to Japan to fulfill his promise to important supporters on August 15, 2006.
(The Japan Times)http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060816x1.html
This is the only August-15 visit by an incumbent prime minister of Japan to the Yasukuni Shintoism Shrine in Tokyo for fallen soldiers, including ex-A-Class War Criminals of WWII, in these decades.
It seems that a strong tie with Israel and the U.S. can only suppress China who requests Japan to make every concession in any matters related to WWII or the Japan-China War in the 20th century.
Note that Mr. Junichiro Koizumi (LDP), who did not run for the 30-8-2009 general election, had been most severely criticized by lawmaker Mr. Naoto Kan, now prime minister of Japan, when Mr. Kan was the top leader of the DPJ around 2004.
Note also that there have been no reports that Mr. Koizumi has visited the Yasukuni Shintoism Shrine on August 15 in any year after 2006.
*** *** *** ***
Yet, for 13 years or so after the end of the samurai era in 1868, Yukichi Fukuzawa did not go out from his house after dusk.
He was afraid of assassination attempts, since such a danger was real and common to prominent ex-samurais even after domestic wars leading to the Meiji Restoration of the imperial authority. Nonetheless, Yukichi Fukuzawa was a master of the art of drawing his sword due to his habitual training.
Yukichi Fukuzawa never tried to get into high office of the Meiji Government. Even under the reign of the Tokugawa samurai clan, he had mostly lived as a samurai with a skill of translation from Dutch, and then lived as a modern expert in introducing Western culture to Japan. Yet, interestingly, samurai Fukuzawa had visited America twice and Europe once as a member of official envoys sent by the Tokugawa shogun before 1868.
He, as a samurai, had chosen to live on his talent in language and not on his skill in swordplay or socialization.
Owing to such samurai translators as Fukuzawa, elite samurais and some other Japanese could know various things about Europe through its trade with the Netherlands having been maintained all through the era of Samurai Japan (till 1868) despite Tokugawa's closed-door policy. Yet, this fact is not known to Western elites, generally speaking.
Indeed, some Western scholars and professors know Yukichi Fukuzawa. But, even they do not understand that there had been many Fukuzawas in Japan between the 16th century and the 19th century. The miracle of modernization of Japan in the late 19th century had deep backgrounds, which even today's Chinese and Koreans are not taught in school.
Do not trust Chinese and Koreans when you are interested in history of Japan. Learn it by yourself.
Anyway great work of Yukichi Fukuzawa contributed to an increase of intellectual Japanese, in a modern sense, who could have something even to go out with if hiding it in their brains or pockets, like in the case of many audiences who had come out to listen to Jesus Christ in the fields and mountains with breads and fish hidden in their bags and pockets.
(http://www.mu-tech.co.jp/FirstSongWeb/Emperor_church_organ.mid
Source: http://www.mu-tech.co.jp/Ringtone/Midi/Traditional/Emperor.html
They call this tune "Emperor" in Japan.)
Mar 8:18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
Mar 8:19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.
Mar 8:20 And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.
Mar 8:21 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?