Posted on 08/26/2015 4:49:38 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
And why do so many people think Trump is a conservative? Just because he talks tough on immigration?
Doesn't ring any bells here.
There are three phrases that come to mind:
1) Otagai ni gambarimashou, more commonly shortened to gambatte! (GAHM-baat-tay). The closest translation in terms of meaning would be something like, "Let's succeed together by doing better than our best!" Success is always a group effort, but if you can be sure that as a group you did your best and then some, it is not shameful to lose to someone(s) who did their best and then some.
2) The compound verb kettobaseru, commonly given in command form kettobase! (KET-toe-baah-SAY). It's hard to translate directly, I think it would be something like "give 'em a flying kick," but the meaning is more related to the idea of attacking the opponent in a swift blow that knocks him down. It's often used as a chant in baseball cheers, something like, "Kettobase, Iwamura" where Iwamura-san is the batter. (Japanese baseball fans chant together, like American college football fans, but unlike American baseball fans.) In the three main "Japanese" sports, kendo, sumo, and judo, the aim is to either knock down, cut through, or push back your opponent, usually in a short amount of time--a sumo match of more than five seconds is considered long. It's what the Japanese wanted to do in December 1941: push the US back in Hawaii, knock down the Brits and Aussies, and cut a sword through the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. It surprised those Japanese who didn't know us that we didn't just admit defeat, even when we surrendered positions.
3) Gaman, which means "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity" (cf. here), or more colloquially, "buck up". This is used in two situations: when you are in the midst of struggle, and when you are experiencing the effects of defeat. When Hirohito told the Japanese people that they would be "enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable," every Japanese understood that this meant gaman. What is the unendurable? That the Japanese people are not going to be able to kettobase for their Emperor. What is the insufferable? That the Japanese were going to have to admit defeat and be willing to take orders from a conquering power. (That we didn't act like a conquering power was the biggest surprise to the Japanese, but we've discussed that in previous sessions.)
Starting August 30, the Japanese will have to gaman in their present situation, surviving both the horrid conditions of the country and bowing their necks to a foreigner. But they will also have the job of gambatte, of working together to do better than their best in order to rebuild a Japan that could take its place among the world powers. The common belief at this moment outside Japan is that Japan was about to become a bucolic agricultural backwater for the next 200 years. Instead, it became the second strongest economy in the world in fewer than 40. That's a lot of gambatt-ing and kettobas-ing.
That is surely what has happened, and in an astonishingly short amount of time.
I thought after the 2008 election we were going to re-live the 1970's but I was wrong. America suffered from incompetence made worse by the Democrats in the 1970's. This time they have taken a wrecking ball to America.
Not even Huxley imagined the level of moral degradation the West would reach. And we’re still going down.
Sorry, "Thinking Caps are no longer being issued..."
Didn’t know this:
http://www.grunt.com/corps/scuttlebutt/marine-corps-stories/facts-about-the-end-of-wwii-in-japan/
However, if you ask one group of veterans when the war with Japan ended, they would tell you it ended on October 15th, 1945, in Tientsin, China. On that day, the United Sates Marine Corps accepted the surrender of more than 500,000 Japanese troops in mainland China. The majority of these Marines were members of the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions who had just completed the long and bloody campaign on the island of Okinawa.
Occupation Troop Movements
A very interesting look at the process here:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1%20Sup/ch2.htm
Beginning with a mere handful of men late in August, the Eighth Army moved three corps, seven combat divisions, and supporting service troops into Japan within less than a month. By October a total of 232,379 Eighth Army men were in the country.92 The Sixth Army in its zone of responsibility had an approximately equal number. However, this was the high water mark and already the tide was turning the other way. It was apparent to careful observers that the capitulation of Japan was as comprehensive as it was real. Consequently, General MacArthur’s mid-September estimate that an army of 200,000 would be adequate to garrison the islands was now widely acclaimed.
A very good reference on demobilization
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1%20Sup/ch5.htm
In the over-all picture, enormous military risks were involved in landing initially with “token” United States forces. The Japanese mainland was still potentially a colossal armed camp, and there was an obvious military gamble in landing with only two and a half divisions, then confronted by fifty-nine Japanese divisions, thirty-six brigades, and forty-five-odd regiments plus naval and air forces
One of the most interesting features of the disarmament program was the disclosure of the precarious condition of the Japanese defending forces in the home islands. After Allied victories of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Philippines and the establishment of Allied naval blockade of China, only the troops in Japan were supplied by the homeland. On 31 August 1945 the Japanese reported on hand 1,369,063 rifles and light machine guns with limited ammunition of only 230 rounds per weapon. Records later indicated that actually some 2,468,665 rifles and carbines were received by the Occupation forces and later disposed of. The Japanese reported more artillery ammunition than small arms ammunition. Ammunition for the grenade launcher, often known as the “knee mortar,” was also more plentiful; some 51,000,000 rounds were reported, or an average of 1,794 rounds for each weapon.
Ammunition and weapons, particularly small arms, could have been hidden easily by rebellious individuals or groups, only to be brought out at some later time in revolt against the Occupation forces. Apparently there were more than a few abortive attempts in that direction, for although the Japanese military commanders appeared to be acting for the most part in good faith in surrendering their arms and equipment, every month of the Occupation disclosed new caches of military supplies. Though the caches usually were not heavily stocked, their very existence was enough to indicate that the chain of Japanese responsibility had broken down somewhere. Thorough reconnaissance and inspection by the Occupation forces brought to light many situations which were resolved before they could become serious problems.44 For example, a check on the police stations in Aomori, Hirosaki, and Sambongi (all towns in Aomori Prefecture) produced some 1,880 rifles, 1,881 bayonets, 18 light machine guns, 505,260 rounds of rifle and machine gun ammunition, 46,980 rounds of blank ammunition, one case of TNT, and 150 military swords. Daily G-2 and CIC reports revealed many instances of smaller caches, sometimes in school compounds. Officials and teachers, when questioned, usually pleaded ignorance, and very often investigation did show that faulty dissemination of instructions had been the root of the trouble.45
All Japanese ammunition, bulk explosives, and other loaded equipment (ordnance, chemical ammunition, and engineer explosives) were destroyed without delay, with the exception of items desired for technical intelligence purposes. The principal method utilized was dumping into the sea at a depth in excess of 300 feet (later 600 feet).
Romney was the last “lesser evil” I will vote for. However, he did say he would repeal 0bamacare, and even if it was “repeal and replace,” the first half of that is repeal.
Now, as to Trump, I have some serious reservations about him. On the one hand, the dynamic in Washington is now such that only an outsider to the system can make any meaningful changes. I don’t think you can expect someone who has been a part of the system, and is beholden to it, will prune it back. And it is in some serious need of pruning, since we now have a bureaucracy that has grown so powerful, so pervasive and so intrusive that it no longer recognizes any constraints. Whole branches of the government are thumbing their noses at judicial and legislative oversight. If they are doing that, then they obviously don’t care about serving the public, but ruling them instead. To me, that is the greatest existential threat to our Republic.
Trump meets that definition. He is the outsider who could make that change. However, he is like playing “Let’s Make a Deal” with Monty Hall. We are already stuck with the broken down farm tractor; do you make the trade for what’s behind Door #3? That’s the problem with Trump; he’s Door #3 and we don’t know what’s there. It’s a huge risk. The biggest overt concern is that Trump comes off as being unstable and erratic. Sure, a lot of this can just be the showman pandering to the crowd. But after seeing the disaster our foreign policy has been under this regime, we can’t have another term of “diplomacy by clown car.”
That only leaves Ted Cruz. I have to hope he can win, and then gets down to some serious pruning.
Imagine the military suggesting, much less doing, such a thing today. OTOH, I can't think of any lasting environmental damage that occurred because of the dumping.
(later 600 feet).
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