Organizers plan large protests for USS George Washington arrival

Stars and Stripes ^ | 25 Sep 08 | Hana Kusumoto and Allison Batdorff

[GATOR NAVY]

TOKYO — Groups opposed to Thursday’s arrival of the USS George Washington to Yokosuka Naval Base say demonstrations will grow in size and number in upcoming days.

"We want to express our opposition to America," Masahiko Goto, a lawyer and leader of a Yokosuka citizen’s group, said Tuesday. "We want a withdrawal of the deployment."

On the day of the ship’s arrival to its new forward-deployed base, a rally will be held at 6 a.m. at Kannonzaki Park near Uraga station, where protesters can watch the carrier as it approaches, organizers said. Protesters also will embark on boats to follow the ship in.

Base officials said Carney Gate, or the main gate, will be closed to pedestrians and outbound vehicles from 7:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. All traffic will be routed through Womble Gate during that time, officials said.

Goto said throughout the day others will stay near the base, handing out English-language fliers citing safety concerns with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and calling for peace. Another group will gather at Yokosuka Chuo station to urge opposition to the aircraft carrier’s arrival, he said.

The largest rally starts at 6:30 p.m. at Verny Park, next to Daiei Mall, organizers said. About 3,000 protesters are expected to march down Route 16 toward Yokosuka Chuo Station around 7:30 p.m., organizers said.

Other protests Thursday include a rally at Umikaze Park at 7:30 a.m. Opposition leaders said rallies will also be held at Yokosuka Chuo station on Friday and Oct. 3 from 7 to 8 p.m.; Sept. 29 from 11 a.m. to noon; and Sept. 30 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

[Broker]

My father in law was MacArthurs political advisor immediately after the war initials MWSB. It was largely his work that spared Japans Emperor’s life as he was such a great symbol to the Japanese people. He also assisted in drafting their new constitution. For these activities the Japanese awarded him the 2nd order of the Lotus and the USA matched with the Metal of Freedom .. domo arrigato.

As for these demonstrators, they’re having a great time. Once this new crew of sailors establish themselves on the beach, everyone will be pals again.

[sergeantdave]

“MacArthur has plenty of admirers in Japan. “

How do you know that?

This is not a hostile question, just an inquiry, a question to satisfy my curiousity.

I met a few Japanese citizens and some loved us and others wanted me to engage in self hari-kiri.

Speaking of sepuku, I could never understand how slitting your gut, rather than fighting the enemy to the end, was somehow “honorable.” Looks to me that was the cluck-cluck end for a chicken.

Consider, the patriots at the Alamo didn’t disembowel themselves.

If someome here has lived the Zen satori life-style of Dr. Suzuki ( a WWII contemporary) or can explain the warrior culture of the bushido (Both Suzuki and Bushido, logically considered, are completely incompatible), that would help.

Just trying to bridge the vast cultural gap in my head...

[rlmorel]

I think the other poster is correct. There are many Japanese, especially the older generation who remember and understand.

I would not be surprised to hear that many younger Japanese view him much differently.

[rlmorel]

I used to be friends with a very wealthy elderly man. He used to be a bush pilot in Alaska back in the Thirties, and when he was an officer in WWII, he was assigned to be the Provost Marshal for the Hiroshima Prefecture after the invasion. When they dropped the bomb, they sent him to manage the situation in Korea.

It was his job to get the surrendered Japanese out of Korea before the Koreans turned on them and tried to kill them.

This guy hated the Japanese. He wouldn’t even discuss them if the subject came up, but would turn his back and walk away.

When I asked his friend why, he said that the guy had confided in him many of the awful things he had seen actual evidence of under the Japanese rule there.

To me, the Japanese are an extraordinary contradiction. A culture so capable of understanding real beauty and gentleness, but capable of such terrible ferocity and inhumanity all packaged together.

I lived in the Philippines for several years, and the Japanese were not kindly considered there. I was in the Boy Scouts, and my troop marched the route of the Bataan Death March every year, a fifty mile hike. There are many monuments along the way, and I read several detailed military histories of that area when I was twelve, and it blew my mind.

I had a very, very difficult time trying to imagine people doing that to each other. Before that, I had never completely considered that men would do those things to each other.

To me, the brutality I read about paled every other thing I had been exposed to in my life up to then. Even though I have also read extensively on the Holocaust, there was a strangely alien brutality with what the Japanese did. The Germans seemed...well...mechanized and impersonal somehow.

The Japanese, in my readings, seemed to take a very personal and physical participation in their cruelty. I had lived for several years in Japan before we went there, and I had no idea the Japanese were capable of that.

[sergeantdave]

“It was largely his work that spared Japans Emperor’s life...”

Okay, I have a question for you: What did your father-in-law do or say to stop the bushido, in great numbers, from committing sepuku?

This is not a hostile question. I’m just really curious. Did he invoke Dr. Suzuki?

Dr. Suzuki and his zen satori philosphy are completely incompatible with the bushido warrior code. Both existed contemporaneously in Japan in WW II. How did gut-slitting (not necessarily your gut) philosophy win out over contemplating one hand clapping?

If you can answer this, it will relieve one of several conundrum headaches I’ve been hauling around in my head for decades.

[sergeantdave]

“To me, the Japanese are an extraordinary contradiction. A culture so capable of understanding real beauty and gentleness, but capable of such terrible ferocity and inhumanity all packaged together.”

Contradiction, yes. Allow me to join your incomprehinsibilty of the Japanese.

[InterestedQuestioner]

“I met a few Japanese citizens and some loved us and others wanted me to engage in self hari-kiri.”

Just goes to prove there are jerks where ever you go.

Speaking of sepuku, I could never understand how slitting your gut, rather than fighting the enemy to the end, was somehow “honorable.” Looks to me that was the cluck-cluck end for a chicken. Consider, the patriots at the Alamo didn’t disembowel themselves.

I agree with you 100%. Either surrender or go down fighting. The suicide thing doesn't make sense. In the Samurai tradition, the Samurai understood that they might have to die in battle, so they tried to prepare themselves for that sacrifice. That much makes sense. Twisting that into the willingness to commit suicide does not, however.

I don't believe suicide is justifiable, but here's some background. Sometimes the suicide thing was like the captain going down with his ship. He had failed, and took his life after the failure.

What is presented to us Westerners is probably conditioned by an incident in the late 1800’s in which a group of Japanese soldiers massacred French sailors who had hopped ashore at a closed Japanese village. The French government blustered about it, and some timid Japanese bureaucrats decided to execute a number of the soldiers in order to appease the French. The execution was to take place in front of of a French representatives, and the men being executed had voluntarily taken responsibility for the massacre. The Japanese soldiers were former peasants and asked if they could commit suicide, like samurai, rather than be executed. Their request was granted by their superiors. The French were intimidated by the show, and their main guy vomited. Anti-foreign resentment was running high among the onlookers, and the French made a run for their ships after a few of the men had killed themselves. Most of the men waiting to commit suicide never had to go through with it, and were granted a reprieve. These men were considered heroes who had stood up to foreign belligerents. This incident suggested to the Japanese that foreigners could be intimidated by an intense commitment to race and country that would lead Japanese to die rather than submit to foreigners. At the end of the day, however, in WWII it was the Germans who fought to the last house, whereas the Japanese surrendered prior to an invasion, so the suicide thing should be taken with a grain of salt.

If someone here has lived the Zen satori life-style of Dr. Suzuki ( a WWII contemporary) or can explain the warrior culture of the bushido (Both Suzuki and Bushido, logically considered, are completely incompatible), that would help.

If you're interested, I would recommend reading the Ha-gakure “Behind the leaves” or the Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. Japan has had an impressive military tradition at times, but not everything in that tradition was healthy or smart. You get some fanatics in the mix, and some reactionaries who have an idealized vision of life in a military dictatorship..

[InterestedQuestioner]

Great stories, you can flat out write. You should publish those.

“But one of the oddest things to me was that whenever an aircraft carrier came into port, there would be these HUGE demonstrations outside the base.”

That was before my time, but you may have seen something that was part of the Zen-Gaku Ren. That was the Japanese version of the 1960’s civil unrest that we had here with college students. Did the protesters look like Japanese hippies?

“I remember my brother and I going over and talking to a bunch of the Japanese riot police, and inviting them back to our house after the demonstration was over. We went into the cabinets and opened up a bunch of cans of stuff and poured them into bowls. I recall that we had maybe ten bowls of things like chick peas, corn, whatever.”

Lol, that's quite an image. I can't believe the police came over to your house for lunch, have to wonder what they thought of the vitals.

“To me, the Japanese are an extraordinary contradiction. A culture so capable of understanding real beauty and gentleness, but capable of such terrible ferocity and inhumanity all packaged together.”

Yes. A country with no borders that was totally free from threat of invasion and hostile neighbors for most of it's history, but spent much of the last 1000 years as a military state under the direction of a dictator. An incredible sensitivity to beauty, yet they have some of the most dense and hard hearted bureaucrats you could imagine. As a kid, I thought it was pretty cool that their tough guys painted, composed poetry and appreciated art.

We can learn a lot from the Japanese, but we have to keep in mind that not everything in that culture makes sense.

[InterestedQuestioner]

“My father in law was MacArthurs political advisor immediately after the war initials MWSB. It was largely his work that spared Japans Emperor’s life as he was such a great symbol to the Japanese people. He also assisted in drafting their new constitution. For these activities the Japanese awarded him the 2nd order of the Lotus and the USA matched with the Metal of Freedom .. domo arrigato.”

Your father-in-law must have been an extraordinary man. The occupation and successful reconstruction of Japan has to be one of the greatest achievements of American foreign policy ever. A once hostile nation is now an ally with a free and prosperous population. I would have loved to have had a chance to talk to him about his work.

[rlmorel]

"...I can't believe the police came over to your house for lunch, have to wonder what they thought of the vitals...."

I have often wondered the same thing. From what I know of them now, I think they were just being polite...and curious...and they might very well have been hungry too. Who knows? It might even have just been a joke amongst them, but it didn't seem that way at all. They seemed very earnest and polite. They spoke no english...there were three of them, and I recall that they were all very young guys. You know how when you are a kid, everyone above 20 is an old person?

These guys didn't look that way to me...

[rlmorel]

"...Did the protesters look like Japanese hippies?..."

Heh, a freeper just posted this image from one of their Walter Reed Freeps:

To be honest, I used to just watch from a hill probably a hundred yards away. I never tried to get close, but I vaguely recall lots of white and red clothing, and I remember people with white bandana things on their heads. Does that sound like those people...the Zen-Gaku-Ren?

Thanks for the compliment...I actually am just writing down little vignettes from my life that pop into my head. I make little text snippets out of them when the mood strikes me. It is a lot of fun...:)

Heck, I am a sentimental guy. I am not that old, just turned fifty, but I am sometimes amazed at just how much I have forgotten in my life. Every once in a while, a memory bubbles to the surface. I occasionally have no idea if it really WAS the way I remember it, so I just recollect it with a grain of salt. But I am often amazed how much I can remember, and in what detail so I know I couldn't have made it up. Like those riot police...young guys, I remember one of them was a very handsome guy with a buzz cut flat-top and I remember him sitting on the grass with his shield, billy club and stuff strapped to his belt, all of it black, the clothing, the equipment, everything.

But I have some images in my mind I cannot figure out if they are real, imagined, dreamt or what. I have an image of being in an old car from the forties...being carried. I can remember a tree lined street on a slight upward angle with a gray house off to the right of the road. I remember it was as if the sun was either shortly after dawn or before dusk. And I do not know what that image is. It seems like my first memory, but I just don't know.

It's all good...:)

[Broker]

Saddly, Max passed on in 1994. He was truly an old time diplomat who fought long and hard for his beloved country. EX: 1941 he met with a Peruvian counselor in Japan who had early intel on Japanese Pearl Harbor plan. He passed this to Amb. Grew and the therein rests deep intrigue as DC ignored this report (intentionally or not?) . He was a strategic thinker and a joyful man. One of many God-inspired Americans who led that herald generation.

[Broker]

The Sammari or warrior class lived by under the bushido code and were guided by their divine wind blown by their emperor. It is only my assumption the these fellas did not commit sepiku (ritual or non ritual) suicide out of respect for Emperor Hirohito. Nonetheless, many honorable Japanese men took themselves to their monkey god during those difficult times. The survivors learned how to make cars, motorcycles or cut off their pinkies.

[BroJoeK]

"At the end of the day, however, in WWII it was the Germans who fought to the last house, whereas the Japanese surrendered prior to an invasion, so the suicide thing should be taken with a grain of salt."

First of all, yours are really interesting posts. The Best of Free Republic, if you asked me. Much appreciated.

Now, this particular comment caught my eye, because it's contrary to most perspectives, and while true is, well, not quite true... or at least not the whole story.

In all of their battles against Americans, the Japanese suffered far more casualties than did Germans fighting Americans. The reason is, even at the end of the war, Japanese refused to surrender, whereas Germans, once they knew they were beaten, were almost happy to surrender -- especially to Americans & Brits.

Yes, Germans did fight "to the last house," but only against the Soviets, whom with excellent reason, they hugely feared. Against Americans, in the end whole divisions walked over with their hands up. And almost none would ever admit to knowing anything about Nazis -- Nazis? What's a Nazi?

By contrast, in the end, the Japanese only surrendered when so ordered by their emperor, who to this day is highly revered throughout Japan.

Which brings us, round about, back to the interesting question of these seemingly kabuki-dance protest demonstrations. Now, I'm no psychologist, or sociologist, but are we possibly here looking at some kind of ritualized, ceremonialized cultural reenactment each time, of Japan's final surrender, ordered by the emperor?

I've mentioned here before, my late Dad was part of the American Army which "invaded" Japan after the surrender. He used to say the Japanese treated them very well, but were not happy with units that came later, after original combat outfits rotated back to the States.

Makes me wonder if, in the Japanese mind, each new American unit was not just another cog in the Big Green Machine, but was actually a new invader, who had to be resisted, until forced by their own government to give up the fight?

Just a thought...

[Broker]

They may indeed appear to be “anti-imperialists” yet the Japanese culture is deep and wide with cross currents beyond our comprehension. Theirs is one of the worlds most homogenious cultures wherein outsiders (new ships) by tradition are challenged.

Yes, FR dialog can be great.. Thanks

[rlmorel]

Thanks for the compliment.

I agree with you on this. What you say is exactly true, especially the Germans vs. Soviets. I just finished reading “The Gulag Archipelago”, and he describes the treatment of POW’s by both the USSR and Germany, and both sides treated them inhumanely and horrible.

The most dishonorable and disgraceful part is what the Soviets did to their OWN captured soldiers who were repatriated. They threw them in jail or outright shot many.

The allies share some stain of that hideous process, both we and the Brits handed many back over to the Soviets, knowing full well the fate. Sad stuff.

[rlmorel]

LOL...just realized that compliment was directed towards InterestedQuestioner...:)

Good thread here!

[Butterfickle]

I found a photo of my father in a Reader’s Digest book about WW2. My father is leading a string of Filipino men who have a Japanese man trussed to a pole and the pole is across the shoulders of two men. I asked my father about that photo and he admitted it was him and that he saw that done to many japanese soldiers. But he wouldn’t say no more about it. He didn’t talk about the war. I learned from my mama what he told her before. He was in the Alutian Islands when the Japanese killed themselves on Attu. Thank God for our soldiers who will go through those kind of times for us.

[rlmorel]

"...Thank God for our soldiers who will go through those kind of times for us..."

Amen to that, my FRiend, amen to that.

[BroJoeK]

"The allies share some stain of that hideous process, both we and the Brits handed many back over to the Soviets, knowing full well the fate. Sad stuff."

Very sad indeed. I blame Roosevelt, and his policy of fully trusting everything Stalin promised him. And even though FDR was gone by then, and Truman in, it took some time for the idea to sink into Americans' minds: that Stalin was never to be trusted.

But, in Roosevelt's defense, almost every one of these type issues boils down to this: where the Americans were losing thousands and tens of thousands of military killed, the Soviets were losing millions and tens of millions of military AND civilians killed -- and they were killing millions of Germans.

In Europe, about 80% of the actual fighting and dieing happened on the Eastern Front, and (imho) Roosevelt's NUMBER ONE objective throughout the war, was to KEEP IT THAT WAY. If that meant kissing Stalin's b*tt, you bet -- that's just what FDR was doing.

So, in the end, the question comes down to this: if you think FDR should have confronted and challenged Stalin more than he did, HOW MANY MORE American lives are you willing to pay for the privilege?

As far as I know, no one has every accused Roosevelt of stupidity, and yet in this case he clearly was. So I have to reason that it was "stupidity" with a purpose, and the purpose was to save American lives. Makes sense?