MacArthur ruled Japan by decree, his directives had the force of law. On September 2, 1945, he issued General Directive #1, ordering the Japanese to disarm. Seven tons of samurai swords were confiscated and shipped to San Francisco. By decree, he implemented women's suffrage and equality in the workplace, dismantled the war industry, implemented the country's first free elections (April 1946), formed labor unions, broke up monopolies (the Zaibatsu industrial cartels - Nov 6 1945), and implemented open instruction in schools and mandatory school attendance. He dissolved the existing police forces and released all political prisoners. He lifted all restrictions on political, civil, and religious freedoms. He removed Shintoism as a state religion (Directive of December 8, 1945) and oversaw the conversion of two million Japanese to Christianity. He "encouraged" the emperor to publicly renounce his divinity and reject the Japanese concept of racial superiority (January 1, 1946). etc etc etc
You made my point entirely: the billions we spent "rebuilding" the world after WWII was primarily focused on de-nazification and de-emperorization. Where did I say otherwise? As far as building their modern industrial societies, they for the most part did it themselves. You can be as sarcastic as you like; that does not change the fact that the core of your argument is a complete non-starter.
You're seriously deluded, aren't you?
Just who do you think you're fooling here? Other than yourself, I mean.
For seven years, the entire nation of Japan was taken apart, politically, economically, and socially, and then reassembled from the ground up into something entirely different by direct orders from the occupying US forces.
Then you come along and laughably call this "rebuilding themselves without US assistance".
Give it up, son, no one's buying your nonsense. Least of all me. You were caught being an idiot, the honorable thing to do would be to retract your original statement. Instead, you say *I* prove *your* bogus point?
Seek help, man.
Tell you what -- I'll start a new thread on this topic tomorrow, and let the history-minded Freepers play referee on this one. This ought to be fun...