Poppet? How concerned are the Japanese people about America?
Posted by Pikes Peak 14115 on September 7, 2025, 1:32 am
I ask because of your close work with the people. .
The break up of the US we discussed appears to be accelerating due to the felon's policy and MAGA preference to buy into fantasy, fiction and lies more than facts and data. I call the leader not by name, but by title he earned. Is he the first felon to contend for a Bobel Peace Prize?
I retired from professional music, and my involvement now is in composition and directing music for The Salvation Army. I am arranging many of the good Vietnam era protest songs, and some popular music between then and now. There is a great amount of truth in some lyrics, expressing concern about the human condition, which are to me variations of lessons from the Parables.
My "orchestra" resembles Paul Schafer's CBS Orchestra that played for David Letterman. It's a whole new twist away from the trad brass band. I see us not as rival to tradition, but a compliment applicable to our time.
You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
There aren't a huge number of Japanese friends that I'm sufficiently close to for them to broach what they might assume is a sensitive or embarrassing topic to me. That's a huge social faux pas in Japan; you need to be "best friend" close or nearly so, or family. If a Japanese person any less close to me than that is concerned about where the US is going or full-on critical of that direction, that's not a conversation they'd have with me. I wouldn't bring up Japanese politics with them, either (for all that I do in fact have some fairly strong opinions on that subject).
The handful that are that close? Honestly, it hasn't come up enough for me to be certain (I don't talk/think about politics as much as most Americans seem to...), but as you might expect, the sort of person I get closer to has pretty progressive viewpoints and they're not fans of the current US administration. There are, however, plenty of people in Japan who think well of Trump: he's like some of the more strident, populist/nationalist right-wingers in Japanese politics (more on that below), and since they're probably not very familiar with how scummy he is personally, they have a good opinion of the guy. But even those rightists are very unhappy with the Trump administration's flailing trade policies and their obvious negative effect on the struggling Japanese economy.
I'd posit that the average educated Japanese person views Trump as at least something of an out-of-his-depth buffoon...but they also tend to view their own politicians much the same way. It's a powerful but largely disrespected profession.
Prime Minister Ishiba announced his resignation today, and it's pretty wide open who his successor will be. There is some possibility they won't come from the current ruling party (LDP), but that's a pretty remote chance. LDP doesn't have an outright majority in the Diet now, but they will almost certainly put together enough of a coalition to ensure their choice will be the next PM.
And that's a problem. The rightist LDP's three leading candidates are: the probable winner (Hayashi) who is basically the usual "safe" party apparatchik, a young scion of a traditionally powerful political family (Koizumi), and a frankly rather frightening nationalist (Takaichi). Hayashi is just what I said: a completely typical LDP guy in his 60's with a well-filled-out portfolio that departs in no meaningful way from business as usual. Given the LDP's successive loss of seats in the Diet and regional government positions, choosing him risks failing to arrest that decline and eventually losing control of the government.
Koizumi at first seems ideal. He's young at 44, good-looking, and superbly connected. But his experience in office is somewhat glaringly not in any economic/finance role. If he screwed things up as PM in an already shaky Japanese economy, it could destroy the LDP in the next nationwide election.
That leaves Sanae Takaichi, who just barely lost out to Ishiba in the last LDP decision on PM. She'd be the first female in the role in Japanese history...but she's a hardcore nationalist right-winger. Favors officially removing the pacifistic elements of the Japanese constitution (instead of rationalizing their way around them as is the current practice), visits a shrine associated with Japanese WW2 war dead (fine, mostly, but the particular one she favors has multiple war criminals remains), etc. She's basically Shinzo Abe without a Y chromosome (and alive).
We sometimes assume a less educated proletariat in another country is as interested in the goings on om America, fopgetting that life stands in the way for those people to have much of a world view.
The felon tariffs are showing up in rise of cost in all kinds of goods. Gasoline is highest it's been in a long time, and groceries prices are leaping. Tariffs are beginning to make retail shelves look like they did at the beginning of the Pandemic. Walmart is remodeling, hugely reducing shelf space in order to look full of choice and normal.
Did you hear the felon make an issue with the word groceries? He spoke it like he never uses the word, and perhaps just discovered it. You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
We are trying to eat healthier. It's true, the American diet has too much
Posted by dancing digits on September 9, 2025, 12:08 am, in reply to "Erudite reasoning" Valued Poster
empty calories, junk food and over refined carbs in it.
But the price of fresh produce. . . yikes!! Our local Walmart (for some reason, we have 2 Walmarts - go figure) is huge. But the grocery section often has empty shelves. Their produce is something only the desperate would enjoy. And their prices aren't much cheaper than other groceries, especially when you consider the quality of some of the foods.
I think they have also raised the thermostats on the refrigerators. I know by state law they must keep it below a certain temp, but more than once I have removed and put back milk or half-and-half because it felt too warm to me. Maybe someone had it in their cart and put it back? I've seen that happen more than once.
Market 32 never has empty shelves. Their produce is way fresher and in better shape. Store is more pleasant to shop in and cleaner. They are more expensive though. I look for sales when I am there.
Regular gas is now around 3:29 a gallon. Everything is on the rise. Everything. . . and more stores have shut down, JoAnn's Fabrics being one of them. Be the change. . .
The felon and his cult base say the letter is fake. The pubic hair signature is a flawless match to the other signatures we see, and is unique to him.
He lies about that like he lies about everything, to cover his ass.
Our Walmarts have major interior construction, especially in the grocery where aisles are being significantly widened and shelf space decreased to make room for that widening. They would not do that if reduction of grocery availability was temporary.
Coney Barrett laughed off the idea of a Constitutional crisis, saying she doesn't know what that would look like. Really? A SCOTUS justice unable to see or know that?
THAT is a Constitutional crisis.
The felon appointed three justices, and you know damn well and good they were chosen for a time when the felon would need his ass covered. So far SCOTUS overturned lower court rulings not in favor of the felon, and the SCOTUS count is always 6-3.
The felon's tariffs are legal and his right, and invasion of US cities is also legal and his right. SCOTUS said so 6-3. The Constitution made tariffs a Congressional responsibility, and expressly forbade use of military for domestic peace keeping and law enforcement or assistance.
The rot is everywhere you look. He didn't drain a swamp. He installed a cesspool. You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
I stumbled upon the Kennedy hearings looking for something else on Google. Of course, I instantly regretted watching the hearings the second I opened up the vid.
I am horrified over what that man is doing. He talks out of both sides of his mouth - just like Trump. Whatever they think works for them at the time.
The Constitution and the way its being trampled on is one of my hot buttons. Healthcare is the other.
We, who have more medical/scientific knowledge and skill than ever, are being driven back to the dark ages by a man that should be no where near the Department of Health & Human Services or Washington.
on September 7, 2025, 1:32 am
