Hi -- New here.

Oneuli said:
I didn't suggest that you lied about anything. I did, however, ask when the people you know were stationed there, since that might explain the difference between the experiences they related to you and the experiences my friend related to me (very recently).



See my other post, above, with the links to all the examples and discussion of "no foreigners" and "no Americans" signs in Japan. It would appear there are lots of places in Japan you could go to if you really want to know what it's like to be victimized on that basis.
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OK does 18 months ago count?
 
Legion said:
Yet you pretended it was a credible source....
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I made no claims about it at all. I simply linked to it. The link openly identifies itself as what it is. The point was to provide you an external first-hand account to look at, since my second-hand anecdote didn't satisfy you. When you were unhappy with that one, I provided a dozen others, from a wide variety of sources. Presumably you're now aware that the phenomenon my friend relayed to me, and that I relayed here, is in fact a real thing. So, now you know. You're welcome.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
You make a good case for "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I expect between the tax cuts, increasing inflation rate coupled with stagnant wages, the tariffs, and no efforts being made to curb government spending and create a surplus, we are headed for another downturn. What do you think?

"Tribal resentments" -- in other words, racism. (R)s can always count on winning with the twin ponies of racism and xenophobia, as you pointed out.
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I'm not sure when the next recession will come. This growth cycle is long in the tooth already, but it could still have some life in it, since the deleveraging of the Obama era is now being reversed -- not just the radical increases to federal budget deficits, but also a change from rapid declines in household debt to renewed increases. The impact of those two things, together, is to import capital into the system, which could keep the economy growing for a few more years (at the cost of requiring massive exports of capital in the future, depressing the economy over the course of the following generation).
 
Oneuli said:
I didn't suggest that you lied about anything. I did, however, ask when the people you know were stationed there, since that might explain the difference between the experiences they related to you and the experiences my friend related to me (very recently).



See my other post, above, with the links to all the examples and discussion of "no foreigners" and "no Americans" signs in Japan. It would appear there are lots of places in Japan you could go to if you really want to know what it's like to be victimized on that basis.
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Grumpy aka Angry Bird aka Eagle Eye used to be on another forum that I was also on. We both knew a conservative guy poster named RightThinking, who worked for the U.S. govt. (military) and lived in Osaka, Japan for many years. In fact, last we heard from him he was still there. He also reported the same incidents that you have reported, with white foreigners, particularly Americans, being banned from some businesses. He spoke fluent Japanese and had many Japanese friends, according to him, but still encountered this from time to time. I have Grumps on ignore but he still reads my posts; maybe this will jog his memory.
 
Oneuli said:
I made no claims about it at all. I simply linked to it. The link openly identifies itself as what it is. The point was to provide you an external first-hand account to look at, since my second-hand anecdote didn't satisfy you. When you were unhappy with that one, I provided a dozen others, from a wide variety of sources.
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I don't recall saying that there isn't widespread resentment of Americans on Okinawa and in Japan due to rapes and murders committed by our "boys," sock.

What I am saying is that Y O U posted an image and a link to a blog to bolster your argument and I suspect that you hoped nobody would notice it.

Oneuli said:
Presumably you're now aware that the phenomenon my friend relayed to me, and that I relayed here, is in fact a real thing.
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I'm not aware that your conveniently-cited "friend" exists, sock, and I deny saying that anti-American sentiment doesn't exist. Straw-man much, sock?
 
Legion said:
....Isn't identity politics a hallmark of liberalism today?
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Yes, I'd say it is. Why do you ask? To be clear, I'm not trying to establish some special pleading based on who I am -- not based on my ethnic heritage or my gender... nor, for that matter, based on other biographical details I highlighted (where I live, my age, my profession, my "political junkie" tendencies, or my lean to the left). None of these things make my arguments one bit stronger or weaker. They stand or fall on their own. However, this forum was for "Introductions," so I thought I'd introduce myself with a few details, the way one does when meeting new people.
 
ThatFowlWoman said:
Grumpy aka Angry Bird aka Eagle Eye used to be on another forum that I was also on. We both knew a conservative guy poster named RightThinking, who worked for the U.S. govt. (military) and lived in Osaka, Japan for many years. In fact, last we heard from him he was still there. He also reported the same incidents that you have reported, with white foreigners, particularly Americans, being banned from some businesses. He spoke fluent Japanese and had many Japanese friends, according to him, but still encountered this from time to time. I have Grumps on ignore but he still reads my posts; maybe this will jog his memory.
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More anecdotes?

A Story for Every Occasion™.
 
Hello Oneuli,

Oneuli said:
I think that also goes a long way to explain why Republicans tend to do well in elections when Democratic leaders have brought the nation to a point of rapid economic improvement.

For example, consider 2016. You might have expected it to be a tough year for Republicans. After all, we were near full employment, years into one of the longest economic growth cycles ever, and both 2015 and 2016 had some of the most rapid real income growth in our history. But that's exactly the context that makes naive middle-class people think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." With no immediate need for a social safety net, and with big recent gains in their pockets, it was easy to imagine they'd NEVER need government assistance, and that before long they'd be the ones benefiting from a cut to the top income tax rate. That makes people more open to the Republican sales pitch. Even those who aren't tricked into thinking they're soon going to be CEOs pulling in thousands per minute are at least looking past the kinds of economic issues that favor Democrats, and instead responding to the wedge issues Republicans succeed with (e.g., Trump's focus on law and order, as well as xenophobia). A feeling of economic security gives people the luxury of focusing instead on tribal resentments.

If 2016 were the only instance where a strong Democrat-led economy resulted in a Republican president being elected, you'd be right to dismiss my theory as half-baked. But didn't we also see that in 2000? Unemployment was below 4%, real incomes were at an all-time high, and suddenly people liked the sound of upper-class tax cuts more than the sound of mending the social safety net. Or how about the previous time when sub-4% unemployment and record real incomes coincided with a presidential election? That was 1968. The reward the Democrats got for leading the nation to such gains was to have the presidency handed to Nixon. Are those three just a coincidence? Well, how about 1952? The Democrats had taken control of the White House years earlier in the depths of the Great Depression, and had led us all the way to sub-3% unemployment rates and far and away the greatest prosperity in the nation's history. The People chose to turn the White House over to the Republicans.

Usually, after a few years of Republican leadership, the nation goes into recession and then longer-term stagnation, and eventually the people get sick of it and vote the Democrats back into the presidency, as in 1932, 1960, 1976, 1992, and 2016. But that requires years of having their noses rubbed into the fact that they're not millionaires-in-waiting who will soon benefit from GOP policies.
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Of course, in '68 the presumptive Dem was assassinated at the Convention, but the rest is quite enough. What a quirk of American society. It hands credit for economic success to the Republicans who trash it, while assigning the blame of recessions on the Dems that helped to 'promote the general Welfare,' thus living up to the preamble. All it takes is a slick-talking demagogue, a scape-goat group to whip up hatred against, and a generous helping of propaganda.
 
Oneuli said:
I'm not sure when the next recession will come. This growth cycle is long in the tooth already, but it could still have some life in it, since the deleveraging of the Obama era is now being reversed -- not just the radical increases to federal budget deficits, but also a change from rapid declines in household debt to renewed increases. The impact of those two things, together, is to import capital into the system, which could keep the economy growing for a few more years (at the cost of requiring massive exports of capital in the future, depressing the economy over the course of the following generation).
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Have you got any factual data to support those assertions and assumptions, sock?
 
Legion said:
You're assuming that people believe your claim to be a woman
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I make no assumption about what people believe. It doesn't matter one way or the other. If people would like to know who I am, I provided that information. If they don't believe me, that's fine -- I'm not going to compromise my privacy by providing more. But in the end it doesn't matter. Some of you may know each other in real life, but I'd assume most are strangers, so all we'll know is what is in one another's arguments. You either have rebuttals for what I say or you don't. Our identities don't factor into that.

Do you think making such a claim imbues you with a special status?
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No. Why, do you?
 
Oneuli said:
Usually, after a few years of Republican leadership, the nation goes into recession and then longer-term stagnation.
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Isn't it a fact that economic cycles like recession and stagnation occur periodically, sock? Is it accurate to imply a causal partisan impetus?

Isn't it true that if you wait long enough, circumstances change?
 
Grumpy said:
OK does 18 months ago count?
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Sure. I would expect that the atmosphere 18 months ago was similar to two weeks ago, so that wouldn't seem to explain the different experiences your acquaintances reported to you and mine reported to me. I'd be curious what accounts for those. Given all the material I so easily pulled up on Google from others in Japan whose experiences were similar to those my friend reported to me, I don't think the difference is likely to be because he made it up. I'm open to other ideas.
 
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