Communist political parties practically don't exist while authoritarian right wing parties running on austerity, cracking down on personal freedoms, and spreading hate towards all sorts of out-groups are gaining mainstream appeal in a lot of the world.
Unless you're using the bastardized American definition of "radical left" where any viewpoint to the left of centre, like "our systems are crumbling, rich people should be taxed more" is labeled "radical left".
And as a person who does not like authoritarianism, it informs my opinion.
I don't see it as much. Neolibs are smart enough not to profess all their plans on social media in ALL CAPS. Keep a dignified front and no one on the inner will notice your hands crossed behind them.
I commented on it below; the UK is a heavy handed police state right now under left leaning ideology.
I just want Healthcare and to not be laid off every 2-3 years.
Of course, that's nothing money can't fix.
And it's the same thing now a days, except the roles are largely reversed. Somebody who puts the interest of their nation and the citizens of that nation first isn't a "fascist." That sort of rhetoric, let alone the sharp rise in violence against it (to say nothing of the condoning, if not outright support of such), is just driving everybody who was kind of in the middle more and more away from the 'name callers.' I think you can see this in the US where polls show independents increasingly leaning right on most issues, whereas not that long ago they tended to lean left. And given our basically 50/50 split, independents have the power to pick which side wins.
I feel politics is like this perpetual motion machine where you reach some absolute extreme on end where the side in power starts to do really dumb stuff which ends up driving people to the other side until we trend (over what feels like a ~25 year cycle) to the next opposite extreme and the cycle begins anew.
Historically the fascist then, will use economic populist policy. That's like when Hitler built the Autobahn, you alleviate the economic grievances, support for the autocrat cements and then the real fascist stuff begins, that's when term limits go away and their enemies go in the oven.
But they don't do that economic populist part do they? These new right-wing movements in the west aren't doing this part of the equation.
Because we are now in the "interesting", novel case where the autocrats themselves are also just more neoliberals, the real power hasn't really moved an inch, like they are all paid by the same set of oligarchs, power is already fully consolidated. So I suspect nothing much will happen, it will just swing back to the center that shifted the overton window a bit more to the right in the meantime, the status quo didn't change so people are perpetually unhappy with no idea why.
> I feel politics is like this perpetual motion machine where you reach some absolute extreme on end
Yeah man! Totally! It's like when we move from Reaganomics in the 80s to Clintonomics in the 90s, from one "absolute extreme end" to the other! TF
In the past such unpopular leaders could never have been able to maintain power. So you have this weird dissonance growing where countries are ruled by people who don't particularly care for their country, and people who don't particularly care for their leaders. The 'populist' rhetoric isn't some veiled proxy for supremacy, but simply getting rid of this really weird state of affairs. The entire point of a representative democracy is for the people who lead to be representative. And in many countries around the world, that's no longer the case.
I would take myself as an example of the problem. I am an advocate for free speech, against war/screwing around in other countries/military industrial complex, against political correctness, and strongly support equality of opportunity. In other words I'm pretty much a textbook liberal of 20 years ago, yet these values leave me far closer to contemporary "conservative" populist parties, worldwide, than to liberal parties, again - worldwide.
I find many of the values that "liberal" parties espouse now a days are rather illiberal and extremely similar to conservative policies of some 20+ years ago. Censorship, war, deplatforming, political correctness, and so on. I think we may actually be living through a 'flip' akin to what happened in the early 20th century in the US.
A populist will say he supports free speech, then make it illegal for certain people to speak on TV, cut funding to universities where people are allowed to say things he doesn't like, take ownership of the largest social media platforms and ban everyone who disagrees with him, all while repeating the claim of supporting free speech.
A populist will say every other politician is corrupt and he's the only one who can end the corruption. When elected, he'll be more corrupt than anyone else ever, while proclaiming there's no corruption any more, and we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Politics is a perpetual motion machine because there are always people who seek to dramatically increase their own power and will use any excuse to do so - that is a constant. What fluctuates back and forth is which excuses work - that is the apparent pendulum, but it's the same constant driving force underneath. When protecting the country is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to protecting the country. When religious freedom is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to religious freedom. When liberating the working class is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to liberating the working class. Those aren't different sides - they're just different excuses used by the same side.
You know the paradox of tolerance certainly. In it, who do you think Popper was talking about? The people happy to openly engage and debate anybody in a fair and respectful fashion? Or the people shrieking for censorship, denouncing debate, demanding people not be heard, and then going on to start murdering people over their views?
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"But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
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My previous comment was not a setup then conclusion. It was a response to two different things in the same comment.
We have so much information conviniently accessible, but we underestimated human apathy once again.
I see thr regular videos top out at 10m. I click on shorts and they top out at 32m. His most popular non-short just misses the top 10 videos when compared with the shorts.
And then all this is on YouTube. I bet his Facebook or Instagram has much higher viewed content. So I'm not convinced.
The only out of context clips are when people are trying to misrepresent him, the things he says, or the way that he generally behaves towards the people he debates/discusses with. For instance the widely disseminated clip where he speaks against the term empathy, which is edited to remove the clip and subsequent context where he talks about it being exploited and abused, and much preferring the term sympathy - which he feels is less susceptible to exploitation.
The 2nd video is also a highlight reel of different segments edited together, so I'm not sure what you're showing here. There's still room to edit out any people they didn't like. Just because they show the full segment for one person doesn't mean they show them all.
But i feel we're way off topic at this point so I'll cut it off here.
The clip, which involves an attractive girl flashing him in the middle of a debate, and is literally the most viewed video on his channel - has 10m views. The full stream from that event has 8.4m views. In any case I'd again emphasize that even that clip is not taken out of context. It includes the complete and unedited discussion with the girl.
Here [1] is a debate between him and a professor (amongst 3 that showed up during just that event) that's on almost on our exact topic. The professor's argument was weak and his behavior quite undignified. The professor "lost" but it's not really the point or purpose of the debate. For instance here's another [2] (from the same campus tour) where not only was the crowd was much more for the professor, but the professor also formulated a far more viable argument, got Charlie flustered and made him say some things that certainly made his argument look foolish. Charlie "lost" that one, but again it's not really the point or purpose. I'd also add that Charlie still posted it, unedited.
This is how an Open Society, the sort Karl Popper spoke of, should work.
No, but nationalism is a very common channel to rile up fascist behavior. Make the overly proud, then dehumanize whoever you want them to attack. Once they no longer see that other as a human, all ethics goes out the window.
>is just driving everybody who was kind of in the middle more and more away from the 'name callers.'
Don't act fascist if you don't want to be called one:
>Another issue grabbing national attention is rising numbers of foreign residents and visitors, which has fueled widespread anti-foreigner sentiment that sometimes turns outright xenophobic. Many argue that Japan is at risk of losing its way of life, or that Japanese workers are being edged out of jobs.
Uh huh. A familiar trend the far right takes advantage of. Blame the foreigners than take hostile action towards them.
My only surprise is that the job market in Japan is this impacted. I guess seven a bad economy can dwarf the under-population crisis.
> think you can see this in the US where polls show independents increasingly leaning right on most issues, whereas not that long ago they tended to lean left.
In January, yes. By now, independents in the US have already soured. Maybe they are still right wing, but they realize Far-Right actions aren't it.
Also, too many rich people seem to feel way too comfortable with fascism, probably thinking their wealth will insulate them from the consequences.
I'll put aside your thought-killing use the the f-word.
What's really going on is liberals (of the social and pre-market variety) has embraced a "there is no alternative" style in and attempt to collapse political politics into kind of "unipolar" political moment, where the only option is to agree with them. They has quite a lot of success for a long time.
That's the problem with using "there is no alternative"-style politics push a unpopular positions against resistance and suppress dissent: you give "fascists" the opportunity to become popular by giving voice to popular sentiments (e.g. fuck the neoliberal status quo, we want our factories back).
> Most people would expect the majority to think that literally anything is better than fascism, but the majority doesn't think that.
The error was liberals though they could rely on that kind of revulsion so they wouldn't have to bend to popular opinion in unfashionable places they don't like visiting. That only works so long before people get sick of it.
I mean: for all the fearmongering about looming authoritarianism, did the Democratic party ever stray far from its partisan brand? Did it ever become a kind of united popular front, dropping divisive positions and adopting popular but off-brand ones to meet the threat? No, it did not. And the fact that it did not do those things completely undermined its whole "threat of fascism case." It made it sound like manipulative garbage, basically.
By the time you type out a subtle conversation and make a short and long term plans, the mobs will already form. The way engagement on social media works just amplifies the extremes and culls the subtlety.
Do you think it's fair to characterize every rightwing populist as a "fascist?"
(Japanese rice is very different from Indian-rice).
Voter apathy is also greater with younger people, because as most of my friends have expressed, many feel overshadowed by older voters.
In other words, the crisis has been ongoing since the original corruption scandal broke, and the ineffective governance has reiterated this.
I am not knowledgeable about Japanese politics but I swear this is a narrative I hear constantly.
There is definitely room to be worried, but the increase in tourism (perhaps, one might refer to it as "overtourism") supports the credence that there are valuable elements of Japanese culture that have demand overseas.
I think the more you stray from traditional mainstay IP and culture exports, the more unreliable it is. Again, a notable prolific example is Nippon Steel attempting to gain profit from operating US Steel, rather than simply taking market share.
On the topic of tariffs, though, I would definitely say that many Japanese people are upset about the tariffs, first directly at the US, and second at Ishiba for not negotiating a lower tariff rate. But here the sentiment is that the tariffs themselves are not only unjustified, but also deleterious to the US-Japan relationship. Japan is rather unique in the aspect of being militarily-tethered to the US, and the US has asked it to make uncomfortable (and difficult to gain large support for) economic investments in its own JSDF for the US's benefit. Subsequently, the tariff impact makes the LDP's position quite upsetting, because the LDP failed to negotiate tariffs and more-or-less shoved the military changes through with the intention of strengthening ties with the US.
So, there are a lot of things at play, but the current economic winds and the international relationship with the US has definitely skewed people towards isolationism and made it difficult for the LDP to retain the support they have.
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t...
and get an idea of the mish-mash of policies they put foward and their 'we're not racists we just like Japanese people more than foreigners' kind of rhetoric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4vY_SJimE
It's so strange - the "Japan First" gang infact appears to be pro-occupation (let's not pretend this is not what this is), and have even been raising funds for the likes of imperialists like Kirk.
Almost seems like it's meant to keep Japan artificially glued to the US and out of Asia, and not let geography work. Reminds me of what Brezhinsky feared about Germany / Russia getting together (and is now playing out in Europe).
Really sad though, since JICA and the prev. generations really gave Japan a very good name across Asia.
Some people might disagree—certainly plenty of right-wing Japanese do disagree—but many also believe that the US alliance and the bases are critical to Japan's greater sovereignty and prosperity. Without the security treaty and cooperation, Japan would on their own against China, diverting far more funds to defense and accepting much higher security risk.
The China issue is orthogonal to all this. US-Japan relations were atleast beneficial till now (unlike say Europe's colonial possessions in Asia), but it looks like the country will first suck all its vassals dry before going down.
It doesn't. But it probably will, especially with Japan's history. How many times does history have to repeat before we stop dismissing it as a slippery slope?
>many also believe that the US alliance and the bases are critical to Japan's greater sovereignty and prosperity.
America stripped their standing army for decades, so that damage is inflicted by the very ones that claim to protect them. And the US isn't exactly a reliable ally as of late.
I'm sure you're aware, but I think others will be confused by the link with no context. This is one of the "right-wing rivals".
I've lived in Japan a long time; working in IT, I pay all my taxes, speak fluent Japanese and follow the rules like everyone else.
From what I can gather this is the issues she lays out:
1. The rice shortage is due to shipping Japanese rice overseas plus the foreigners eating too much of it... This in fact is due to government protectionism and they should be fighting against the LDP not some tourists in the country for a week.
2. Foreigners are buying up lots of apartment buildings and raising the rent. There have been some high-profile cases of Chinese nationals buying apartment buildings and doing this. I agree with taking some action on this - I think it's an easy fix to have a non-resident tax similar to what Singapore does (I believe theirs is %60)
3. Socioeconomic forces have made it impossible for women to stay at home with a child. Not sure kicking out all the foreigners would help this at all, seems like an issue with the stagnant wages and high taxes in Japan more than anything.
4. Foreign students are going to university in Japan and getting large scholarships / room and board paid by the government. Don't have much of an opinion on this one.
The main issue I have with their party is rolling all residents, tourists and the like into a single group and othering them. I agree the government needs to take action on a lot of these issues but just blaming all non-Japanese doesn't help either party.
* Big swings to populism (even if the populist leaders are merely lying about their populist beliefs to entrench their power and set up an oligarchy) come about because of loss of legitimacy in the mainstream political spectrum.
* In the absence of a large and unexpected disaster, a loss of mainstream political legitimacy comes from mass alienation slowly attriting away the base of support.
* Japan is an import-heavy country with an educationally demanding labor market in a time of global uncertainty driving up trade costs across the board and impacting people's available cognitive energy budget. Under such circumstances, I'd be shocked if Sanseito hasn't already collaborating with AfD for a while.
whatever1•4mo ago
ares623•4mo ago
BatteryMountain•4mo ago
More than happy if we can get an island and turn it into a free-for-all arena and then all you war mongers can go get it out of your system. Leave the rest of us in peace.
lyu07282•4mo ago
whatever1•4mo ago
johnnyanmac•4mo ago
incomingpain•4mo ago
Nobody needs/wants war. That's never the solution to our problems.
OP isnt even correct. Japan has loads of crisis level problems, but the 'ruling party' would win the election if it happened today.