The Telegraph: Why is there no looting in Japan?

[Beau_Ouiville]

1. In the worst earthquake in US history, the national guard had to be called out to suppress looting. That was in San Francisco in 1906.
2. There was also looting in Kansas after the recent tornado out there.
3. This issue of looting has been used in the US for race-baiting.
4. The lead article is from a blog, not a news article.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

Some people were looting flat screen TVs, electronics, and expensive sports shoes from department stores, after Katrina. They were also breaking into private homes. Looting expensive merchandise is pure criminal activity and it has nothing to do with the necessities of survival. But it got even worse. There were people shooting at civilians and shooting at rescue helicopters, just for the heck of it. One doctor who was loading patients to be evacuated into helicopters, on top of Tulane University Hospital’s downtown building, was shot in the arm. He was really lucky he wasn’t shot in the head. They had to cease all evacuation for hours, with cancer patients and renal dialysis patients waiting on top of the building, in the searing heat, because it was too risky for the helicopters to fly while criminals were specifically aiming their gunfire at them.

 

[ManOnFire]

Just a guess…The Japanese have accepted personal responsibility and their public education systems taught the students to understand capitalism, so they don’t play the victim card when people turn out differently…

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Some people were looting flat screen TVs, electronics, and expensive sports shoes from department stores, after Katrina. They were also breaking into private homes. Looting expensive merchandise is pure criminal activity and it has nothing to do with the necessities of survival. But it got even worse. There were people shooting at civilians and shooting at rescue helicopters, just for the heck of it. One doctor who was loading patients to be evacuated into helicopters, on top of Tulane University Hospital’s downtown building, was shot in the arm. He was really lucky he wasn’t shot in the head. They had to cease all evacuation for hours, with cancer patients and renal dialysis patients waiting on top of the building, in the searing heat, because it was too risky for the helicopters to fly while criminals were specifically aiming their gunfire at them.

Different countries, different mentalities, different thieves.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Just a guess…The Japanese have accepted personal responsibility, so they don’t play the victim card when people turn out differently…

1. Do you think that we Americans don’t accept personal responsibility?
2. What’s the victim card?

 

[kenofken]

Some people were looting flat screen TVs, electronics, and expensive sports shoes from department stores, after Katrina. They were also breaking into private homes. Looting expensive merchandise is pure criminal activity and it has nothing to do with the necessities of survival. But it got even worse. There were people shooting at civilians and shooting at rescue helicopters, just for the heck of it. One doctor who was loading patients to be evacuated into helicopters, on top of Tulane University Hospital’s downtown building, was shot in the arm. He was really lucky he wasn’t shot in the head. They had to cease all evacuation for hours, with cancer patients and renal dialysis patients waiting on top of the building, in the searing heat, because it was too risky for the helicopters to fly while criminals were specifically aiming their gunfire at them.

A fair number of the people shooting unarmed civilians in that disaster were cops. New Orleans had a lot of terrible problems heading into that disaster. Poverty and lots of armed criminal violence. A police force with a record of corruption and brutality equal to that of any Third World nation anywhere.

Post Katrina, you had a situation where all traces of social, legal and physical infrastructure were gone and people had been left to die in squalid conditions for weeks out of disorganization and incompetence. NO had more than its share of trouble in the best times. Is it any surprise that it got worse under these conditions? Of course there will always be criminals who seize the opportunity that disaster presents. Anyone who thinks that isn’t happening in Japan right now is naive, at best. They have some factors pulling in their favor to be sure. They don’t have the grinding poverty we’ve allowed in this country. They don’t have a society in which street thugs can buy military grade weapons for a day’s pay. They have a demographic distribution which has lots of very old folks.

There is an ugly and (barely) unspoken subtext of this thread which suggest that as vicious as the Japanese have been, at least they’re inherently orderly and virtuous folk, unlike the darkies and liberals who have corrupted the West. There’s a lot of racial theory at play here…

 

[qui_est_ce]

There is an ugly and (barely) unspoken subtext of this thread which suggest that as vicious as the Japanese have been, at least they’re inherently orderly and virtuous folk, unlike the darkies and liberals who have corrupted the West. There’s a lot of racial theory at play here…

You are the one who is suggesting it’s “darkies and liberals.” I think the important point is the Japanese were our enemies in WWII. There was a lot of racism against anything Japanese. After the war, we helped Japan rebuild itself. And it did. Japanese-Americans were able to overcome the racism against them by European-Americans. In general, they work hard. The crime stats are extremely low. They are over represented in Ivy League alums.

Those are facts. No one is saying anybody was born that way or that it’s genetic.

I think the argument can be made that Johnson’s “Great Society” programs did nothing to help the poor and disenfranchised in the US. It in fact increased dependence on government handouts. The unwed birthrate among the minority poor has soared since the '60’s and continues until today, in spite of cheaply available ABC and legal abortion, all which was supposed to bring the birthrate down.

:twocents:

 

[ManOnFire]

1. Do you think that we Americans don’t accept personal responsibility?
2. What’s the victim card?

The govt. forces responsible parents to pay for their own kids, plus pay for the kids where the man ran out on his responsibility. TV, movies, and music get rich from selling slutty hotties to us men to the point that there’s more lust than love. Men get weakened by this to the point of running from responsibility. Then the govt. forces the rest of us to pay for it. People don’t think it’s fair (victims), so people cheat on taxes to justify not paying for someone else, and the cycle of broken homes and relationships continues to grow. We get poor, and the media gets rich… See, I just played the victim card.

 

[Nine_Two]

There is an ugly and (barely) unspoken subtext of this thread which suggest that as vicious as the Japanese have been, at least they’re inherently orderly and virtuous folk, unlike the darkies and liberals who have corrupted the West. There’s a lot of racial theory at play here…

Darkies, liberals, and crackers. Remember we’ve also had the comparison to the horrible showing of white dominated So-Cal in 1906.

But you’re right on the race card thing, I’m seeing several posts denegrating those darn Mongoloids as barbarians, to the golden summer of American Civilization.

I have to assume this is from people who have never crossed a national border.

 

[qui_est_ce]

1. What’s the victim card?

“It’s not my fault!”

 

[Nine_Two]

You are the one who is suggesting it’s “darkies and liberals.” I think the important point is the Japanese were our enemies in WWII. There was a lot of racism against anything Japanese. After the war, we helped Japan rebuild itself. And it did. Japanese-Americans were able to overcome the racism against them by European-Americans. In general, they work hard. The crime stats are extremely low. They are over represented in Ivy League alums.

Those are facts. No one is saying anybody was born that way or that it’s genetic.

I think the argument can be made that Johnson’s “Great Society” programs did nothing to help the poor and disenfranchised in the US. It in fact increased dependence on government handouts. The unwed birthrate among the minority poor has soared since the '60’s and continues until today, in spite of cheaply available ABC and legal abortion, all which was supposed to bring the birthrate down.

:twocents:

Just for the record, after the only country that can possibly claim to have helped Japan rebuilt itself is North Korea, who by invading the South forced the US to reopen Japan’s armament factories, kickstarting its until then non-existant economy.
The US did help rebuilt the German economy, however. Racism in action.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Just for the record, after the only country that can possibly claim to have helped Japan rebuilt itself is North Korea, who by invading the South forced the US to reopen Japan’s armament factories, kickstarting its until then non-existant economy.
The US did help rebuilt the German economy, however. Racism in action.

I do believe the US helped rebuild Japan, including the cities hit by the atomic bomb. I think it was called SCAP under General McArthur?

I also believe I remember somewhere in the back recesses of my mind that Reagan compensated Japanese Americans who could prove they were interred under Roosevelt. I don’t remember the exact figure or if all got an equal amount. But it was over $10,000.00.

I don’t have my resources here to back me up.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Exactly! The same culture of strict adherence to authority is the culture that spawned the depredations committed by the Japanese in the 30s and 40s. It is the same culture that led to Kamakaze attacks, suicide charges , the Battan Death March, cannibalism and mass Harri kari. I’ll take the United States culture, looting and all.

Lest we forget.

 

[Robert_Bay]

Keep the thread charitable

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

I also believe I remember somewhere in the back recesses of my mind that Reagan compensated Japanese Americans who could prove they were interred under Roosevelt. I don’t remember the exact figure or if all got an equal amount. But it was over $10,000.00.

I don’t have my resources here to back me up.

The US compensated American citizens for the internment so I don’t know what that has to do with helping Japan after WWII.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I do believe the US helped rebuild Japan, including the cities hit by the atomic bomb. I think it was called SCAP under General McArthur?

I also believe I remember somewhere in the back recesses of my mind that Reagan compensated Japanese Americans who could prove they were interred under Roosevelt. I don’t remember the exact figure or if all got an equal amount. But it was over $10,000.00.

I don’t have my resources here to back me up.

The US compensated American citizens for the internment so I don’t know what that has to do with helping Japan after WWII.

It was a two part question. N_2 said the US did not help the Japanese rebuild, but we did help Europe. He then went on to call this racist. I do believe we did help Japan rebuilt after WWII.

I found the following:

time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/nb_macarthur.html

General Douglas MacArthur
Victorious in battle, he went from soldier to statesman, and created a new Japan from the ashes of war
By Jim Frederick

The task of reconstructing Europe after World War II was divvied up among the handful of victorious nations. But in the Pacific, the job of rebuilding Japan fell, effectively, to a single man: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur. And for five-and-a-half years, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ruled from his office at the Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Building in central Tokyo with an imperiousness to make emperors blush as he sought to transform Japan from a theocratic military dictatorship into a liberal capitalist democracy. It was an exercise without precedent and, more than half a century later, it remains the most successful postwar reconstruction in history. Despite formidable flaws, MacArthur was a compassionate conqueror, a wise administrator and, more than anyone, the man responsible for setting Japan down the path toward becoming the free, fair and prosperous economic superpower it is today.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

Another thing that I think was bordering on shameful, is how the citizens of New Orleans disregarded the evacuation orders. The Saturday newspaper had big headlines about the major hurricane headed to the city. Mayor Ray Nagin went on radio Saturday evening, telling everyone that he is almost sure to order mandatory evacuation the next day, because the Head of the (National Hurricane Research Center? something like that) from Florida called him, and made it crystal clear that this was the Big One, the stuff of nightmare heading straight to New Orleans. Mayor Nagin urged everyone to get ready for leaving the city. Sunday morning, he indeed ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.

Employers provided free bus transportation to Jackson, Mississippi. The city provided free bus transportation to Baton Rouge and to shelters elsewhere.

People failed to board the free buses. People acted like children, with a lack of seriousity and discipline that could have cost the lives of rescuers later on.

Our secretary stayed behind to guard his house. When he got flooded, rescuers had to evacuate him with helicopter from the rooftop. Two female colleagues with no cars, also failed to take the bus to Jackson, MS. They were finally rescued from my employer’s building rooftop, via helicopter, while criminal thugs were shooting at the helicopter’s pilot.

This is the kind of behavior that makes me mad. These people, by their sheer lack of respect for the authorities, and for the mandatory evacuation orders, tied up precious resources (helicopters, boats, emergency response crews) in the aftermath of Katrina. Maybe if we didn’t have so many people in the city who flippantly disregarded a mandatory evacuation order, and were too lazy to board a free autobus that was waiting for them, to take them to a shelter elsewhere, maybe these emergency responders could have better focused their resources to save those who really needed saving, such as elderly people at hospices and cancer patients at hospitals.

There’s no government that can save you, when you disregard a mandatory evacuation order, when you don’t have enough respect for other civil servants, to board a free autobus, not to remain behind where they will have to risk their own lives, trying to come with boats and helicopters, to pluck you out from your rooftop.

OK, before anyone here PULLS THE RACE CARD AGAIN, all three colleagues I was talking about, are WHITE. WHITE CAUCASIANS. Disobeying a black mayor - Ray Nagin. But it doesn’t matter who was white, who was black.

Frankly, I feel deeply insulted with those posters in this thread who pulled the race card. Why do you have to play this game, every single time?

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

A fair number of the people shooting unarmed civilians in that disaster were cops. New Orleans had a lot of terrible problems heading into that disaster. Poverty and lots of armed criminal violence. A police force with a record of corruption and brutality equal to that of any Third World nation anywhere.

Could you provide some proof for your statements, please, the ones which I bolded?

 

[Nine_Two]

I do believe the US helped rebuild Japan, including the cities hit by the atomic bomb. I think it was called SCAP under General McArthur?

The actual acronym escapes me at the moment, but the program you’re thinking about was the occupation itself which held political control of Japan and was committed to demilitarizing the country and breaking up the Zaibatsu (who have since re-emerged).

I also believe I remember somewhere in the back recesses of my mind that Reagan compensated Japanese Americans who could prove they were interred under Roosevelt. I don’t remember the exact figure or if all got an equal amount. But it was over $10,000.00.

Reagan giving individuals (who as you note are Americans) money for injustices committed against them is a far cry from helping rebuild the Japanese economy.

I don’t have my resources here to back me up.

If you find something that shows the US actually putting money into the Japanese economy prior to the outbreak of the Korean war, I’d love to see it.

 

[Nine_Two]

It was a two part question. N_2 said the US did not help the Japanese rebuild, but we did help Europe. He then went on to call this racist. I do believe we did help Japan rebuilt after WWII.

I found the following:

time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/nb_macarthur.html

General Douglas MacArthur
Victorious in battle, he went from soldier to statesman, and created a new Japan from the ashes of war
By Jim Frederick

The task of reconstructing Europe after World War II was divvied up among the handful of victorious nations. But in the Pacific, the job of rebuilding Japan fell, effectively, to a single man: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur. And for five-and-a-half years, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ruled from his office at the Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Building in central Tokyo with an imperiousness to make emperors blush as he sought to transform Japan from a theocratic military dictatorship into a liberal capitalist democracy. It was an exercise without precedent and, more than half a century later, it remains the most successful postwar reconstruction in history. Despite formidable flaws, MacArthur was a compassionate conqueror, a wise administrator and, more than anyone, the man responsible for setting Japan down the path toward becoming the free, fair and prosperous economic superpower it is today.

I agree with everything that says, but there is no indication of economic support, as was given to Germany. As excellent a job as MacArthur did, he did not control American finances. Still, he is one of the few men in the history of the world given nearly unlimited power who created a functioning state designed to exist without him.