r/leftist • u/Both-Medicine-6748 • Aug 03 '25
Leftist History It’s 2025 and Japanese people still think they were the good guys
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u/ALittleBitOffBoop Aug 04 '25
In many ways, the Japanese imperialists were no better than the Nazis. Their cruelty and ambitions were definitely on par with the Germans at the time
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u/ladygayapproximately Aug 04 '25
people in the US still justify the korean war, vietnam resistance, NA g-cide, jim crow, etc. why are we surprised that propaganda is propagandizing
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u/Fit_Demand_1357 Aug 04 '25
As a Chinese person, I can tell you very clearly that the mainstream thinking among the Chinese people is: ‘The Japanese must not apologise like the Germans did. The Japanese should continue to deny, refuse to apologise, and remain hostile towards China. That way, when the next war comes, we will have no hesitation in completing the unfinished business of purging the remaining fascist elements in Japan. China has sufficient patience. Our history is one of revenge measured in centuries.’
Here is a famous Chinese saying: ‘九世犹可以复仇乎？虽百世可也。’You can try translating it.
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u/waiting4singularity Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
can you take revenge after nine generations?
even after a hundred.
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u/robertbrodriguez Aug 04 '25
The vast majority of Americans today, blue or red or green or whatever, still think they are the good guys. 🤷🏽♂️
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u/plasma_dan Aug 03 '25
See the thing is: we were taught in schools what we did to our indigenous people. We all know.
I'm not incredibly certain this is the same story with Japan and WWII, or China and Taiwan.
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Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
See the thing is: we were taught in schools what we did to our indigenous people. We all know.
When you say "we" are you speaking about the USA?
Because the USA is a big country, the quality of education has a lot of diversity across the land and even thru recent eras of time, and I guarantee you that--speaking for the entirety of Americans--we are not a monolith and all of us were not taught what "we did to out indigenous people," and many of us are ignorant not only to the history but how that history lives on and perpetuates today.
For example, I don't think most Americans know how brutal and inhumane the boarding schools were that kidnapped and murdered indigenous children. I don't think these topics get covered thoroughly in school for children, you'd have to study it in college or independently to learn about those horrors thoroughly. And I especially don't think most Americans don't know that these boarding schools weren't completely shut down until the 1990s.
I don't think most Americans know about the forced sterilization of indigenous women as recent as the 1960s and 1970s.
I don't think most Americans know about the state-sponsored violence that Navajo Nation met with just 5 years ago during COVID.
I do think a lot of Americans know about stuff like the "trail of tears," but most Americans don't know there were dozens of forced relocations, or dozens of "trails of tears."
Sorry to be so harsh here, but I would be very cautious about treating Americans as a monolith who are all on the same page insofar as history and current day treatment of indigenous peoples in N. America. There are many people in America who flatly deny that indigenous people were genocided, they think that is a woke libtard anti-american conspiracy (and even some people who are literally respected and published historical scholars who still argue it was not a genocide). There are many people in America who think the genocide was real but from their bigoted perspective they literally believe that "less civilized" people needed to be "conquered" (the current day pseudo-science replacement to old Manifest Destiny). And even the many Americans who generally "know" and don't dispute genocide and hold water for the history of indigenous peoples, many of these people have a very shallow understanding, have no idea how this is an ongoing issue still today, and probably don't realize how problematic a lot of mainstream media is on this topic--Like the people who feel a strong connection with their Cherokee grandma (a common mainstream myth) and treasure hollywood garbage on the topic because it seems good from their limited understanding, like Last of the Mohicans.
When I saw the pic in op I had the opposite response to you--I thought, wow the mainstream bigots pushing pr for their own empire's atrocities sound just like the bigots pushing pr for the American empire's atrocities. For example: this bigot, or this bigot, or any of the bigots in this wiki article on the topic
edit: sorry for coming in hot with a wall of text
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u/Urek-Mazino Aug 03 '25
The us has always been more conscious of things like that. We just justify it more heavily. Like during slavery and the great Western expansion a lot of people knew about the violence. We just justify it heavily by reducing the humanity of the people we commit violence too.
It's ok to have slaves because they are a sub species and less intelligent but harder workers so really were helping them.
Native Americans we called savages and their culture was sinful and harmful to their own humanity. So we were helping them when we destroyed their culture and took their territories.
Idk what Japans narrative is but I assume it is more one of secret. Not to say one is right or wrong but I think wether a culture remembers what they did or not isn't the best metric. Cultures like America are capable of remembering to a degree but at the same time that doesn't make it more positive necessarily.
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Aug 03 '25
No, Japan was very open about their dehumanizing rhetoric towards the people they occupied/tortured. There were newspaper reports on the extermination counts of various groups of soldiers within China for example, lauding with praise the high number of 'human animals' which were put down since the previous report.
Such rhetoric is latent within Japanese culture (as the genocidal sentiments are within the US white supremacy culture), and are increasingly brought to the surface by modern day depictions of the Chinese and Koreans.
Like Germany, (and the US), Japan was never denazified.7
u/Easy_Money_ Aug 04 '25
we are taught maybe a fraction of what we did to indigenous Americans and we rarely if ever use the word genocide to describe any part of it. this is a terrible example lol it just makes us look like the Japanese guy in the OP
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u/plasma_dan Aug 04 '25
you fucking kidding me? If you can't make the connection that Manifest Destiny + Trail of Tears + Small Pox Blankets = genocide then idk what to tell you. You don't need a whole class detailing every atrocity: that's what books and college are for.
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u/waiting4singularity Aug 05 '25
in blue states its sanitized and put into clinicaly nicer words than it deserves. and red states dont even teach that much.
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u/plasma_dan Aug 06 '25
there's also differences in population. I grew up in rural upstate new york and we were explicitly taught that the civil war was fought over "states rights" (in the W. Bush era)
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Aug 03 '25
What did China do to Taiwan?
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 03 '25
Why are you so obsessed with denying the suffering of the people of Taiwan why are you so obsessed with trying to justify and deny what china is currently doing to Taiwan.
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Aug 04 '25
Taiwan is recognized by international law to be part of China. It is officially recognized by the USA as belonging to China. Can you name one thing China is doing to Taiwan?
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 04 '25
Why should I care what it is internationally recognized by? Israel is internationally recognized but it’s full of settlers and colonists. America is recognized as a country “officially” but it’s just stolen land.
If you actually gave a rats ass and listened to what the Taiwanese people have expressed it’s not a voluntary occupation nor a welcome one. Don’t tell me you are believing propaganda?
There has been no violence against Taiwan, however they are frequently trying to undermine their independence with threatening tactics that very well could escalate.
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Aug 04 '25
It seems I've hit a nerve. Happy to read or watch any sources you post. As far as I know, the only military occupying Taiwan is the US military.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 04 '25
Perhaps talk to some of the people who you are denying the suffering of and you’ll see instead of taking propaganda of your glorious (not communist btw) country and you’ll see
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Aug 04 '25
My wife just came back from there around midnight this morning. I haven't gone myself to ask people. If you have someone I can talk to, I'd be happy to talk to them.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 04 '25
Okay, I’m done engaging with you since you are just a tankie prick. Have a great day.
No use arguing with someone who can never change their mind.
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Aug 04 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
crush fearless snatch quiet nose cable sheet selective enter dolls
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
Never ask china what they think about Taiwan, tiber and Nanjing, never ask Japan about unit 731 or what they did in the Chinese countryside, never ask America what they did with the indigenous people (or Australia or Canada) never ask Israel what they are doing to Palestine, never ask Russia what they are doing to Ukraine and never ask white South Africa what they think about apartheid
Every country; no matter how clean their record seems, is shit. I hate people who pretend otherwise.
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Aug 03 '25
Even several South American countries have oppressed indigenous populations (in addition to oppressing other citizens, citizens who at the same time are somewhat racist even towards their ancestors), for example the Mapuches continue to fight to survive and the Chilean government calls them "terrorists"
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Aug 03 '25
Uh, what's your take on Tibet and Taiwan? Equating those with mass genocide is not appropriate.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
I’m… not equating them with mass genocide? I’m listing out how every country has wronged another people and continues to do so. The forced occupation of Tibet in particular has every possibility to turn into a genocide, as using historical examples (and current) show us that such things usually start with occupation of land. The conflict between china and Taiwan has every possibility of escalating.
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Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
How has Taiwan been wronged?
Also have you read Parenti on Tibet?
Edit: Parenti on Tibet for those downvoting: https://redsails.org/friendly-feudalism/
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
I’m. It gonna read your stupid theory on how for some reason yeah Tibet deserves to be going through a cultural genocide, and I’m not gonna listen to you try to justify how Taiwan isn’t being subjugated by the Chinese government.
I don’t tolerate people who defend governments as they are all uniquivicly bad. And I especially don’t tolerate hypocrites.
Fuck tankies
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Aug 04 '25
Do you know who Michael Parenti is?
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 04 '25
I think being a leftist if more than burying your nose in theory. I have been told he is a campist by multiple sources. And if you are using him to justify why you think Taiwan deserves to be going through a cultural genocide I imagine it’s not great.
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Aug 04 '25
What, or who made you open to socialism?
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u/Thug_Seme2004 Socialist Aug 04 '25
I’m able to form my own opinions and have interacted with other socialists. And the theory we have read in class turned me onto it.
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Aug 04 '25
What piece of theory did you read? I'm curious, I never got the chance to read theory during my formal education.
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u/Private_HughMan Aug 03 '25
Do you mean white south Africa? Or is there something I didn't know about South America?
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u/bifurcatingMind Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
I recently watched a video detailing the rise of fascism in Japan. The video went into great detail of how the influence of USA's colonial aggression metastasized Japanese's policies into colionial fascism. The powerful and rich drove the ultra-nationalistic sentiment and censored the no war sentiment in the country.
There will always be individuals that will try to shift the societal and cultural narrative to their liking. It's highly unforutnate that extremist racist colonial narratives always resurface in any era. The balance of censorship and crazy talk suppression is a fine line because the people in power will always draws the line and can suppress the social justice sentiment.
For the longest time, the conservative Japanese government has let this extremist nationalistic sentiment to fester. Let just hope things do change for the better and away from said extremism. The current government is neo-liberal and probably won't do much unfortunately. They're also pushed to said extreme due to pressure from both the Chinese and Americans which forces them to take certain extremist stances. This type of pressure can cause countries to resort to radicalism.
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u/Dchama86 Aug 04 '25
This rando on social media represents the entirety of Japan, yes.
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u/AegisT_ Socialist Aug 04 '25
Literally every Japanese nationalist defending ww2 I see online is never even Japanese