Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga Fan Asō Tarō Again in Running for Japan's Top Post
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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Okay, I'll accept that, even though it's coming from an obviously biased outlet.
Yes. Any time someone makes a stupid generalization like the one you just made, they are mistaken. |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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You seem to have trouble confusing the people waging the war in Vietnam, the ones making those choices, with the poor American GIs on the ground. McCain was just a soldier on the ground. He was there fighting. You know, unlike the jackass in the White House now with the cushy gig daddy got him.
As for your link. It seems quite convoluted and full of double talk. It's clearly twisted the facts as an anti-McCain blog. It even has the whole 'third Bush term' BS scare tactic and cheap rhetoric. It's like quoting Rush Limbaugh on Obama, or even McCain in the primaries as Rush found him too liberal somehow. Plus perhaps there's more to that bill than just the waterboarding. You know how pork barrel politics work, with things being shoved into otherwise noble bills. In that very link you see McCain saying that he disagrees with the president's views on torture and that's what I'm talking about. If anything, the actual quotes and info on that site paint a decent picture of McCain if you look through the personal bias of the author. And again, what does any of that have to do with Aso denying Japanese war crimes, namely the systematic forced prostitution of Chinese and Korean women in World War II? You're derailing the conversation with baseless attack on McCain. And, btw, if you were attack Obama, I'd be defending him as I have done talking with more conservative friends. I'm actually rather surprised at how much I'm actually liking both candidates for a change. Of course I liked McCain over Bush way back in 2000. Whoo. If only. |
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nobinobita
Posts: 75 |
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Hoo Booy! I really didn't want to start a political argument, I was just using McCain as a convenient example of how racism is not obvious in America. What McCain said was obviously racist. But the individual reactions to what he said reflect a less obvious ethnic/cultural bias in our country.
The Xenos, what do you think would have happened if McCain had used the "N" word? Would you forgive him? Would America forgive him? DEFINITELY NOT. That is a career ending word. But is it career ending because people are actually sympathetic to the feelings and plight of African Americans? Or is it because its just a reflexive response? Why are people more ready to forgive a man who uses the "G" word than the "N" word? What does that reflect of us? I think it shows that people gauge racism by a check list, rather than by actual values. They just haven't learned that the word "gook" is a terrible, ugly, dehumanizing word. It troubles me that people have to be told on a case by case basis what is racist, rather than having the innate feelings to figure it out for themselves. Also, yes, I'm sure if I spent 3 years being tortured by the Vietkong, I probably WOULD become a racist. So yes, it makes sense he'd use that terrible word. But the fact is, he is a public figure, he could become president, he used it in public, and no one really gave a damn. Instead they said "oh it's ok, you know, he was tortured. He's earned the right to use that word. Anyway, he was only talking about the BAD Asians. And he sort of apologized, so it's fine." I'm don't want this discussion to be about McCain, but rather how easily people forgave him for his slip up. I believe this tenuously relates to Aso, because in the US we only tend to hear from him when it relates to Manga or its another CRAZY ASS quote denying the evils of imperial Japan. But in Japan that stuff probably gets lost among the daily flow of life, just as these political slip ups get lost in the US. I think these things need to be discussed. We shouldn't be afraid of being too "pc" and we also shouldn't be afraid of being labeled "racist". We should have honest open discussions, even if it means venturing out of our comfort zones as we are doing now. So thanks for your comments. I'm not trying to upset you, and I know if we were talking in person, rather than over the internet, we'd probably be getting better insights from one another and getting along just fine. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Oh so now McCain's a racist because he referred to a set of specific individual people by a racial slur? Wow. You're sure quick to toss around your own slurs.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." It's not even defending McCain that I'm trying get across here. It's that there's a whole other prejudice going on here. Some people are so quick to label someone as a racist, they miss that they're using the same prejudice to label people as the people using racial slurs are. Plus, if anything, this example of McCain using that slur shows an example of how racism is obvious. Here a leader flat out said a racial slur. He not slyly saying that war crimes never happened, as is the example we're talking about. McCain using that racial slur contrasts what Aso has said. As for comparing his use of that word against Asians to the slur against blacks, it doesn't work. You're comparing it to something that never happened. Plus you and other totally ignore the context and who he was talking about. He wasn't talking about all Asians, he talked about his captors specifically. Plus, as I said earlier, the word was an unfortunate part of the war our troops were sadly tossed into that was engrained into their head. Again, many people are too quick with their own slurs and labels. If you say that word, you're automatically racist, not matter the context? What kind of close minded thinking is that? If you ask me that's an ouroboros of thinking that just leads to more prejudice. You know it's funny. A friend who says he's liberal constantly uses racial slurs. He maybe thinks because he's a minority, it's okay. It gets rather weird. He affectionately calls a couple friends by mixing in the g and n words into their nicknames. It's.. really weird. Anyway, that's not the issue here and it never was. We're not talking about the simple and outright use of racial slurs. We're talking about underlying racial overtones of politicians. Again, McCain's slip in talking about his experience in Vietnam is the opposite of that. We were talking about Aso having nationalistic views and comments to the point of disturbing racial overtones. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11293 Location: Frisco, TX |
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This is why I avoid politics and religion. People get all uppity, then other people start complaining, then more people try to prove a rather moot point, and no one is happy aside from the ignorant because they don't care to follow such trivial and non-individualistic concerns.. like me. Oh, and I got complaints, by the way. Better not disappoint. |
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