oh yeah the hypermilitarist genocidal racists backed by a bunch of monopolies in a suit pretending to be an economy that took over a british-modelled liberal monarchy are sooooooo different from fascists 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Fascism is an actual ideology. Its Karl Marx was a man named Giovanni Gentile, and he wrote an entire philosophy on it. The Japanese didn't really have any ideology other than "Let the Emperor live 10,000 years!" Most of the European imperialists didn't have huge militaries, nor did the military control society. I guess you could call the Japanese imperialist, but you don't have to be militarist to be imperialist. I realize that to some, the Venn diagrams of these three appear very nearly a circle, but there is much more to it than that.
Yes, on one level, I realize that today, fascist is just an insult. But believe it or not, it is an actual school of thought, an entire philosophy. You can still read the books, if you care to seek them out. But the insult is widespread and unavoidable. For example, here is one group of antifa calling another group of antifa fascist. Unless you're going to do the chud thing of "antifa are the real fascists!"
To the Japanese, machines of war--from the heavy machine guns to the tank--are only incidentals in warfare. We Americans realize that the infantry must perform the tasks of actually taking over the ground and holding it, but we use every available machine of war to prevent unnecessary losses. In contrast, the Japanese do not conceive of substituting the shock action of war machines for the shock action of infantry, and they merely strengthen the shock action of troops by the assistance of the machines. The Japanese Army is an army of men, supported by machines of war; ours is an army using machines of war. This is a fine distinction and perhaps not readily understood, but every statement of Japanese military policy bears this out.
A Japanese who has not tasted defeat will attack with a dash and a magnificent disregard for himself. When he has been set back on his heels, just once, he loses that zip and comes back without confidence and impelled by a morbid feeling toward death that might be worded as "Come on, let's get it over with."
He has found himself up against things he can't understand: For example, the way we use artillery (the Chinese never used it against him like that, and he doesn't know what to do about it); the fact that we prefer to sit back and stop him with well aimed rifle and machine-gun fire, and not fight it out with the bayonet; the fact that when we meet him with a bayonet we don't break and run; and, above all, the fact that his basic idea--that skill, bravery, and cold steel alone will win the war--is wrong.
-- "Japanese Warfare as Seen by U.S. Observers" from Intelligence Bulletin, May 1943
Dimitrov identified Imperial Japan as explicitly fascist several times in his writings on the United Front. I consider Dimitrov to be the authority on identifying fascism in the prewar period, and later attempts to restrict its definition to be revisionist. A good example of this "restrictionist" tendency is Jason Stanley's 2020 book "How Fascism Works".
They learned nothing from Mussolini, and about the only contact they had with the Italians was hosting a few submarines in Indonesia. Then when the Italians switched sides in '43, they took the subs for their own and bundled the sailors off into the legendarily brutal Japanese POW camp system.
Sure, MacArthur would never have dropped The Bomb had the decision been left up to him.
Fun fact: the atom bomb was top secret, right? Nobody knew about it, including the Americans, until it dropped. The US military went calmly about planning Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese homeland, like the Bomb wasn't even there. The Japanese had figured out where it was going to land, and planned a defense. And their defense was a good one. It would have been a bloodbath on both sides. Not only squadrons of kamikaze pilots and sailors with one way tickets to the shrine of heroes at Yasukuni; but the women and children clutching pitiful staves and bamboo spears.
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oh yeah the hypermilitarist genocidal racists backed by a bunch of monopolies in a suit pretending to be an economy that took over a british-modelled liberal monarchy are sooooooo different from fascists 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Fascism is an actual ideology. Its Karl Marx was a man named Giovanni Gentile, and he wrote an entire philosophy on it. The Japanese didn't really have any ideology other than "Let the Emperor live 10,000 years!" Most of the European imperialists didn't have huge militaries, nor did the military control society. I guess you could call the Japanese imperialist, but you don't have to be militarist to be imperialist. I realize that to some, the Venn diagrams of these three appear very nearly a circle, but there is much more to it than that.
:data-laughing: only the italians were fascists! the other ones were fascist revisionists!
:funny-clown-hammer:
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Yes, on one level, I realize that today, fascist is just an insult. But believe it or not, it is an actual school of thought, an entire philosophy. You can still read the books, if you care to seek them out. But the insult is widespread and unavoidable. For example, here is one group of antifa calling another group of antifa fascist. Unless you're going to do the chud thing of "antifa are the real fascists!"
It's not new, either. 1937: Communist Party of Spain (PCE) calls the POUM fascists. They don't have any evidence, they just know that the POUM are fascists.
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The OG fash's name is GENTILE? That's actual comedy
Famed liberal icon, uhhhhhhh, Douglas Macarthur.
To the Japanese, machines of war--from the heavy machine guns to the tank--are only incidentals in warfare. We Americans realize that the infantry must perform the tasks of actually taking over the ground and holding it, but we use every available machine of war to prevent unnecessary losses. In contrast, the Japanese do not conceive of substituting the shock action of war machines for the shock action of infantry, and they merely strengthen the shock action of troops by the assistance of the machines. The Japanese Army is an army of men, supported by machines of war; ours is an army using machines of war. This is a fine distinction and perhaps not readily understood, but every statement of Japanese military policy bears this out.
A Japanese who has not tasted defeat will attack with a dash and a magnificent disregard for himself. When he has been set back on his heels, just once, he loses that zip and comes back without confidence and impelled by a morbid feeling toward death that might be worded as "Come on, let's get it over with."
He has found himself up against things he can't understand: For example, the way we use artillery (the Chinese never used it against him like that, and he doesn't know what to do about it); the fact that we prefer to sit back and stop him with well aimed rifle and machine-gun fire, and not fight it out with the bayonet; the fact that when we meet him with a bayonet we don't break and run; and, above all, the fact that his basic idea--that skill, bravery, and cold steel alone will win the war--is wrong.
-- "Japanese Warfare as Seen by U.S. Observers" from Intelligence Bulletin, May 1943
Dimitrov identified Imperial Japan as explicitly fascist several times in his writings on the United Front. I consider Dimitrov to be the authority on identifying fascism in the prewar period, and later attempts to restrict its definition to be revisionist. A good example of this "restrictionist" tendency is Jason Stanley's 2020 book "How Fascism Works".
They learned nothing from Mussolini, and about the only contact they had with the Italians was hosting a few submarines in Indonesia. Then when the Italians switched sides in '43, they took the subs for their own and bundled the sailors off into the legendarily brutal Japanese POW camp system.
Good bit.
Well, since he is specifically pointing to the dropping of the A-bomb, I would assume he means Truman and his advisors specifically.
Sure, MacArthur would never have dropped The Bomb had the decision been left up to him.
Fun fact: the atom bomb was top secret, right? Nobody knew about it, including the Americans, until it dropped. The US military went calmly about planning Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese homeland, like the Bomb wasn't even there. The Japanese had figured out where it was going to land, and planned a defense. And their defense was a good one. It would have been a bloodbath on both sides. Not only squadrons of kamikaze pilots and sailors with one way tickets to the shrine of heroes at Yasukuni; but the women and children clutching pitiful staves and bamboo spears.
Wasn't MacArthur the one that came up with the idea of dropping "30 to 50" nukes to win the Korean war?