Ernest Schaal wrote:

> in article 73fde4f0.0410150535.61ee4657@posting.google.com, John W. at
> worthj1970@yahoo.com wrote on 10/15/04 10:35 PM:
>
> > Ernest Schaal <eschaal@max.hi-ho.ne.jp> wrote in message
> > news:<BD953A45.293BB%eschaal@max.hi-ho.ne.jp>...
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, the denial of the Rape of Nanking and the denial of the war
> >> crimes committed by leaders of the Imperial Army appears to be increasing,
> >> as revisionist textbooks are now being approved by local schools and
> >> right-wing politicians are becoming more powerful and more vocal.
> >
> > I thought most of these politicians simply debated the numbers of
> > those slaughtered and didn't all out deny the event took place (which
> > is just idiocy).
> >
> > Part of what bothers me isn't that they think it never happened; there
> > are certainly politicians in the US that believe in the mission of the
> > KKK. The thing is, for the most part the US politicians don't speak up
> > that much, aren't given the major press time and if they are they
> > aren't taken seriously, and they don't have the clout that the nuts in
> > Japan seem to have. And I'm not sure why this is. Do Japanese as a
> > whole believe that lunacy?
> >
> > John W.
>
> My automatic reply used to be that Japanese as a whole do not believe that
> lunacy, but I am less certain about that now, based on the popularity of
> some of the politicians espousing that lunacy, such as the current Tokyo
> governor.

It does not bode well that various volumes of the political comic series
Gomanism Sengen, primarily dealing with glorifying Japan or countering charges
of wartime atrocities, are best selling books, or that people, particularly the
young, may base their beliefs on them.

--
 "I'm on top of the world right now, because everyone's going to know that I can
shove more than three burgers in my mouth!"