...result of a widespread feeling among commentators and those who “bring the news” that, as everyone already knows of Bush’s awkwardness with the English language, it would be unseemly to rub it in any further. compensating propaganda In the lifetime of most of us there has probably not been an instance of propaganda as effective as that which was successful in eradicating doubts about George W. Bush’s competence from American TV viewers’ minds. For comparable effectiveness in directing the political thinking of an entire nation we must go back to Germany or Japan in the early part of World War II, or to newly communist countries before unfulfilled promises and political suppression could create widespread doubt. Some significant national doubt was beginning to gather around the presidency of George W. Bush when it was eight months old. But in the aftermath of the terrorist massacres it was pushed back and out of the national consciousness. The attacks were a godsend to the floundering Bush administration. There was no question that in living memory there had been no president less respected when he was sworn in. The thought that he was not elected, but appointed to the presidency by a partisan...

...embeddedness in an industrial structure whose major relationships and transactions are in the final analysis by and large not based on economic considerations of profit-making, but rather on political considerations of mutual protection and long-range expansionary goals. Two huge intersecting organizational structures ensure order among Japan’s large corporations: the set of horizontal keiretsu and the web of federations in every branch of industry. They perform powerful complementary functions that are extralegal and frequently at odds with official regulations (such as the anti-trust legislation that is supposed to be enforced by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission). The keiretsu that tie companies in different industries together, and form huge corporate safety nets, have become relatively well-known since 1989. But the many federations that tie companies in the same industry together, ensuring relative stability, order and hierarchy among firms in the same field, have remained largely unexamined. There are no all-powerful keiretsu centers that exist to dictate corporate policies to members. But the assertive tendencies of each firm are strongly curtailed by the informal commands of group integration, mistakenly represented in Japanese parlance as loyalty (they have no choice). A few very powerful companies (Toyota, for example) need not worry much about fellow keiretsu...

...have evolved into the constitutional monarchy, comparable to those in Europe, which quite a few Meiji period intellectuals had in mind. Also, the bureaucrats would not have been able to hide behind an Emperor whose innately benevolent political will they were supposed to be carrying out – an Imperial political will that was non-existent as far as practical matters were concerned. While Japanese politics underwent huge changes in the twentieth century, Yamagata’s legacy prevented the formation of a coordinating center once all the elder statesmen of the Meiji Period had died. The lack of coordination when circumstances call for it has of course not gone unnoticed in Tokyo, now the need for drastic remedial action in the economy and other areas becomes ever more obvious. So, in January [of 2001] the Japanese central government was reorganized for the ostensible purpose of stimulating politicians to initiate policy, instead of leaving that to career bureaucrats. But that new system was in effect for only a few days when already there was criticism in the air, about the concept of a ‘politician-led bureaucracy’ being misinterpreted. Politicians, especially ministers and a newly named category of senior vice ministers, appeared – horror of horrors –...

...I think are worth the broadest audience they can get. Of course I want people everywhere to read me, and hope that likeminded will discover this site. But I want specifically to address a European public. It is a curious thing that I can write for a Japanese public and be published, I can do the same for a Dutch public and for an American one. But not specifically for the public that exists in the European Union. There is no public sphere in Europe. Although novels written by authors from European countries do get translated and are traded at the Frankfurt and London book fairs, non-fiction books of the kind I write almost invariably must take an Anglo-American route. But eventually a European public sphere is bound to emerge. That hope is shaped by the entirely reasonable expectation that at some time in the not too distant future, a threesome of European publishers – in France, Germany and Britain – will see that there is money to be made with potential best-sellers describing the world and Europe in it to Europeans. I very much want to contribute to this effort, and perhaps this website will contribute to such contribution....

...a concept that belongs to religious discourse as you grade practical political action? How to evaluate the degree of ‘evil’ represented by roadside bombs with which the Taleban try to make Americans and allies leave their country compared to the wanton wiping out of an entire city – Fallujah – in Iraq? What the Nobel speech did for Obama’s prestige at home was one thing that the rightwing and liberal hawks, as well as quite a number of moderate liberals, could agree on: At least he did not go to Europe to ‘apologize’ for America! I read that several times as I followed the editorial comment at the time. When our thoughts wander to the main motives for the cultivation of an enemy mythology, what immediately comes into view are the material ones. Fortunes and business power are involved in the stimulation of fear and paranoia; huge revenues for weapon makers and the new security industries that directly profit from having enemies. The out-of-control institution of the American military industrial complex keeps it all going. But in the national imagination profit-making does not justify war. America’s warmaking in Afghanistan and Iraq would not have had much merit in the popular...

...Strike initiative that intends to provide the US with the capability to strike anywhere on earth within 60 minutes; is working to destabilize the government in Iran, with military attack still on the table as an option; supports America’s new military African Command; intends to encircle Russia with US bases in former constituent parts of the Soviet Union”. And he reminds us that the NATO serves as a pool of “mercenaries in US wars of aggression”. On this subject see also Jan Sampiemon’s new column on the NATO Zombies in their Afghan vicious circle. This will come come across as overly harsh for the majority of the European elites Roberts wishes to reach, because their denial is nurtured by continuous propaganda about Russia, Iran, Venezuela, or for that matter China; propaganda that has been mistaken for analysis. They have not bothered to look in the kitchens of American think tanks where much of it is produced. What will also come acrosss as exaggerated is Roberts’ alert against the grand sounding concepts of “self-determination and the sovereignty of the people” used by the Obama administration as “useful platitudes with which to mask the hegemonic interests of the US government. US money...