A recent review of Under the Flag of the Rising Sun, available on Netflix, highlights exactly the kind of filmmaking that I strove to emulate when making ANPO. The film, directed by Fukasaku Kinji in 1971, is in my view one of the best films about war ever made. It will also help you understand that Fukasaku wasn’t interested in yakuza per se, but in the fundamental relationship between the individual and the state, a subject he often spoke about. Read review
Representative Barney Frank has started a campaign to comprehensively review U.S. military expenditures overseas. One of his special targets are the 15,000 Marines still stationed on Okinawa, which he calls “a hangover from WWII, which ended 65 years ago” He was recently interviewed on NPR and his characteristically blunt language is a breath of fresh air.
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I recommend a very thoughtful blog posting breaking down the story behind and surrounding the fallout over Futenma’s relocation.
Read Chalmers Johnson’s op-ed in the L.A. Times. Especially note the backstory of how the U.S. bases were initially created in the wake of WWII, which never seems to be mentioned in the U.S. or the Japanese press. It helps to explain why so many Okinawans feel inherently resentful of the bases.
This in-depth analysis is revealing about what is truly at stake over the Futenma rumpus.
Finally, a comprehensive, cogent backstory to the Futenma Row from
Tom’s Dispatch
I highly recommend reading it through.
Now it looks like the secret agreements that have dictated the actual terms of U.S.-Japan security are about to spill out
Pandora seems to be feeling frisky at the prospect of basking in the sunshine…
Finally, the issue of the Sympathy Budget has raised its head.
As I sensed, Pandora is out of the box and she likes the fresh air…
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Be sure to check out this Washington Post coverage of the rally held in Hibiya Park in Tokyo yesterday to protest the U.S. military presence on Okinawa. It’s a fair article but the U.S. media still consistently refers to the proposed relocation site as “remote.” If Henoko is “remote” then so are the pristine emerald-sea beaches of Maui.
A nuanced story in the New York Times on the recent election of an anti-U.S. base mayor in Nago, home of the pristine waters of Henoko, which the Marine Corps is determined to landfill, provides rare nuanced coverage of this long-simmering controversy
