[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #bfbfbf;"]All this crazy talk about Japan, from a DUer in Japan
The general tone I perceive is one of extreme alarmism, panic and an-almost palpable sense of being 'turned on' by disaster -no, not in an obvious way like "I am so glad this happened", but in a subtler way, like a person that subconsciously gets hooked on bad news, or like an adrenalin junky that needs more and more and bigger and bigger thrills to get off.
There are a few ways you can look at this, I suppose. But here are a couple of possibilities. I am sure it is not a simple al or nothing answer, but thinking about this may give you some insights on the subconscious ways you have all be affected by living for so many years in a culture that thrives on creating and whipping up fear and loathing and then using it to 'sell product'
-Perhaps we here in Japan are just dupes that don't know how bad it is. Perhaps we aren't 'panicking' enough. Because I can tell you that you guys sound WAY worse than anyone I have spoken to all day whether they are in Kansai or the Tokyo area.
-Perhaps, though, it is you guys (no offense, really - I find it kind of sweet) that are living in a state of some kind of near-panic, having been weened on fear tactics for so long, and you need something more horrible to look at in order to feel normal and explain the internal feelings built up in you. In other words, something in you feels deep stress but you can't fully account for it - so you naturally seize on something external to try to balance out your inside and outside??? Something like that.
Anyway, whatever it is, it is a little disturbing to see you all reading into the situation and then adapting it to suit your own personal and political belief systems.
It is like a rorsach test in that way I guess.[font style="font-size:0.8462em;"]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=622572&mesg_id=622572#622572[/font]
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