There'a a nasty nip in the air - Tokyo Rose

[dipsydoodle]

Received this by email this morning from a friend ? the USA - I'm in the UK. Some <dim> wit is making a rather poor attempt using an analogy to discredit numerous Democrats. Is it circulating over there ?

Ghost of "Tokyo Rose"

Anyone who remembers anything about World War II or has studied anything about World War II will understand and remember that during World War II, the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces.! The Japanese psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work.

They gave their psychological warfare script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

What was that demoralizing message?
It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal.
3. You cannot win the war

Does this sound familiar
Is it because


Tokyo Hillary,
Tokyo Harry,
Tokyo Teddy
Tokyo Nancy,
Tokyo Durbin,
Tokyo Kerry,

etc. have all learned from the former enemies of our country and have picked up the same message and are broadcasting it on
Tokyo CNN,
Tokyo ABC,
Tokyo CBS,
Tokyo NBC,

etc., to our troops?

The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

Come to think of it.. Tokyo Rose told the American Troops she was on their side, also!

[Cooley Hurd]

1. "Nip?" Does the author of that email realize what a racist fuck he is?

That's got to be the dumbest email ever.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I added that

it's simply the title of a 1960's cartoon by Willie Rushton.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. I was thinking reich-wing fuc# myself but your right... that term racist!

[ulysses]

3. I prefer a different world war analogy

Under Bismarck, we got "blood and iron". Under Kaiser George, we got "shock and awe".

Never apologize, never explain, never fight them on their own ground. Attack.

[izzie]

4. Is that Bismarck? We did get a lot of things from that guy

He was a real social reformer and seemed to know a lot about how to get things done.

[ulysses]

5. no, that's Kaiser Wilhelm II

This is Bismarck.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. I prefer a different war analogy too! HOW ABOUT 'NAM?...

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds —
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Huh!

Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

[dipsydoodle]

17. Great song that

Been going in and out of my head since 1972.

[izzie]

15. Can not bring it in but I was sure he looked more like our UN guy

and I am sure he sort of took over the states and made it Germany and put in lots of social things.

[ulysses]

16. heh! Bolton does look some like Bismarck.

Yes, he did unify Germany, but he didn't really do much socially that he did't have to do - and he didn't have to do much that he didn't want.

[marmar]

6. Too much free time and too few I.Q. points....

To edwardlindly and the rest of our friends around the world: We're so sorry that America is so full of dumbasses. We're trying our best to overcome them, but it ain't easy!!! :dunce: They're everywhere.

[charlie]

7. All the freepers come running

for the Great Taste of Dubya's Ass. They're the easiest rubes on the planet, bar none. Bush could target the moon as the next enemy in the War on Turrah and you'd get the same stupid fucking email in your inbox.

[KharmaTrain]

8. I Met Tokyo Rose...Iva Toguri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Rose

It was 1975...I was working in a radio studio and in came this small, frail lady...she looked like she ran the corner drugstore or was someone's aunt. The person who interviewed her, pulled me aside and told me..."You've just met Tokyo Rose". I looked at this little old Japanese lady and couldn't believe this was the "infamous" voice that told our troops in the Pacific how their wives or girlfriends were cheating on them. Then in the interview, Ms. Toguri...who was born in the U.S...gave a very compelling story...she had traveled to Japan in the late 30s to work as a translator and to get an education. Part of that work as a translator was to take a job in the English language section of the Japanese foreign ministry and specifically with the Voice Of Japan. When Pearl Harbor happened she was stuck...she couldn't get back to the U.S., and her being an American citizen put her under constant watch by the Japanese. Call it Stockholm syndrome, but she said how she read scripts...she claims she never wrote them...and thinking how absurd they were and if she hammed it up it would sound so silly that no one would take it seriously. In many ways, it worked, as today's impression of Tokyo Rose (and there several) is laughed at for how silly and exagerated the broadcasts sound.

My father always would recount the Nazi equivelent..."Lord Haw Haw". This dude would taunt the soldiers with how corrupt their leaders were and then went into all sorts of anti-semetic and racist banter...just re-inforcing to my father and others why they were there and more the reason to fight.

Our corporate media has a vested interest in this war for profit. Clear Channel got a nice contract for "building" a new radio operation in Iraq that no one listens to and many other communications companies got some "grease" in helping build the cellphone systems and all sorts of other military-related communications projects and "winning hearts and minds". They were conflicted from the get-go and are fearful that a real investigation of this war will show their complicity. Worse of all, a Democratic congress could re-open the deregulation laws rushed through in the 90s and decide that things that could break-up their strangle hold on the televisions, radios and movie screens of this country.

[dipsydoodle]

12. Interesting that they were both

Born In The USA ! William Joyce of Brooklyn NY ,aka Lord Haw Haw, was hung at the end of the war.

Thanks for the notes on Tokyo Rose - equally interesting.

[EFerrari]

11. How desperate are they that they have to trot out Tokyo Rose?

And when are these dumbasses going to notice that the networks they are attacking are owned by REPUBLICANS?

Sorry, World.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

13. did you say "trot?" In Iraq our troops must jog where ever they go...

It's harder to hit a moving target, unless they "stay the course."

[EFerrari]

14. Every day the Nutwing finds a new way to cheapen the service

of these people. It's disgusting.

[elehhhhna]

18. Well slap my butt & call me Tokyo Elena!

[dipsydoodle]

19. You been watching

Black Adder by any chance ?

[elehhhhna]

21. Never heard of it! Should I?

[dipsydoodle]

23. Would be difficult to explain

if you've not seen it. As I far as I'm aware it was shown your side on whichever channel shows BBC comedy series. This will give you a clue as to what the four series were about. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blackadder/ and the specific character in the 4th series . which was about WW1 in the trenches, Lord Flasheart : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Flashheart

The expression you used reminded me of expressions that both Flashheart and another character, Bob - who was obviously a girl although you'd need to see it to understand, both used in a similar fashion.

[elehhhhna]

28. I'll look for it. I LOVE BBC comedies.

The kids & I watch "Mrs. BOO-KAY" every Saturday night.
Thaks for the headsup.

[Lisa]

20. how charmingly retro!

As a North American of Japanese descent, I admit that my father and I routinely laugh our heads off over the careless use of words such as "nip" (e.g. the unfortunately-named snack food "Cheese Nips") ... but only because such epithets are generally understood to be small-minded and embarrassing, so we are actually expressing a form of relief. We would not be laughing if the casual pre-war racist attitudes still reigned supreme. (My mother scolds us for being so undignified.)

Anyway -- it's almost funny that the originator of that message would be so paranoid as to accuse the major corporate news networks, plus what looks like most of Congress, of being anti-American! And ironic, of course. To my mind that is a mere skip and a jump away from muttering about water fluoridation and sperm counts, and wrapping your head in tinfoil so the government, the UN's black helicopters, and the aliens in human bodies cannot read your thoughts.

ALMOST funny -- because there seems to be a segment of George W. Bush's "base" which is unable to step back from all this and see how crazy they appear. And that is both sad, and scary.


p.s. if they are that concerned about identifying Tokyo Rose techniques as a threat, someone should remind them that in any case, the Japanese and German military dictatorships were defeated.

[kentuck]

22. I had no idea... I had never heard that term before ??

Where did it originate and who is it supposed to offend??

[Lisa]

24. I'm guessing that it originally stood for "Nippon"

One of the ways of anglicizing the name of the country known to Westerners as "Japan". I've often thought it would be interesting to look into the origins of racist slurs -- it would be a project which would be guaranteed to offend practically everyone. (I would likely not be able to get any funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, of course.)

Actually, the racist name I've heard most often tends to assume that I am Chinese. Usually it happens so quickly (yelled out of a passing car, for example) that I am startled and have no time to shout back, "That's NIP, loser!!! Can't you morans tell us apart yet?"

Pity.


p.s. I find it rather comforting that there is a generation of people growing up who have never heard of these kinds of words, let alone the pseudo-scientific categories like "quadroon", or "mulatto" which caused so much pain to so many families. One of my colleagues was researching a Victorian-era novel, and we had to look up a word she found which we didn't know -- "octaroon". Yeah, our society's still got a long way to go, but we both almost cried, realizing that's one less thing people can use to pick and choose friends, employees, or neighbors.

[dipsydoodle]

25. This unintentionally going downhill

Please accept my sincere apologies. Not only have I never used that I've never used that expression in speech I don't know anyone who has either. I'd added in the name of one of Willie Rushton's Private cartoons from the cover of Private Eye in the sixties. Private Eye is a UK satirical magazine with which Peter Cooke was invlolved. The cartoon concerned something which had happened in Japenese banking circles at the time - can't recall what exactly.

As you have so well put the main body of the joke ???? is sad really.

[Lisa]

26. if that was the e-mail title, I don't blame you for quoting it ...

If anything, it underscores your point! And as you say, that word IS rather old-fashioned these days. I will tell my dad, whom I know will get a kick out of it (he's 80 and he's heard a lot nastier things from some really horrible people).


p.s. a couple of decades ago, just as multiculturalism was making inroads into Canada, the principal of my high school uttered the memorable phrase "nip racism in the bud". Luckily only a couple of people in my class picked up on this and snickered. (I am certain that he wasn't trying to be smart-assed because he was a rather sweet man who genuinely tried to please everyone.) Anyway, a few months later at convocation, my dad elbowed me and whispered, "I wonder if he's going to say that again in front of us!", and I nearly had a fit. If I hadn't been so bent over with stifled laughter that I was unable to move, I would have had to rush out of my own graduation ceremony. I haven't completely forgiven my father yet!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

27. I think it was mentioned because of the title of your original post.