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The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

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301–310 of 494 posts

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a disturbing trend and indicative of failing health / vibrancy of political systems. Same with running Hilary Clinton. Half of the entire point of the democratic turn in western states after the enlightenment and the French revolution was to attempt take power away from powerful families and abolish heritable power. I found it very alarming when Trudeau Jr was plucked out of relative obscurity and turned into a…

Politicians don't really need to be good at policy. They have people to do that. They just need to be charismatic - able to capture the imagination of a constituency, and able to persuade other politicians to support their platform. Of course it'd be nice if our politicians were well-educated in the details of the policies they are championing, and if they could independently reason about the pros and cons, but reali…

Honestly right now it feels like the Liberal Party is completely asleep at the wheel and there's a total absence of leadership at the moment and lots of ministerial files seem completely unmanaged or poorly managed.

They were able to ride out the pandemic with some overall reasonable policies, and most of the stuff that annoyed people fell on the provinces.

But they're clearly having a hard time transitioning now, and the Singh giving them a blank check has made them extra complacent. The stuff at the airports on its own is inexcusable. ArriveCAN needs to go. They need to respond boldly to this Rogers fiasco from Friday. They feel entirely flat footed to me.

The expiration date is all over Trudeau and he needs to do the right thing and GTFO. And he needs to do it in a way that doesn't stiff Freeland and leave her in a Kim Campbell or Kathleen Wynne or Paul Martin type position.

He needs to announce his resignation ASAP and call a leadership convention even if it's a coronation for Freeland.

Singh I think has cost the NDP pretty much almost all their seats in the next election by propping Trudeau up right now. I have always voted NDP but I don't know what I'll do next time around.

I say this as a left wing voter who doesn't want to see the Conservatives in charge. But every day they hold on they're just giving the Conservatives more momentum, even without a leader.

I think when strategists look back they'll see Trudeau as a mistake. It got them power, but he was no Chretien or Trudeau Sr. He has been weak on policy and on leadership. And it will cost them in the long run. They blew their 3 gov'ts by basically getting almost nothing actually done on all their files they were so boldly proclaiming. It reminds me a lot of McGuinty's term: at the end most of the problems created by Mike Harris still hadn't been reversed. I feel the same way about this gov't and the Harper years.

CO2 Emissions? Up. A lot. Indigenous reconciliation? Nope. Clean water to all reserves? Nope. And what they have accomplished (small carbon taxes, subsidized daycare) seems very vulnerable to immediate reversal on day one of a conservative gov't.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell about the two others?

The Epoch Times is owned by Falun Gong. (They are apocalyptic/UFO/meditation cult, they have been banned in China and, if you believe their claims, organ harvested. I don’t know how much to believe those claims, but China does keep a lot of things with organs weirdly secret. FG are present at every anti-Chinese protest. They also do the Chinese ballet which name I forgot now…. ah yeah Shen Yun) I don’t know any other…

I read what I think is the Zhuan Falun years ago when the cult was newer and they posted documents online[*]. One of their beliefs that jumped out at me was that they believe that David Copperfield is an actual magician who is only pretending to be a stage magician, and was actually doing magic during his stage shows.

edit: The Falun Gong have three OTA broadcast channels in Chicago, but Iranian official government news is too dangerous for me to be exposed to.

* Looks like they still do at https://en.falundafa.org/falun-dafa-books.html

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#303
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the study, there is a link to the FBI guidelines. Essentially, don't name the shooter. It would also be beneficial not to linger on one negative event for a week or more, but that's not as easy to limit. Ideally we would want journalists and networks to practice responsibility and leave out the name voluntarily, but it seems the drive for profit makes it necessary to step in with a legal solution. https:/…

I agree that the media should not glamorize these bad actors. > Why don't we create a law I was asking which statue would prevent this. How would that statue read? What would be "easy to limit?"

I'm not sure what you expect. I'm not writing some law that won't actually be used. The idea should be easy to grasp - journalists publishing/broadcasting the picture/name of a murderer who is not at large will be fined. The fine could be set a number of ways, but should be substantial and graded based on the income of the individual and organization.

I think you're taking that "easy" quote out of context.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#304
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on "replace it with any religion" but I don't find it bigotry necessarily - I am averse to any and all religious influence on anything, and I'm happy to see it brought up to attention and awareness everywhere. As to the frequent Venn diagram overlap of locally predominant religion with corresponding country / nationality / ethnicity / etc, while that frequently the case, I agree we should focus on th…

> think twice before giving them money because you'd be supporting the late George Bush Sr's 2nd-favorite cult. > They also own The Washington Times and United Press International (UPI). > And True World Foods, which runs a major portion of the sushi trade in the US. > Numerous other innocent-sounding organizations in many, many sports, interest groups, and industries. Like if someone wrote any of that about Jews, th…

[deleted]

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#305
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on "replace it with any religion" but I don't find it bigotry necessarily - I am averse to any and all religious influence on anything, and I'm happy to see it brought up to attention and awareness everywhere. As to the frequent Venn diagram overlap of locally predominant religion with corresponding country / nationality / ethnicity / etc, while that frequently the case, I agree we should focus on th…

> think twice before giving them money because you'd be supporting the late George Bush Sr's 2nd-favorite cult. > They also own The Washington Times and United Press International (UPI). > And True World Foods, which runs a major portion of the sushi trade in the US. > Numerous other innocent-sounding organizations in many, many sports, interest groups, and industries. Like if someone wrote any of that about Jews, th…

Jews are not comparable to the Moonies. They are not a single organization but rather a loosely related set of varying ethnic groups and religious practices.

A better analogy would be to imagine people writing similar things about, say, the Satmar Hasidim. In which case it wouldn’t sound anti-Semitic at all (although I’m sure the Satmar might try to claim it was).

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#306
post #5

The linked article ends with this: “Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.” It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic. It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadc…

I ran it through Google Translate because I was curious. It appears to be something called the Unification Church?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

> The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church or Unificationism, is a new religious movement whose members are called Unificationists and sometimes colloquially Moonies.[2] It was officially founded on 1 May 1954 under the name Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) in Seoul, South Korea by Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012), a Korean Messiah claimant also known for his business ventures and engagement in social and political causes.[3][4][5][6]

> The beliefs of the Unification Church are based on Moon's book Divine Principle, which differs from the teachings of Nicene Christianity in its view of Jesus[7] and in its introduction of the concept of "indemnity".[8] The movement is well known for its unique "Blessing" or mass wedding ceremonies.[9]

> The Unification Church has been controversial, with some early critics calling it a dangerous cult.[10][11] It also has been controversial for its involvement in politics, which include anti-communism and support for Korean reunification.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the journalist organization exclude its members if they break ranks, so to speak?

Tilo Jung[0] has bee annoying the government spokes persons with uncomfortable questions for years. I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore (everybody is aware that the Bundespressekonferenz is a quite unique arrangement) but they still let him show up and ask questions. He does really valuable work imo and pu…

> I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore

The thing in his early days was that he asked and "demanded" a proper answer. But often times the politicians don't want to answer to the question stated. Now you can waste everybody's time and ask again and again, without getting an answer (which is useful if you stream the event) or accept that there won't be an answer and move to the next topic (which is good if you want to write an article)

But meanwhile Jung doesn't play that game that much anymore, but asks good and precise questions and more often then leaves it there.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#308
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one can be particularly legitimately concerned about religions that: * directly accumulate controlling ownership interests in key businesses. * use dubious fundraising and recruitment practices. * form complex webs of not-obviously-related entities to use in influence operations. * have acted as a pseudo-cult of personality of a figure in living memory. * are possibly abusive to their members in various ways.

Doesn't that cover most organized religions?

Not really.

> > * directly accumulate controlling ownership interests in key businesses.

OK, there's things like Catholic healthcare and schools or the Adventists' various interests. They're mostly pretty clearly branded as being Catholic or Adventist affiliated. For the most part, this is not something religions do, though certainly there are areas of concern, like faith-affiliated substance abuse programs used to recruit the vulnerable.

> > * use dubious fundraising and recruitment practices.

OK, perhaps religious fundraising isn't perfect, but most religions do not engage in employing missionaries as quasi-slave-labor to panhandle funds from the public at scale. Of course, you can find an exception or two, like the Salvation Army.

> > * form complex webs of not-obviously-related entities to use in influence operations.

Doing this on anywhere near the scale of the Unification Church is basically unheard of.

> > * have acted as a pseudo-cult of personality of a figure in living memory.

Basically here you've mostly got the Unification Church, Scientology, and various kinds of "prosperity" churches.

> > * are possibly abusive to their members in various ways.

OK, you've got me here: a lot of religions dabble in abusing their members.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#309
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the media should not glamorize these bad actors. > Why don't we create a law I was asking which statue would prevent this. How would that statue read? What would be "easy to limit?"

I'm not sure what you expect. I'm not writing some law that won't actually be used. The idea should be easy to grasp - journalists publishing/broadcasting the picture/name of a murderer who is not at large will be fined. The fine could be set a number of ways, but should be substantial and graded based on the income of the individual and organization. I think you're taking that "easy" quote out of context.

Your ideology to deter crime is quite easy to grasp - implementation via abridging the freedom of speech is problematic.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the journalist organization exclude its members if they break ranks, so to speak?

I'm going to contradict sibling and say "Yes". It's just a Verein (untranslateable, but let's say 'private association/club') with members. They can refuse to accept members for any reason, and they can kick out members for the reasons they themselves specify. Currently this section (§14) reads they can kick out members "that are a danger to the purpose of the association or are harmful to its reputation or interests…

Note that in this case, a two-thirds majority in the general assembly of members have to confirm the kick-out, which is judging by my experience in other associations a really high bar to clear.

In any case, such a decision can be review by civil court as well whether it actually met the conditions laid out in their charter.

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