See you next time, Socialist Cowboy…

Second!

To the music of cowboy bebop, no less…

I didn't want to point that out in the post, but I guess it's obvious.

Man those guys looked just like the guys firing homemade mortars in the posters warning about 過激派 in JR stations. Does the National Police Agency actually think a resurgence of this kind of rebellion is possible? I'll bring the two-by-fours with nails in 'em.

They're trying to catch the old guys who got away.

Meanwhile, the Yamaguchi-gumi is free to do whatever they want! Kill the Mayor of Nagasaki and we will only arrest one guy.

I was going to say, that's not just ANY jazzy music... it certainly adds another level of... well, something, but I have no idea what.

It is impossible to belive I live in the same nation, one that has not undergone a revolution since this was filmed, as this video.

YouTube user rosamour has posted some of the best such clips - without the jazz soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/user/rosamour

This one is interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4wCN6_sqio

Apologies if I've said this here before but, around 3:30, "Won't Get Fooled Again" breaks in. That made me wonder why they didn't choose a contemporary Japanese song which might have suited the images. Perhaps there wasn't one. It also made me wonder what soundtrack might be used to accompany NHK restrospectives of the Hanshin earthquake and Aum Shinrikyo attacks in the years to come. It probably won't be Shibuya-kei. The only song I remember being associated with the earthquake was "Mangetsu no Yube".

"Meanwhile, the Yamaguchi-gumi is free to do whatever they want! Kill the Mayor of Nagasaki and we will only arrest one guy."

Nagasaki police busted three,not one.Although they released the two for lack of evidence.The yakuza clan,Suishinkai of which is consisted of some 30 members was disbanded after the killing.Seems to me that justice had done.
On the other hand,the radicals like Chukaku-ha中核派 and Kakumaru革マル,who have been fighting each other for more than 30 years and the body count is now almost close to 100,but cops are still reluctant to ban them under 破壊活動防止法counter demolition act law.Unlike yakuza,these guys are genuine mass murderers.
The thing is radicals are 4 year college graduates who have connections to media and sympathetic lawyers.While Yakuzas are coming from bottom of the barrel.Burakumin,zainichi Korean,single mother raised JDs.No one drops a single tear for them.
If I had to side either the yakuza or the rhadicals,I would always side the yakuza.

"Man those guys looked just like the guys firing homemade mortars in the posters warning about 過激派 in JR stations. Does the National Police Agency actually think a resurgence of this kind of rebellion is possible?"
Laotree:
Funny coincidence.Precisely a year ago,which is June 26th of 2006,Kakumaru founder and the leader Kuroda Kanichi黒田寛一had died in a hospital at age of 80 and the hegemony of the sect is now in the hand of his righthand No.2 man,Matuzaki Akira松崎明.It is said that Kakumaru had changed their tactics from street battle to infiltration into the big corporation union under leadership of Matuszaki.
Matsuzaki who is now the head of the JR East's labor union and said to be the operator of clandestine network of Kakumaru within the union called "Mangrove" is in charge of blackmailing and lynching JR employee.Check out this week's Shukan Gendai or published this week ”マングローブ、テロリストに乗っ取られたJR東日本”西岡研介､講談社.But then again I forgot that you are Kansai guy and have little interest in 東日本....

"But then again I forgot that you are Kansai guy and have little interest in 東日本...." Aceface! I've got nothing against Kanto at all, I just like to see multiple geographical viewpoints represented on here.
Fascinating subplot you've provided, enough to pique my interest no matter where the story came from. Rikaichan and I will have a session later if I can find the article online. My knowledge of the Japanese student leftist movements is sadly limited, so I appreciate a nudge or two in the direction of a good story. Thanks again.
(And to reiterate a question asked by many, are you going to bless us with a blog of your own sometime, Ace?)

were there ever any books in english written on japanese leftist parties ?

Manga pundit and translator,Fredelick L.Schott has interview on his web,of one and only American ex-Kakumaru member and Japanese translator,Donald Philippi.
Philippi,who died in 1993 at age of 63 was fluent in Japanese language ,was a radical chic and a rock musician with alias(aka:Slava Ranko)
reminds me of someone I knew...

Also.

Patricia Steinhoff of Univ.of Hawaii has been writing many topics on various left wing sects including Japanese Red Army and United Red Army.

It is said that the first published work of Karel van Wolfren was about Japanese Student Revolutionaries and that was published in The Hague in the 70's.I've been looking for this for more than 15 years and I still could't find it.

Could be more but that's all I come up with at hand.

The Official Neomarxisme Bibliography (http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=neomarxisme) has some titles about Japanese Leftism, but there is not one book in English that really nails the topic:

1) Blood and Rage: The Story of the Japanese Red Army by William R. Farrell - mostly about their terrorist activities from a sensationalist standpoint
2) Communism in Japan (Comparative Communist Party politics) by Paul F. Langer - about the JCP
3) Conflict in Japan by Ellis S. Krauss - contains an essay by Patricia Steinhoff
4) Japanese Radicals Revisited by Ellis S. Krauss
- I seem to remember this being more about the 1960 protesters than the later more violent crews

Hm. Who's up for replacing the music with Yakety Sax and seeing what that does to the feel of this footage?

re: Yakety Sax. Please do!

Marxy this is a must see:

Kanye west subtly endorsing Japanese fascism (probably unwittingly) http://nahright.com/news/2007/06/26/video-kanye-west-stronger/

Not to mention the stars of David on the helmets of the troops in the hospital. Shitty politics.

Aceface, please check out this archive of radical texts on Japan:

http://kansaikouen.org/textlibrary.htm

Especially recommended is the text called Beyond the New Left.

Great sources, Sphinx. Good point about double standards, Aceface, but let's make sure we don't conflate all left-identified groups/movements. By the way, do you believe claims that Kakumaru has infiltrated the police?

http://www.emergency.com/japnleft.htm

Speaking of class, ethnicity, yakuza, and the left, what do you all make of Manabu "Toppamono" Miyazaki?

http://web.archive.org/web/20051220021720/http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200510220177.html

http://www.kotan.org/books/books.html

Last, an acedote: A baby-boomer I know quit college-age radicalism after refusing a sempai's order to commit violent acts during a demo. It struck me as a bitter irony that these supposed levellers should have preserved such a blatantly Confucian system of organization. I wonder who had the stricter sempai-kohai relationships at school: the left radicals or the judo clubs? I'm not trying to conflate all left-identified groups/movements either, just looking for contradiction like a good Hegelian...

"Unlike yakuza,these guys are genuine mass murderers."

Whoa - you are saying that the number of people total who have died by the hands of the radical left beats the number who have died (or been "suicided") by the yakuza/uyoku over the course of the post-war??? I seriously doubt that. Just because a yakuza member dies in a turf war or a guy kills himself over debt doesn't mean they don't "count."

Sphinx:
Douglas Lummis.....His books happened to be the reason I started to interest in the politics..
Long time ago,of course.
You do have some interesting site,by the way.

Brown:
Check this new book from Miyazaki that came out this month.「近代ヤクザ肯定論、山口組の９０年」！
I just took a glance at it couple days ago,and my above comments are pretty much have this book in mind.
http://www.e-hon.ne.jp/bec/SA/Detail?refShinCode=0100000000000031912256&Action_id=121&Sza_id=A0

I don't know about Kakumaru infiltrating the police is true or not.But in Chiba,where they are pretty active because of the existence of Narita,there were such rumours and cops are getting paranoid about it.

Marxy:
"Whoa - you are saying that the number of people total who have died by the hands of the radical left beats the number who have died (or been "suicided") by the yakuza/uyoku over the course of the post-war??? "

No,That's not what I've said.I was mentioning specifically about Kakumaru and Chukakuha.Ever read Tachibana TAKASHI立花隆's「中核派VS革マル」?
I believe these two sects must be dismantled.

Now for Yakuza,you can either quit or retire from it.But these two sects...When you are in,you are in for life.If you decide to leave,the opposing sect wouldn't believe that.Consider it as clandestine operation.If they won't kill you,your ex-comrade will.
There are certain rules of engagement in the Yakuza,but not in the world of Kakumaru and Chukakuha.Besides police would demand the diband of Kumi if you killed that many.In the 80's,Yamaguchi Gumi-Inagawa kai war had about a dozen body counts in a year and cops went nuts and eventually led to the passing of 暴力団対策法
in the diet.I remeber the Yakuza and radical lefts made joint demonstration under the initiative of new-right activist,Suzuki Kunio calling it the "popular front".Leftist helped yakuza for cops are more tougher to them and worried that the 暴対法 may eventually make the public more willing to let police use anti demolition act law.(the law have'nt been used for 40 years now,not even to Aum Shinrikyo's gas attack)
and Uyoku...they haven't killed the tenth of what the left wings did in the postwar.That I can guarantee.

Brown, very good question on the senpai-kouhai relationship. I would gather to say that overwhelmingly it was the new left that had the harder standards, at least in the sects. But it is very important to look past the feuding warlords of pseudo-Marxism to see the real movement beneath which is alternately beautiful and ugly. Beautiful in the explosion of free culture (free school at Shinjuku station, street musicians there too, occupation of Nichidai university etc.). The New Left was an important moment that wasn't able to go beyond the old Confucian values before it swallowed itself in bloodshed.

Now, as important as it is to criticize the leftist sects I am quite skeptical of Aceface's claim that somehow the leftists killed more than anyone else in the postwar era. Aceface: what aspects of the New left did you find liberatory? What social movements do you look to in modern Japan as demonstrating emancipation?

Before I leave the topic of the New Left and its feuds I wanted to point out something that I found extremely interesting. Remember the international branch of the Red Army? The one that among other things tried to massacre Jews in Tel Aviv airport in 1972 but instead killed 18 Puerto Rican tourists? I found an interesting citation on Wikipedia recently when doing extensive research on the Lebanese civil war, that Japanese 'commandos' were involved in the Damour massacre which (bear with me) was a revenge massacre for the killing of Palestinians and Muslims by Christian militias. In the Damour massacre over 500 Christian civilians were killed by PLO, PFLP and apparently with the cooperation of the Japanese Red Army. Now I do not have a good source for this. My only source was a Wikipedia article which has since been re-written (argh), but I have the quote saved:

「The bulk of the attacking forces seems to have been composed by brigades from the Palestinian Liberation Army[9] and as-Sa'iqa, as well as other militias including Fatah. Some sources also mention the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Muslim Lebanese al-Murabitun militia among the attackers. There are also reports that mercenaries or militiamen from Syria, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan were part of the assault, and even Japanese commandos who were training in Lebanon.」

And the supposed source is:

Nisan, M. (2003). The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz). London: Routledge.

Again I am not positive that this is true, but it is pretty interesting history if so. That means that not only did the JRA leave the legacy of suicide bombing with the Palestinian national movement (in a way), but they also participated in the opening shots of one of modern history's most bloody and calamitous civil wars. I've been trying to verify it for a week now with not much luck though...

Also, since we're having a conversation I'd like to introduce two works that I contributed to, first an article on the riots in Osaka city in 1990:

http://libcom.org/library/1990-worker-insurgency-osaka

and second the trailer for our film Kansai Kouen which is about the resistance to eviction of park squatters in Osaka city.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=RkcWX4Skl-A&eurl=

Jaa, yoroshiku.

"Now, as important as it is to criticize the leftist sects I am quite skeptical of Aceface's claim that somehow the leftists killed more than anyone else in the postwar era. "

I did not say "anyone else".I'm sure Japan Tobacco Company kills more people in a day than 30 years of Chukaku-Kakumaru struggle. But the body counts combining the gang of four of Japanese new left of the 70's,Chukakuha,Kakumaru,Japanese Red Army and United Red Army would be some where around 120 to 130 in 35 years.Perhaps the Yamaguchi gumi could kill as much people,but they've been　around for 90 years and the size of their organisation is at least twice as larger than all of the four extrem leftist sects combined and Yamaguchi are not as centrified as the leftist.(meaning not everyone else of Yamaguchi gumi is in touch with each of the killing by it's member)Not say they are
less harmful to the society,but I would say they are less "lethal".Probably due to the fact that Yakuza/rightist use violence to enforce others to do what they want others to do.While there are tendency in the leftist using violence to eliminate the political opponent and that is evident in the series of Uchigeba内ゲバ struggles started in the 70's.

"What social movements do you look to in modern Japan as demonstrating emancipation?"
I make distinction of those who stop acting as radical activist after 70's and those continued fighting under the banner.
My uncle too was a Maoist in Todai and got suspended for a year in 1969.After that he got into Tokyo Metroplitan Government and worked as one of the deputies of Ishihara Shintaro.Quit the damn job early for he did't like the man very much.

I would say moderate unions,moderate left wing political parties like JCP and the socialst.NGO's and civic groups helped to make Japan more progressive.Heck,I even think LDP had done it's part.But certainly not the 70's new lefts.....

Nice, I've been looking for archival footage of the Japanese Student Revolts!

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/dqnplus/imgs/f/4/f43d8a2b.jpg

From "Itai News".of course.

There's a grad student paper in that rally: "Protest as Parody and Post-modern Praxis."

Are their any photos of the Japanese student revolts? Google doesn't find anything good about it for me. Plus, the photo on your front page looks so fucking awesome, with all of the students in black and white except for their helmets.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=mnrgvmxEkdQ

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