I would appreciate it if you'd put up hi-res photos, so we could read the shop notes ourselves. (Even better, you could type it up, so that we could save the time to look up weird kanji by hand. Of course, that might be too much bother, so do what ya feel.)

hmmm... regular Japanese tourists in Poland care only two things- Chopin-related stuff and Auschwitz, so i suppose they have some idea about it ... and all `sentimental` artefacts about holocaust , like the Anne Frank`s diary, seems quite popular too ... And anyway, i tried some of this book and i must say it is quite difficult to read because of Schickelgruber`s style, i think this book makes sense only to someone who knows some european history of the 1910s and the 1920s , plus much of it`s rhetoric `power` lies in german language and gets lost in translation.
I don`t think it may lead to any fascination with nazism,
I suppose it`s just `dark curiosity` like de Sade`s or hmm ... Crowley`s books.
Anyway , how long is `Mein Kampf` on bookshelves in Japan? Has it been published just recently?

Re: pic. Blame my phone. I realized later that I needed better rez on the description. I skimmed over it there but would like to see it again.

"Anyway , how long is `Mein Kampf` on bookshelves in Japan? Has it been published just recently?"

Good question.

Actually, Nagoya's hipster junk-shop chain, if memory serves me.

Noted. I will change it to "Japan's..."

Marxy, I see that the one on the left says "Heil! Heil!" I can't really make out the one on the right, but doesn't it say something like "Why was there such an ideology?" Maybe the stockists deserve a little more credit than you give them--but not much. (I've seen this sort of casual Sid Viciousism in Taiwan and found it puzzling and disturbing. For a time, it was pretty popular for scooter riders to wear those Nazi helmets with the little spike on top.)

According to Amazon Japan, which also carries the title, the Kadokawa edition in that picture has been available since 1973. There was a reprint as recently as 2001.

Mein Kampf is available in the UK and some small shops would have it alongside Marx and Che Guevara in the same manner as Village Vanguard, the idea being that these people shaped the history of the 20th century. I think most people who buy it probably intend to read in the belief they might get some perspective on what drove the Nazis. Most will probably never start it or give up after a few pages.

There was a review in the Japan Times recently of a book which contends that "Japanese war memories are not nearly as nationalistic as they are frequently made out to be."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20070805a1.html

Even if you don't have "nationalistic" feelings about the War, the most common sense position you'd have as a young person who knows very little about WWII is that everyone was up to bad shit during the era and the Allies are as equally guilty as the Axis. I mean, they dropped an A-Bomb and all, and what did Japan even do in the first place?

"Mein Kampf is available in the UK and some small shops would have it alongside Marx and Che Guevara in the same manner as Village Vanguard, the idea being that these people shaped the history of the 20th century."

I think my immediate problem was the lack of context around the edition. If it had been one of many books on 20th century ideology or WWII history, that'd be one thing. But it was basically an autobiography equivocated with Malcolm X. And whether you think Mein Kampf should be sold or not, it's clearly not the best book you can buy to understand Nazism or Hitler. It's the best book to buy if you want to know about how the Jews betrayed Germany and must be eradicated.

if asked, the employees at Village Vanguard will deny that the store is named after the downtown Manhattan jazz club.

I got a lot say on this.But I'm not going to enlarge my history war front until my other topic is through.
But one thing,
I have a different version of "Mein Kampfわが闘争"　from 黎明書房originally translated in 1961 and mine was printed in 1965（9th press）.The translator Aichi Univ.Prof Hirano Ichiro writes in translator's note in the very front page.
たまたま本書の全訳出版計画がもちあがったとき、わたしはこの仕事にかなり躊躇せずにはおれなかった。第一は、現代の日本にこのナチのバイブルともいうべき書物を翻訳する意義が、はたしてあるだろうかということ、第二は、この翻訳がネオ・ファッシズムのために好個の材料を提供することになりはしないだろうか、と恐れたこと。第三は、すでに十分な研究をつんだナチ研究家こそ、もっと適切な、役者では、ないだろうか、と考えたことが躊躇した理由であった。

だが、当初のわたしのこの躊躇は、時がたつにつれ、「わが闘争」を全訳して出版すべきだ、という考えに急速に傾いていった。この書を読み進むに連れて、次のような瞬間が生じてきたからである。
１、かつて戦時中、日本では英雄ともてはやされ、戦後は一転して極悪な犯罪者と称されているヒトラーについて、われわれはいったいどれほどのことを知っているだろうか。とりわけ、彼の思想一般、あるいは思想形成の過程についてどれほどの知識をもっているだろうか。
２、戦時中、日本で出版された抄訳が、ヒトラーについて客観的に見る妨げとなったのではなかろうか。特に戦時中、日独伊三国同盟のために「わが闘争」の中の訳出されなかった部分、ー両国間を離反せしめるという理由でーを日本人のどれだけが、その内容まで知っているだろうか。
　こういう疑問に加うるに、わたしをこの仕事にふみきらせたものは、最近の一部の青少年のヒトラー礼賛の声ーそれはしばしば仮借なき残酷さをもつ青年期特有のヒロイズムに由来するもでもあろうがーであった。戦争経験なき世代こそ、この書を読むべきではないだろうか。この書を曇りなき眼で読み、客観的に判断することが、この世代にとって必要であり、戦後の教育を受けたものなら、十分な批判力をもって読むことが出来るのではないか、と考えたからである。
さらに、ヒトラーが痛烈に攻撃している議会の腐敗堕落、これは形を変えて現代の日本の社会にも存在しているのではなかろうか。もしそうだとするのならば、議会主義という近代民主政治の最低擁護線を確保し、ファシズム勢力の台頭を予防するためにこそ、ナチ勢力の伸張過程とナチの論理をつぶさに見ることが必要なのではないか、というのが、わたしの立場である。
したがって、わたしは、この翻訳を、なによりもナチズムの客観的な研究の不可欠の資料として提供し、ふたたびかかるファシズムの蹂躙を招来せざるためにこそ提供するのである。

You might want to check out the copy before you rush to the conclusions,marxy.

Chris B:
Also there used to be a legendary Jazz cafe in shinjyuku in the 70's of the same name.

Or the enduring coolness of Che or the enduring coolness of a fellow who wrote:

[..."What is the worldly raison d'etre of Jewry [Judaism]? The practical necessity of Jewry is self-interest."
"What is the worldly religion of the Jews? It is the petty haggling of the hawker."
"What is his worldly God?" "It is money."
"So in Jewry we recognise a contemporary universal anti-social phenomenon, which has reached its present pitch through a process of, historical development in which the Jews have zealously co-operated. And this evil anti-social aspect of Jewry has grown to a stage at which: it must necessarily collapse."
"The Jews have emancipated themselves in a Jewish fashion. Not only have they mastered the; power of money but - with or without the Jews - money has become a world power. The Jews have emancipated themselves by turning Christians into Jews:"
"Money is the most zealous God of Israel and no other God can compete with him. Money debases all human Gods and turns them into goods. Money is the universal value of everything."
"The God of the Jews has become secularised and bas become a World God. The bill of exchange is the real God of the Jews."
"Jewry reaches its climax in the consummation of bourgeois society - and bourgeois society has reached its highest point in the Christian world."...]

And other choice passages. Now of course, for those sneaky Japanese it must be that Nazis are kinda cool and not antisocial agitation is kinda cool - as is in fact true everywhere in the world - even in the west, where murderous villainy is still held in high regard all in the name of revolutionary socialism.

[...but the enduring coolness of Nazism and Herr Hitler in the pop landscape does not say something encouraging about the state of historical understanding and anti-fascist solidarity in Japan. And if select shop buyers lack the perspective or economic volition to say no to Hitler, who will they say no to?...]

Indeed! Who will they say no to! God forbid that they carry copies of Gobineau, Grant or Stoddard! God forbid that they carry Lapouge or even Kant or the hateful Xenopol.
Unlike the Americans. Who for instance, do not find it difficult to say NO to their own history of slavery and genocide: What with confederate revisionism and crackpot history masquerading as Libertarianism. Barnes and Noble carry copies of The Turner Diaries? Mais Non! Vraiment! After all, old man Reagan never denied the justness of Lincoln's cause, did he?
The real danger in Japan is not Nazi Kitsch appearing on stores - it is the lack of a critique of totalitarian movements - communists, nazis, from the headhonchos down. And the reason this critique is absent is because of the State/Society symbiont that the US helped birth after the war.

I think the Che/Mao parallel is definitely within consideration and Stalinist/Maoist commnunisms weren't so "cool" either.

"Barnes and Noble carry copies of The Turner Diaries?"

They probably carry Mein Kampf too. I would not be surprised to find these books at a large chain that has essentially a cover of retail neutrality - i.e., "Hey, we carry everything."

My concern is how much you see Nazi stuff as part of "cool" consumer culture. Village Vanguard does not have to carry anything that doesn't fit within its worldview.

"The real danger in Japan is not Nazi Kitsch appearing on stores - it is the lack of a critique of totalitarian movements - communists, nazis, from the headhonchos down."

Sure, but is the availability of products not a reflection/manifestation of this more general attitude?

I'm not really calling for a boycott here, but I found the context allowing for the sale of Mein Kampf lacking and the whole thing a bit creepy.

Another point is that Karl Marx's anti-Semitism - for whatever reason, either diabolically obfuscated by leftist bastards or just irrelevant in this day and age - is much more obscure than Hitler's. There is a lot of controversy over the subject at an academic level, maybe also because Marx was Jewish. Marxism, however, does not need anti-semitism as a core part of its ideology, and anti-semitic rhetoric has been used to counter Marxism since all "those Jews" like Trotsky etc. were behind it.

There is no controversy of whether Hitler was antisemitic. He proved that in both word and deed.

"And the reason this critique is absent is because of the State/Society symbiont that the US helped birth after the war."

Umm... How is it that Japan did not already have the state/society/nation symbiont BEFORE the war? Ya know, America didn't invent the 國體 etc. Maybe the Reverse Course prevented adequate movement away from elitist bureaucracy etc., but they already had a pretty strong philosophical underpinning for a totalitarian state without U.S. help.

"When I pointed out an enthusiastic tome on Nazi invention and another book on why the Jews run the world's finances, the response was that I had "cherry-picked" crank titles from thousands of more moderate new releases."

I wouldn't say you "cherry-picked"crank titles.But I actually checked the both books afterwards.

Nazi invention book was nothing but things we have around invented in Nazi years.The author was not particulary paising Nazi on the contrary the writer's intention was equivalent of "mein kampf" translator.
And the book with star of david,新ユダヤ成功の哲学 なぜ彼らは世界の富を動かせるのか』／越智 道雄
The New Philosophy of Jewish Success - Why do they run the world's wealth? / Ochi Michio
1/1/2007.Yeah,I agree with the title is awful(probably the editor had made it up)But Ochi is actually a serious scholar on American/Australian modern culture and social groups and I've met him a few times.Not exactly a freak like Fuyjiwara.The book is about why some of the jewish are "successful" and the whole race as seen so.Something that are obvious for a country with certain amount of Jewish population and christian/judaism cultural tradition.Well,Japan is neither and Ochi wrote a basic understanding of why the Jewish had been discriminated in the midieval europe and couldn't own any farm land thus could build network of guilds that enable them to gain opportunity in early stage capitalism.And he also write about Jewish as the social group in America.Not exactly the protocols of the elders of zion.
Could be one of those pc related problems like "black movies" section in Tsutaya that need to be changed as "african american cinema".

"I'm not really calling for a boycott here, but I found the context allowing for the sale of Mein Kampf lacking and the whole thing a bit creepy."

Well,we buy far more copies of "The Diary of Anne Frank".Had "Mein Kampf" ever made into an anime in Japan?"The diary.."did.

"Village Vanguard (a name attempting to summon up NY's ultra-liberal The Village Voice and the struggles of the avant-garde) "

Village Vanguard is actually the name of one of the oldest surviving Jazz clubs in Greenwich Village.

http://villagevanguard.com/

Well, it has the ASSOCIATIONS of Greenwich Village counterculture and revolutionary vanguards.

(Or I could have just used Google...)

[...but they already had a pretty strong philosophical underpinning for a totalitarian state without U.S. help..]

Eh - The point is that the atmosphere of total dedication to economic revamping created a situation where one did not need intellectual arguments against communism etc. The complete and utter dedication to production and consumption that was established after the war was itself the argument against communism. I recall Ishihara saying he was disappointed when he discovered Sartre was a communist: Though he had read his works, he could not further his intellectual engagement with Sartre purely because of developmental state reasons - again, something that would be redundant were Japan not needed as a bulwark against the prospect of Asian countries going communist: A prospect that frightened the US and the Japanese elite more than it frightened the commoner. Since developmentalism was already a given - why argue against communism or nazism, etc? Hence the vast absence of any meaningful critique from academia - this vast coopting of large segments of the Japanese intellectual elite did not occur before the war. Before the war, a tradition of individualistic philosophizing had developed, mostly along the grain of the so called I - novels. This was the strongest counterargument to the collectivism that inheres in both communism and Nazism. But what did the war do to this tradition? Yup, thats right - this is a tradition that still hasnt been recovered not even in Murakami - who really, is a peddler of despair. Soseki's critical look at the bourgeoisie of his age was far more truthful. But you see my point? I am not denying the deification of Emperor Showa and his reification into the State - I am saying that a tradition of individualistic thinking existed prior to war that war and developmentalism all but obliterated. These days, all J-Lit has to offer us is sex and phantasmagorism as individual liberation. What nonsense. This is candy over strong meat. But you see my point, no? It was the war and developmentalism that did this.

[...There is no controversy of whether Hitler was antisemitic. He proved that in both word and deed...]

But surely the reason for our perennial screed against Mein Kampf is because we overlook post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies: Just because the holocaust occurred after Mein Kampf doesnt mean Mein Kampf had anything to do with the Holocaust per se - establishing a causal link in matters such as this is difficult. Our reasoning is - Guy writes Jew bashing book, Guy's pals bash Jews, Jew bashing book is evil. This isnt neccesarily correct - but we allow it, and the same holds for Marx - Communists were actively involved in uprooting Jewry in all its myriad forms. This cannot be denied. So - what then are we to say of the friends of Marx and their book? Note - their inspiration came directly from the book and the Yevsektsiya was only one of their test tubes.

"It was the war and developmentalism that did this."

I am not sure that the LDP and bureaucrats really disliked the Americans encouraging them with the developmentalist state, and I am not sure whether you could have had it work if it came purely from American influence. The Fordist goals may have come from the Occupation (the idea of consumption was a new one, clearly), but I think the ease of which they slipped into a new kind of state dedication can be attributed to a much longer philosophical tradition in Japan. America also introduced a lot of things that didn't work very well - like democracy.

I am not an expert on pre-war literature, but I am not sure Soseki says anything about the 30s in Japan.

"So - what then are we to say of the friends of Marx and their book?"

Okay, let's put it this way: can you believe in Marxism and not be anti-semitic? Now, can you be a Nazi and not be anti-semitic?

Does that big bookstore in Shibuya (can't remember the name; as I recall it's in the neighborhood of Marui, on the way to Tower Records) still have the basement full of Nazi memorabilia and English-language small-press "how to stalk your ex-wife" books?

I'm not making this up.
I swear the god that I saw this T-shirt at Greenwich village,July of 1984,printed"Hitler's european tour 1939-1944"resembling rock concert tour T-shirt....

"but I am not sure Soseki says anything about the 30s in Japan."

That's rather unlikely.Soseki died in 1916.

"Does that big bookstore in Shibuya (can't remember the name; as I recall it's in the neighborhood of Marui, on the way to Tower Records) still have the basement full of Nazi memorabilia and English-language small-press "how to stalk your ex-wife" books?"

That shop in the basement of Taiseido has moved.
(so has big taiseido,small shop locates at the gate of center-gai"

[...I am not sure that the LDP and bureaucrats really disliked the Americans encouraging them with the developmentalist state...]

The American midwifed postwar constitution articulated a keystone of the Yoshida doctrine. When the Yanks wanted Japan to rearm a decade later, the developmental state was already well entrenched. American myopia? perhaps - but conveying no less responsibility.

[... America also introduced a lot of things that didn't work very well - like democracy...]

Are you serious? How exactly does the US backed, funded and trained oligarchy known as the LDP count as American introducing democracy?

[...I am not an expert on pre-war literature, but I am not sure Soseki says anything about the 30s in Japan...]

Well of course he doesnt. At least not directly. My point is that in his literature and that of his disciples, one finds the critique of collectivism of which I speak. Is there anything of comparable poetry in Dazai, Mishima, Oe, Kobo Abe etc? No - what we have mostly is the despair that nihilistic introspection births. So heres the thing: Were Japanese writers and intellectuals more or less critical of collectivism before or after the war? Did they engage the topic or did they skirt it?

[...can you believe in Marxism and not be anti-semitic? Now, can you be a Nazi and not be anti-semitic?...]

False setup; as antisemitism has its roots neither in Marxism nor National Socialism. Its roots lie in millenia of anti Jewish ressentiment in Europe and elsewhere. The real question is: If one is predisposed to antisemitism, through folklore and whatnot (cf: Korean Americans) - will one find encouragement and ammunition in the Nazis? Answer yes. And in Marx? Answer yes.

David Moles, Aceface,

Isnt it weird that we all knew that place?

Aceface,

You dont think the jazz club you referenced might have anything to do with the NYC one? In any case the staff assured me that the naming was "just a co-incidence".

Mein Kampf or no, they do have alot of neat weird crap in that store in shimokita. Me and the wife are gonna go back there and get us a pink plastic lawn flamingo to put in front of our house one day when the weather cools a bit.

A woman I work with, an educated intelligent woman, who has spent a number of years living outsie Japan, once said to me in all seriousness "But isn't America run by the Jews?"

cough cough choke choke

It seems to me that the people selling this book must know how loaded the topic is-I don't think it reflects poor knowledge about WWII, though it might be cynicism.

Really, the most clueless stuff I see is in the US. There's a fancy shop in the upper west side selling skate shoes with a 旭日旗pattern on them, I think there was a Clash t-shirt with the same design put out years ago: I know the MSDF still uses it and it's not really like a Swastika, at all, that's not my point: it's just strange to think of all of these New Yorkers and punk kids walking around decked out like 右翼without realizing it.

it's tempting to overthink aesthetically-integrated symbols in japan. j-fashionistas are expert at divorcing signifier from signified, and that results is some really gorgeous and sometimes really inane combinations. [aceface shot me down the last time i expressed this opinion, but] i find contemporary japanese culture to be shockingly irrelevant: apolitical, ahistorical, and complacent, and i take the pop-ification of mein kampf as another example of this. i think it's more of an idiot's non-sequitur than a floruishing of anti-semitism or war nostalgia.

Chris B:
Ofcourse the shinjyuku Jazz cafe is the copycat of the one in NYC.

What I posted for Mutantfrog travelogue.Hope everyone tolerate my recent attacks of looong posts.

現時点の日本では、太平洋戦争の敗北と近隣諸国への侵略、そして戦後の平和主義の台頭により、戦前に広く人気を博していた日本軍主体の戦記物や戦争映画を、そのまま流通させることは、政治的に正しくないとされている。しかし、エンターテインメントとしての戦争は日本のメディア産業にあふれており、その間隙を埋めてきたのは、戦後直後から長きに渡り、海外、特にハリウッドから持ち込まれた戦争映画であった。かく言う私も幼少の折は、故ヴィック・モローがサンダース軍曹を熱演する第二次世界大戦物のテレビシリーズ「コンバット」や「ラットパトロール」に熱狂した。とはいえ、サンダース軍曹は米国軍人、自分たちは敵国の日本人。子供の遊びとはいえ、空き地で戦争ごっこをしても一抹の空しさは禁じえなかった。

しかし、子供たちの悩みにも代替案があった。ドラマに登場する敵役のドイツ兵である。欧米においてナチスドイツ＝ホロコースト、という連想は脊髄反射のようなものだが、70年代の日本の子供にとって、ナチスドイツはまずなによりも日本の同盟国だった。しかも、ドイツ軍の兵器や軍装は連合国のそれよりもカッコいいときている。小学校も高学年になれば、通過儀礼として「タミヤ」のプラモデルなどに手を染めたりするものだが、筆者のころはランボルギーニ・カウンタックや戦艦大和などとならんで、ドイツ軍戦関連雑誌も多数発行されている。車のキング・パンツァーなどが定番だった。子供たちは次々とパンツァー戦車やハーフトラックなどを次々とつくり、プラモ片手にロンメル元帥気取りで砂場で遊んだものだ。平和教育を学校でうけながら、放課後はナチスドイツの戦車で遊ぶなど、歴史観の乖離といわれればそれまでだが、子供の遊びの世界にまで、目くじらを立てる世間は存在しなかった。

Here's a contrasting case.

St. Marks Place in, of all places the East Village, formerly the center of the punk fashion scene in the area is now unexpectedly a center for Japanese food, with easily a half-dozen restaurants/izakaya on just the one famous block that contains Kim's Video etc.

One of these places, which I was at last week, is labeled as something like "日本帝國居酒屋" (although I forget the place's actual name), with lots of old-timey Showa-period kitch and decoration, like old posters, antique pachinko machines, etc. Signs with random vaguely pro-Japanese imperialist slogans and phrases, also written on the t-shirts worn by staff, such as "神風特攻隊." In the men's bathroom, next to the mirror, there was a red sign that just says "長崎原爆." This is also the only place I have ever seen outside of Japan that has "Hoppy" on the menu- and even in Japan it's usually just places going for an oldy-timey kind of mood.

Are we standing in a hall of mirrors here? The store in Japan trying to evoke the counter-culturalism of Greenwich Village by using the name of an old famous Jazz club from the neighborhood (which I am of course mortally offended Marxy didn't recognize the name of) casually displays Mein Kampf in a poorly thought out attempt to be edgy, while at the same time, across the globe in the real Greenwich village, we have a guy setting up shop on St. Marks Place - a street with several Japanese run izakaya - in a place with an Imperial Japan theme using some fairly tasteless stuff that seems to be paying some sort of vague homage to the guys that were actually Hitler's allies at the time.

Marxy, you see a shop espousing the idea that "Nazis are cool" but, from what you describe, I think it is more probable that they are saying "intellectuals are cool" where intellectuals are supposed to be willing to look at first sources to find out why the people who shaped the twentieth century did what they did. Surely that was the context in which they were selling the book.

I recently had an odd experience where a girl in a bar felt she could connect with my German friend by showing him her swastika tattoo so I'm not oblivious to your idea that there are people in Japan who thnk Nazi symbolism is cool but you haven't proved that this interest in symbolism equates with a sympathy with the underlying ideology,

Roy Berman,

Is that area around St Marks still like that? I remember in the mid 90s when all the english school visa kids first started becoming visible around there. Ducked into this one shop and ended up having my first "curry rice". Promptly went down E 6th after that to have the real thing. I miss the East Village sometimes.

"J-fashionistas are expert at divorcing signifier from signified, and that results is some really gorgeous and sometimes really inane combinations."

I generally agree with this, but I don't think it's an all-inclusive divorcing process. You don't see people wearing Abe t-shirts or Hiroshima victim picture t-shirts, for example, because the signifiers are so strong and well-known. Kids are only interested in signifiers which they perceive to be empty or purely visual. It's not like they are watching Schindler's List etc. and then going out and buying a swastika shirt.

So, while the brandishing of swastikas or personalized copies of Mein Kampf may not be an advocation of Nazism, it basically proves how empty the understanding of these items is in society, especially among youth. I am not sure this emptiness is worth celebrating.

I don't think there is any emptiness here.
I'm outta this discussion.

You know an internet thread is going to be good when it STARTS with Hitler. You've got nowhere left to go.

Based on the vague bits I can make out from the handwritten copy, it seems pretty appropriately contextualized. I think it's more about the fact that in Japan there isn't anyone actively complaining about books like that appearing on the shelves (where are debito and JapanProbe when we need them..), so there just isn't any reason that selling or considering buying the book would be unpalatable, even though most Japanese people have a least some understanding of the Holocaust and what Nazism was about (Tezuka Osamu wrote a great manga about the relationship between Nazi Germany and wartime Japan called Adorufu ni Tsugu. This was back in the 70s or so but it does show that there is not silence about Nazi Germany even in pop culture).

As a Westerner I suppose I do feel some vague opposition to the casual selling of Hitler-related merchandise (the Nazi fashion is objectionable for different reasons) but this particular instance does not seem so inappropriate. Perhaps someone who's Jewish or is otherwise more closely tied to this issue would be likely to object (as is the case with other issues in Japan, such as the complaints that interest groups lodge with TV stations when people tell jokes about the retarded or use phrases like "baka demo chon demo wakaru" (even a moron or Korean would understand)

I don't find anything at all wrong with the sale of Mein Kampf per se. We have a copy here in my house, along with probably dozens of other historical books about WW2, and I should mention that we're also Jewish. I will agree that trying to make Nazism "cool" is in fact pretty disturbing and lame, but I would really need to see what is written on that card-(which you really need to post!)- before I can say what the context was.

"You know an internet thread is going to be good when it STARTS with Hitler. You've got nowhere left to go."

I've been hit by the waves of guilt in the past few days....Heated discussion on internet with Asian American over Japanese policy of comfort women issues,and now with Jewish Americans over Japanese representation of Hitler and Nazism...
These internet turning me into a bigot that can't tolerate another bigot in the same room....

I know the rule here,Marxy does all the cherry picking,others do the apples and oranges,and I go bananas.But I was taught from my mother not to play with the fruit...

Tommorow is the VJ day.I'll shut my mouth for a whole day,reading Asahi shimbun,detox all my jingoism....

Don't let marxy go to kanda jimbochou !!

I dunno, do they sell Mein Kampf next to totally rad books about growing pot?

Nice find, Marxy. I was just in Jordan, Palestine and Israel for a month and had a lot of encounters with anti-semitism and some time to consider its impact.

I will sharply disagree with Adamu who for instance sees opposition to anti-semitism as equivalent to demanding handicap access ramps in train stations. Even the most elementary analysis of anti-semitism shows that it has implications beyond mere distrust, dislike or hatred of Jews. The Germans for instance carried it to its logical conclusion. Along that road the hatred against Jews came to serve a useful function in each subset of German nationalist ideology. The Jews were responsible for the loss of Germany during WWI, responsible for Germany's decay as a nation, responsible for the communist revolution in the East and of course controlled international finance from London (later, Jerusalem). German nationalism employed an understanding of capital that was actually quite far from Marx's, dividing the economy into two, "in which production (the "schaffende" capital) was associated with the non-Jewish Germans and the circulation sphere (the "raffende" capital) was associated with the Jews"(Volker Radke). This was a historical process. There were for instance literally anti-semitic parties in name in Germany who managed to capture a significant amount of votes in elections and whose influence spread decisively to both the right and the left.

In a similar way I think that anti-semitism can play a role in the ongoing resuscitation of Japanese nationalism. 'Japan and the Jews' is an excellent book study of Japan's historical impressions of Jews, mostly tending towards outright fear or what is called philo-semitism, the undue adulation or respect of Jews as power brokers. It should go without saying that philo-semitism creates an easy dialectic with anti-semitism in its elevation of Jews above mere mortals. But that's neither here nor there. What is most important is that in the classic nationalist understanding of Japan, the major case for isolationism has always been made by incoherent references to an all-powerful 'outside', often the West. If such an abstract body can be conjured then it is not too far to believe that there are people manipulating it from behind is it? For this, anti-semitism plays the role of validating foregone conclusions. It is the period at the end of a sentence.

Part 2:

I absolutely disagree with the depiction of Marx as an anti-semite on some sort of par with Hitler. Perhaps I will come in as some 'leftist apologist'? Let's face it, no matter what Marx's personal views on Jews (which tended towards a stereotypical view), he wrote his treatise on the Jewish question at a time when Jews were trying quite hard to integrate into the nation states in which they resided. His critique of Jewish integration into bourgeois society was not based on an active desire to attack Jews as emblems of a more liberal, emancipated society but was instead a critique of political emancipation instead of social emancipation. That itself is an important contribution and it was indeed this netherworld between political and social emancipation that many Jews found themselves stuck in during the German onslaught of WWII.

The differences between this interested critique of Jewish emancipation and the SS's eliminatory approach to the question should be....quite apparent no?

Marx also managed to transcend the categories by which for instance German nationalists understood capitalism: i.e. non-productive capital (capitalists, rentiers, merchants etc.) and productive capital (workers, farmers etc.) and showed how capitalism is above all an inhuman system that functions not because of the existence of a circulation sphere but because of the existence of commodity production. In other words, it is the production of commodities itself that makes money, banks and the accumulation of finance capital inevitable.

This is a distinctly different understanding than the Nazis had, and the analysis most importantly presented in Capital vol.s 1 and 3 and also Wage Labor and Capital shows the obvious lies behind anti-semitism. To borrow from Adorno, anti-semitism exists to hide the real scandal of production under capitalism. In this sense, Marx has made one of the most important objective contributions to the overcoming of anti-semitism. That's why it's hardly fair that he be labeled a Jew hater.

Yep.

Ooops.

I meant say,Yes they do sell "mein kampf" next to "how to grow marijuana in your basement" at Kanda.

sphinx,

At first I was kind of interested in your explanation about the differences between marxist and nazi thoughts, but when I got to the bits about "non productive" capital my eyes kind of glazed over. I thought maybe you were extremely well read and explaining something that I didnt understand, then I clicked on the link and saw that you seem to be quite serious about this stuff.

The question still remains in my mind, do you actually believe that there is such a thing as "non productive" capital? How far does this go?

Mein Kampf is available on amazon.com. It scores a healthy 3 1/2 stars from its 142 reviewers. A sample of those reviews:

K. Piszro (real name), Chicago:
"I thought this was an excellent book, however, quite long. I was excited in the second half when they got to Hitler's thoughts of his rallys and his men defending his rally-goers."

Killer Clown:
"Not at all what I expected. I expected a monster spouting hate and ignorance. Instead, I found a very well written autobiography. Hitlers writing style has a lot of flavor to it, and the stories are very intriguing, particularly the ones about his youth and the time he lived in Vienna. What is interesting to me is that he tells his story the way he saw it whether it benefits him or not. He freely admits his faults, as well as his strengths. For example, his sadness at being rejected from art school when, in his mind, he thought he was a very good painter. Or, when he admits his lack of understanding of how labor unions work when confronted by co-workers on a construction site. It is a very interesting book."

Renee, New York:
"Illuminating societal enigmas with clarion voice, Adolf Hitler's ideologies are premised upon Nature. From this simplicity to the social complexities, he woos us from the cosmopolitan to the Arcadian. With volcanic drama, with delicate subtitles, he word-paints the "ice cold facts" of life. He clearly teaches the significance, the social necessity of homogenous culture. Mein Kampf is a philosophic tour de force of intellectuality. Hitler was a thinker-a clear thinker. He was an altogether different man from the one portrayed to us by modern media . . . he never suggested the harming of the handicapped, Gypsies or Jews in Mein Kampf, or in any of his writings. Had he done so, I would have quickly thrown the book in the rubbish and, to be sure, never written this review."

Can't be bothered to read them all, but I'm guessing about half of those 142 reviews are sympathetic in some way to Hitler. So what do you make of it all, Marxy? One of America's most popular online retailers providing a tasteless star scoring system for Mein Kampf and a platform for Nazi sympathisers. Care to draw some huge generalisation about American culture from it all?

(I'm sympathetic to your distaste of Nazis being portrayed as cool, but isn't it kind of inevitable, given the cyclical and oppositional nature of fashions and fads? I'm not sure it really matters, though. I'm not sure people really mix up these kind of largely ironic appropriations with actual ideology.)

>is such a thing as "non productive" capital?

chris, in a 19th century framework i'd say there would be

> the cyclical and oppositional nature of fashions and fads

'nazi tourism' in many german cities has reached a point of obscenity. and i'd say even there, at the heart of it all, signifier and signified are both metamorphosized and disjoined from each other.

>(I'm sympathetic to your distaste of Nazis being portrayed as >cool, but isn't it kind of inevitable, given the cyclical and >oppositional nature of fashions and fads? I'm not sure it really >matters, though. I'm not sure people really mix up these kind of >largely ironic appropriations with actual ideology.)

I think what Marxy was saying is that to even risk portraying Nazis as cool is beyond the pale, and worrying that if nothing is beyond the pale, then there is no basis to resist the status quo. Precisely because 'it doesn't really matter,' there is no basis for ethical judgment.

Which, oddly enough, is what people like Ruth Benedict and Maruyama Masao were worrying about sixty years ago. Marxy, despite all the student movement references, aren't you just a 市民主義者? (jk)

I'm breaking my oath.

Mulboyne said:
”I recently had an odd experience where a girl in a bar felt she could connect with my German friend by showing him her swastika tattoo ”

You sure that wasn't one of those buddhist swastikas?
The girl was into Dalai Lama or paid pilgrimage to Gore or so and she was tricking on you two,especially your German friend for she had done this before?

And why are we talking about war crimes and political rightists so often these days?People here stop paying interest to what's going on in "Pedophile Japan"no more?

Chris B:
I'm reading Edmund Wilson's"To the Finland Station" and according to this book,What Sphinx wrote about the reason for Karl Marx's anger toward certain Jewish bourgeois in mid 19th century Europe is quite accurate.

I definitely understand why Aceface is a bit pissed off.

Marxy, if you had looked around 10 feet from Mein Kampf you would no doubt have found Tezuka Osamu's "Adorufu ni tsugu" or any of the dozens of other manga that crap all over the Nazis for their misdeeds. Village Vanguard makes a point of stocking all of this stuff. Or how about all of the accessible Anne Frank manga and books for kids? The Anne Frank anime?

Aceface has a great point about the swastika. Since it is also the "manji" in Japan (looks different) how / why are Japanese young people supposed to know that it was a Nazi symbol? I know some who think that it is simply a German symbol. Is this a type of ignorance worth getting worked up about? How much knowledge of Japanese fascist iconography would you expect from teens in other countries? Does not knowing the meaning of the swastika suggest an ignorance of the Holocaust?

Symbols have different meanings in different environments. In the USA and much of Europea, people are scared shitless of swastikas for a simple reason - there are racist gangs who can and will attack Jews and others. If you were Jewish in Japan and saw a guy with a swastika on his shirt, you'd be awfully angry. If you were Jewish in the USA and saw a guy with a swastika on his shirt, you'd be running away.

Ignorance of the symbol only matters if mass Holocaust denial goes along with it. Japanese kids certainly learn about the murder of millions of Jews in school. There is also a sizable popular infrastructure (manga, pop non-fiction) for learning about war crimes. I don't think that a few ditzy kids thinking that the Swastika is a sort of punk icon does anything to negate the virtually ubiquitous anti-fascist imagery that runs through Japanese popular culture.

In any case, I can't pick out the text on the pictures, but the first one seems to be talking about MK as a means of understanding Hitler's charisma and ability to mobilize people. That is the same reason that I read it as an undergrad. Shouldn't we read MK to understand what prompted Germans to support ruthless racist like Hitler in the first place? Even if the kids who are picking it up are treating it like a fashion accessory (look at me, I'm so smart), they might learn something.

"'Japan and the Jews' is an excellent book study of Japan's historical impressions of Jews"

Bad book. Makes the point that Japanese have used the Jews as a sort of boogeyman by cherry picking examples and creating essentializing fantasies. Of course, the book does the same thing to "Japanese" by using the attitudes of a few kooks like Uno Masami as representative of mainstream attitudes. You stereotype the Jewish people, you are an anti-Semite, you stereotype the Japanese people, you are well reviewed.

In assuming a homogeneous Japanese population engaging in identity formation by using brands of Anti-semitism, the book puts itself into the same class of Japan writing as "The Enigma of Japanese Power".

Aceface wrote: "You sure that wasn't one of those buddhist swastikas?"

It was the Nazi swastika and deliberately so. She got it when she was in an Oi band along with the rest of the members. The conversation with my German friend, which is fresh in my memory because it happened around two weeks ago, was one of the most awkward I've had in ages.

I've known the girl for some time so I went back to her bar the other day to explain why I had suddenly paid the bill and whisked the guy away. She was devastated that she had offended him but had an explanation.

She got the tattoo because Oi bands used to use the swastika a lot in Britain. For her, it was like having a symbol saying "F**k You" so she meant it to have shock value. These days, she has more ink than bare skin so it doesn't especially jump out at you. I'd never noticed it before she pointed it out. As it transpires, she is not at all ignorant about Nazis and certainly not in sympathy with them.

It's worth mentioning that she opens her bar in the morning so we were both the other side of sober when we went in while she was fine and ready for business. When I introduced my German friend, she did as she always does and looked to make a new face welcome. He didn't speak Japanese but she had some English so it was one of those three-way conversations that many people here will be familiar with where your role is to help both sides make sense of the other even when they are apparently speaking the same language.

When the girl learned that my friend was German, it seems that she was actually interested in talking seriously with him about what Nazi history means today in Germany. A wholly inappropriate topic but, then again, she was trusting me to tidy up what she was saying and put it more coherently. It didn't help that I was still in low gear as the designated cultural co-ordinator. I was just getting ready to say that kanpai = prost and wasn't prepared to create a sensible conversational context for "Third Reich", "Auschwitz" and "Holocaust". She had shown the tattoo to indicate that she had some knowledge of the subject but now concedes that it wasn't a good idea. I'll take my share of the blame because if I'd known at the time what she was interested in, then I might have been able to make something of it. Probably not.

On sphinx's point about anti-semitism vs philosemitism there's an interesting case in the example of Norihiro Yasue of Army secret intelligence and his Navy counterpart, Koreshige Inuzuka. Both men swallowed the propaganda of "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and helped formulate Plan Fugu in the 1930s which was an attempt to bring Jews to Japanese-controlled parts of Asia.

Yasue and Koreshige believed everything that anti-semites said about Jewish secret power and money fixation but drew different conclusions. Plan Fugu never got off the ground but Yasue played a key role in opposing Gestapo Colonel Josef Meisinger in Shanghai who urged that the Jews who had arrived should be exterminated or put to work in the mines. He later died in a concentration camp in Siberia.

In 1954, Michael Kogan appeared at Yasue's family house and offered his relatives money, on behalf of the Jewish Residents of Japan, to hold a proper memorial service for Yasue, in memory of all that he had done to help them. Kogan had been Yasue's escort during a visit to Harbin but is better known as the founder of Taito Trading which gave the world Space Invaders. The registered kanji for Taito was 太東 and most think the first was drawn from 太平洋 when it was almost certainly from 猶太.

Chris,

You've misunderstood me, perhaps because I'm not writing very well. The idea of the division of the economy into productive and non-productive spheres is wholly the project of German nationalists, and not something I agree with. A better essay on the subject (and this concept's connection with the Holocaust) is here:

http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/postone1.html

Marx's analysis of capital, while much different from the crude ideas of the SS etc., does also make a distinction between productive and non-productive labor in terms of where surplus value is produced. Yet this division is not as essential as it is in the Nazi view, because Marx only makes this division in order to illuminate the circumstances under which surplus value is produced (in waged labor). And, to emphasize, Marx analyzes surplus value as productive only in the sense of producing capitalist value per se. This is not done to affirm all concrete labor against abstract labor but instead to criticize the nature of labor itself. To pull myself out of high concepts here, literally not to criticize banks, the rich etc. as some sort of theft of real wealth produced by the brave, valiant workers, but pointing out that the very form of labor these workers engage in (commodity production for trade) demands the accumulation of wealth, its transformation into money and its storing in banks. This is the critique of commodity production itself and not 'parasitic' capitalism.

I would say these are some of the key differences between Marx's theory (which has its flaws) and Nazi ideology.

Finally, in response to Marxy's question: is it possible to be Marxist and not anti-semitic? Just a few pictures from friends in Germany, where there are many groups on the communist left engaged quite actively in the critique of anti-semitism and its modern propagandists:

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:tkskRSuuS0ryaM:http://www.truemmerfrauen.info/antideutsche_2004_in_dresden.jpg

http://img53.imageshack.us/my.php?image=77080mf8.jpg

http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nobirdsdayxj0.jpg

"how / why are Japanese young people supposed to know that it was a Nazi symbol?"

Why are young people supposed to know about Japanese aggression in WWII? Or Charlemagne? Or the coup against Allende? Or why murder is bad? Or why gravity exits? I feel like in the small set of things that should be universally taught, Nazis and the Holocaust probably rank pretty high. Especially seeing that the Japanese were part of the Axis Dream Team in the most important armed conflict of the 20th Century. I am not complaining about kids and their ignorance about Ustasa.

"Village Vanguard makes a point of stocking all of this stuff."

I see, fair and balanced. People who take the Anne Frank side too much to heart need to see what Hitler's reasoning was for advocating her death. "Oh, I never knew that Jews were up to such horrible things!"

Maybe they are supposed to have Mein Kampf in with a better crowd of books, but to me, just passing the aisle, it stuck out like a sore thumb, equivocated with the biography of Malcolm X and some books on Okinawa and marijuana, no other books of its kind near it, as if to say, this is the one book you should read about Nazism/WWII. My picture fails to capture that context. It was not sitting next to a book about Anne Frank, even though it might have been in the store. To be honest, though, Anne Frank is way less cool. Too feminine. Hitler's got that revolutionary masculinity and "charisma."

For the record, I would be equally upset if I had seen Mein Kampf for sale at Urban Outfitters next to a book about making the perfect martini. The only difference is, I don't see non-aggressively Nazi, Oi, or Punk kids in the US walking around with swastika t-shirts nor do I see books about "Jews controlling the world" in the New Releases section of The Strand.

"If you were Jewish in the USA and saw a guy with a swastika on his shirt, you'd be running away."

I guess you don't hang out with the JDL.

Incidentally, I was up in Iidabashi showing our film last sunday at a film festival and made a point to go to Mosakusha, the well-known radical-left (or so I thought) bookstore in Shinjuku 3cho-me. I had noticed the last time I went that uyoku material was more prominent in the shop which bugged me a bit but Mosakusha is for "searchers" after all and is dedicated to 言論の自由. I knew in the past they had this stuff in stock so I hoped that it was temporary. Last Sunday however I found out how misguided that hope was. Uyoku material is now featured quite prominently directly next to the Anarchism section and not just one or two publications. I counted at least 6 periodicals there, although I didn't see any books (could be elsewhere). Next to these periodicals was some sort of conspiracy nut book with (literally) a kippa-wearing Jew smiling and conniving with Kim Jong Il watching the 9/11 attacks through a big window. Thankfully it looked like they probably hadn't sold a single copy but jesus people are losing their minds lately. I made a big fuss with the staff about the uyoku material and particularly the anti-semitic implications of the conspiracy book (translated from a Western book apparently as well!), but I'm not sure if they'll bother to remove anything. Marxy perhaps you should take a visit? Unfortunately the scene at Mosakusha is perhaps just as disturbing as Mein Kampf at Village Vanguard.

"I see, fair and balanced."

You seemed to think that was okay for American chain stores.

I was thinking of a response, but instead, I just did a web search for reviews of MK in Japanese on various books sites. The kids are saying that its a scary book, essential for understanding Hitler's rise to power, why the "rational" Germans behaved irrationally. I only saw one or two posts by nutjobs. Seems that the book is being read critically.

Can you really say that the presence of this book in a bookstore like VV "does not say something encouraging about the state of historical understanding and anti-fascist solidarity in Japan." The most important thing is how it is being read (and from the two or so lines of the commentary that I are not blurry, it seems as though the store was presenting it in this way as well). Once again, you seem to be writing off the critical abilities of Japanese readers. I think that this is a mistake.

There are three ways of looking at a piece of popular culture - producer oriented (for example, does this translation have a critical kaisetsu? This is VERY important in my books), consumer oriented (how it is being read and why), and market oriented. You are giving us a whole lot of number three.... but aren't your final judgments more about doors number one and two? If I had thrown up a post about how I saw some Tezuka manga somewhere and how his brand of (somewhat weepy) anti-fascist humanism is an indication of a pervasive critique of militarism in Japanese pop, would you have bought it? Maybe not. What if I could quantify it? Why does MK count for so much and the over 250,000,000 (not a typo) volumes of Tezuka manga sold in the past half century count for little?

Have you seen the manga "Hagane no renkinjutsu-shi"? Bestselling manga right now. Huge hit. The main character's side "Kokka Renkinjutsushi" or some such nonsense, have Nazi-esque uniforms and hierarchy. Great. Japanese are clueless about the past, right? Well, the "good guys" end up committing genocide in war, tear themselves apart with regret and find themselves offering up a nice little tens of millions selling anti-fascist anti-racism parable to Japanese 9 year olds. Now where was the blog post about that one? I really enjoy your blog, but criticisms mean more when you also go around getting the context and give praise where praise is due. Otherwise, you just end up pissing off Aceface (^_^)

"I guess you don't hang out with the JDL."

No, but I don't worry much about my personal safety in Japan. I worry about hate crimes centered around racial and religious difference in the USA (and in Canada).

In any case, this Nazi thing has to be understood in international context. Was I the only guy who went to high school with a weedhead who carried around MK in their bag and wrote a paper on Hitler talking about how wonderful his dream was? Doesn't everyone (or is it just professional historians?) call "The History Channel" "The Hitler Channel" because of the morbid fascination that so many Americans have with Nazi documentary after Nazi documentary? American has all of this, but pervasive anti-war? Would have liked to see that in 2003.

Mulboyne:
Japanese girl in oi band.....wow.Speechless.
So the Brit skinheads allowing Japanese girl to join her into their group?Oh wait that's happen all the time in Japan.Koreans in uyoku sects...

I've heard the former lieutenant of Jean Marie LePen of Front National,Bruno Megret(now split from FN) is married to a Japanese women and was a Japanologist.

Sphinx:
Wasn't Mosakusha also named as UNITA in the past Because that's where I've got Tsuchiya Yutaka's video's for the first time in '95.And even in those days,There were quite a few extreme right periodicals.No these people are more of an anarchist and not devoted socialist and there is a practical reasons for it,Issui-Kai(Suzuki Kunio's sect)'s periodical "Reconquesta"was said to be read by three groups of people.The supporter,cops,and the radical left that oppose them.I bet good portion of those rightist pamphlets are sold not only to those rightist but to the member of radical lefts.You still need to sell things even in the place like Mosakusha in the capitalist society,You know.

Tsuchiya's girl friend,Amamiya Karin,who was a right winger(of some sort)had turned into liberal these days as pointed by Brown's comment several posts ago,and these might have some relation with rootless political ideologies that some young Japanese adopts...

M-Bone:
Did you read that Globe and Mail article called Japan's right wing re-emerged on August 8th?
Never knew Tate-no-Kai is still existing.

"anti-semitic implications of the conspiracy book"

Now this kind of stuff, barring a critical introduction or something, is just shit. However, it seems as though anti-semitic garbage had more appeal in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s (Uno's heyday) than it does today.

As for the uyoku stuff, I also think that there has been an increase. However, there has also been an increase in the amount of things published with an aggressively anti-uyoku slant (I don't just mean critical of the war and whatnot, but actually exposing uyoku crimes and gang connections). Some of this stuff is from major presses like Takarajima-sha.

"people are losing their minds lately'

Don't worry, things are not getting worse. This stuff has been around for decades. The internet has empowered the crazies. However, there has been a corresponding rise in "good" pluralism in Japan and elsewhere, has there not? Don't know if there has been a rise in uyoku membership (netto-uyo aside - they are not members of anything, just wankers) but there certainly has been a rise in participation in NGOs to help foreigners in Japan, etc. Let's not forget that people have been talking about Japan's shift to the right for decades. If Japan was really going rightwing militarist at the rate that people were saying, it would have fell right off the right and had to create its own ideological scale.

Did you read that Globe and Mail article called Japan's right wing re-emerged on August 8th?
Never knew Tate-no-Kai is still existing.

- Shit article. They didn't say that the Tate-no-Kai were still around. They just used them because they were one of the only names that they could come up with with their Wikipedia level research.

Marxy, sorry if this might be insensitive but , mate, if you carry personal or family trauma about the holocaust and stuff now it might be the time speak about it, and you might get the sympathy . because i think you've seriously offended or if not offended then put off quite a few people with this one.
as for me, it's funny, all my usual anti-marxy dialectic has completely vanished all i've left is a combo of pity and indifference.

"You seemed to think that was okay for American chain stores."

I think it's fine for a general book store or an online retailer. I think the book should exist.

And my problem is not with the critical abilities of Japanese readers who pick up the book. Nor with the probably solid "intro" that says essentially, we are not publishing this because it is "good" but because it's important for knowing about Hitler.

My problem is with its placement within a very narrowly branded "cool selection" of books. They probably do not have copies of Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy" nor of Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone." They are not a general bookseller, nor a historical bookseller, nor a hub for intellectual readers. They sell cool shit to kids. And my problem again, is seeing Mein Kampf show up in this specific context.

And the only way this context "error" (sorry, I stand by the idea that Mein Kampf may be an "important" book but not a "cool" one) exists is if those responsible for selecting the book and shoppers have no issue for questioning its relation to the other products. So that does say something about "culture" without saying something about about "how it would be consumed IF someone bought it."

If your local convenience store sold Mein Kampf on its magazine rack (or even better, in the ice cream freezer), would this be my bias in reading what this says about Japanese perceptions of Nazis?

＞"important" book but not a "cool" one

isn't this what zizek, borrowing from freud, calls the 'borrowed kettle' logic , used by the US in irak ?

I am ethnically half-Jewish, but have never been religiously Jewish. Regardless of that link, I am anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. Sorry if that position offended anyone.

I think it's pretty crucial to understanding the general vibe of Village Vanguard to get my frustration. If you are assuming it's like City Lights Books or something, it's not. I can't imagine that it attracts this very serious intellectual audience who want to pick up some Sartre books, a funny piggy bank, $10 large-frame sunglasses, misc. products featuring cute cat pictures, and an outrageously-colored trash can all at one store.

i do live in tokyo mate, i'm not assuming.

are you then proposing every store should have a safe, 'serious', adult section ?
i like to think i'm anti-fascist too but i don't really associate fascism with those guys in the Hugo Boss suits so much these days.

I am not prescribing anything. I am saying again, what does it mean for Mein Kampf to be just another totally cool book in a special selection of totally cool books?

A book you may not find at Village Vanguard is "How to Win at Pachinko." Or "How to Make Tsukemono." And the reason is that pachinko and tsukemono do not have "cool" associations. Everyone knows exactly what these things are and that they are not part of the lifestyle that VV represents. So Mein Kampf is either there because it's A) part of the lifestyle, which I doubt (even in lively debates about it being wrong, which I am not sure that 20 year old kids sit around and do anywhere) or B) the associations are so weak that no one would have a reason not to have it just be "another biography."

"Especially seeing that the Japanese were part of the Axis Dream Team in the most important armed conflict of the 20th Century. I am not complaining about kids and their ignorance about Ustasa.”

OK,I was wrong again since today is August 15th,maybe this topic is somehow relevant than 13 years old in thong bikinis.
Anyway all the existing Japanese TV channels had turned into quasi-history channel for a day and there is nowhere left to go but to face the fact that we were in that dream team in the most important armed conflict of the 20th century.

Really is offtopic,but there is a manga called"石の花,The Flower of Stone"about Yugoslav Partisan in WW2 by Sakaguchi Hisashi坂口尚(ex-assitant of Tezuka Osamu)about Nazism,Marxism,Anti-Semitism and Ustasa all in one manga...

"how / why are Japanese young people supposed to know that it was a Nazi symbol?"
That sounds like a perfect reason(excuse) for buying a copy of MK,isn't it.
Maybe they should sell a copy in a fancy joint like Village Vanguard.

"isn't this what zizek, borrowing from freud, calls the 'borrowed kettle' logic , used by the US in irak ?"

Can you explain this in more detail?

I have not been to this Village Vanguard place but yes the context seems quite important here. Am I crazy to think Mein Kampf belongs more in libraries, i.e. available to study for those interested in analyzing the ideology, then in the endorsement section of a hipster bookstore? And to point out this anomaly is quite reasonable?

The situation reminds me of the uncritical wearing of Keffiyeh scarves by hipsters and 'anti-war' protestors lately, but at a much more obvious and problematic level.

"I am saying again, what does it mean for Mein Kampf to be just another totally cool book in a special selection of totally cool books?"

I don't think that you've managed to convince (many of) us that this is what it is. I picked up the DVD of Mishima's "Patriotism" film at VV. I think that it is a fine place to look for "alternative" literature and the like. Is that not what MK should be? I don't think that it is a fascist alternative. As I mentioned with the reviews above - Japanese young people seem to be reading it for the very same reason that I did - to understand something about Hitler's rise to power (BTW, MK also contains an anti-Japanese rant, the whole damn book made me want to puke but I still read it). VV has a lot of books about alternative lifestyles, it carries low print run manga of limited interest to most, in short, it is as much a place to find things that are different, not just "cool". I know other Japan scholars who go to VV looking for idea books for research.

There is also the chance that this presentation was the choice of an individual staff member, not a company decision. All VVs will stock the book, but how is it presented? Could this be due to a decision by one person, not this or that corner of the psyche of the Japanese people?

They have pachinko and mahjong books at VVs I've been to, BTW. Is Natsume Soseki cool? They have him too.

"in the endorsement section of a hipster bookstore?"

But is the endorsement an endorsement of Hitler's ideology or an invitation to understand a man man's rise to power? An acknowledgment that it is an important book?

Reading MK certainly made me hate Hitler and Nazism all that more....

"The situation reminds me of the uncritical wearing of Keffiyeh scarves by hipsters and 'anti-war' protestors lately, but at a much more obvious and problematic level."

I don't agree at all. The American example that you cite is, at least in part, a sanctioning of current violence. Having MK around can be a very real invitation to criticism.

"But is the endorsement an endorsement of Hitler's ideology or an invitation to understand a man man's rise to power?"

Again, this is not the best book for understanding his RISE to power. It's the best book for understanding the Nazi ideology and his reasons for adopting it. If the person selected it was a Nazi scholar and was to advocate a single book for those who want to learn about Hitler/Nazis, is this the book they choose?

M-bone, it may be worth checking out this printing to find out whether the anti-Japanese section is preserved in the copy or not. I was told by a German friend who lives in Jordan that the Arabic edition of MK for instance was printed with racial commentary on Arabs removed. Anyways, it matters less whether that section is inside or not. What's selling here is the appeal of owning the book and perhaps reading it. If we could talk with those hipsters who will purchase the book from VV, how many of them for instance know that there is some racist section about Japanese printed inside? My guess is very few.

I am also interested in your comments above about the revival of Japanese militarism. My own thoughts on this is that we are more likely to see an increasing Japanese role at the UN (whether on the security council or not) and further Japanese participation in 'peace-keeping efforts' around East Asia in the near future, quite different from the right's sort of idealized confrontations against North Korea and China. But I am not so sure if I see a 'pluralist' response to the historical revisionism happening for instance 100 members of the LDP's denial of Nanking a couple of months ago. If you are talking about the election, I suppose I see Abe's downfall stemming chiefly from the pension crisis and his own cabinet's corruption (why this corruption managed to be exposed I think is an interesting subject on its own). I do not see much of a rejection of militarism there...but maybe you do.

I meant to write "mad man", not "man man", which certainly made for a strange sounding post.

I think that MK is the best way to understand Hitler's rise to power. It is an original source, so you don't need to go through other people's opinions. It is semi-coherent, poorly written and organized and knowing this lets you understand something of Hitler's character (crude thug, not attracting with content but with yelling). It also outlines all of the ideas behind his hatred of Jewish people and the terms that he used to sell these ideas in Germany. Scary stuff. It was also very, very popular in Germany in the 1930s - this fact alone lets you come to your own conclusions on why the German people followed Hitler - the dirty tracks of European anti-semitism over the centuries are all over the book and you can understand that best if you read it yourself.

"My guess is very few."

Maybe, but I'll bet that the vast majority of them know that genocide = bad.

About militarism - What about the fact that Abe's main issues have been education reform (love Japan and all that) and constitutional revision - which voters VERY dramatically failed to get behind. Many were pissed about pensions but nationalist rhetoric FAILED miserably in getting them on side. Japan has also not been increasing military spending despite major security issues in the region. By some mysterious twist of logic, this is being interpreted as a militarist resurgence in some circles.

"But I am not so sure if I see a 'pluralist' response to the historical revisionism happening for instance 100 members of the LDP's denial of Nanking a couple of months ago."

But it is pluralism if just about every academic in Japan knows that the NKmassacre happened (they do), if the best research about it in the world is being done in Japan (it is), if 80%+ believe that apologies are owed to Asia (revealed in recent polls, with another 12% or so "don't know" answers), if it is in textbooks (even the nasty tsukurukai books have it). LDP hardliners can say whatever they want but it seems like their days are numbered, doesn't it? After the election, is there anyone who really thinks that they can get together enough support to see the constitution revised?

"I do not see much of a rejection of militarism there...but maybe you do. "

Historical revisonism is one thing,promoting militarism is another.I don't want to start another feud as the one I had with Richard a few days ago,but 100 members of the LDP did not "denied" Nanjing massacre.They call 300k casualities were fabrication.Not that I think it is a right move for any Japanese politicians,but I wouldn't go along with PRC nor Iris Chang on this either.Anyway those action by LDP politicians are more of a reactionary move,and to have that,you have to have progressive views being main stream, of which in realm of historical description currently is in Japan.

You can always connect dots and draw a piture and look around evidence with microscopes.But connecting MK in VV and recent electoral outcome sounds to me a bit warped out in logic,even though Shinzo Abe and Adolf Hitler do look resembling.

Yeah, we had a good little shindig here about the Nanking comments by the LDP guys. I argued that picking lower numbers may make you an asshole (no shortage in the LDP), but it does not make you a denier, given that no professional historians outside of the PRC go anywhere near the 300,000 - 350,000 number.

In any case, I think that people will get worked up about things like Marxy's VV comments because of how the conclusion mirrors (a bit, or at least parallels) the discussion of the rise of a new Japanese militarism / new era of historical forgetfulness in the "Western" press - discussions that often seem like nonsense if you read Japanese and move in Japanese intellectual / Japan scholar and press circles as I and Ace do and go through lots and lots of material designed for popular consumption. Seriously, I really think that you can't toss a brick in Japan without hitting something left of center.

"If you read Japanese and move in Japanese intellectual / Japan scholar and press circles as I and Ace do and go through lots and lots of material designed for popular consumption."

Nice. Someday I can be so amazingly connected that I am scared to use my real name on a blog.

Hey, I read 国家の品格 (in Japanese, which is a thing I do quite often!), and so did 2 million+ other Japanese people, and boy, maybe it says something about the country if that many people want to read a "semi-coherent, poorly written and organized" book about why Japan is unique and needs to return to military codes of honor. Not exactly a vote for democracy, liberalism, or non-nationalism.

Blah, blah, let's talk Heian poetry or Tanizaki or something.

"Someday I can be so amazingly connected that I am scared to use my real name on a blog."

You've got nothing to lose as long as you are criticizing the land of rising sun,but reverse...
I'll stick with being anonimous.
C'mon marxy,we all admit you are doing as good as any NYT or WaPO(or Globe and Mail) Japan report on this one.

I've met with Fujiwara on multiple occasions.Something I've been kept as secret for not baiting you,but he is just a bigot mathematician to my eyes.
He does speak about Bushdo,but that is more of Nitobe Inazo's Bushido that are weird mixture of christian ethic and western chivalry and not that of imperial army's rule of engagement in China.No?(I'm asking this because I couldn't finish with Kokka no Hinkaku even though that was part of my assignment)
He is certainly not a liberal(neither am I)but not exactly an anti-democrat.

And his nationalism and popularity...tell you what, his mother Fujiwara Tei,did write best selling memoir of escape from Manchuria after Soviet invasion and as I recall the book did gave you the sense that Japanese were the only victim there(father was also a best selling mountain story writer Nitta Jiro,no indication of nationalistic discourse as far as I can tell) added to this family background(and being awarded by Japan Essayst club for writing "Young Mathematician in Cambridge") he got famous for making counter argument of Funabashi Youichi's(Now the editor in chief of Asahi Shimbun)proposal of making English language as second offical language when he was board member of advisory to Keizo Obuchi and I,reading probably 99% of what Funabashi writes for the public and admire him greatly,still think that was rather stupid move.That's what happen to you when you have houses both in Tokyo and Georgetown and globe trotting most of the year,totally out of touch with the feeling and daily needs of ordinary folks.
And Fujiwara did succeed in grabbing anti-elitism sentiment by writing a counterargument to Funabashi even though he himself was teaching/studying at Cambridge.And paradoxically this Cambridge connection is what gave math some confidence to his judgement of "it's OK for not speaking/learning English".

I bet good portion of 2million Japanese followed after him in KH for trusting the blend of his best selling authors family background and "common sense that can be understandable to the ordianries"and"cosmopolitan"back ground.

I admit lots of his stuffs are full of Nihonjinron,but you know what,it wasn't the Nihonjinron authors who conducted all the atrocity in Nanjing.It was guy like me,a middle class family man who does little harm when he is in Japan who had gunned down all the prisoners ,burned houses and raped all the women.If you are seriously want to get rid of every potential element imaginable of the revival of militarism in Japan,you just have to follow the foot steps of what AH did to the jews.That would be the final soulution.

Only (very) tangentially related, but since sphinx linked to some photos above: there's this political sect here in Germany that uses the Israeli flag for purported shock value -- which kind of works, at least at pro-Palestine or even just anti-Fascist demos. It's an interesting question why it should have one, but unfortunately these people ultimately don't really understand what they are doing and are just trying to be the best Germans, who understand the lessons of history so well that they are now pro-Israeli government, pro-Bush, pro-Bomber Harris (!), etc. All this while still claiming to be on the left. It would be an interesting position if it wasn't so entirely devoid of humour.

Btw., it almost feels like the old days again here at neomarxisme suddenly. Ah, the good old days.

I will admit that I was worried a bit when Abe came into power - mostly because of the war criminal, mob-connected granddad and connections to our friends in the Unification Church - but his failure to do anything or be effective certainly kills a lot paranoid fantasies about Japan becoming more nationalistic. Over the last 5-6 years, I had been inclined to see a disinterest in internationlist culture among young people as connected to "nationalism," but I think it's more related to Uchida Tatsuru's idea that kids just have very little curiosity or interest in what is not right in front of them. I don't think there is a political ideology behind it.

I do think the LDP's Nanking stuff more of a terrible PR move than a nationalistic push, but at the same time, the Okinawans did not see the historical revisions about them in such kind terms.

So anyway, yeah, the "Nationalistic Japan" hype is mostly hype, and certainly, does not describe the average Japanese person's philosophical outlook very well. Bringing us back to the topic at hand, I don't see Mein Kampf as being "proof of pro-Nazism" or historical revisionism, but it may be fair to say that Nazism and its symbols have less of a historical weight in Japan than in the Western world (although this may be inevitable because of geography etc.).

"He is certainly not a liberal(neither am I)but not exactly an anti-democrat."

The ironic thing about Kokka is that it was a "mass hit." 2 million people voluntarily read a book that blatantly espouses an old-fashioned elitism that says, we can't trust government in the hands of non-elites, spoken from the mouth of a crusty old world-traveling math professor.

"I'll stick with being anonimous."

That's fine.

"Btw., it almost feels like the old days again here at neomarxisme suddenly. Ah, the good old days."

Trying to sucker you in before I close the curtain...

"I admit lots of his stuffs are full of Nihonjinron,but you know what,it wasn't the Nihonjinron authors who conducted all the atrocity in Nanjing.It was guy like me,a middle class family man who does little harm when he is in Japan who had gunned down all the prisoners ,burned houses and raped all the women.If you are seriously want to get rid of every potential element imaginable of the revival of militarism in Japan,you just have to follow the foot steps of what AH did to the jews.That would be the final soulution."

Wow Aceface is this really what you think will end wars of aggression, or more specifically, imperialism? I would say there are much more obvious systematic reasons that the war occured that make the individual motives of 'middle class men' of the time less relevant. Marxy is also not arguing that every symbol of the revival of militarism and every uyoku everywhere has to disappear. Critical confrontation with fascist nostalgia or novelty is in fact what reminds us of why it is a terrible society and why such a transformation should never happen again. Yes we have to keep in mind the context and actual weight of what we're looking at, but no one's arguing that we don't.

'borrowed kettle' logic

sphinx. some dude borrows a kettle returns it broken then goes through a series of mutually contradictory justifications : i didn't borrow it, it was broken in the first place etc

neomarxisme is pretty much built on it, the only constant is that japan has to be criticized // the kettle is broken.

DAMN IT MARXY, NOW YOU'RE damning the possibly pro-nazis for choosing the wrong book. shit, man.

>> Again, this is not the best book for understanding his RISE to power. It's the best book for understanding the Nazi ideology and his reasons for adopting it. If the person selected it was a Nazi scholar and was to advocate a single book for those who want to learn about Hitler/Nazis, is this the book they choose?

Posted by: marxy

or the contradiction that the　same bunch of fashion airheads　(the neomarxy default) incapable to grasp the basics facts of nazi horror and so forth will be able to digest hitler (spiced up with a bit of nietzsche, heideger and fujiwara) and morph into a nation of jappo ubermensch.

hehe The Kitschi George rally.

again you're missing the point , even assuming some chuo-sen number of alienated otaku might become infatuated with the german Führer the real result would be, worst case scenario, that many introverted Ichi the Killer types and not some bloody neojappo-neofascism. .

I just recieved a call from Shinzo,and he wants me to nail some more gaijin on VJ day.I shall follow his instruction so type some more.

Spinx said:
"Wow Aceface is this really what you think will end wars of aggression, or more specifically, imperialism?"

In a way.Yeah.See example in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.That stopped the last one.Aren't you all agree with me?
And at least it did stop the war of words here at neomarxisme by me posting so.

I have no idea how to stop "imperialism"and that,something man of your political ideas should think about.

"I will admit that I was worried a bit when Abe came into power - mostly because of the war criminal, mob-connected granddad and connections to our friends in the Unification Church"

Kono Yohei's father Ichiro was ostracized from public service in 1946,So was Hatoyama Yukio's grand father,Ichiro(who had become prime minister in'54.)liberal anti-imperialist journalist Ishibashi Tanzan(who become PM and was predecessor to Kishi)too was mysteriously included in the list.
Koizumi's great grand father was not just connected with the mobs,he was the mob.An oyabun of yakuza clan in Yokosuka.
There are very few LDP politicians who haven't got anything from the Monnies.And now the reverend is trying to be the best buddy with Kim Jong Il instead of Japanese right wings.

From these,I can't say Kishi's career is that unique(or dangerous)compare to other LDP old guards.

However for one thing,the way he resigned was unique.He was kicked out of office by massive demonstrators who were against almost-convicted ex-war criminal staying as PM and renewing defense treaty with Washington.Something nobody in the world would cared about it at that time,except Beijing,because Kishi was buddy of Chiang Kai Shek and warmly welcomed by Eisenhower in Washington.Even the paranoid anti-Japanese Syngmang Rhee of South Korea said to the japanese envoy"I like Mr.Kishi way more better than his predecessor"and sent secret envoy for re-establishing ties(of which didn't happen because Rhee was kicked out of office).

So,my blood boils when some one from outside tells me that Japanese make ex-war criminal a PM and that is the concrete evidence of historical amnesia.....

About Okinawa's Tokasiki Island suicide:
(OK,I admit it's from Sankei...)
第二次大戦末期の沖縄戦の際、渡嘉敷島で起きた住民の集団自決について、戦後の琉球政府で軍人・軍属や遺族の援護業務に携わった照屋昇雄さん（８２）が、「遺族たちに戦傷病者戦没者遺族等援護法を適用するため、軍による命令ということにし、自分たちで書類を作った。当時、軍命令とする住民は１人もいなかった」と証言した。現在も多くの歴史教科書で「強制」とされているが、信憑性が薄いとする説が有力。琉球政府の当局者が実名で証言するのは初めてで、軍命令説が覆る決定的な材料になりそうだ。

照屋さんは、旧軍人軍属資格審査委員会委員を務めた。当時、援護法に基づく年金や弔慰金の支給対象者を調べるため、渡嘉敷島で聞き取りを実施。この際、琉球政府関係者や日本政府南方連絡事務所の担当者らで、集団自決犠牲者らに援護法を適用する方法を検討したという。
同法は、一般住民は適用外となっていたため、軍命令で行動していたことにして「準軍属」扱いとする案が浮上。村長らが、赤松嘉次元大尉（故人）に連絡し、「命令を出したことにしてほしい」と依頼、同意を得たという。照屋さんらは、赤松元大尉が自決を命じたとする書類を作成し、日本政府の厚生省（当時）に提出。これにより遺族や負傷者が弔慰金や年金を受け取れるようになったという。
http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/newsarticle/natnews/topics/16661/

照屋さんは「うそをつき通してきたが、もう真実を話さなければならないと思った。赤松隊長の悪口を書かれるたびに、心が張り裂かれる思いだった」と話している。

This doesn't change the fact that Okinawans suffering during the battle of Okinawa but this particular case(which happens to be a very symbolic one) in Tokashiki island now gets new information that change the whole issue.Unlike the foreign coverage(and protest from Oe Kenzaburo)this is not made up by neither the historical revisonists nor Abe camp.

Was the last post an overkill?
Oh,well we were all talking about Hitler....

It's okay. Everyone said smart things, but maybe we need a new topic.

I think its pretty easy for westerners who are perhaps almost clockwork orange conditioned regarding the swastika (myself included, but not pointing fingers) to notice what seems to be a more open fascination with the third reich here.

-Go around harajuku and see kids wearing off the shelf punk fashions with swastikas resplendant

-Go to a toy show and see cadres of adult men dressed up in perfect replicas of SS uniforms

-look at a plastic model magazine and the german WW II stuff almost outnumbers the gundam stuff

(I dont know if MK in VV fits in this list or not)

Americans do enjoy watching the Hitler Channel, but somehow we justify that to ourselves "its documentary so it must be for educational purposes only". We watch WWII movies, we watch Hogans Heroes and we even buy the japanese made plastic models of obscure german armored vehicles. But its all good edutainment.

Is it entirely possible that people in general have a fascination and attraction to the darkest depths of humanity's capacity?

"Is it entirely possible that people in general have a fascination and attraction to the darkest depths of humanity's capacity?"

That, and some people just "like" war. There really are "war fans" out there. I can remember when I was a primary school student and a friend of mine said that he was disappointed that the Gulf War ended so quickly because he never got to see footage of such and such a piece of military hardware in action. This type exists in Japan in droves (not the MK readers, more the type of guys who buy photobooks of German tanks) but Japan also has a great deal of writing about the phenomenon and self critical individuals like Miyazaki Hayao who have found a way to glorify the technology of killing while still putting forward anti-war messages. In the wake of the Iraq War, I'd like to see some Americans (scholars, or preferably popular writers) look at contextless war fandom, WWII FPS games, the "Hitler" channel and their impacts.

The apologetics for Marx on this thread stretch the imagination: Friends, Foes, Good People of the World: surely our cotillion of Nihon Nerdolaters can make the crucial distinction between intent and effect?
Observe: The author of the blood libel in Matthew was probably a Jew - and it would be rather dishonest to claim that he intended that Jews suffer millenia of Xtian persecution on his account. But they did. Is the book of Matthew antisemitic? Is the blood libel passage antisemitic per se? Who friggin' cares? When Melly Ole Mel deployed it in the Passion of the Christ - outrage was just, understandable and just.
I address myself specifically to Marxy's outrage at seeing MK in a store: It is specifically this distinction between intent and effect that would neccessitate outrage at Marx: His works have been put to stupendous antisemitic use. Hitlers eliminationism aside - we really dont care. Paul wasnt an eliminationist: Yet, The Jews Killed Friggin' Jesus is a theme which he authored and which has been deployed perenially against that people.
So all this finesse de finesse attempts to rehabilitate Marxs antisemitism really dont cut the cake, cheese or cantaloupe.
So yes, vent and vex at Hitlers horrible Kampf. But dont turn around and claim that Err...theres just this subtle distinction between...Err...Marx and Hitler...Err...Commodities and Production...Eliminationism, you see...Err...You know, the friggin jury is still out on Marxs antisemitism.
Gimme a bloody break.

M-Bone, you struck a chord. I remember being very excited about the Persian Gulf War as a 6th grader raised on GI Joe. I wasn't thinking about the radiation from those DU rounds killing and causing birth defects down the line, I was just stoked to see A-10 Thunderbolts on TV every night. Now as an adult I feel much differently, having some understanding of the context, but I think it's quite possible to abhor war AND be drawn to the imagery, lore, and history of armed conflict.

The Hasbro propaganda never fully took hold because I never decided to "be all that I can be" and ship out to Iraq (although some of my acquaintances did). If it had been Cobra Commander and Destro instead of Saddam and "Chemical Ali"? Hmmm. Now I have little time or interest in researching the weapons systems that are being used to slaughter insurgents, nor would I want foster such a fascination in my kid.

But I do feel a certain excitement at words like "panzerfaust" and "nebelwerfer". I do feel strongly that WWII was a war in which my country's participation was justified, by the subjugation of two continents under the heel of fascism. Likewise , I feel that the Allies totally blew it, and absorbed the worst aspects of the Nazi regime in order to get tough on Communism (Operation Paperclip, the Gehlen organization,)
and were subverted by industrialist traitors (Allen Dulles, Prescott Bush, etc.) who had plotted a coup attempt against FDR before the war
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html
, helped to finance the Axis war machine in the first place, profited from Auschwitz slave labor, (Consolidated Silesian Steel) and would have been in the docks at Nuremberg had Roosevelt survived. My point is that however much you may want to relegate these "darkest depths of humanity's capacity" to history, or even myth, the flowers we see blooming today are rooted in this history. (Not saying that a cloned Reichsleiter Bormann made a call from Argentina to coerce V.V. to carry Mein Kampf or anything.)

Obviously the Japanese end of this has been discussed ad nauseum on here, but there may be bigger fish to fry than Shinzo Abe. Flogging a dead horse though. I just don't like to see these threads peter out without some kind of consensus being reached after 90 or so comments. Maybe Mein Kampf isn't the best place to start reading on the phenomenon of Nazism, but given the amount of interest displayed by readers of this blog I think some might find this link to some downloadable pdfs of old anti-fascist texts interesting. http://spitfirelist.com/Books/books.html

M-Bone, you struck a chord. I remember being very excited about the Persian Gulf War as a 6th grader raised on GI Joe. I wasn't thinking about the radiation from those DU rounds killing and causing birth defects down the line, I was just stoked to see A-10 Thunderbolts on TV every night. Now as an adult I feel much differently, having some understanding of the context, but I think it's quite possible to abhor war AND be drawn to the imagery, lore, and history of armed conflict.

The Hasbro propaganda never fully took hold because I never decided to "be all that I can be" and ship out to Iraq (although some of my acquaintances did). If it had been Cobra Commander and Destro instead of Saddam and "Chemical Ali"? Hmmm. Now I have little time or interest in researching the weapons systems that are being used to slaughter insurgents, nor would I want foster such a fascination in my kid.

But I do feel a certain excitement at words like "panzerfaust" and "nebelwerfer". I do feel strongly that WWII was a war in which my country's participation was justified, by the subjugation of two continents under the heel of fascism. Likewise , I feel that the Allies totally blew it, and absorbed the worst aspects of the Nazi regime in order to get tough on Communism (Operation Paperclip, the Gehlen organization,)
and were subverted by industrialist traitors (Allen Dulles, Prescott Bush, etc.) who had plotted a coup attempt against FDR before the war
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html
, helped to finance the Axis war machine in the first place, profited from Auschwitz slave labor, (Consolidated Silesian Steel) and would have been in the docks at Nuremberg had Roosevelt survived. My point is that however much you may want to relegate these "darkest depths of humanity's capacity" to history, or even myth, the flowers we see blooming today are rooted in this history. (Not saying that a cloned Reichsleiter Bormann made a call from Argentina to coerce V.V. to carry Mein Kampf or anything.)

Obviously the Japanese end of this has been discussed ad nauseum on here, but there may be bigger fish to fry than Shinzo Abe. Flogging a dead horse though. I just don't like to see these threads peter out without some kind of consensus being reached after 90 or so comments. Maybe Mein Kampf isn't the best place to start reading on the phenomenon of Nazism, but given the amount of interest displayed by readers of this blog I think some might find this link to some downloadable pdfs of old anti-fascist texts interesting. http://spitfirelist.com/Books/books.html

Alright, back to your anonymous, IP-scrambling cave, Chuckles.

UPDATE: Yeah, I am kind of an asshole, but as punishment, I will leave this up instead of erasing it.

[...Alright, back to your anonymous, IP-scrambling cave, Chuckles...]

Terribly unsporting of you old chap. This is totally uncalled for. Anywho - my cave has broadband. I always do my posting from thence.

Sorry, Chuckles. Just seemed like an assault full of exclamation points from you.

"Gimme a bloody break."

So there is no reasonable way to argue that Jesus Christ was less of a Jew-killer than Adolf Hitler because the Bible has inspired as much jew killing as Mein Kampf? People didn't "use" Mein Kampf to dream up the Final Solution - the guy that WROTE Mein Kampf dreamed up and executed the Final Solution. I don't think we are talking about detached ideology and actions inspired by that ideology (does Stalinism taint Hegelism since you can't have Marx without Hegel, Lenin without Marx, and Stalin without Lenin?). We are talking about the book by THE GUY who actually went and did all the crazy things he dreamed about. If this is a question of "degrees of separation," MK wins by a landslide.

Nevermind, I am just going to err on the side of being anti-Nazi for the rest of my life. Crucify me, if you must.

LaoTree thanks for the link to the anti-fascist texts.

Since this discussion is closing I wanted to respond to der, who commented on the pictures I posted of German communists in solidarity with Israel. To perhaps split hairs, these groups don't really deserve the word 'sect' because they are plural and do not fall under a single umbrella. Most of these currents either identify as or are labeled 'anti-German', a critique that emerged during the reunification of Germany on the autonomous left which saw the reunification as Germany's chance to restore itself on the world stage. This article introduces the current somewhat well but misses some of the more interesting analyses of capitalism that underly these critiques (most of which are not translated into English).

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1334

I would also not say it's as simple as anti-Germans are pro-Bush, Bomber Harris or whatever. Such a simplification minimizes the real contribution that the anti-German tendency has made to the German and international left.

Laotree seemed to imply that anyone who enlists was motivated to do so by watching GI Joe cartoons. Thats hardly the most intelligent thing said here. I'll leave it at that.

Just noticed "Triumph of Will" in the "staff picks" section of my local cool independent movie store right next to "Full Metal Jacket". Is Canada going down the fascist tubes or is the intent that the hip college students who frequent the place will watch it critically? Why does the answer seem so clear cut for Canada and yet inspire this much debate about Japan?

"Laotree seemed to imply that anyone who enlists was motivated to do so by watching GI Joe cartoons..."

You're not giving me a fair shake, Chris_B... "The Hasbro propaganda never fully took hold..." was tongue-in-cheek. I was explaining my personal relationship to the issue of contextless war fandom and merely drew a tenuous connection. Characterizing Reagan-era GI Joe culture as one component of a greater climate celebrating US covert/overt military action (Free Ollie North T-shirts?) is not such a stretch. The bad guys were nihilists rather than Communists, granted. Also, while the cartoon was campy and unrealistic, (laser rifles ejecting spent cartridges, every shot-down plane's pilot parachuting to safety), the toys (especially the first few series, before they started getting all fluorescent and taking more (misguided) artistic license with the vehicle designs) were very lifelike, the file cards explaining which NATO and Warsaw Pact arms the characters were qualified to use, etc. I'm not implying that it could possibly be the single motivating factor for someone enlisting in the army...
I do think that having been raised steeped in that lore, able to draw rather realistic-looking UZIs, Kalishnikovs, etc at around age 10 or 11 the way a Japanese kid might try to draw a perfect rendition of Anpanman, had a lasting effect. My friends and I used to compete for who could draw the coolest, most heavily fortified underground military bases (a contest amusingly won when a buddy used about 20 sheets of looseleaf to draw a huge ballistic missile.) I've met lots of other males my age with similar experiences, so I don't think it's implausible that a segment of those serving in the US military were at least a bit influenced by that culture. Not THE deciding factor, obviously.

"Why does the answer seem so clear cut for Canada and yet inspire this much debate about Japan?"
Canada was never an Axis power, and I know that they have very strict laws dealing with holocaust denial and distribution of hate literature, so we have no immediate reason to doubt the motive for the display. I feel like all this speculation could have been avoided if Marxy had shown just a tad more journalistic responsibility and let the store display speak for itself. Next time I roll into Village Vanguard at my local Parco I'll see if they have it, and if so, what reasoning is put forth.

"a tad more journalistic responsibility "

That would have required me to go spend an extra two minutes in the store. Who has that kind of time these days?! I had to go to St. Marks Cafe and drink Ice Chai.

i guess this party is over... but what i thought was really the more... i dunno, mysterious aspect of the initial blog entry was marxy's relationship with the definition of cool. i am always curious about his investment in knowing where the (always shifting) perimeter of cool is-- not the cool from which he is emotionally detached and intellectually invested as part of his market research blahblahblah but the cool that makes him feel cool-- as an individual, a guy who inevitably buys products and consumes images and puts his identity on one leg at a time like everybody else. (i wonder the same thing about momus)
put simply, seeing mein kampf at a hipster outlet seems to have violated the fabric of some space-time-tokyo-cool continuum for this dude, and that's the part of the whole thing that is kind of picaresque and makes me stop for a second.
it's like mein kampf was a nasty punctum in marxy's studium of cool and he was like, fuckin a hitler, you're harshing my mellow, your book is NOT cool.

and no one ever took marxy to task for the act of taking that photo. as noted in early comments (sort of), the photo that he took wasn't of the books in full context. nor was it one in which the full text of the placards was legible. so the photo was -- what? a surgical removal, a cropping? a distortion? a "what if"?

anyway, good times. thanks to you marxy for making it all possible on behalf of the lurker community.

"Why does the answer seem so clear cut for Canada and yet inspire this much debate about Japan?"

maybe what's at stake here is the extent to which one is disgusted and appalled (or even just a teensy bit curious in a weird horror movie fun fear way about) by american military power. who's rolling out sexy fascist imagery and serving up a heaping helping of gleaming fighter jets, transformers and missiles lately? american cultural exports leave a lingering aftertaste of fascism; "triumph of the will" in the canadian video store employee picks section is probably the result of someone's morbid fascination with that taste. maybe canada has made peace with the fact that some of its video checker outers are going to at least take a peep at the dark side.

Man, I was really holding off commenting on this topic (especially after Sphinx defended Marx so well), but I can't resist responding to this:

"The bad guys were nihilists rather than Communists, granted."

Yes, and don't forget G.I. Joe's ambiguous relationship with the Oktober Guard! Heck, after the Soviet Union fell apart, the former leader even got a sweet 天下り position with Joe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhkYwzq3R_8

What a country!

Laotree: I tried to show benefit of the doubt with "seems". I would say the original 12" Joes were so much cooler than the 3" ones. As far as I know, none of the micro Joes could ever compete with "Kung Fu Grip".

Why am I afraid that I really just showed how old I am?
Am I the only one here who was happy to have a Catfish Hunter baseball card?

But Chris, the 12" Joes were *choke* DOLLS!

I guess I shouldn't talk, though- I had the 6 Million Dollar Man (my heroes have always worn tracksuits), whose enemies were "Maskatron" (that name must have taken all of 5 seconds to think up), and a freaky-looking bionic Bigfoot (WTF?!), who, I'm guessing, ate the brown acid:

http://www.bugeyedmonster.com/toys/smdm/smdm/bigfoot/bigfootlarge.jpg

The book on the left's caption explains that this book gives a good insight into Hilter's rise to power.

The book on the right's caption explains that this book gives a good insight into the sources drawn upon by Hilter to form his Nazi dogma (Nietzsche, etc.).

The book on the upper-right (out of caption), gives a detailed analysis about Marijuana. And the books on the shelf above (out of caption, as well) are mostly about Che Guevara.

Point #1: When debating something in writing, read that something, first.
Point #2: Who cares about the Village Vanguard? When the town fool says something, only bigger fools debate the topic.

Did you go to the store and look? I really can't make out anything in Marxy's photo.

Yes.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)