The people of Japan have suffered an enormous grief with the political assassination of Shinzo Abe.
The shock wave in a culture where this type of violence isn’t part of their political DNA will be difficult to calculate, especially with Abe’s own nationalistic legacy.
A Pacifist Japan has been a noble endeavour and any sudden turn from that would be an extra tragedy.
Condolences to the people of Japan as they struggle with this mourning.
This type of political violence driven by extremist loners who have been radicalised into believing crazy ideas and build their own weapons is a global phenomena fuelled by social media hate algorithms and this unemployed 41 year old who believed extreme ideas and built his own weapons is a manifestation of this globalised hate extremism.
Could it happen in NZ?
I’m 50-50 on the possibility of an act of political violence here in NZ before the 2023 election.
I’ve been politically active in NZ for 30 years and I’ve never seen the level of pure fucking lunacy as the far right, incel, evangelical Christian, Q Feminism, anti-mandate, Q Freedom, Bannon electorate.
They operate in a totally different dimensional reality, the only conclusion of which for true believers is political violence.
This country is about to go through an enormous economic upheaval as the supposed returning tourists and migrant workers don’t prop up the 3rd and fourth quarter like Treasury predicted. The NZ Hospitality and Tourism industry require hyper tourism to make money, we had 4 million tourists per year before Covid, we ain’t getting that back anytime soon.
Covid second wave is coming, mass public service break down is looming, economic meltdown is here.
These stresses will reverberate through our psychology and our community and our society.
It will rattle loose a corrupt cocktail of fear, anger, toxic resentment and brainwashed echo chambers all screaming terror.
We are weak, frightened and over stressed.
And it’s only beginning.
We will need leaders who can articulate our pain.
Into this febrile political landscape stalk bad faith actors and cruel opportunists who seek power in chaos.
The shots that killed Shinzo Abe have been heard around the world.
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Yes, it could happen in NZ —- in fact, I am rather surprised it has not happened yet…
i’m curious Nathan, who do you think is going to be the most likely target in your opinion?
Random Politician…it would (I am guessing) be a lone wolf attack.
Nathan. Yes. This was one of the reasons politicians were too scared to engage with the Parliament protestors, when right from the start extremists made death threats, including hanging, against politicians and the police sent to try and sort them.
Chances are if one does get bumped off it will be some total mediocrity nobody’s ever heard of who will assume greater stature in death than they ever could in life, and one can only hope that they’re not a dearly loved spouse or parent, or somebody actually useful. With our escalating violent crime rate, unfortunately it won’t have much of a communal impact, but best it doesn’t happen. An erstwhile colleague, a quiet little soul, used to pray that John Key would get cancer and die, but her prayers remain thus far unanswered.
intresting to find out the motivation, abe was a rightwinger (law to allow the self defence force to intervene in foreign conflicts) and this kind of political violence tends to be rightwing nationalist in japan.
of course it could be a hikomori who lives in an internet cafe.
I generally agree, despite the heroism of the Japanese Red Army, most direct political action in Japan has been at least nominally right wing.
Abe betrayed Japan in many notable ways that any Japanese patriot, left or right, opposed- he opened up the economy to alien investment, and he TRIPLED the number of immigrants brought in to drive down the wages of Japanese workers. His assassination may well have been beyond left or right.
The IQ of a significant number of New Zealanders appears to have plummeted dramatically in the past 35 years or so….
Predominantly a bogun society now, with such poor general knowledge, no critical thinking abilities, who are easily swayed into a fever pitch of anger by nonsensical arguments. Sadly, quite a number being close to feral.
It could be the diet …full of sugar and saturated fat… where you see young people drinking a litre of coke a day as their fluid intake and dinner is a Mac Burger because people are so time poor and ignorant.
It could be the ridiculous obsession with the smartphone where adults now look at facebook , instagram, tik tok and twitter more than looking into to their children’s eyes
It all goes back to the Chicago School of Economics failed neo liberal experiment where hope became hopeless, but like the virus, has now morphed into uncharted territory.
Basic law of physics …every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
In a low paid country, where the average house price is over 1 million dollars, something is going to give.
I seriously hope that what happened in Japan isn’t copy catted here, but taking everything into consideration, nothing would surprise me.
Sobering comments Grant and realistically not ones easily discounted.
To the contrary.
Abe was a despicable neocon. American occupational troops murdered and raped millions of Japanese citizens- killing two hundred thousand on occupied Ryukyu alone- and continue to do so to this day. Abe did nothing to free his people from the specter of the violent American rapist. Indeed, instead he aggressed against other countries. More than five thousand Japanese occupational troops were sent to oppress the people of Iraq.
Abe celebrated the actions of Unit 731, the Japanese biological weapons agency which killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese in experiments. His government threatened to cut ties with occupied South Korea over a statue that was interpreted as showing Abe bowing to a victim of Japanese military prostitution, a so-called ‘comfort woman’.
Abe will be joining Madeline Albright, Ronald Reagan and Colin Powell in hell.
Wow John anything you say about the US has to be taken with a fair amount of scepticism. “Millions killed” by the US during the occupation (you mean after the surrender?) Where do you get that? Yes the campaign in Okinawa during the war was the bloodiest by far and many locals did die on Ryukyu but that includes a load that were drafted in by the Japanese. Are you saying 200,000 were killed in peace time?
You really are quite mental.
I’m not sure what the point is, of pitching this as ”could it happen here?”
Other perhaps to get the boot in to anti-mandate protestors. Again.
I had to look up Q-anon to find out what all anti-mandate people were being smeared with. Because as a primarily working-class uprising, it couldn’t be, you know, anti-mandate. We’re just too dumb for having strong principles. We surely must be being led, in our stupidity, by some rich far-right group. Now apparently with a Q in front of its title.
And seriously, what are those other Q groups? And Bannon Electorate?