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ephemeral bagatelles,
That policy became known as the Paasikivi-Kekkonen line, after Finland’s two presidents who formulated, symbolized, and rigorously implemented it for 35 years (Juho Paasikivi, 1946–1956; Urho Kekkonen, 1956–1981). The Paasikivi-Kekkonen line reversed Finland’s disastrous 1930’s policy of ignoring Russia.
Finns have excelled at negotiating “the least awful of several very bad options.”
Finally, in August 1871 the daimyo were told that their domains (and governorships) would now be swept away and replaced with centrally administered prefectures. But the daimyo were allowed to keep 10% of their former domains’ assessed incomes, while being relieved of the burden of all the expenses that they had formerly borne. Thus, within three-and-a-half years, centuries of Japanese feudalism were dismantled.
Chile illustrates both an honest realistic appraisal of strength at one stage, and a lack of such realism at another stage (factor #7). Pinochet and his fellow military leaders proved correct in 1973 that they could prevail over their adversaries inside Chile and abroad; Allende proved wrong in his belief that he could succeed in democratically bringing Marxist government to Chile. This difference further illustrates a sad truth: that success is not guaranteed to well-intentioned decent people, nor necessarily denied to evil people.
Indonesians gave to Suharto’s wife (Ibu Tien = Madam Tien) a nickname meaning “Madam Ten Percent,” because she was said to extract 10% of the value of government contracts. By the end of Suharto’s reign, Indonesia was ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world.
Because the trials were conducted by the Allies rather than by Germans themselves, the prosecutions did not involve Germans taking responsibility for German actions. In Germany the trials became dismissed as “Siegerjustiz”: mere revenge taken by the victors upon the vanquished.
Bauer’s response, which he formulated again and again at the trials and in public, was as follows. Those Germans whom he was prosecuting were committing crimes against humanity. The laws of the Nazi state were illegitimate. One cannot defend one’s actions by saying that one was obeying those laws. There is no law that can justify a crime against humanity. Everybody must have his own sense of right and wrong and must obey it, independently of what a state government says. Anyone who takes part in what Bauer called a murder machine, such as the Auschwitz extermination apparatus, thereby becomes
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Far from shirking German responsibility, the exhibit exemplified Fritz Bauer’s motto “Germans holding judgment upon themselves.”
Australian immigration supporters announced the surprising discovery, “With proper selection, Italians make excellent citizens” (!!). As a first step in that direction, Italian and German prisoners of war who had been brought to Australia were permitted to remain.
In short, it wasn’t the case that Australian sons and daughters of the British motherland were declaring their independence. Instead, the motherland was declaring its own independence, loosening its ties with the Commonwealth, and disowning its children.
In his first 19 days in office, even before he had appointed a new cabinet, Whitlam and his deputy embarked on a crash program of selective change in Australia, for which there are few parallels in the modern world in its speed and comprehensiveness. The changes introduced in those 19 days included: end of the military draft (national conscription); withdrawal of all Australian troops from Vietnam; recognition of the People’s Republic of China; announced independence for Papua New Guinea, which Australia had been administering for over half-a-century under a mandate from the League of Nations
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and that it is no longer a viable strategy for Australia to operate as a white British outpost on the periphery of Asia.
“Unlike Germans, the Japanese have not had a catharsis and rid themselves of the poison in their system. They have not educated their young about the wrong they had done. Hashimoto [a Japanese prime minister] expressed his ‘deepest regrets’ on the 52nd anniversary of the end of World War Two (1997) and his ‘profound remorse’ during his visit to Beijing in September 1997. However, he did not apologize, as the Chinese and Koreans wished Japan’s leader to do. I do not understand why the Japanese are so unwilling to admit the past, apologize for it, and move on. For some reason, they do not want
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In national politics as in personal life, no progress can be made towards solving a problem as long as one denies one’s own responsibility. Japan will have to follow Germany’s example of acknowledging responsibility, if Japan wishes improvement in its relations with China and Korea.
While a decline from the current 127 million to 20 million would indeed pose problems, I see no disadvantages in a decline to 80 million, and instead a huge advantage: namely, reduction of Japan’s hunger for imported resources, which has cursed modern Japanese history.
The basic flaw in our American system of voter registration is that, in Florida and many other states, our registered voter lists and election procedures are controlled by partisan procedures at state and local levels, not by non-partisan procedures at the national level.
The conclusion of such studies is that socio-economic mobility is lower, and family intergenerational correlations of incomes are higher, in the U.S. than in other major democracies.
In short, our American belief in the feasibility of rags to riches is a myth. The rags-to-riches path is less feasible in the U.S. than in other major democracies.
As Richard Reeves and Isabel Sawhill wrote, “Pick your parents carefully!”
The result is that the U.S. is losing its former competitive advantage that rested on an educated workforce, and on science and technology. At least three trends are contributing to this decline: the decreasing amount of money that we devote to education, the declining results that we get for the money that we do spend on education, and large variation among Americans in the quality of education that they receive.
What’s the take-away message of declining American government investment in public schools, and of the great variation in educational opportunities available to American children? It means that the U.S. is stinting its investment in the future of most Americans.
QUESTION: When will the U.S. take its problems seriously? ANSWER: When powerful rich Americans begin to feel physically unsafe.
This example illustrates how one can make a case for windmills, desert solar panels, and dams, despite the undoubted harm that they cause. They inflict less serious damage than do fossil fuels.
We are already having difficulty supporting a First World lifestyle even now, when only 1 billion people out of the world’s 7.5 billion people enjoy it.
