Last time there was a blackout in LA, thousands of people called the authorities to report UFOs. Turns out those UFOs were the stars, which they never see there.
Black people looted while white people foraged. Since Japanese people are all the same skin color I bet they only foraged.
It makes sense if you have the room to set up a disaster preparedness kit. It's relatively cheap and it's good piece of mind.
I guess by "we" they are referring to blacks, because that's who they used as examples. The comparison is a reach. Japan and America have few similarities, especially in how they are governed. The Japanese do as they are told, even when they know they are being lied to by their government. They lack the stones to defy authority. Hence the Pearl Harbor attack. The author (a physics professor) ignores the main reasons Japanese are hesitant to act to save themselves without instructions from their government. Deep-seated fear of an iron-fisted justice system that has little respect for individual rights, and centuries of being tightly controlled in everyday life's activities.
Racists responding to Yahoo articles always make that point--that black people raid stores in times of natural disaster (Katrina, Haiti). Well, what's the store there for? Nothing can be sold and people are dying. The Japanese are some of the most self-disciplined people in the world, which is both good and bad. As exhibitors of freedom, they aren't good examples, but as for a technological emergency, well it couldn't have happened in a better place.
Geez, where to start??? The article never mentions race in reference to Americans. If you read "marauding bands of thieves making off with anything they could carry" and thought "blacks" then you need to take a look in the mirror and evaluate your own view of the world Have you ever been to Japan??? The government has very little to do with controlling everyday lives. There are well-publicized cases of domestic violence and child abuse that result in serious injury or death even after it has been reported to the police. The authorities are very reluctant to get involved people's lives. They aren't living in a dictatorship.
Japanese do have exceptional self discipline. I think it comes more from societal pressures than government pressures.
It sort of makes me ashamed as an American to see these people over there under unfathomable hardships enduring them with grace, dignity and patience. What an example for us all. Hell, if we don;t like our Comcast bill we blow gaskets.
Repaired in one damned week: And we're now into year 10 at ground zero in New York. When people argue back and forth about libertarianism vs socialism vs whatever, I just sigh. The Japanese don't give a fuck about that debate--they just get shit done.
A colony of worker ants is both good and bad. They cooperate like socialists to accomplish big goals, but they aren't very happy individually as selfish libertarians are. The act of watching Japan, divides conservatives into their more natural sub-factions. Like liberals, conservatives are a union of people with dissimilar causes.
