The movie: “Zeitgeist: Addendum”: the corruption of the capitalist economy; Was Soviet economy really no good?

I have watched the movie: “Zeitgeist: Addendum”, which is very interesting and makes me think whether capitalism is really better than socialism or not. We can watch this movie for free on this site: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/index.html

First of all, let me give a summary of the movie: “Zeitgeist: Addendum” [1]. This movie consists of four parts. In the part 1, the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, is severely criticized. In fact, money value is given by only treasury bonds and true wealth is invariably transferred from the general public to the banks. In the part 2, the role of “economic hit men” is described. They put a country in debt, in such a big debt it can’t pay it. Then they encourage a country to refinance that debt and to pay even more interest. Finally, they made a country sell off their resources to foreign corporations. In the part 3, “the Venus Project”, which was advocated by Jacque fresco, is mentioned. The purpose of the project is to develop a resource-based economy with high technology. In the part 4, six actions are suggested: 1) Expose the Banking Fraud. 2) Turn off the TV News. 3) Don't ever allow yourself, your family, or anyone you know to ever join, the military. 4) Stop supporting the energy companies. 5) Reject the Political system. 6) Join the zeitgeist movement.

I think this movie says good things but offers false solutions. I had misunderstood the monetary system for a long time until I watched this movie. As shown in this movie, almost all people don’t understand how money is created and how the politics truly affects society. Thus I want a lot of people to know that the monetary system perpetrated by the Federal Reserve, which has spread in practice to the great majority of banks in the world is, in fact, a system of modern slavery.

In addition, another important thing is the role of economic hit men. We should know the fact that developing countries have been exploited by economic hit men, CIA, IMF, the World Bank, and large corporations which conspire with them. These points are a bad face of capitalism. However, this movie offers false solutions because they are too ideal to come true. I want to discuss this point in detail another time.

Anyway, what I want to discuss is the corrupt capitalist system. A lot of people are conscious that something is very wrong. Then, let’s discuss socialism and take Soviet economy for example. According to this blog [2], we can realize that planned economy is not always inefficient use of resources, although the idea that Soviet economy was no good is so wide-spread. Especially, I was so surprised to know the fact that the GDP growth rate in USSR was higher than all other countries except Japan in the period of 1951-1960.

A lot of people think that socialism aims to realize utopia but in fact brought about autocracy, a terrible massacre of people, low level of life, and so on. That’s why many people think that socialism is absolutely wrong and capitalism is better.

However, we will recognize good points of socialism once we understand the corrupt capitalism system. True, I don’t think socialism is perfect system. But we should discuss novel economic system by knowing good points of socialism or Soviet economy more and bad points of capitalist economy.

References

[1] http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/index.html

[2] http://aridmoors.blogspot.com/2010/01/try.html

Peace education in Hiroshima: How should we inherit the memories of atomic bombing?

I was born and raised in Hiroshima. I had lived in Hiroshima for 24 years since 1985. For people in Hiroshima, August 6 is a special day. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima fell victim to the world’s first atomic bombing. The entire city was virtually leveled and thousands upon thousands of lives were lost. Many of those who managed to survive suffered irreparable physical and psychological damage. By the end of December 1945, when the acute effects of radiation had subsided, the bomb had taken approximately 140,000 precious lives [1]. The survivors still suffer the effects today.

Every year on August 6, almost all pupil and junior high school students in Hiroshima learn about damage by the bomb and about peace. I used to make a string of thousand folded-paper cranes praying for peace. It is true that we have to inherit the memories of atomic bombing, but this peace education has bad points. There are two reasons.

First, the contents of the peace education are too critical of Japanese histroy. “We Japanese were wrong.” “We should not have participated in the World War II.” “War is bad.” Teachers always make a commonplace remark every year. They never blamed the US for dropping the atomic bomb. It is true that Japanese strategy was so bad that a lot of people were killed in the war, but Japan could not help taking part in the war because all countries in East Asia had been colonized by Western countries except Thailand and Japan. Why are Japanese so critical of our history? That’s because Japanese were completely lost to the allied powers and Japanese were brainwashed by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) after the war.

Second, we cannot learn about modern world affairs in the peace education. In order to discuss and think about peace properly, we have to learn about that. The most important thing is NOT memorizing that “war is wrong” but thinking how to keep peace in as many countries as possible. At present day, war is subject to capitalist economies. For example, the US companies made a lot of money in the Iraq war. Some people say that the US started the war in order to let munitions industry profit from war. Thus we have to look at not only good face of capitalism but also the bad face with critical eye.

In conclusion, we should tell children more objective history of Japanese war and modern world affairs in piece education. In addition, school hours for peace education should be increased because school hours have decreased in recent years [2].

References

[1] The Official Homepage of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum:

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/

[2] 広島平和教育研究所、「平和教育実態調査」まとめ:

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~hipe/research/index.htm

The New Face of Capitalism

I have read this article: "Noam Chomsky Globalization: The New Face of Capitalism". Honestly speaking, I’m so surprised to know the fact that the rich and the powerful control and exploit the general public as shown in this article because the fact has never been reported by Japanese major media. The most surprising thing for me is that the speculative money flow is now estimated at about a trillion-and-a-half dollar a day and is over twice the total foreign exchange reserves of all states together!

I think this scheme (the rich and the powerful control and exploit the general public) has been applied for a long time. Before the World War II, imperialistic countries such as the US, the UK, France, Germany and Japan colonized foreign countries and exploited them using military force. At present day, similarly, advanced nations, the rich or the powerful exploit the poor and the weak globally in the name of capitalism.

In fact, a lot of people were killed as a result of capitalism coming, I think. For example, Junichiro Koizumi, who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006, had promoted neo-liberalistic policy such as deregulation of Worker Dispatching Act. As a result, the number of precariat workers increased remarkably, and a lot of large companies have become rich. It is said that the number of suicides in Japan increased by 5.4 percent from 2001 to 2006 due to that.

According to Japan Times, the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past 20 years in nearly 30 OECD countries. Some people say that this gap encourages the poor to become terrorists. I think that is one of factors of terrorism.

So what should we Japanese do in order to narrow the widening income gap? First of all, we should know the fact that the rich and the powerful control and exploit the general public as shown in this article. Almost all Japanese get information only from TV or newspapers, which will not report disadvantageous fact for them. Thus we should use the Internet more and more and discuss freely. As for me, I’ll try to introduce the fact and discuss it with you on this blog!!

Hello, world!

Hi everyone! It’s nice to meet you. This is my first entry on this blog in English. I've been thinking about creating a blog in English for some time. Here I am! I'd like to record my thinking and my activities in English in order to improve my English.

First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Koji Nishiguchi. Now I research computational mechanics. I was born in Hiroshima in 1985. I have studied computational mechanics, especially nonlinear finite element method and nonlinear solid dynamics since I was at Hiroshima University. After I graduated top of the class in 2008, I finished the master's course in Engineering at Hiroshima University in 2010. I like reading books about science/philosophy/health and baking bread.

Maybe I'll try to update this blog once a week and sometimes write entries in Japanese. I'd like to talk to people around the world. I enjoy Twitter(http://twitter.com/koji_nishiguchi) and Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/people/Koji-Nishiguchi/100001229941280) and let's enjoy them together!