Written on March 28, 2017, this essay contrasts postwar Germany with Japan to argue that superficial moralism and distorted discourse—rooted in GHQ-era indoctrination—have continued to corrode Japan’s public sphere, exemplified by the conduct of the Asahi Shimbun.

How Occupation-Era Indoctrination Still Corrupts Japan’s Media

A 2017 critique exposing how pseudo-moralism and ideological residue continue to shape Japan’s media culture.
2017-03-28
The time has long since passed for all Japanese citizens to recognize how far the viciousness born of infantilism has gone.
Germany, which was not only a twentieth-century criminal nation but the greatest criminal state in human history through Nazism, had already become a normal country capable of adopting appropriate national attitudes by as early as 1967.
Why, then, was Japan a country that failed to function as a proper state, dominated by the superficial moralism and pseudo-socialism of organizations such as the Asahi Shimbun,
or, stated more harshly, ruled solely by erroneous discourse?
That was precisely the case until August three years ago, and even now they are in the midst of a death struggle against the Japanese state.
This difference in posture vividly demonstrates the severity of the occupation policies imposed on Japan by the United States and the extent of the indoctrination operations carried out by GHQ.
Stated bluntly, this can be nothing other than a product of the discriminatory mindset that the U.S. administration of the time held toward Japan, or toward Asians more broadly.
Today, individuals such as Shuku Gyoku—who can hardly be described as anything less than villains beyond villains, embodiments of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies”—
are echoed by the Asahi Shimbun and so-called cultural figures aligned with it, people worthy of nothing but contempt, who reportedly joined in baseless fabrications to demote Mr. Yukihiro Hasegawa from his position at the Tokyo Shimbun.
Such conduct is what one calls the end of the world.
The time has long since passed for all Japanese citizens to recognize just how extreme the Asahi Shimbun’s childish yet vicious conduct has become.