CB
Workers of the West, it's our turn.
>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 06/28/00 03:18PM >>>
Let's suppose an unlikely event: the Japanese working class rise up & make a socialist revolution (of some kind). What would it mean to energy sources, agricultural practice, built environment, etc.? Well, Japan got no domestic energy source to speak of, and it has become accustomed to importing much of its food (except maybe rice & some fresh vegetables & a little fish). The rest of the imperial world, condemning the expropriation of Japanese & other expropriators, swiftly puts an embargo on Japan to restore freedom and democracy. Cities darken and industries begin to collapse due to severe rationing of oil, electricity, etc.; busses & trains, alas, do not run on time any longer, and bikes are no substitutes; Cubans sympathize but can't help the Japanese much -- they got little oil themselves -- so they send cigars instead. The socialist government of Japan tries to form an alliance with Iraq to get oil, and then leftists in America collectively denounce the Japanese government for not denouncing the absence of freedom & democracy in Iraq. Russia, Venezuela, and sundry other governments try to circumvent the embargo, but their oil gets confiscated by the U.S. Navy, and they give up. In desperation, the socialist government of Japan tries to move urban children off to the countryside (as the Japanese did during the World War II) to prevent starvation and to resuscitate dead agricultural villages of yore. American leftists once again collectively denounce Japanese socialists for taking a page from Pol Pot. The Japanese populace become discontent too, and many intellectuals emigrate to America, Canada, and elsewhere, creating a shortage of experts in Japan; and encouraged by the CIA, etc. some of the Japanese will organize armed insurrections. The USA will then aid freedom fighters with military experts, weapons, food, and other necessities. The civil war rages on -- sooner or later, American troops (already conveniently stationed in Japan, South Korea, etc.) must openly join the war (with or without a Congressional vote), and much of the country gets laid to waste. Socialism will collapse in a few years, or else, in an even more unlikely event of the Japanese victory, the battered socialist government will have to build everything back up from scratch amidst ruins, _who knows how_.
And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age from the get-go.
Yoshie