I had a bit of a discussion with a poster on Debito about what the U.S. embassy in Japan is supposed to do. In previous years, they have dropped the ball so often on their actual mission, that people forget that there is a ball.
I am borrowing from the Wikipedia on Diplomatic Mission, which is what the embassy essentially is:
Role
The role of such a mission is to protect, in the receiving State, the interests of the sending State, and of its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law; negotiating with the Government of the receiving State as directed by the sending State; ascertaining by lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving State, and reporting thereon to the Government of the sending State; promoting friendly relations between the sending State and the receiving State, and developing their economic, cultural and scientific relations.
So this easy explanation is very clear, ne? The embassy is not a permanent business convention in the foreign state. The people there are not lackeys to do the bidding of the big multinational corporations, and the well-connected executives and their families. They are supposed to represent Americans’ interests in Japan.
Whenever there is a Republican administration, the State Department allows a lot of shit to go on with the embassies—and particularly the Japanese one, where clubby meetings in the shadows are a way of life for the powerful, much more than in America.
What I want to focus on, is to ask: how much has the U.S. Embassy done over the past 10 years for the people. Not, for the business class who happen to be Americans. Not, for military who are Americans stationed in Japan. Not for university administrators, who are relying on the embassy to help fill their American-based schools. Not new passports. Not tax advice. I mean, policy help for Americans in Japan.
And I’ll bet you it’s damn near zip.
Zippo. Nothing.
In defense of the Tokyo embassy, I must say that some of the people attached to it have been bringing American concerns to the Japanese government of Minshuto (DPJ). But I don’t think there’s been any follow-up. I think it’s in the style of a kabuki, where the issues get communicated, and the communication gets received, and then someone maybe even writes the concern down on a note pad with an elegant binder. And that is that. The junior-boy Japanese who takes the note (and notice, it’s mostly men), is going to do it in the most practiced, blank-faced manner, as if the “other side” hasn’t learned to look for other non-verbal cues in the behavior of the people there, to judge their emotions.
Ah, yeah.
The biggest farce is that embassy apologists have actually convinced any number of Japan-side Americans that the diplomatic mission really is properly there to be this business and university junket that issues passports on the side.
[Update 9/21/11: Per the debito.org website, there is new information about this occurrence.]
FYI, the original article (about William Lake’s American daughter not receiving help from the U.S. Consulate in Osaka) that prompted your discussion has now been deleted from both BAChome and CRNjapan.
Similar to how the Mick Hogan story was deleted (even from debito.org) from the internet after it was discovered to be false.
Additionally, DMCA takedowns have been sent to wordpress blogs that attempt to reference this story.
Inoue-san, who determined that the story is false? Just Binging a source like Facebook, there really is a William Lake, and he contends that his daughter was turned away from the Osaka consulate for not being eligible for a repatriation ticket back to America. Is CRN being hoaxed? BAChome? Allegedly, this man has been pursuing the issue from
20092005 at the earliest.It would be nice if these website had a policy of saying exactly why they were redacting something that had appeared on their site. DMCA is supposed to be used solely for copyright matters, and I imagine someone could get themselves in a lot of trouble if they sought to use it in a harassing way like Health One did with letsjapan.org two years ago.
I hope this story isn’t similar to one about the bar in Hokkaido, where their willingness to admit or deny that someone claimed he was refused entrance was seen as “proof” that the bar did not discriminate against foreigners.
I need to see more evidence to be convinced about what the William Lake situation is. Back on topic, I don’t see the embassy or consulates doing very much about this, only Congressman Smith . . .
If you want evidence of U.S. embassies not helping out its citizens, you should pick a better example:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110906zg.html
Not informing the next of kin (U.S. citizens in the U.S.) that an U.S. citizen had died overseas until five months after the fact, despite being promptly informed by the Japanese police? That’s shocking.
So what you’re telling me is that besides the child kidnapping hijinx, (see Wikileaks on Savoie matter, here), they also take 5 months to let stateside survivors of an everyday American know that a loved one passed away? I bet if either of these cases involved an executive with one of the Tokyo offices of some big international company, neither of those unfortunate results would have happened . . .
By the way, I am not having any trouble accessing the CRN story you linked to, today.
That’s what I told Inoue when he first made the claim as a Debito.org Comment a couple of weeks ago — as he inaccurately claimed the post on CRN was down. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. I think Inoue needs to use his insomnia to research and update his claims. He certainly demonstrates an obsessive need to scour any venue that does not match his agenda (which panders to and defends racist practices in Japan), and inaccurately (and overgeneralizingly) flame anyone he can. Get a life, Eido.
It is unfortunate that that small group, associated with Tepido, decides to make a pissing match about everything. I think I get a few other commenters from there from time-to-time. I happen to think that Eido is a good guy, and you, also, a good guy. So it’s my hope that they will someday cease with the game that is going on there.
When non-Japanese are present in Japan, it’s important that there is equal protection of the law for these people. The policing power is supposed to be with the “state”. The idea that friendly phone calls will fix everything is a bit misguided. If that worked, then everything the world could be solved by the friendly phone call. Usually, the friendly phone call or mention results in the big blow off. If it even happens 1 times in 10, there is a problem.
So it is silly to make a game where someone like yourself points out discrimination, and a few others decide to make an issue about whether there was the friendly phone call. The issue is not whether there was the friendly phone call. It’s: where did the deed doer decide (get the idea) to do the discriminatory act?
Mr. Arudou,
I used to read everything you posted, but now you have lost all credibility to me and should be ashamed of yourself. It is unacceptable to alter the record (to which you exclusively have access) in an effort to distort the truth, even if it is for a good cause. This is disingenuous to those who look to you for guidance, and when you get caught, it undermines not only your work, but also that of others. It is further unacceptable to leverage this altered history to hurl insults such as “get a life” and “troll” at your perceived enemies.
You surreptitiously edited the bold text you inserted into Mr. Inoue’s comment to leave the appearance that he was trolling your blog. When Mr. Inoue left that comment on your post, the original article had indeed been removed from CRN. You must be aware of this fact; you all but acknowledged it when you injected the following into Mr. Inoue’s comment:
Now that the original article has subsequently been republished on CRN you edited the original comment to it’s current form:
I’ve added emphasis to the text you inserted after the article was republished on CRN. The fact you subsequently spliced in a new paragraph is easily detectable from the second “anyway” summarizer because it ruins the flow of your comment.
Anyway, I no longer see you as a truthful source.
Anyway, I shall no longer be reading your blog.
I don’t know if you realize, but you are posting to my blog and not to debito.org.
The short line of the story is that the post you mention has to do with a series where the Tepido gang takes something they read on Debito, and then try to “disprove” it.
When the Mary Lake incident happened, Eido Inoue went around and pointed out that CRN, which had been publicizing the State Department’s failure to persuade the kidnapped Mary Lake to come in, had, for some reason, taken the post down for several hours. Later, it came back up. No one knows why, but Eido was suggesting that it was similar to the Nick Hogan punking from last year.
I don’t think that Debito’s addition really changed anything at all. It maybe makes Eido look silly, but, in fact, it was kind of silly to go around telling people that because you couldn’t access a story on CRN, that that meant it was false. The evidence is clear that it wasn’t.
The Tepido gang has done this a couple times this year, which is probably why Debito has no patience for them, and doesn’t do perfect re-edits.
The point is: Who was really wrong? Who jumped to conclusions?
You are of course free to read any space on the internet. But you can’t convince me that Debito’s quickie edit was anything more than pointing out that the CRN webpage in question was very much there, and that the critic was the one who jumped to the wrong conclusion about the kidnapped Mary Lake story.
Hoofin, I know this is your blog.
Mr. Arudou posted a comment on your blog. I responded to that comment on your blog. I trusted that you would not manipulate or outright delete my comment on your blog. Not now, not months from now. So I posted on your blog, not Mr. Arudou’s.
I tried the link over the course of a couple of days, but it didn’t work – I think it redirected to the homepage if I recall correctly. I couldn’t find a link to the article from the CRN homepage. I didn’t know the link was working again until I saw Mr. Arudou’s post this morning calling Mr. Inoue a troll.
Of course it is conceivable the article was moved to some obscure corner of the website, then back to it’s original location, only giving the appearance of having disappeared. My main point is that I don’t think it is odd to wonder why a controversial story suddenly becomes inaccessible simply because it often equates to retraction.
However, I do find Mr. Arudou’s recent behavior odd and disappointing. I am not sure I agree with your assessment, but this could be because I don’t follow tepido and therefore didn’t understand the relevance of their actions, which you invoked in defending Mr. Arudou’s comment editing to facilitate an attack.
In the end, I guess we’ll likely agree to disagree, which is better than all parties calling each other hitler
.
Steve, I see what you are saying. But I still look at the whole thing as a, well, as a spat. I don’t think what Debito did was wrong–because he gets a ton of commenting traffic on the site. Was it a zing? Yeah, probably, but so what? There is an unpleasant situation right now between the people who don’t like the one site, and those other people who do some incredibly goofy things to menace Debito and the site.
Several months ago, I had hoped that the dissenters would just go off and do their own thing. I enjoyed reading the other peoples’ comments on Debito’s site, and if they just make general comments on mine, I am delighted.
They should really just go off and do their own things, and not keep circling back to the Debito community. It’s an opinion blog that seeks to keep people current with news or other happenings, and a commentating group that is fairly open even if it is moderated. It is what it is.
Hello Debito. A little birdie mentioned you made an appearance here and felt compelled to address me. I’m surprised that you did this, as you’re not known to venture outside your domain (where you can control the content) often. Truthfully, I’m a little disappointed that you resorted to name calling. Not that it bothers me. With all the debating that you’ve taught at the uni I just expected better technique from you.
First, I thought I was helping you (as I did before) by pointing out, as early as possible, that CRN had pulled the page. That’s because I remember the biggest mistake (from the perspective of your blog) you ever made: publishing that last CRN story about that con man and you almost ending up unwittingly assisting in money wire fraud. After CRN pulled the story, you then had to issue a retraction, blemishing the perceived reliability and reputation of your site. I don’t blame you for making an exception to your historical record policy and deleting the post and comments from your site.
So, I thought I was doing you a favor breaking my self-imposed no-post rule and giving you (and Hoofin) a “uh oh, here we go again with CRN” heads up warning so you don’t end up committing too far like you did last time. You’re welcome.
Next, regarding how “[I] inaccurately claimed the post on CRN was down. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now“: I took your advice and used my insomnia to see if I needed to update my claim! You know what, I stand by my claims. Now, I know you won’t believe me, despite the fact that I think I know a thing or two about the internet and web pages, so I’ll tell you or anybody else how they can confirm for themselves. It requires no special skills or tools or knowledge or access, so there’s no need to name drop my employer. Web pages are often copied and cached all over the internet. From many different time periods. (especially in Japan) Do a little searching, and I’m sure you’ll find a copy of the page for the date range in question, which will returned a redirect to the homepage for the address in question. This happens on Apple iWeb based sites when a page never existed or is deleted. (Go ahead, try it. Go to a iWeb based site and type a gobbledygook address). But wait, there’s more: iWeb sites are based on static files, which means the meta data they return to web browsers (in particular, the page creation / modification timestamps) can give accurate to the second information on when the page you were reading was touched or came into existence. iWeb even goes one step further and places yet another timestamp in the html header showing the date that’s separate from the filesystem timestamp. How you see the source and the HTTP modification date depends on your web browser. One thing’s for sure, though, is that there is a page on a site that has a date that is way too far in the future considering when the page was supposed to have been originally published.
Finally, I want to compliment you on your excellent work regarding this first real true scoop. Your recent post on William Lake and BAChome is some of the best work you’ve done in years: it has real names of important people on the informal public record with real dates (and real email addresses!), willing to put their reputations on the line by marking the mail as not only non-classified but CCing many government officals AND the press (CNN). The government must feel extremely strongly that the “evidence is clear it wasn’t” [what William Lake and the other two organizations claimed had happened]. In particular, these quotes in your post, written by a U.S. government worker in the open to news organizations and other important people that could discipline her if she misspoke, are particularly damning:
This is explosive stuff! I’ve never seen a government official communicate like this so openly with so many important (and independent for the government news sources) people in a CC list. Nice work at getting this raw sourced data! It’s a wonderful change of pace from most of your content this year.
Clearly this is a conspiracy of the highest order: the government, and the U.S. news, must be in on it. They’re denying and lying about the event to prevent the truth of their mistake from being known. And it runs all the way to the top, based on who’s CCed and thus covering for this lowly bureaucrat.
Hoofin concludes his last comment with “The point is: Who was really wrong? Who jumped to conclusions?” Indeed, Hoofin. Indeed.
As for Debito, I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming overseas endeavor. I hope that a change of scenery, culture, and job will finally allow you to put your demons to rest, and you can find a country, some friends, a soul mate, and a family that you can embrace so they will embrace you back, much like what I (and many others) found in Japan. I sincerely mean that.
I don’t think you’re sincere at all, Eido. <a href="http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/05/23/why-i-turned-on-debito-org/"This post by you on Japan Probe proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. By your very tone above, you’re as usual being a smarmy little [unflattering word]. That’s putting it like your trolling kind would. On my site, I would just note more charitably that you’re an apologist in activists’ clothing, snuggling up to people you might see as rivals so you get enough dirt on them to eventually turn on them (your words, see Japan Probe link above). You’ll do that, of course, as soon as you can find a big enough group supporting your world view you can glom onto, and take the public eye off you (in this case, internet trolls on Tepido) — because you’re too mentally insecure to stand alone and stand up to bullies. You’re the typical contradiction found amongst the less savory internet denizens: a coward and a bully.
No doubt this exchange will turn up with that group as evidence of something anti-Debito.org (it should in fact be seen as evidence of your obsessiveness). But so what, I’m not a moderator of this site and don’t need to act in moderation. So I’ll say what I feel: Get lost, turncoat. Don’t turn from snuggler into stalker.
Well, this is a bit of a role reversal for me, too, guys. And so, I have to remember how it goes from Debito’s moderating:
Hey, we are getting far off topic, so let’s circle back or maybe continue this off-blog.
I hope I did that right.
Understood. Sorry, Hoofin. Sauce for the goose.
It is no problem. I really wish the other side would create some constructive counterarguments, and then you could do a Talking Heads on YouTube.