“Even before Pearl Harbor, Japan was divided by widespread poverty, and by tensions between city and countryside, peasants and landlords, soldiers and civilians. For all the government’s strident nationalist propaganda campaigns, conflict had deepened rather than healed domestic divisions. There was bitterness that the rich and armed forces still ate heartily, while no one else did. The government’s Home Ministry was dismayed by the incidence of what in the West would be called defeatism, ‘statements, letters and wall-writing that are disrespectful, anti-war, anti-military, or in other ways inflammatory.’ There were reports of people making contemptuous references to the emperor as a baka, bakayaro or bocchan, ‘fool,’ ‘stupid fool,’ or ‘spoiled child.’ ” – Max Hastings, Retribution
Same as it ever is
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