11/11

     Today Mr Paterson assigned us an essay about "Iraq's missing billions" and corruption in politics. He said that Iraq's example incorporated all the corruptions of the governments, corporations and the media. Then we continued watching the video. Smedley Butler, the general who tried to overthrow the US government by a military coup wrote a book called "War is a racket". In his book, he stated, big corporations like wars because wars create profit for the corporations. The government would need more weapons, food and clothing etc. during wars, and corporations produce them. Also, Butler stated that the vast majority of the politicians in the congress who decided to go on war didn’t have any families in the military. Then Mr Paterson told us that Northern Scottish was the most trusted accent in the UK. I thought that in Japan, people have "honne", your true feelings and "tatemae", your behaviours in public, so people can't be judged if he/she is trustworthy based on his/her accent.

    I've learned in history class that Japan's damaged economy after WWII was recovered by the demand for war supplies for the Korean War. I thought that wars bring recessions but, it was surprising that for the big corporations, it is the opposite. It is outrageous that the politicians' families were safe while other people's families were dying in the war.