Well, the speaker’s point of opinion is the U.S government should restrain immigration policy and make an effort to reduce immigrants, especially from South American countries, because the issue of overpopulation of immigrants bears upon the U.S economy, and in the near future, many social issues (supply of social security, healthe care, education, crimes, etc) are expected.
I personally disagree with the solutions which were suggested by the speaker becuase the solutions were retrogade notions in this era of globalization. It is almost impossible to avoid interactions between different ethniities and countries. In fact, many countries, especially America and other Western countries, benefit from global economy. Globalism signifies not only economic interactions or development, but golobalism also signifies aspects of cultural, ideological, and humanistic interactions and movements. Therefore, such arrogant political and economic policies should not be overlooked. It is already obsolete to think about countries in nation-level because each country politically, culturally, socially, and economically relate with each other.

CASA conference brought me a fresh different argument and critical approach, and those made me to think matters more critically. Because Soka University only has 400 students, and many students share same goals of the future, it is difficult to hear diverse (sometimes radical) opinions of others. So, it was meaningful for me to participating in CASA conference. I appreciate Prof.Aneil that he gave us the opportunity.

I watched a movie…I forgot the title but it was about HIV/AIDS. That movie tells us the origin of an issue of AIDS in the U.S society in the early 1980s. Behind the AIDS issue, there were discrimination, corruptions, and the lust for fame. The film successfully depict the facts which we know and the covereded-facts which we could not know.

A feeling always hits me when I watch this kind of documentary films. How so many people care only their profits!! What makes those people to do so? What is right and what is wrong? What is justice? “They”, by themselves, make it superficial.

But at the same time, I cannot help feeling our ignorance that we, in general, still trust the media and the government depite being decieved so many times.
I believe that the structure and quality of media and the government would never be changed as long as people do not realize.

Now, the public separated from the government too far away. Attenuation of social relationship makes people to being dependent. The publi is individualized, and such individualization makes us to care only about selves. At that point, the public becomes a mere facade. The public becomes nothing, but just an inorganic component of the nation.

I assume that, for such a situation, theoretical or other academic and methodological approaches and solutions would not work effectively because this kind of ethical issues has something to do with people’s essential inner weakness and cunning.

We are looking for “something” breaks our fundamental darkness. But I believe thatpeople inherently possese “something” in each of ourselves.

But then, at the same time, I thought if it’s really necessary to persecute Japanese-American because Japan attacked on the U.S. Actually, not only the U.S, but also many countries take some kinds of operation for those of people from the country which violently against them. But I personally think that this kind of the government’s action intends not mainly for the national security, but for the people’s uplift of fear and morale toward the target of a country.

This book also reminded me an incident after 9.11. A few days or weeks (I do not remember precisely), an East Asian kid was killed by White kids in an elementary school. Obviously, there was no connection between the boy who was killed and the terrorist group, but because of excessive government’s dispositions and media’s day after day broadcasting enhanced people’s sorrow to the anger toward East Asian people in general. A lot of East Asian people had to hung the Star-Spanggled Banners on doors of their houses to show that they were side of the U.S.
That was a really strange situation even for me.

This is totally different topic, but one of the Japan’s current social issues concerning to WW2 is the fewer storytellers of WW2 because it’s been already about 60 years since WW2 ended. So many of the people in those days have passed away already. I read an article about it, and a live storyteller said that it does not necessarily to have experience of wars. People of young generation should try to know and remember what happened in WW2.

The person’s words were pregnant with meaning for me.

Take my death shroud and

The remnants of my body.

Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,

To the judges and

To the people of conscience,

Send them to the principle men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden before the world,

Of this innocent soul.

Let them bear the burden before their children and before history,

Of this wasted, sinless soul,

Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the

        “protectors of peace.”

Even though, I already wrote about Guantanamo yesterday (technically 11:45PM 3/11), I felt like to read “poems from Guantanamo” again after I left the classroom.
I read through the book again. As I felt last time I read, I felt detainees’ anger and hopeless, but at the same time, this time I felt how much they love their families and lovers.

Detainees lose everything when they once get sent to Guantanamo detainee camp. Their human rights, jobs, families, and even their religions are profaned. In the end, they start ask themselves, even though there is not gonna be any good answer to justify their situations.

When I read books, I tend to place myself in main characters’ situation. I really wonder if I can maintain my rational in such a hopeless situation. But I can understand their feelings that they try to look for freedom in their inner world and religions.

I know that this time’s blog does not have any coherency and does not make any sense. I wrote things down which just came up to my mind. There are still many things in my head, but interestingly, there are no good solutions to solve the issue. I also may be feeling despair to my powerlessness. But to solve such kind of issues, I think that’s why I am studying at SUA.

The U.S constitutions guarantee people’s right. Each individual in the U.S is equal under the law. I mean it should be.

However, since I learned about Guantanamo detainee camp, I have been very suspicious about if America (as a Nation) really admits that all humans are equal.

What the U.S Government doing in Guantanamo are racial discrimination, profanation of other religions, and all other despite of human that people can come up with.

It is ironic that after some decades, the U.S government would reveal what they are doing now in Guantanamo for the duty of information-disclosure law as if they dismiss Guantanamo just as a thing in the past.

When I think about this, I really feel feel indignant toward this type of brainless and hateful behavior

The U.S government is wearing two persona; one side is a persona of global leader and another side is a persona of world dominator.

What I was impressed utmost by his film is “the break” between ethnic groups (White, Hispanic, and Black). LA is also a ethnically mixed city like NY. However, the difference is people in LA do not know about the place and its social situation which they do not belong to. The things Hispanic kids told were completely things about in the different world for a White girl. The things Hispanic kids saw and experienced would never be the reality in “ghetto.”

Even though Beverly Hills is located within those kids’ access, they do not know and see each other at all. There is definitely some kind of wall exists between different ethnicity. It could be ethnic isolation. It could be social status isolation. It could be anything. The distinctive scenes for me are two polar opposite situational gun shot murder. One was taken place in South Central, and another was in Beverly Hills. For Hispanic Kids, they do not have any place to take a breath and play around peacefully. The death is always behind them. I felt that incessant Kids’ escaping by skateboard scenes imply that they must keep running to not to being killed.

The sense of discrimination is rooted as a standard feature into everyone in LA, even in the Police.

What is the extraordinary situation or day? It is unexpectedly near from your ordinary place. You can reach extraordinary place take two buses in LA at least.    

        Therefore, there is a doubt came up to my mind. Did the development (of anything) and modern economic system really bring human happiness? So, there is an economic measurement, Gross National Happiness (GNH), which measures the degree of happiness in a country come under the spotlight of international society.

        As hard as it is to believe, the highest GNH nation was not any of developed countries. The country was Bhutan. Bhutan is a country which is located at between China and India. Of course Bhutan is totally a developing country: there main industry is agriculture and it is account of about 35% of their GDP. Religious and traditional customs are persistently rooted in the society of Bhutan and it seems that people are pretty much restricted. For example, smoking cigarettes is nationally banned because of their Buddhist value and traditional manner (along with old hierarchical social rules) is strictly followed among people and it is incorporated in education program and even in congress. Even so, many citizens in Bhutan feel happiness.

        What interesting is material wealth or the development is not always equal to the happiness. Did we really demand current situation and form of society and environment? Do we really think that material wealth creates the happiness? I think that the desire of “pursuing the happiness outside of self” could be already created by “develped” modern social and economic system. I think that the feeling of happiness does not exist outside of self. It exists in each of ourselves, and we just don’t know how to draw it from our body. I think that people in Bhutan are successfully done that with their Buddhist practices. They just were not washed away by the tide of globalization. They are strong enough to keep standing in the tide with their legs because they have their own belief and values.

        I am not a person who opposes current social systems because I also enjoy to live in modern society but I just think what we really need exist in ourselves.

“Second Life is one of several virtual worlds that have been inspired by the cyberpunk literary movement, and particularly by Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the Metaverse described by Stephenson, a user-defined world in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate. (Wikipedia.com)”

You can get more info. from wiki, if you would like to. As far as I know, a lot of major retail companies (NIKE, Verizon, SONY….etc) already have tentatively started their business and many other business people are watching that world’s movement. I heard that there is a private user who already became a millionaire in the Second Life. That means the person also became a rich in the realy world becase currency in the Second Life (Linden, or L$) can be cashed to real money.

What I want to point out is that the human finally reached to create another world (but this is not “world” precisely becuase users’ actions are still restricted and have limit) and you can become any kind of person you want. In other words, I would say after capitlism voraciously ate whole physical world, they discovered “new frontier” as their final destination. Moreover, size of the land is limitless.

We are about to erase the line between virtual world and real world. What’s gonna happen if we completely erase that line? No one knows it. But I guess that at the same time, we are going to erase lines between gender, ethnicity, culture, identity, religion, and most of the ideological lines that we often struggle and often appreciate. Actually, it is your choice if this happen is good or bad for human. But we might not be “us” anymore after we erase the line. If I quote some words from Jean Baudrillard, it’s gonna be complete “camouflaged individuals,” chaos of “gender fluidity,” and “degeneration of the cinematographic illusion.”

 However, you don’t have to worry too much about the emergence of Second Life because, as i mentioned earlier, there is no ideology or philosophy exists (except capitalism), and users’ possible actions have limit. The service has not provided complete freedom to users yet. But we have to be aware, if once the service allows us to do anything in that virtual world (creating political, economic, and social systems or policies, establishing countries, starting wars, crimes, discrimination, religions, and more). Because I think that’s gonna be the first step to completely lose “us.”

Since the people from the Western found and colonized America, they expanded their territories to all over the world. After they colonized all the parts of the continent of America, they “discovered” so many islands in the Pacific Ocean and made those islands as stepping stones to exploit their market in the eastern countries like India, Philippine, Indonesia, and etc.

Many of those colonized countries succeeded to gain independence, but their mind set is totally screwed up (I would say capitalized) and they had to go through many economic, ethnic, and social struggles with supports from the Western countries.

Many of the names of islands or places in somewhere of Asia are given by the United States or other Western countries (Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Marshal Islands, and many).

I sometimes get confused if this is really a globalization that everybody agrees with or westernization that everybody is forced or manipulated to live with…..