Down and Out in Kitakyushu

[Taro Toporific]

[amdg]

[Samurai_Jerk]

[Midwinter]

[American Oyaji]

Happens all the time all over the world.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Happens all the time all over the world.

AO's right. And in this case, who knows what really happened. The gubment claims he voluntrarily withdrew after qualifying for help but his diary says different. Maybe he was just crazy. It is a very sad story though.

[Midwinter]

Happens all the time all over the world.

Bullshit! In all my 26 years living in Australia prior moving to Japan, not once have I heard of someone starving to death because they were denied gov sponsored welfare. There's also the issue that it seems to happen here with steady regularity, and the idiot 72 yr old oyaji's statement in the article which seals the deal. When will people stop defending Japan and start accepting that what we have here, is a cold, heartless society thats apparently lives by a "jungle rules" sort of philosophy.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Bullshit! In all my 26 years living in Australia prior moving to Japan, not once have I heard of someone starving to death because they were denied gov sponsored welfare. There's also the issue that it seems to happen here with steady regularity, and the idiot 72 yr old oyaji's statement in the article which seals the deal. When will people stop defending Japan and start accepting that what we have here, is a cold, heartless society thats apparently lives by a "jungle rules" sort of philosophy.

If you never heard of it happening in Australia then it must never have happened, right?

I don't think anyone's defending Japan here. I think AO's statement was saying the World's a fucked up place.

[rooboy]

Nobody fucking dies in Australia because they can't get money from the govt or charity groups or wherever. Fucked up cases who are dysfunctional and really can't work will still get money from the govt.

Old people would never be left to die, as well as other people. You have a no of choices. As for his neighbours, what the fuck were they doing? The Salvation Army would have been there in seconds plus other charities like Catholic ones etc if somebody had phoned them.

The see no evil approach of the Japanese in general. I am sorry to say this but those cold bastards of neighbours contributed in a way. Even if these people had said no to food or money they could have left them there.

Cold cold Asia. If I don't know you properly you are outside my concern. A generalisation that can be applied regularly. Miserable cunts.

[Takechanpoo]

Japanese are privatism, not individualism.
Japanese think anyone shouldnt enter the other people's private life.
And there is no custom of party in this country.
This privatism causes these disaster.

[Midwinter]

If you never heard of it happening in Australia then it must never have happened, right?

I don't think anyone's defending Japan here. I think AO's statement was saying the World's a fucked up place.

Hey man, understand the Australian welfare system before you comment. ANYONE can get gov help with minimum fuss. It doesn't matter what your situation is, how long you've been unemployed, or your current health. There are systems in place to protect simple human rights. Basic accomodation, basic shelter, and basic health care are what citizens are entitled to. If you starve to death there, its because you didn't seak help, not that the system or the gov failed you... which is exactly what happened here. No excuses.

There's no doubt the world is a fucked up place mate, but that doesn't change the fact that these sorts of atrocities could have been avoided had the Japanese gov cared about its people.

[GuyJean]

[ttjereth]

Bullshit! In all my 26 years living in Australia prior moving to Japan, not once have I heard of someone starving to death because they were denied gov sponsored welfare. There's also the issue that it seems to happen here with steady regularity, and the idiot 72 yr old oyaji's statement in the article which seals the deal. When will people stop defending Japan and start accepting that what we have here, is a cold, heartless society thats apparently lives by a "jungle rules" sort of philosophy.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/aged-m04.shtml

found after 5 seconds on google

[Midwinter]

Dude, you seriously don't want to open that kettle of worms. I have the deepest sympathies for the local Aboriginals, but a lot of their problems run deeper than any forum topic could care to cover. I don't want to sound racist, though I'm sure some may accuse me of it when I say that much of it is their own doing. Are they any different from sements of African American culture that refuse to fit in? Probably not.

All that however, is off topic, or best reserved for another day.

[Midwinter]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/aged-m04.shtml

found after 5 seconds on google

I'm sorry, where does it say that they had no money for basic food? Old people drop dead all the time, and when they live alone, who's to know? Sure it sucks, but at least they died with a full stomach :P

[Jack]

Happens all the time all over the world.

This is a sad story but what's surprising is how rarely it happens in Japan.

The fact that in Japan it's kind of shamefull to collect welfare or to be so destitute may force some people to lock themselves up in their room until they die. Unlike the shameless fuckers in Toronto who lie down in the middle of the busiest sidewalk in the financial district begging for money even though they get welfare.

[xenomorph42]

Dude, you seriously don't want to open that kettle of worms. I have the deepest sympathies for the local Aboriginals, but a lot of their problems run deeper than any forum topic could care to cover. I don't want to sound racist, though I'm sure some may accuse me of it when I say that much of it is their own doing. Are they any different from sements of African American culture that refuse to fit in? Probably not.

All that however, is off topic, or best reserved for another day.

For the record, to insinuate that the African-American community is not complying is totally untrue, how can you say that. Have you ever lived and dealt, studied the deep-rooted systematic problems that African-Americans face on a day to day basis? With all due respect Midwinter, I think that is a topic that have no idea about...talking about opening up a can of worms. I have a great idea, how about flipping it around and teach whites to have an understanding about other races and cultures. Basically, it goes both ways, reaching out to people and to break down these walls of distrust. But as you said, that is a topic that we can discuss some other time.

[Midwinter]

For the record, to insinuate that the African-American community is not complying is totally untrue, how can you say that. Have you ever lived and dealt, studied the deep-rooted systematic problems that African-Americans face on a day to day basis? With all due respect Midwinter, I think that is a topic that have no idea about...talking about opening up a can of worms. I have a great idea, how about flipping it around and teach whites to have an understanding about other races and cultures. Basically, it goes both ways, reaching out to people and to break down these walls of distrust. But as you said, that is a topic that we can discuss some other time.

Oh dear, typical knee jerk reaction. Not THE African American community as a whole, but parts thereof have problems. Many of same problems parts of the Aboriginal community has in fact. Higher drop out rates? Check! higher conviction rates? Double check, and so on. To say that an entire race of people is represented by a minority within it would be stupid, racist, and wholey untrue. Lets leave this though, its going to go no where.

Back to the topic at hand... boo kitakyushu govt, boo!

[L S]

I know that in Fukuoka-ken, the local gov'ts get volunteers (usually retired people) to act as social workers and check in weekly with people registed in the system and consider at-risk. My ex's mom does that in the Kitakyushu area. I think the big issue is some people fall-off the grid for whatever f*cked up reasons there are...such as in this man's case.

As others have said on this thread, people do starve or suffer other deadly fates in all "1st world" countries because they do fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, Japan does not have many non-gov't safety nets for people to access in such cases.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Hey man, understand the Australian welfare system before you comment. ANYONE can get gov help with minimum fuss. It doesn't matter what your situation is, how long you've been unemployed, or your current health. There are systems in place to protect simple human rights. Basic accomodation, basic shelter, and basic health care are what citizens are entitled to. If you starve to death there, its because you didn't seak help, not that the system or the gov failed you... which is exactly what happened here. No excuses.

There's no doubt the world is a fucked up place mate, but that doesn't change the fact that these sorts of atrocities could have been avoided had the Japanese gov cared about its people.

Australia sounds like a great place for losers and deadbeats. I'd hate to pay taxes there. But maybe this kind of thing NEVER happens in Australia. That doesn't make AO's comment wrong or Japan's cases unique.

Again, I'm not defending the system in Japan, but it sounds like this guy didn't seek help. His neighbors do sounds pretty fucking shameful though.

[xenomorph42]

Oh dear, typical knee jerk reaction. Not THE African American community as a whole, but parts thereof have problems. Many of same problems parts of the Aboriginal community has in fact. Higher drop out rates? Check! higher conviction rates? Double check, and so on. To say that an entire race of people is represented by a minority within it would be stupid, racist, and wholey untrue. Lets leave this though, its going to go no where.

Back to the topic at hand... boo kitakyushu govt, boo!

First of all, it is not as you say, a "knee jerk" reaction. Let`s just say for arguments sake, you are just making an observation based loosely on what you have read or learned by watching "Archie Bunker" you should not go around and make false statements that your opinions or one-sided views(often in many cases) are slam-dunk facts. Remember; "racism is driven by fear and misunderstanding." and often the mass media perpetuates the problem. While I submit to you, there are problems within the African-American community(as in many other communities)we should try to refrain from making unchallenged comments unless you have accurate fact-based information and can back it up. I will not comment in depth on the Aboriginal problem as I don`t know all the facts, the little that I know really doesn`t qualify me to elaborate extensively on the issue, so I will hold off until I have concrete information to make a judgement. I just want to be fair. Decent is good, propaganda is not.

[American Oyaji]

This kind of thing happens all the time all over the world.

If someone gets older and does not have any family and they get sick, who takes care of them? Who will make sure they get their medicines? Who will pay for the medicines? Are they even able to get to the hospital?

Even if someone is NOT sick, let's say they get laid off and can't get hired on someplace, but there are kids to feed, but no spouse. What then? Turn to welfare and then get denied because one has not been out of a job long enough.

This crap DOES happen all the time because the SYSTEM does not care. People do, but the SYSTEM as a whole does not. The only way to get it to care is to change the system.

As far as the problems with the AfricanAmerican community. It's a two way street. I have dodged a lot of white bullshit to get where I am. Others may not have been taught or had the ability to get out of the way. I know that had I not watched my back and kept dirt on those that tried to do me dirty, then I would have had more problems than i've had.

Until you've walked in a black man's shoes, don't try to tell him the road he's walked was not covered with stones.

[Greji]

Until you've walked in a black man's shoes

Ahhh, you got shoes? I heard Honda required everyone to wear geta.

[American Oyaji]

Ahhh, you got shoes? I heard Honda required everyone to wear geta.

Only in the company onsen.

[rooboy]

But your use of these kinds of out of context articles is way off the mark and it's fucking ignorant and out of context. It makes good propaganda that's all.

As an Aussie who knows how many billions upon billions of dollars in welfare money, health assistance, food assistance, clothing assistance and educational program assistance that has gone to Indigenous people since the 70s when the Whitlam Labor Govt kickstarted a new approach to Indigenous people, I actually feel pissed off when non Australians bring up assertions.

You know little if you haven't been an Australian who knows about all the changing attitudes and govt policies to Indigenous people in Australia. Maybe you should dig a bit deeper mate and find out how theres been what amounts to a seismic shift in non Indigenous-Indigenous relations recently because all these billions of dollars and harping on about 200 plus years ago have actually made the problems worse, not better.

Much of the problems of Aboriginal life expectancy etc were unintentionally started by decent people in the Australian govt in the 70s. By thinking that people who had been invaded, dispossessed and lost control of their traditional relationships could suddenly reclaim a lifestyle that had been lost 200 plus years ago by retreating to homelands where white bureaucrats were told to keep out.

A handful of Aboriginal families got most of the snout in the trough financial goodies. Go to any place where's there a lot of Aboriginal people and you'll hear the same old names of the families who are privileged and who got into the Govt's big fat goodies bag.

Billions of dollars were spent and the results are shocking. Why? Because in a lot of cases those controlling the money could stop any inspection of exactly where it was going by screaming 'Paternalism', 'White racism', etc.

This worked until recently. So nepotism has flourished. Alchol and drug problems have been out of control despite billions of dollars in health money being give to Aboriginal communities.

Aboriginal children (in some cases babies) have been allowed to be sexually assaulted and nobody in the non Aboriginal community could begin to do anything about it because they'd be a 'racist'. The mainstream tv stations and newspapers that until recently had been told not to comment started to be investigative and the conditions in some of these homelands have been uncovered as gruesome. These homelands are under Aboriginal control, not white control but they are going to have to re-organise and start to be accountable.

Why have so many kids in those communities been raped? Among other reasons - ack of alcohol and drug regulation - you couldn't stop Aboriginal people drinking because that was racism.

Another big reason - the privileges given to males, a throwback to the traditional times. Despite all the talk about men's business and women's business in traditional Aboriginal culture the Aboriginals were and are no different from any other culture in that the strongest physically etc will prey on the weaker.

There is NO NEED for Aboriginal health to be bad, no need for kids to go hungry. But what are Aussies supposed to do? Suburban Aboriginal people again are in some ways no better off although at least they are not stuck somewhere in a remote community unable to escape sexual assaults on a regular basis - it doesn't happen to everybody of course but the instances are way above the norm.

Suburban Aboriginal people get the same money, generous payments each fortnight and actually get more on welfare than a non Aboriginal person in the form of special payments. But what are we supposed to do - tell them how to spend their money and not buy alcohol, cigarettes and junk food? What works?

Intervention was called racist and paternalistic - so how is it better to give money and see it spent on everything but good food and necessities for the kids etc?

How the hell can you trash Aussies for this situation? Harping back to the past doesn't help - invasion and dispossession is an undeniable fact of human history. Telling Indigenous people in Australia to keep focusing on that while not accepting they have to make choices is an insanity we have been through.

As for comparing us to the Japanese - you are way out of line. As my post proves, as commonsense proves. An Aussie would go to their neighbour's or deposit food and drink at the front door, call the Salvos, get in touch with their church group, call the Social Security dept.

NOBODY has to go hungry in Australia including Aboriginal people who spend their welfare money in one day on booze and cigarettes. Nobody will go hungry or die because others won't help. The Social Security people will give them more money and food.

Your post is ignorant - Takechanpoo hit the nail on the head about the notion of the Japanese not relating to each other except in the in group/out group situation.

[rooboy]

You're targeting Midwinter wrongly, sorry. The fact is this is a human nature situation in a fundamental sense.

Some people of any race or ethnic background will not be functional despite all the help and assistance in the world. That's human nature. Giving more assistance and understanding will perpetuate the problems for some because they will take advantage and play their particular disadvantage card.

The African American situation seems to me very, very different from the Indigenous one in Australia. Blacks in the US were forcibly taken there, strangers in a hostile land. They had to make their own culture and used the elements they retained from African culture and combined that with their new culture. They had to continuously re-invent themselves and their culture post slavery, post segregation.

The American system is completely different from the Australian one. Your state govts have so much power to operate independently compared to our states. Laws and conditions that are unacceptable in Australia are considered normal in some American states. Especially the welfare system.

In Australia the excess of allowing a welfare mentality to develop has been one of the most destructive things to Aboriginal health and welfare.

Far from being such terrible racists, too many whites in govts and other organisations had an excess of the white guilt complext. Bureaucrats were instructed not to make Aboriginal kids in schools in remote communities continually wash their hands because that was 'paternalism'. Result - the inevitable spread of eye disease, to give one example.

Nobody was allowed to step in and stop alcholic families from buying alchohol instead of food. The result - hungry children. Nobody was allowed to 'interfere' with power relations that saw men rape babies and children as well as teenagers and older females and get away with it.

Billions upon billions of dollars went to the Aboriginal communities in the rural and remote areas and suburbs. Much of it was creatively accounted for - it went to the same old Aboriginal elite.

Please get your facts straight. White guilt and over-accommodation has been the predominant factor here.

[Samurai_Jerk]

One thing I've noticed about AustraliaNs is they're great at talking shit about everyone else, but get very sensitive about anything to do with Australia.

[rooboy]

so you make an over-generalisation about somebody who has just given you and others who have no idea about what's going on in Australia information about their own country.

Samurai Jerk - well named. Your brain probably hurts too much if you try a bit of logic so shit talk is all you can resort to.

[American Oyaji]

Umm. Rooboy. Don't take this the wrong way but...

...shut up.

I never spoke a moment on Austrailia but merely pointed out the holes in Midwinters argument about the African American community.

The situation with the native peoples in Australia is similar to that of the native populations of North America. The roads taken might be different, but the outcame is eerily close nonetheless.

But the basic point is the system does not care. People do, but the system does not and until heart is added into the fundementals of caring for citzens who need help, children, the elderly and the down and out will die from lack of proper nutrition and medical care. Currently it is all run by bean counters who look only at the bottom line on black and white paper and not at the faces of the individuals who need the help.

Will there be lazy people who abuse the system? Yes. Some that are considered abusers of the system now have not known any other way of life and no one shows them where or how to go. How can a parent who knows nothing of education and financial discipline pass on that knowledge to their kids? This is a vicious cycle that has gone on since emancipation.
But that's a topic for a different thread.

To bring it back to the topic at hand; this should not have happened.

Not in Japan. There is too much money in this country for anyone to go out like this. But then, Japan could be seen as a microcosm of the whole first world.

[rooboy]

You shouldn't be saying that to me. I simply pointed out what you were saying about midwinter's posts.

I have noticed on net forums that there are people who can't handle debate and logic. If you express your point by drawing on experiences they don't have, they resent it.

I went to midwinter's defence because somebody slagged off his post by bringing up (yet again) Australia and a situation that most of the non Australians I have read the posts of on this forum seem utterly ignorant about. Unlike SamuraiJerk and Guyjean, Midwinter and I are Australian and live in Japan. We can comment on Japan with credibility. Since when did the two jackasses live in Australia?

Parading ignorance isn't a virtue. Samurai Jerk and GuyJean think they are 'clever' for doing it - their loss. I'd say to to them - if you can't compete in the debating stakes then withdraw. Don't keep yapping and posting and slagging.

And if you're going to ignore facts from Australians and generalise about them as people, be sure you write and say 'Australians'. Not 'Australias'. Maybe another piece of evidence of the 'superiority' of Samurai Jerk?

Finally, you don't own this board. I'll post when and where I like. I don't do it that often because of the kind of jerkish behaviour I just referred to. These points were not made in reference to Americanoyaji.