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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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Has it? Americans understand Japanese culture far less than any European one, and conventional wisdom says that by V-J day the cold war was already going full steam ahead, so the Americans largely decided to leave the system that at least was manifestly not communist alone, rather than trying to impose some sweeping changes, fat-fingering them and risking another North Korea or China.

It also applies to South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. If there are any nations one would consider woke in the Pacific, it would be Australia and New Zealand. Wokeness is a Western mindbug, not an American one.