I don’t know why NHK broadcasted the series of Oliver Stone’s documentary “Untold History of the United State” at the end of the year. Anyway I watched Episode 7, which was about the Vietnam War.
Of course, Oliver Stone severely criticized LBJ and Richard Nixon. From my stand point of view, they should be blamed for mismanagement about Vietnam War, but at the same time they also made some achievements, for example LBJ’s the Great Society’s programs and Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.
It is interesting for me as a Japanese to know that Oliver Stone and Ronald Reagan seemed to believe in the same justice of America. Ronald Reagan insisted that his policy embodied the ideal of the U.S., but Oliver Stone thought that he betrayed it. In the documentary, Oliver Stone quoted the words of John Adams, which represented the ideal that the U.S. was founded on, in order to blame Richard Nixon.
There are many people who criticized the government and politicians in Japan, too. But both of them don’t seem to have the common ideal, just like what Oliver Stone and Ronald Reagan do. Japanese people ever have had the ideal that the country Japan is founded on, haven’t they?
American people think the United States of America as an artificial product, which was made in order to achieve their ideal, but Japanese people think the country Japan as a natural product, which has existed for many years.
Democracy is the ideal for the United States of America, but it is just one of the political systems for Japan. Winston Churchill said,“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Japanese people could understand what he meant.
I wrote, “Is Japan really a democratic country? The answer is that "yes, it is formally." in the entry “Is Japan Really a Democratic Country?”
Although Japan is now a democratic country, Japanese people don’t believe in the ideal of democracy. There is a country that doesn’t have the ideal that it was founded on.
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