From the point of view of weirdo bizarre politics, 2016 is the year that keeps on giving. Behold:

The Religious Cult Secretly Running Japan

I’d suggest that “Secretly” is not terribly accurate, since they seem to be pretty open about it. Specifically, Nippon Kaigi, a Shinto group that wants to restore Japan militarily and culturally to what it was prior to getting spanked in WWII, is a group that includes such government types as the current Prime Minister and many in his cabinet. Military adventurism, elimination of women’s rights, expulsion of foreigners, Emperor worship, all that rubbish.

This is *kinda* amusing. First part of the last century the Japanese were able to storm around east Asia because the US had, perhaps unwisely, kinda *forced* the Japanese to modernize in the late 19th century. They were burdened with a medieval culture but graced with advanced technology… while their neighbors were largely still medieval everything. But now… well, if the Japanese try that Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity schtick again, they’ll find that the Koreans and the Chinese and the Vietnamese are a little closer to them technologically.

I wonder, though, what it is about certain ideologies that continue to persist well after they got their asses well and soundly *beat.* Knuckleheads who want to worship the Emperor, or people who think the Nazis were neato-keen, or people who think Communism is the future, or people who think the South will rise again more than 150 years after the profoundly failed War of Southern Aggression… all these schmoes are worshipping at the altar of failure. They are waving loser’s flags. And yet, here we are.