I find it interesting that many of the people and media outlets that cried foul when people tried to bring up the relationship between the violent rhetoric on the right and the recent shootings in Arizona (how dare you turn this tragedy into a political thing! they shouted) are now raising "interesting" questions about what's going on in Japan after this weekend's earthquake and tsunami.

It's not appropriate to talk about the culture of violence and its relation to actual violence in America, but it is ok to wonder "why is there no looting in Japan" while suggesting that it's because there are no african-americans on welfare there as there are in New Orleans. That's not offensive manipulation of a tragedy for unreasonable political hay? Really!? Come on folks, get real.

First off, while there has been little reporting in english-language media about looting in Japan, I have no idea if it's happening. For all I know it's rampant; for all I know it's just being done in a way that makes it hard for western media to even see it. Hell, maybe it's because stores are giving stuff away free; maybe it's because the government is providing the necessary relief support.

One article I found http://current.com/191tp4c had some interesting thoughts on it.

The communitarian spirit at the foundation of Japanese culture seems to function even more efficiently under the stress of disaster, he said.

The natural American inclination is to operate independently.

“So you do everything you can to protect your own interests with the understanding that, in a rather free-market way, everybody else is going to do the same. And that order will come out of this sort of invisible hand.

“And Japanese don’t function that way. Order is seen as coming from the group and from the community as a sort of evening out of various individual needs.”

If this view is at all accurate, it's explicitly the Japanese rejection of the American "way of life" that is responsible; it's community centric thought that lies at the core of their reaction. I'm sure the Right is not able to process that possibility, they will stay on point and rant about the leftist communal centric destruction of the American family and ignore the reality of the situation.
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