John Rachel - Latest Comments

Re: New World Odor

John Rachel — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 19:07:57 -0000

I'm not selling them. Trump is!

Re: New World Odor

Bob Stuart — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 19:06:11 -0000

I'll bet you get some orders from folks who just read a little bit. Can you bottle the stink of a used diaper without the health hazard?
For the more savvy consumer, 4th of July black armbands would be popular if there was time to deliver them this year.

Re: Life In Japan: Panda Heartbreak

John Rachel — Tue, 13 May 2025 17:00:41 -0000

Japan uses a lot of English, especially names for commercial enterprises. It has still maintained its cultural integrity, as I've described in my extensive writing on the subject.

Re: Life In Japan: Panda Heartbreak

Maxim — Tue, 13 May 2025 11:00:56 -0000

Why is Adventure World in English?

Re: Life In Japan: Music Education

David Zaiss — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 18:25:54 -0000

Thanks John... Life in Japan is wonderful!

Re: A Page From God’s Diary

Liz Sackrison — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 01:03:15 -0000

I'm with you.

Re: About

N30rebel — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 09:21:13 -0000

As long as RFK Jr. is subservient to Israel I will not vote for him. I prefer Cornel West.

Re: People Power – Part 3: The Fraud of Endless War

Deeply Imbedded — Fri, 19 May 2023 21:53:13 -0000

A Builder's Tale... It is free with, AI audio included, serialized with another eleven chapters to the finish. You might like it. https://open.substack.com/p...

Re: Life In Japan: Time Machine

David Zaiss — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 19:34:39 -0000

Wonderful descriptions John, thanks. Bounces me back into the final chapters of The Red Jeep and my touch of Asian racism.

Re: Life In Japan: Time Machine

Gary Corseri — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 10:40:03 -0000

Fine pictures and text!
Your dramatic sides are showing!
Informative, perceptive, inviting, entertaining!

Re: Life In Japan: Nagasaki Streetcars

erik svehaug — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 03:24:50 -0000

I've been wrestling wrestaurants; they wresist being controlled, apparently. I look forward to anything you write. Glad you and your spouse are doing well, judging from the trip and the pics.

Re: Life In Japan: Nagasaki Streetcars

John Rachel — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 04:02:31 -0000

I was really charmed by Nagasaki. It was so much more than I expected. I'll be writing two more articles on it. Thanks for dropping by!

Re: Life In Japan: Nagasaki Streetcars

erik svehaug — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 03:11:07 -0000

You paint an enticing picture, John!

Re: People Power – Part 4: The Peace Dividend Strategy

Gary Corseri — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:03:25 -0000

It's an enticing prospect: Every American citizen, no matter race, gender, age, money in the bank or money owed--gets a check for $20,544. It's payback time, it's money owed to the citizens--who have been duped for the past 30 years--to the grating tune of 6.832 trillion (with a "t") dollars to pay for unnecessary wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and too many other places:

"...Destroying Libya was based on lies. Attacking Syria was based on lies. The need to upgrade our nuclear weapons is a lie. The need for a Space Force is a lie. The need to go to war with Russia is a lie. The need to go to war with China is a lie...."

John D. Rachel is alert, and he's trying to alert us all to the humiliations we have suffered at the hands of elitist politicians (serving the "super-elite) serving up confabulations of sugary junk-food disguised as "news," "commentary," "education," etc.

This article, and John's book, is a cri de couer to awaken decent Americans to the con-games they've fallen victim to.

Shall we awaken in time to demand institutional and congenital change? Can we prevent the next holocaust(s)?

Re: Life In Japan: Food … Fixation Obsession Celebration

John Rachel — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 01:56:56 -0000

Thanks for your generous praise. You sound like my kind of guy. Can I borrow $20? I'm in the mood for a large pizza from Domino's.

Re: Life In Japan: Food … Fixation Obsession Celebration

Gary Corseri — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 01:30:15 -0000

Yes, it has to do with "genetics," but, as you sagely suggest near the start of this inquiry, it's also a matter of good information--sorely missing in the U.S. today, whether we're talking politics, health matters, education, mass media, etc.
I like the way you've combined personal matters/living experiences with charts, pictures, statistics, gov't. info--even C.I.A. data.
Thanks for the entertaining, and informative, reading experience!

Re: Life In Japan: Food … Fixation Obsession Celebration

John Rachel — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:38:45 -0000

My Japanese wife thinks it has a lot to do with genetics as well.

Re: Life In Japan: Food … Fixation Obsession Celebration

Dennis Morgan — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:24:20 -0000

I don't know enough about Japan to answer. Some of it may have to do with genetics, and other factors as well. I've noticed a lot of similarities between Japanese and Korean cultures, and the obsession with food is one of them.

Re: Travels

Toby Lechtenbeger — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 21:34:55 -0000

Re: Life In Japan: Tenjinbashisuji Shotengai

muadkak — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 21:34:20 -0000

Re: No Excuse For Ignorance

John Rachel — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:38:44 -0000

Your comment is phenomenal! It sums up perfectly both the inexplicable madness which has taken hold, and the exasperation I also feel trying to talk sense to people. We live in very troubling, very frightening times indeed.

Re: No Excuse For Ignorance

Ramone — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:25:58 -0000

Thank you for writing this Mr. Rachel. You are 100% spot on.

What's really frightening about today's crop of liberal leaders, and many of the people who "identify" as liberal, is that they truly believe the propaganda about the war between Ukraine (i.e. NATO) and Russia; namely that it is is a fight between good and evil and that Putin must be defeated at all costs even if it leads us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Bring up the NATO encirclement of Russia post-1991 and that no Russian leader, even a more liberal one, who isn't a complete tool of the west would accept this state of affairs and you're labelled a Putin apologist etc. In fact any attempt to bring nuance into the discussion is immediately dismissed as Russian disinformation. (Ask the pro-Ukraine crowd how the US would react if Canada and Mexico joined a Chinese-led "defense" alliance, let alone one that included nuclear tipped missiles being stationed on their soil, or how the US reacted when the Soviets wanted to station nuclear missiles in Cuba...and you get called rude names or lectured on how these examples are completely different from what was happening in Ukraine leading up to 2022.02.24.)

It's like the role propaganda plays has in the last 20 years been flipped back to front. It used to be widely understood that propaganda was not to be taken at face value, that it is knowingly used to exaggerate military threats, to legitimize belligerence against this or that adversary and to sell unpopular policies to the public. Few people to the left of Joe McCarthy believed in it with a religious fervor. But today it seems almost like the propaganda narrative comes first (e.g. Putin is worse than Hitler) and policy is constructed around that. You have journalists and learned people on Twitter essentially calling for nuclear war to "stop Putin" and ordinary left-leaning folk who have no clue (or have forgotten) about the epic post-Cold War political f**k ups that brought the west to this confrontation with Russia chiming in with their support.

The 60s era peace movement and protests were before my time but even in 2003 there was still a small but bipartisan antiwar movement that opposed the invasion of Iraq and aggressive US and western foreign policy. Today the only public voices that question the sanity of escalating a conflict with a nuclear armed super power are on the right and far-right. That is a staggering development.

If Stephen F. Cohen, whose first hand knowledge of Russia and its politics is second to none, were still alive he too would undoubtedly be accused of being a Putin apologist or a "fascist", much like he was during the Trump years. Sensible voices are slandered or simply frozen out of the discourse altogether and even the very moderate foreign policy critics at the Quincy Institute get no coverage in the mainstream media.

We live in very dark times indeed when critical thinking and the most basic liberal freedoms are denigrated as tools of "Putin" and "fascists" while actual fascists in Ukraine, who were accurately portrayed as such by the NYT, BBC et al. before February 24, 2022, have been reinvented as democratic freedom fighters because it suits the propaganda narrative that portrays Putin and Russia as evil incarnate. Absolute madness marked by a departure from reason and common sense that makes the original 1945-1991 Cold War seem downright sane and civilized in comparison. How did unreason and fanaticism become official policy in the US and the wider west (don't get me started on the German Green Party)? What is going on here?

PS - I have ordered and downloaded your book Blinders Keepers and am looking forward to reading it.

Re: No Excuse For Ignorance

Gary Corseri — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 09:06:52 -0000

I haven't read the books, but your sensitive and sensible exploration of their themes will definitely inspire me and others to consider and reconsider our prospects for survival in this muddy tunnel to Apocalypse in which we find ourselves now.
Thank you for your clarity of expression and your emotional, well-directed emotional power.
Thanks for a hopeful light in these dark times....

Re: Life In Japan: A Not-So-Random Act of kindness

Luis A. Fonseca — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 02:00:10 -0000

United Statesians are nasty, homicidal people. We are lately having a rash of insane Republicans and rght-wingers in general.

Re: Life In Japan: Police Power IV

John Rachel — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 06:44:18 -0000

My suggestion makes sense for you, your newspaper, and for my readers. It's a win-win-win outcome. Nobody is going to read your article ever again. I was giving you free exposure. And by the way, I do not make any money by telling these stories. My site is not monetized. The policy of your company therefore is not good for anyone involved, just a petty censorship of something that actually made you look good. Very self-defeating policy."