even in the throes of its collapse the empire can't help itself and its arrogant ways as the ugly american, or should i say, joo, goes to japan;

Some audience members came up to me after a speech I gave in downtown Tokyo in late April. They were hopping mad at Rahm Emanuel, the man whom Washington sent a little over a year ago to do its business in Japan. And what does that business entail? If Emanuel’s April tweets are any indication, it entails interfering in internal Japanese political matters.

Over a series of tweets in late April, Ambassador Emanuel shared photos of himself and the American Embassy staff heading out—in full rainbow regalia, the new red, white, and blue—to join the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade. The usual celebration of civilizational collapse? All in a day’s work for our man in Tokyo.

But it was this tweet that started the firestorm: “Now is the time, now is the moment for Japan to be all that Japan can be. You could feel the energy in the air at @Tokyo_R_Pride. Today was a parade with purpose.”

Many in Japan were appalled. Not just at the sentiment, of course, or at the tone-deafness of a man who speaks zero Japanese inserting himself into a national debate he knows nothing about. After all, we know that liberal Americans consider themselves culturally superior to the Japanese. That was the entire premise behind dismantling the Japanese constitution and imposing a new one. Never mind that Japan has been a democratic country since the 19th century.

The sheer cultural chauvinism of the American Embassy is a daily occurrence. And it’s not just the embassy in Tokyo that’s so good at it. Everywhere you find an American diplomatic outpost, you’ll find people who specialize in evangelizing for sodomy and the exportation of democracy via drone strike. Most Americans don’t realize it, but overseas the rainbow flag and the arms deal together have become the national brand.

No, what was appalling was that the American ambassador to Japan was not even pretending that the country he runs as proconsul has a functioning democracy of its own, or any sovereignty to speak of. Teruhisa Se, an extraordinarily thoughtful scholar and public intellectual who teaches political theory and political philosophy at Kyushu University, spoke truthfully when he called Ambassador Emanuel’s display “naisei kansho”—interference in internal governmental affairs........more.......