
The Japanese Communist Party’s New Kawaii Mascots (2013) - giorgiofontana
http://www.japantrends.com/japan-communist-party-mascot-kawaii-cute-character-kakusan/#.UfEk-inLoE8.facebook
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userbinator
Cuteness, or 'kawaii' as it is known, is pervasive in Japanese culture.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaii](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaii)

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tokai
> consumption tax — arguably the most universal and fair way to raise money
> for the burden of the aging population

Consumption tax is not fair as it is hardest on the poor, and does very little
to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom of society.

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krapp
I'm only a simple country weeaboo, but i'm halfway certain this fails both as
kawaii and as communist propaganda...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9s0V42omIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9s0V42omIs)

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pizza
> It should also be noted that the JCP apparently hired an ad agency to design
> the mascots, which hardly smacks of trying to pulling down the pillars of
> capitalism.

Common misconception is that communism is the antithesis of capitalism; Marx
wrote instead about overclocking capitalism so hard that a better society
could be built out of its extreme conclusion:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism)

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steveklabnik
Accelerationism is trendy now, but also pretty controversial. It's not so much
that Marx wrote about accelerationism, just that the technological advances of
capitalism were an important part of humanity's development, while containing
contradictions that would eventually bring about its end.

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kikimschirr
I'd have to say that kawaii sure beats the heck out of traditional Soviet art!
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism))

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digi_owl
Either can be done to excess. I find most anime these days so coated in kawaii
that i must either walk away or risk barfing rainbows. I really miss the days
of OVAs...

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ANTSANTS
OTOH the ultraviolence on display in a typical 80's OVA might actually make
you barf.

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ANTSANTS
I can't pass up this chance to post the _Moe Dictators_ artbook.

[https://imgur.com/a/2i3rH](https://imgur.com/a/2i3rH)

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relk4a
Nothing says 'cute' quite like an ideology thar killed ~300000000 people.

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Sawbones
That's not the work of Communism, that's the work of a mad dictator using his
power to change his government into an authoritarian sovereignty.

If it was actually communism, he would have never had that kind of power.

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lotsofmangos
If I was going to be nitpicky, it was not actually communism, but it was
partly the work of some aspects of communist theory, as the idea of state
communism was that you had to go through this immense struggle and remake
society before you got to the nice fluffy city on the hill.

However the folk who rose to the top realised that if they wanted to stay on
top, they had to keep the struggle bit going indefinitely.

