If anybody won the second world war it was the Japanese. Following a tactical surrender when we dropped the bomb on them, they turned their little island into a giant machine, producing goods for export so successfully that the President of the United States has to fly half-way there to beg them to sendspend some of our money back. But like all the other countries involved in that war they have had a hollow victory, an economic victory at the price of a culture. They have sacrificed themselves to survive and in the process they have created a world of inexpensive technology that has a great deal to do with the media-division in this country, a division between the old, whose sense of cultural reality was irreparably damaged by the war and the young who have discovered in themselves the potential for a world they see reflected in pre-war films.

The Japanese contributed to this media-division by making possible the media-saturation that preceded it. Starting with cheap transistor radios they crept into our homes, offering us whatever we wanted in terms of communication equipment at terms we could afford. With a delicate sense of design, an amazing ability at miniaturizing, and the belief in the economic principle: invent whatever they want and sell it to them, they have patched us all together, no matter how poor we are. And they have shown-up the myth of American craftmanship in the process. Of course, theirs is a corporate pig empire, very similar to our own, based on a gluttonous greed. But there is a promise in what they have done, a promise that every person can have access to total information, a promise that will in the long-run have a great deal to do with how our society changes-progresses during the next twenty years.

There is a clever advertisement being promoted by the International Ladies� Garment Workers Union. It shows an American flag, one of those little paper flags glued to a small stick, with the catch-line �Made in Japan�. The ILGWU is pissed, but why shouldn�t the Japs make our flags for us, they can do it cheaper. And it isn�t the Japs who are at fault, it�s the American business men who make a living importing those flags and selling them to the gung-ho American people who want to own them, after all.

If you ever go to Disneyland, that bastion of Uncle Samism where non-allAmerican young people are barely tolerated, you�ll be confronted by the possibility of buying all sorts of momentos to take home, from Mickey Mouse watches to Donald Duck pencil cases. If you look at the merchandise very carefully, you�ll discover many items that have a faintly stamped �Hong Kong� or �Japan� on them. So much for that slice of applepie.

The truth is that the Japanese have saturated our market places and to stop the flow of goods would mean a rather abrupt, radical change in our concept of the good life. Not so much for the rich as for the poor. We are dependent on the Japs for televisions, radios, tape recorders, digital clocks, cameras, and more recently, typewriters and cars. In some cases they are turning out the best, such as the Sony Trinitron color tv (an American invention that was kept under wraps for twenty years despite its superior quality because certain American corporations had already tooled-up to make color tvs by another process), in some cases they are turning out the worst, in almost all cases they are turning out the cheapest. And while cheap may. not be culturally synonymous with good in this country, as a practical, pocket-book reality, cheap is a crucial factor in our buying habits.

And even if you don�t buy one single piece of Japanese merchandise this year, the prices you pay for American items in categories that are rife with Jap brands, what you pay for and what you get for the price has been affected by the Japs.

If you don�t believe this, just look for a clock with hands. Digital clocks have won the battle, especially in clock radio configurations — thanks to the Japs. And just look at what is happening to the good old adding machine now that you can buy an electronic calculator for sixty dollars. Again the Japanese philosophy of all electronics for all consumers has won the battle even if the particular calculator you buy has a Texas Instruments chip running it.

Especially in the area of video, the Japanese have made possible a new era in inter-personal communications. In 1964, they introduced the first technologically inexpensive video tape machine and today you can buy an old model such as the ones Sony made for GE (got that?) for as little as $250. $250 for a video tape machine. Ignoring the question of who needs a video tape machine while people are still starving to death on the planet (who needs this newspaper, on that basis, or the last record you bought), the Japs have made it possible for all of us to conquer television by making it ourselves. If we had waited for an American company to do that for us, we�d still be waiting. In fact, we still are waiting. Ampex has been promising the first American made portable halfinch video machine for almost three years now, and has yet to deliver anythirig but press photos of mock-ups. At last report they were still promising.

What will happen when there is so much media available that everyone will have access to total communications remains to be seen. The Japanese don�t really understand what they�re doing in terms of the communicatioris bridges they are creating between people, just as the major broadcasters don�t know what they�re doing to themselves ultimately by encouraging cable tv systems, but we have come to depend on both for our electronic awakening. Our own humanity will decide the results of that dependence.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 87.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 82.

Recently the Japanese and the Chinese ended their state of war (WWII again). The fact that this will result in even more electronics and other devices flooding our market place can only be seen as a plus for the possibility of drastic change in this country — good or bad. The day when they will produce and we will consume is not far off. Whether we use our consumptive powers and the communicationsentertainment items available for consumption to our advantage will depend on who we are. «§*.