Very Kind Of Him #57 - The Flip Side Of My Remarks

Jeffrey Kingston of Temple University Japan has quoted me copiously in an opinion article published in The Japan Times (Link: Abe gets negative reviews ahead of U.S. visit). The quotations are certain to make me persona non grata in the Kantei.

I am grateful for Professor Kingston's quoting me. The quotes are verbatim.

However, I disagree with characterization that my overall assessment of Abe is negative.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is not really the majority of the population's idea of a dream date. The PM lacks most of the commonly recognized personality traits and qualities of a successful politician. Nevertheless, his Cabinet is the most reliably popular one for three decades. Abe is also fully back from the political Siberia his illness banished him to in September 2007. For four years he wandered the halls or slumped in his seat in the upper reaches of the House of Representatives, a weird ghostly figure. His resurrection and return should be the stuff of legends.

Abe has also fulfilled the proposition I set forth in February 2013: that he and his team will provide Japan with stable government (Video and Slides). The political opposition remains, three years out from the Noda Yoshihiko Self-Destruct Dissolution, an afterthought, a mosquito buzzing around the ruling coalition -- annoying but easily crushed. Heck, the opposition could not even snatch the Hokkaido governorship in today's first round of the Unified Local elections. (Link - J)

Abe, of course, has not just kept the opposition down and irrelevant: he has outmaneuvered and marginalized almost every potential political rival inside the LDP. The last possible holdout against "Abe's Way Or The Highway," LDP General Council Chair Nikai Toshihiro, a frequent critic of several key Abe administration policies, declared in an article published this week that "all of the holders of the top leadership posts of the LDP" is in support of Abe's reelection as party president this fall" -- meaning himself included. (Link - J)

As for "Abe Magic" and the "Abe Paradox" in the article -- again, correctly recorded -- these simple phenomena observable in the public polling data. They are also two manifestations of a single astonishing achievement: the conjuring up of a sense of inevitability to Abe's continued rule despite his inability to convince the majority of the voters to support whatever it is he is planning to do. Are the voters so starved for stability in the prime minister's spot that they are willing to say they support a Cabinet whose policies they do not like?

Seemingly.

Not at lot has gone really right in Abe's second stint. The economy is still weak; the monetary carpet bombing of the land with yen has not resulted in zero inflation; the collective self defense proposals are a spaghetti bowl of promises (and way behind schedule); Okinawa is in open revolt.

However, it is year three, Abe is still here and he is sticking to his much delayed agenda. He is letting all the hardships, bad news (the Algerian gasworks attack; the Hiroshima landslides; the murder of Goto Kenji) and missed targets roll off his back. Of course, a PM with a majority in the House of Councillors and a supermajority in the House of Representatives should be invincible. Abe's successors, from both LDP and Democratic Party of Japan, have shown how it is possible to fail in this blessed land's top office despite controlling more than the requisite number of seats in both Houses.

Abe succeeds despite himself. That is not negative. It is amazing.

There Is Only One Reason

Give me one reason to stay here
And I'll turn right back around.

- Tracy Chapman, "Give Me One Reason" (1995)

There is only one reason why Abe Shinzo and the LDP have plastered the phrase

景気回復、この道しかない = "To Economic Recovery、 This is the One and Only Way"

everywhere.

In luminous, uplifting fashion



in dark, ominous fashion



in omnipresent fashion fashion







and that is for the same reason anything would have to be repeated, over and over again.

Because it's not true.

The Good, The Bad And The Whoa Where Did That Come From?

This time...you've gone too far
This time...you've gone too far
This time...you've gone too far
I told you, I told you, I told you, I told you

- Peter Gabriel, "Digging in the Dirt" (1992)

Tomorrow night at Temple University Japan's Mita Campus, Glen Fukushima, the former head of Airbus Japan, will be offering his views on the Abe Cabinet. The original title of the talk was possibly not quite to the tastes of the Prime Minister's Residence: "How Washington Views Japan - The Good Abe and the Bad Abe." The latter half of the title no longer appears on official page announcing the talk. (Link)

T'is too bad because the Cabinet really has a Good Abe / Bad Abe problem...though it is probably not the one that Mr. Fukushima will speak/will have spoken about, the one which ticks off the South Koreans and bolsters the Beijing regime through Yasukuni sampai and undermining of the legitimacy of the Kono Statement.

The Good Abe reads his briefs, smiles when he speaks in English, firmly shakes the hands of world leaders and sits in the Diet, quiet as a mouse, until he gets up and says his piece.　The Good Abe talks incessantly about the empowerment of women and tries to set an example in this regard. The Good Abe harangues his benefactors in the zaikai about the need to raise wages, a cry being taken up now by the Voice of Business, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. (Link)

The Bad Abe posts trash talk on his Facebook page, bounces out of his seat to spit out what he thinks is his right in the Diet and, when, faced with reporters, does not say, "Ladies and gentlemen, I know you need material but I have nothing intelligent to say" but instead tries to be clever.

The Bad Abe was on full display at his press availability in Brisbane, Australia, talking total tactical mendacity as regards vital issues. His complete nonsense on the Democratic Party of Japan's acceptance of the raising of the tax has roused even the ill and now mostly philosophical Haraguchi Kazuhiro (Link - J). His coy "I have not once said anything about dissolving the Diet" -- when he was is fully aware that back home the Diet and the ministries are in pre-campaign lockdown -- was unworthy of an adult human.

The Bad Abe is petulant, vindictive, adolescent and lacking in concern regarding the superficiality of his knowledge.

Abe supporters should hope when the man walks up to the microphone tonight to make the announcement of his plans as regards a Diet dissolution and a delay in the scheduled raising of the consumption tax, that Suga Yoshihide or someone Abe trusts has taken him aside prior and told him, "Abe-san, you do realize, this is for real?"

Ozawa Ichiro And Japanese Politics

It's here!

Dr. Mulgan's long-awaited political biography of the most important Japanese politician of the last 25 years (yes, more important than even the Celebrated Mr. K) quietly entered the marketplace on October 27.

Yes, you should buy it. In my review, which I will post after I finish the book, I will outline some of the ways the book illuminates some of the least understood aspects of the present Abe administration.

Very Kind Of Them #28

Last week's resignation of Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry Obuchi Yuko gave me an opportunity to vent some spleen about the overlarge representation the Diet and indeed throughout the elites of East and South Asia of a particular minority: persons who made an excellent choice of uteruses in which to gestate.

To Kirk Spitzer, writing for TIME, my venting was worth quoting, in this way:

Obuchi's portfolio includes authority over the nation's nuclear power plants and her softer image—a young mother, after all—was expected to soothe public anxiety over plans to restart the reactors. Obuchi is the daughter of former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who ran Japan from July 1998 to April 2000, and had even been touted as a possible successor to Abe somewhere down the road. But the close scrutiny that comes with a Cabinet appointment exposed her as a political lightweight and a product of the LDP machine, says Michael Cucek, a researcher and author of a respected political blog in Tokyo. "She represents someone who vaulted into prominence by the death of a sitting prime minister, taking over the family business without ever knowing much about how the whole machine works," he said.

(Link)

Obuchi's admission at her press conference that she trusted and did not check up on persons working for her whom she had known since childhood and Thursday's raid by prosecutors of the home of former Nakanojo mayor Orita Ken'ichiro and the offices of Obuchi support group (link) seemingly justified a rather testy set of exchanges I fell into on Twitter regarging Obuchi's credentials:

@hobson_c All right. Aside from the brief, unremarkable service as Vice Minister of Finance, Obuchi's other credentials were?
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 21, 2014

@hobson_c Obuchi's appoinment to Aso Cabinet was pure electoral tokenism, as that Cabinet was created for a snap election.
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 21, 2014

@hobson_c She is going under because of resentment against her selection based upon birth and gender, and a dearth of meritocratic criteria.
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 21, 2014

@sonicviz @hobson_c No, but life is unfair like that sometimes.
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 21, 2014

@sonicviz @hobson_c After the ordeal she still has wealth, inherited status and a supportive family -- and all that was by chance too.
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 21, 2014

Oh, The Persons You Will Talk To!

This was the scene in the Liberal Democratic Party cafeteria on Friday, the first of the "Whale Meat Fridays" demanded by General Council Chair Nikai Toshihiro and other scientific pelagic whaling-supporting party members.



In the center is Nikai, a representative of the Wakayama district that has in it the infamous town of Taiji, where the residents conduct coastal harvests of dolphins, porpoises and small whales not covered by the International Whaling Commission ban. He is holding aloft a hunk of sei whale (iwashi kujira - Balaenoptera borealis) a species which can only be harvest on the deep ocean. The meat has been deep fried Tatsuta style -- one of the two ways whale was being served on Friday (the other was in a whale meat curry). Former Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori (Miyagi, another whaling prefecture) is among the other politicians visible preparing to have their Sei.

"Whale in an irreplaceable part of Japan's food culture. If foreigners come [to this cafeteria] we will shower them with whale!" crowed Nikai. (Link)

Friday's very public eating of Sei whale conflates and confuses coastal whaling, which is traditional for communities with very little flat, arable land like Taiji or Chiba Prefecture's Wadaura -- and which I support -- and industrial pelagic whaling, which has no traditional basis and is a ward of the government -- a point conceded in the Yomiuri Shimbun's pro-pelagic whaling editorial of yesterday (Link).

Because it is my nature to never leave any dishonest and poorly thought out thing well enough alone, I decided to have a bit of fun on Twitter at the expense of Nikai -- whom I like immensely -- and the other politicians pictured.

Because nothing says, "Traditional Japanese culture" quite like eating whale in a curry or deep-fried using a fork pic.twitter.com/w1dKvgzLIl
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) September 20, 2014

A cheap shot, perhaps. However, given the absurd bravura of Nikai's lofting of his whale-laden fork, a not entirely inappropriate cuffing of the chin, metaphorically.

Well, since having loosed the above, you can imagine the number and variety of folks of all persuasions have been blessing me with their opinions. Or perhaps you cannot. Anyway, it has been a lot of folks, some of whom did not see the humor intended.

An LDP Trying To Take Sexual Images Seriously

With more and more devices being equipped with camera lenses, astonishing data capacity of even tiny items and the transnational space of the Internet, the question of the legal status of uploaded still and motion imagery of one's private sexual behavior is not trivial, particularly in this blessed land where a reputation is still a highly valued if schizophrenically protected asset.

Nevertheless, the shoulders bunch up at Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council announcing the establishment of a Special Committee on Revenge Porno (Ribenji poruno tokumei iinkai) studying what the government can do, if anything, about the uploading of private sexual content to the Internet (Link - J). It might be because of the gratuitous use of loan words in the name of the committee -- gratuitous in that if the effort were sincere there would be a recognizable kanji-based description of the subject being tackled. Perhaps it is because LDP Policy Research Chair Takaichi Sanae's discussing almost any subject tenses the shoulders (NHK had her and the other party policy chiefs on Nichiyo Toron yesterday -- and her every pose and utterance telegraphed her contempt and boredom at the proceedings).

Most likely, however, it is the announcement that the chairman of the special committee on "revenge porno" will be Hirasawa Katsuei.

While there are likely defensible expertise and organizational reasons why Hirasawa might be qualified to lead the committee, it would seem reasonable, given the delicate nature of the assumed offense, to choose a standard bearer who could conceivably be a victim -- or at least would not lead the lay person to titter at the absurdity the thought of the standard bearer ever being a victim. Sadly, of all the members of the LDP, Hirasawa has to be least plausible potential victim of the uploading of his/her private sexual content -- the only "revenge" being what the imagery would be doing to the viewer's retinas and brain. To be fair, the party has named Mihara Junko, a far more plausible potential victim to be Hirasawa's lieutenant. (Link - J)

The announcement of the formation of this committee reeks of insincerity, trendiness and desperation. It is is too small an issue -- at least as packaged -- for Takaichi or even Hirasawa to be handling. That Takaichi feels it necessary to show she has a grip on this problem indicates either she has no sense of proportion or that much of the heavy lifting of policy making has been taken away from the LDP policy research council.

The latter possibility, where a defanged LDP PARC has ceded to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's myriad advisory committees the role of policy incubator undercuts LDP President Abe Shinzo's favorite talking point on his commitment to women's empowerment. He never stops reminding audiences of his having appointed Takaichi and Noda Seiko, the chair of the General Council, to high party posts. That these posts have nowhere near their former importance (the General Council seeimng to be a body in search of a purpose, given the demise of the factions) would be a most inconvenient truth for the PM to face.

The Mirror Has No Face Or Shame

Warning: the preposterous hypocrisy of the below can lead to the spouting of hot liquids from your mouth, damaging the device upon which you are viewing the text:

Politicians need to trust people

December 11, 2013 --

[snip]

The issues we are facing today are things that should have been resolved by the Liberal Democratic Party 10, 15 or 20 years ago. They are, for instance, energy policy, tax system [reform], restructuring the economic structure, agriculture, changing security policy, and so on. But weren't solutions to these issues put off because such measures would cause the party to lose votes, would bring down support rates, or cause defeat in elections if they were mentioned to voters?

I believe the current state of affairs in Japan is that almost nobody trusts politicians. But do politicians trust the people? If you don't speak the truth for fear of losing votes, that may be self-preservation. People who act in such a way should give up politics.

Does the LDP have the narrative skill, sincerity and honesty to persuade people?

The speaker here -- the person asking whether Liberal Democratic Party has "the narrative skill, sincerity and honesty" to persuade the public?

The guy who wrote this and more recently said this.

If a lack of self-reflection were a virtue, Ishiba Shigeru would be a living saint.

As it is, he is just a buffoon. A evil-looking, evil-sounding, patronizing buffoon who happens to run the day-to-day affairs of the only party that matters in this blessed land.

The full translated Ishiba comment, including further evidence of the LDP leadership's adolescent wide-eyed staring infatuation with decisiveness, can be accessed here.

Come Fly With Me

I normally rail against the citation of articles quoting anonymous sources, particularly from the major domestic news organizations. In this blessed land, anonymous sources are usually being either coy, abusive or mendacious. Coy in the sense that every informed reader of the news article knows who the source is. Abusive in that the source is a policy entrepreneur using the journalist's supposed autonomy as a shield for floating as a fact what is indeed only a proposition. Mendacious in that what is being said is flatly untrue, but having been published and incepted as a part of the detritus of discourse cannot be traced to any particular liar in government, the parties or industry.

Anonymous sourcing makes antennae up in the "stay alert, you are being manipulated" mode my default news reading and viewing position -- which is unfortunate.

However, there are times that the only way a tale can get told is when anonymous, protected persons spill the beans. The Reuters story on the politics behind JAL's decision to buy Airbus aircraft "Insight: Japan politics looms over ANA's choice between Airbus, Boeing" is one such tale. Nobody with a career or even just a job can offer details or comment upon the way passenger aircraft purchase decisions really get made. For that, one needs someone talking from behind a mask.

Signs Of The Apocalypse #6

My being able to read through an entire William Pesek opinion piece. (Link) 

Normally, just the essay title and Mr. Pesek's name under it are enough to send me to rushing to click the "Back" button on my browser. Today, however, I managed to stick around all the way to the end.

I cannot agree with Pesek's determination that Abe Shinzo's speeches in New York represent a transportation to an illusory plane of personal grandeur. Authorship would argue against such an explanation. Since Abe did not himself write the speeches, the particular language cannot be a reflection of his thinking.

The overall structure -- well ok, the lack thereof -- the disconnectness, the random recitation of anecdotes and the shallow grazing from the pop culture trough in the New York speeches -- that, by contrast, is the Abe we all know and love.

Rather than hubris, Abe's speeches to the New York Stock Exchange and the Hudson Institute seem to have represented more desperate pleas to be liked, to be considered one of the cool kids.

Regardless, that I managed to read Pesek's take on Japanese events without consequent health difficulties or a speedy departure is a bad sign for the future of life on this small blue planet.

Ignore What I Said. Please!

This morning the news organizations reported what is probably a non-story. Asking the rhetorical question, "Is he making light of the electorate?" the nation news providers pointed an accusative finger at Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General for the House of Councillors Waki Masashi, who told a gathering held in honor of the LDP's women legislators:

「今の制度は政党の段階で候補者の選び方が未熟だ。まず政党が本当に正しい意味で国会議員を選べるか。これさえしっかりしていれば、あまり大きな声では言えないが、選ぶ人がアホでも、選ばれる人は立派なんです。」

"The current mean of selecting party candidates, by the steps established by the parties, is immature. First, can the parties really select members of the Diet correctly? If we can deal decisively with this one thing, although one cannot say it in too loud a voice, even if morons are making the selections, the selected persons are impressive."

Given the audience at the reception, which included Prime Minister and LDP President Abe Shinzo (Link - J video), it is difficult to state with any certainty who it is Waki thinks deserves the label "moron" (aho). Nor can one easily discern who precisely the chosen persons (erabareru hito) are. Nor is it clear how "moron" selectors can chose "impressive" (rippa) persons.

Waki is a Tokyo University grad (Engineering) and a former national government bureaucrat -- albeit of the now demoted Construction Ministry. So despite being a card-carrying member of the LDP's Road Tribe, the Mos Eisley Spaceport of Diet groups, he cannot be assumed to be complete out of his senses.

So while it is difficult to ascertain what Waki thought he was saying -- and to whom -- an assumption that he was calling the voters "morons" is not plausible.

Two points:

One, this is the second major flareup over peculiar remarks about elected government by an LDP bigwig since the July 21 House of Councillors. The first was the brouhaha over Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro's suggestion to a Japan Institute of National Fundamentals-provided audience that those wishing to revise the 1947 Constitution should learn from the Nazi party's overturning of the Weimar Constitution. In that instance, initial transcripts left open the possibility that Aso was being sarcastic or ironic.  Recently, sound recordings featuring the audience reaction to Aso's remarks indicate that whatever his intent, the audience clearly thought a Nazi-like takeover of the present Japanese state hilarious (Link J - audio) -- showing that major news outlets were not being unfair in their framing of Aso's weird ramblings.

Two, chasing-after-gaffes journalism -- merited in Aso's case, unmerited in Waki's -- is back from the grave. We are in a time of turmoil, where serious issues and ideas are being debated. Nevertheless journalists are wasting their time and ours on revealing politicians to be idiots -- which is a lot like reporting breathlessly about zebras having stripes.

The second point is bad news for persons looking for a Japan with the wherewithal to lift itself out of its doldrums. Attention spans are limited, and if the people's eyes and ears are clogged with trivialities, the voters will not be the guides for the politicians that they will need to be, this blessed land having nothing resembling an opposition in the Diet. Grim and frightening it is to watch august news institutions like national broadcaster NHK roll over and become mere PR outlets for the government and select businesses (Last night's 7 pm broadcast actually began with the announcer chirping, "Tonight there is wonderful news (ureshii nyusu): the sites of the stations of the proposed high speed linear motor line have been chosen!"). If what little time that is left for critical commentary is wasted on parsing the semantics of the perspective challenged -- then we are all in the pot, ready to be roasted.

Later - Many thanks to commenter "TheStrawMan" for noticing my skipping over the phrase marked in red above.

Still left unanswered is how the party composed of mere humans can conjure up and approve a system of selecting candidates which is idiot-proof.

A Marriage Most Peculiar

One of the fixtures of life under an Abe Administration is the appearance, off to the side or in the corner, of Seko Hiroshige (Link). The fourth termer House of Councillors out of Wakayama is one of the prime minister's most trusted advisors and constant companions. On official trips when the PM's wife Akie does not accompany the PM, Seko seems the go-to surrogate. It was Seko who stood and sat beside the PM on his grueling globe-spanning trip from St. Petersburg to Buenos Aires and back again this past weekend -- a trip which began with the insane scene of the PM trotting up the stairs to his official plane, turning and giving a hearty wave for the media gaggle, turning back to step into the plane door, followed by Seko, in imitation of the PM, turning to the media and giving his own solo wave of departure at the top of the stairs.

Seko-sensei, control yourself. You are not one of that plane's passengers. You are the baggage.

The incongruity of Seko, a former communications and public relations executive at NTT who seems to lack even a smidgen of sense when it comes to image creation, and the efforts the PM has made to give Seko appointments to keep him close by (Seko is currently a Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary) has led me to uncharitably consider on more than one occasion the possibility that the relationship between the two was more than professional.

Well, those thoughts, while not shelved, must compete for my attention this morning with the reports that the divorced Seko quietly filed a marriage certificate on September 2. What has the political sphere abuzz is that his spouse is Hayashi Kumiko (Link), a second term Democratic Party of Japan member of the House of Councillors.

That Seko, who is no great shakes in the appearance department, should be cohabiting with and is now the spouse of a former BBC newsreader ten years his junior should give hope to all the unwed of the planet.

More significantly, inter-party relationships and marriages are extremely rare in Japanese politics -- one can count their postwar numbers on the fingers of one hand. Despite living in physical proximity, the ideological divides and the parliamentary tactics of the parties would make an extra-party romantic relationship extremely tough. The Seko\Hayashi marriage seems to the first one ever between a member of the ruling party and a member of the main opposition party.

Seko, who most of the time has a half-cocked opinion on everything, is reticent to talk about his remarriage (it is a second marriage for Hayashi as well). He has asserted to confidants that he and Hayashi do not discuss politics at home (Link - J) -- a statement that burnishes his reputation of having only a weak grasp of the remotely plausible.

The question this morning is whether the PM best bud's secret tieing of the knot with a member of the opposition changes the relationship of trust and cooperation between the two men -- or whether in the new on-sunny-side-of-the-street-all-the-news-is-wonderful Abe II Cabinet (and of late, all the news for the administration has indeed been wonderful), everything is all to the good.

Later - For those wondering about Seko's position in the political spectrum, whether he is a moderate inside the Abe administration, the answer would be "not on your life." Class him rather as a pugnacious militant. He was a co-signer, along with Abe, of the Sakurai Yoshiko-authored advertisement in The New Jersey Star-Ledger of November 4, 2012 (yes, less than a year ago) denouncing the teensy-tiny comfort women monument on public land in Palisades Park, New Jersey. (Link)

Speaking of Sakurai, she makes a brief appearance speaking English (she is a graduate of the University of Hawaii in Manoa) in this just-released video report on Japan's decidedly minor (as ever) adjustments to its military posture and capabilities. (Link)

And Meanwhile, On The International Stage

Newsflash: a Japanese citizen, educated in Canada, spoke in English for an hour yesterday.

When asked about the ordeal, she replied that the experience was not very different from regular speech. (Link - J)

Hat tip to moderator Michael Penn for forwarding the Yomiuri Shimbun's account of Green Breeze party leader Tanioka Kuniko's unbelievable feat.

Failure To Atone

Pew Research's Global Attitudes Project has published its latest global survey of Asia Pacific attitudes toward Japan and Japan's government. (Link)

The results are pretty much as one would expect...and pretty depressing. Chinese and South Korean citizens and their respective governments are locked in a feedback loop of anti-Japanese hatred (I would write antipathy, but why equivocate?) from which no easy exit is visible...nor any exit at all, really. Prime Minister Abe is seen unfavorably in equal measure in the two countries -- 85% unfavorably -- at very high levels of certainty (only 6% of Chinese and 2% of South Koreans do not feel they know enough to make a call on Abe).

Were I Abe (and boy are you ever not him - Ed.) I would look at these results, look at my August schedule, shrug and pencil in my Yasukuni visit. "Look at these numbers. Seriously, how much worse could it get?" he could ask -- and he would be right.

Do check out Joelle Metcalfe's article that first alerted me as to the publication of the Pew Research findings. (Link)

The July 21, 2013 Election - Those Damn Internets

This summer's House of Councillors election will be Japan's first full-fledged online and social media election. The rules on Internet communications have been loosened, albeit not banished (One example of a legacy rule, reinterpreted for the new age? How does "during the campaign, while it is not illegal to forward an email from a candidate, it is illegal to print out that email on paper and hand distribute the paper printout" strike you?) For example, the first face-to-face (and possibly only) debate between the party leaders took place not in a terrestrial broadcast studio or at the National Press Club, but on a glitzy and demeaning stage provided by the Nico Nico Douga streaming site. (Link - J)

We have travelled very far from the dignified, controlled political presentations of even just a few years ago.

Three consequences of the new, Net-based campaign:

1) It will be both easier and harder to track the campaigns of individual candidates and their supporters.

More of what the candidate is doing and saying will be available for everyone to peruse at near zero cost.

However, with the plethora of videos, blog posts and tweets means there will be all the more political dross to wade through.

2) Japan’s mainstream media, print and broadcast, will be fighting a desperate and futile battle to pull politics back into their orbits.
NHK tried its best during its morning’s newscast to highlight purported abuses of net communications and how they may have affected election outcomes in South Korea, where Web participation is higher and the barriers on Web campaigning are lower.

The problem -- and it is a huge one for the major news media conglomerates, who have heretofore retained their vitality and relevance in Japan -- is that prime minister Abe Shinzo is enamored of communicating through the Internet. The Net has allowed Abe to be himself (whining that no one pays attention to him; thundering at any who dare criticize him) with neither the presentation of his ideas nor his attitude being challenged by those damn, pesky, back-stabbing journalists.

Speaking of which (being enamored of the Net, not back-stabbing journalists) the PM has moved beyond the confines of Facebook and is now striding the halls of LinkedIn.

3) As with any new toy, there is little awareness of the limits or levels of safe play. The July 2013 elections will likely be the coarsest, most heated and most dispiriting in history, despite the outcome being largely decided (the latest Yomiuri public opinion poll results are accessible here) and the lack of divisive national issues. Already this year there have been a number of kerfuffles over government and political figures losing their all sense of decorum in social media. (For one example of twittery, see - Link) 

The levels of abuse and ranting in this upcoming campaign (which officially kicks off on the 4th) will likely change the views many hold of this blessed land's politics, yours truly not excepted.

Where Is The Real Abe Shinzo And What Have You Done With Him?

On Wednesday, the Liberal Democratic Party released its campaign posters for the July House of Councillors election. (Link - J)

From the photo image on one of them, it seems that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has a previous undisclosed identical twin brother, ten years his junior.

Here is the photo this younger twin, taken from the Prime Minister's Facebook page:



The alternative explanation -- that the LDP's motto for this election, the same as it was in the last election, Nihon o, torimodosu ("Japan, I'm taking it back") is a prelude to the announcement of the Abe Cabinet's Fifth Arrow: time travel.

And judging from the photograph, the fifth arrow is working rather better than the other four.

All joking aside, Photoshop is for repairs, not makeovers.　There is nothing wrong with being 58 years of age and looking like it.

Skilled At Improvisation?

There is a reasonable debate about what the Japan Restoration Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai) represents. For most commentators the JRP is a haven for the detritus that the Liberal Democratic Party coughed up as unpalatable (for the latest on that score - Link). For others it is the vehicle for a refreshing form of anti-politics. This was certainly the view former LiveDoor CEO Horie Takafumi expressed last Wednesday. (Link)

I was firmly in the former camp. After Sunday, I am not so sure.

On Sunday, Your Party candidate for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government assembly Fujii Kaoru was plugging the crowds outside of Hikarigaoka Station in Nerima City. Dressed in a white suit (a trademark, it seems: Fujii is a dentist) she roved back and forth about the plaza, cheerfully seeking out passersby for a mutual bow or a handshake.

By mutual agreement or through mutual antagonism, Fujii had to quit the scene at noon, awkwardly ripping her microphone and headset off her head as she did. For even as she was gamely trying to engage the potential voters (who are, understandably, not terribly interested in the upcoming June 23 assembly election) a young woman with a keyboard and a bass player set up next to her, launching, in their first number, into as swinging a version of Duke Ellington's Satin Doll as one will ever hear.

So what? A Sunday afternoon concert sent the politician packing.

Well, no.

The young woman on the keys, giving the Duke his due and more? She was Matsuoka Rika, the JRP's Nerima candidate for the Tokyo assembly.

How long Matsuoka held court on the plaza, delivering cool jazz to the multitudes on sunny, lazy afternoon, I do not know. All I know is that four and a half hours later, when I came back to the station, she was still playing, calling out "Hello, good people of Nerima Ward. I'm the Nippon Ishin no Kai’s Matsuoka Rika!" every so often -- but letting the music do most of the talking.

Now I have seen my share of campaign stop performances…but this one was one for the history books.

Whether Matsuoka's unorthodox approach to campaigning comes at the encouragement of open-minded JRP executives -- "Go ahead, play. Do what works for you!" -- or out of a personal "Oh, well, what the hell" defiance of the odds, the JRP having fallen, according to Kyodo's latest poll, to fourth place among the parties with 4.8% of the voters supporting it (and to only 1.5% support in the latest NHK poll) -- the result was a refreshing departure from the usual practice of politics here.

That the candidate Matsuoka pounded out of the plaza was the one from the newly arch-enemy Your Party (Link) made the notes sound all the sweeter.


Later - Broken links in the above have been fixed.

Photo: Nippon Ishin no Kai candidate Matsuoka Rika. Nerima City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on June 9, 2013.

Photo courtesy: MTC

Reflections On The Prime Minister's Award In Truck Driving

All politicians, even those in non-democratic states, have to participate on a regular basis in some strange photo opportunities.

This, I put to the readers, is one:

The Prime Minister Receives a Courtesy Call from the Winners of the National Truck Driver Contest

Thursday, May 30, 2013

(Source)

With the Prime Minister is Mr. Tetsuya Takashima of Himeiji, Hyogo Prefecture. Mr. Takashima won both the 11 Ton Division and the Overall Title in the 44th annual National Truck Driver Contest. He and the Prime Minister are holding the Prime Minister's Cup, one of many, many such awards bearing the Prime Minister's imprimatur.

Not all Prime Minister's Awards are backed up with a trip to the Prime Minister's Residence to meet with the prime minister -- who, in a linguistic tussle, never resides in the Residence. This particular prime minister, who officially hails from Yamaguchi Prefecture, does not even reside in the Prime Minister's Residential Quarters, preferring to live in his actual home in his actual hometown of Tokyo -- prompting the ineffectually puckish Democratic Party of Japan to ask for an official government determination on whether or not the prime minister is too afraid of ghosts to live in the supposedly haunted Residential Quarters, a jibe that has played well internationally (Link) but has failed to hit home in the domestic media.

Returning to the subject of truck driving, it is one of the few tests of skill graced with an actual Prime Ministerial photo op.

However, this has not been the case for most of the contest's history. It was only during the premiership of Koizumi Jun'ichiro that a Prime Minister's Award winner in truck driving actually received his award from the hands of a prime minister.

According to the conventional wisdom, the trucking industry has been a vital constituency for the Liberal Democratic Party, supposedly pushing the LDP in the direction (there was not much resistance) of overenthusiasm for costly and under-used high-speed toll roads. It is also a part of the conventional wisdom that Ozawa Ichiro's desire to capture the trucking industry's votes led to the DPJ to promise it would eliminate tolls on the toll roads, despite the ruinous effect such an abolition would have had on government finances and the credibility of government pledges to reduce carbon emissions. The promises to eliminate highway tolls in order to "buy" the trucking industry vote became a big fat target for the LDP to shoot at after the LDP was dumped into the opposition. The promised reductions, which the public knew were dubious, were never carried out, serving in the end only as examples of the DPJ's tendency to promise more than it could deliver.

Despite the importance of trucking votes in Japanese politics it took 33 years of Prime Minister's Awards before the contest winners were let into the Residence.

Part of the reason may be the contest's unusual pedigree. The sponsor of the first two contests was The Science Museum (Kagaku gijutsukan -- I am sorry but that is the organization's actual English name), presumably as a means of promoting truck technology.

After two years under the control of the national museum, sponsorship of the contest was taken over, and I am not making this up, by the Yomiuriland amusement park.

There is a story there that I have no time to look into.

After 10 years of being a part of the weird and wonderful world that is the Yomiuri entertainment and media empire, sponsorship of the contest was transferred -- and again, I an not making this up -- to the Japan Youth Center (Nippon Seinenkan) -- an organization established as a system of social control by the Home Ministry and the Ministry of Education in the 1920s. (Link)

It was not until 1995 that the national truck driving contest landed in the lap of the organization that now controls it, the Central Training Academy for Safe Driving (Anzen unten chuo kenshujo -- Link J) -- where, among other things, the national police go to learn their vehicle　handling skills. The Diet established the national Safe Driving Center in 1975. However, it seems the Center was not deemed the proper administrator of the national contest of safe truck driving until a score of years later. (Link - J)

Interestingly, the year after the contest winners were first received at the Residence, the government privatized the Central Training Academy for Safe Driving.

Coincidental? Hmmm...having some contest winners meet the PM for a few minutes for a photo op at the Residence hardly seems compensatory for being thrust into the cold world of the private sector.

Why look into all of this, aside from the inadvertent deadpan hilarity of the title of the event on May 30?

The National Truck Driver Contest took place in the beginning of November. It has been over six months since the winners were announced.

When did previous prime ministers meet the contest winners?

Noda Yoshihiko - 1 February 2012

Kan Naoto - no meeting recorded on Kantei website

Hatoyama Yukio - 23 February 2010

Aso Taro - 15 January 2009

Fukuda Yasuo - no meeting recorded on Kantei website

Abe Shinzo - no meeting recorded on Kantei website

Koizumi Jun'ichiro met the contest winners more than once, and each time within weeks of the contest.

At least from the evidence in the Kantei's photo pages, Prime Minister Abe is not alone among his predecessors in not letting the trucking association bask in his glow. Prime ministers Kan and Fukuda did not receive the truckers at all (though a meeting may have been in Kan's calendar for March 2011 -- who knows?).

When prime ministers have hosted the truck driving contest winners, however, they have done so in a timely fashion -- not six months after the fact.

What can be read from this tardy reception?

The pragmatists might say that Abe has been so preoccupied with the revival of the animal spirits of Japan's economy that he could not find the time to meet the truckers before now.

The strategist might say that the truckers have never been an important constituency for Abe. He has met them but only as a gesture on behalf of his party a month before the House of Councillors election.

The cynic might say that Abe's meeting the winners six month's late is an example of a profound lassitude, another instance of an item getting pushed down the domestic political calendar, like the startling delay until May 15 of the passage of the national budget.

One should perhaps be cynical. When one checks the legislation the Abe Cabinet has managed to push through the Diet, bearing in mind that the ruling coalition has a supermajority in the House of Representatives, one should probably come away unimpressed.

Even less impressive is the rhetoric of the current administration. It may be difficult to find a clearer demonstration of the contrast between a commitment to normalcy after 3/11 and exploitation of tragedy than Prime Minister Noda's remarks to the truck driving contest winners in 2012 (Link - J) and Prime Minister Abe's remarks on Thursday. (Link - J)

Grist for the mills of those who believe in a substantive difference between the parties.

Later - I have to be careful. Any more of this kind of archeology of the banal -- following the threads leading out of the apparently trivial, arriving at all kinds of unexpected destinations -- and I will drive away all of my readers.

Image courtesy: Prime Minister's Residence

Worthwhile Reads #2 - On Abe And The Revisionists

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it 'Riding the Gravy Train' - yeah...

Pink Floyd, "Have a Cigar" (1975)

Two good essays from yesterday on Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the potential limitations on his freedom of action on the issues purportedly dear to him and his Friends:

Brad Glosserman, PacNet

Abe's dilemmas

Karl Gufstasson, East Asia Forum

Japanese Prime Minister Abe's U-turn on the Murayama Statement

Both essays hint at what appears to be a change in the way Abe Shinzo and his Cabinet operate. Both Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party squeaked into power in the LDP presidential and December House of Representatives elections, meaning that both faced pressures to produce results in the immediate term. However, for various reasons (the most convincing one I have heard: "the Japanese people are just tired of being in a bent over in a defensive crouch"), the man and the party have a mad surplus of political capital in the bank (Cabinet support, Party support). The July 21 (?) House of Councillors election will be a coronation.

Relieved of worries about July, Abe & Company can be insincere in every direction. They do not have to pander to a core constituency; they do not have to assemble a coalition of disparate forces. Instead they can play upon the neediness of particular interest groups by making what are head fakes toward their hot button issues, feigning commitment to a position, stirring up a fire storm of protest in response, then beating a hasty retreat. Tobias Harris has highlighted this stimulus-response-retreat pattern for the specific case of constitutional reform. However, the this-has-to-be-done/wow-why-are-folks-so-angry/oh-I-guess-it-can-wait model seems applicable to almost any policy initiative and constituency.

In terms of the red meat revisionist issues of Yasukuni visits, revising Article 9, war responsibility, the sanctioned brothel system and garrisoning the Senkakus, Abe and his Cabinet have the luxury of limiting themselves to gestures, signs and code words, signaling to their revisionist followers of their purported true beliefs, while going through desultory pantomimes of being held back by Japan's internal and external foes.

Of course, by making intermittent, sulphurous and maudlin shows of addressing an issue -- such as, let us say, securing the transfers of the remains of the deceased abductees and freedom of travel for the surviving relatives still in North Korea -- but never actually achieving the stated goals (or by constantly moving the goal posts further, which is effectively the same thing) -- the politician's gravy train rolls on.

The Hashist In The Lion's Den

What should be the hottest ticket in the TMD, if it is not already? Osaka City mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai co-leader Hashimoto Toru's appearance at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday. (Link)

Hashimoto intends to confront or put up a huge show of confronting foreign prejudice. He will try to deflect outward his comments earlier this month excusing the Japanese Imperial Army's sanctioned brothel system (the ianfu seido, a.k.a., the "comfort women system") and decrying the lack of U.S. military personnel patronage at Okinawa's sexual services establishments. He will try to paint everyone as black, then ask why Japanese citizens -- and by extension Hashimoto Toru -- have been singled out for criticism.

It is likely that Hashimoto will see a measure of success in his quixotic quest. He is a lawyer, which means his capacity for spewing reasonable-sounding nonsense is near infinite. He also a veteran of the pressure cooker world of "wide-show" infotainment programs, as well as of years standing before the microphones in hot pursuit of public office. He has honed a supercilious, in-your-face, bullying style that crushes most questioners, even the experienced journalists.

If I were present at Monday's session, and was given the grace of a moment at the microphone, what would I ask him?

I guess I would question the assumption that war makes men beasts in heat:

"Hashimoto-sensei, let me read to you what you said on the 13th of this month:

'Amidst a storm of flying of bullets, when you are trying arrange rest and relaxation for groups whose members are all wound up psychologically, the sanctioned brothel system is a necessity. Anyone can understand this.'

Are you not making the situation sound a lot more out-of-control and sexier than reality? Were not the patrons of comfort stations mostly assigned to boring garrison duty? Was not the 'Recreation and Amusement Association' created after Japan's surrender in order to procure women not for troops psychologically wound up by a storm of bullets but instead Occupation forces doing desk work and guard duty in a pacified and flying-bullet-free Japan? How did you come to accept occupying forces taking advantage of country's military and economic domination by using its women as sex toys to be instead a kind of sexual psychotherapy treating potential sociopaths? And what is the basis for your belief, seeing as how you have no personal experience of military life?"

Too long. Too complex. I know.

Still I would love to hear his response.

Original image courtesy: Sankei Shimbun