Okumura Jun's View Of The Diet Post-Election, And My Own

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, As is his habit and capacity, Okumura Jun has published a magisterial outlook, laying out the political situation in the Diet, post-House of Representatives election.

Okumura-san and I have been in agreement for a very long time that the Tanigaki Line -- block all significant Diet business in a bid to force the Democratic Party of Japan-led government into holding new elections -- was idiotic, as any post-election administration would have to be a coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party and the DPJ. Aggressively toppling the DPJ government through its effective control of the House of Councillors, only to have to reach out to the DPJ post-election because the LDP-New Komeito alliance lacked a 50% majority in the House of Representatives, seemed at best pointless, at worst a recipe for likely catastrophic intra-party strife.

Now that Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru has unleashed his beast, the Nihon Ishin no Kai (or Nippon Ishin no Kai - E), translated as the Japan Renewal Party -- whose initials are, as Okumura-san has noted, the same as Japan's national horseracing organization, an acronym that is as much a brand name as NEC -- I must part ways with Okumura-san.

The political calculus has changed.

The LDP, the DPJ and the JRA will finish first, second and third in the number of House of Representatives seats. However, in the popularity contest, the proportional seat voting, the DPJ will likely finish behind the other two parties, in third place.

As Okumura has suggested, the JRA's policy platform presents problems for any party wishing to form a post-election ruling coalition with the JRA as a partner. In particular, the JRA's Eight Policies (hassaku) include a host of promises requiring changes to the Constitution, a document that has not seen a single comma altered in it since its promulgation 55 years ago.

The sheer number of improbable promises being made guarantees that negotiations with the JRA on a common policy platform will be onerous.

However, the LDP will have little choice but to approach the JRA, the DPJ having an incentive and a cover story for sitting on the sidelines.

The DPJ's reasoning will be impeccable:

"The voters have spoken and rejected our rule. How can we double-guess the voters' judgment and team up with either of the parties whom the voters have chosen as our replacements?"

The LDP and the JRA will come up with something, probably involving a lot of study groups examining such hopeless causes as direct elections of the prime minister, revision of Article 9 and abolition of the House of Councillors. They will agree on policies to assign an identity number to everyone, to further diminish the independence of teachers, to eliminate the ability of local bureaucrats to engage in political campaigns (a delicious bit of hypocrisy, considering the number of local bureaucrats currently enrolled as students at Hashimoto Toru's juku) and to promote greater love of the government country.

Left behind, despite being ideas that both parties share, will be commitments to unifying of the prefectures into lander (doshusei) and ensuring the country's accession to the Trans Pacific Partnership. These policy changes will go nowhere precisely because of loud commitments the parties will make to them. Mandating unification and the TPP require "Nixon goes to China" decisions: only those who have never been supporters have the credibility to make the leap, in light of the country's changing situation.

After the formation of the coalition and the election of a new prime minister, probably Ishihara Nobuteru, the fun will really begin.

It will likely not be over policy, either.

I have criticized Ozawa Ichiro bitterly on many occasions. However, in one area of political endeavor, his efforts have proven spectacular: in the recruitment of talent. He himself has been dogged by unproven and unprovable accusations of corruption. His recruits to the DPJ, however, have been spectacular in their capacity to stay out of trouble, a stirring contrast to the lurid spectacle of that was and is the LDP. The vetting and courting process of potential candidates would often stretch out over years, with Ozawa involved every step of the way. Indeed, the bringing in of candidates into a party is perhaps the only part of politics Ozawa really enjoys.

The JRA's candidates will be recruited primarily out of the enthusiasts and acolytes who shelled out the cash to attend the Hashimoto juku. As such, it will be a collection of a hundred ticking time bombs of scandal. Messy divorces, delinquent taxes, yakuza friendships, love children for whom no child support was paid, buried stints in hospitals for depression -- you name it, they will have it, just like any neighborhood in this country, where the veneer of civility hides a thousand secrets.

The afternoon broadsheets and the weekly scandal magazines have no incentive to protect any of these fresh-minted politicians or bolster the upstart Hashimoto. Even the much beleaguered Ozawa had at least one evening newspaper in his corner: the JRA boys and girls will have nothing.

It will be as sharks at a feeding frenzy, like Abe Shinzo's Year of Living Luridly (remember the four different Ministers of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries? The attempted coverup of the loss of 50 million pension accounts? Matsuoka Toshikatsu's water purification devices and his suicide a few months later?), only many times worse.

At this the DPJ Diet members will just sit and watch, a frieze of Dr. Gachets, stirring themselves only to ask the occasional pertinent and embarrassing question.

An overwrought vision? Possibly. But a damn sight more likely than the LDP and DPJ cohabiting. Unlike the LDP, the DPJ was born an opposition party. Losing power is unpleasant for the party but does not pose an existential threat. The DPJ will not succumb to a frenzied search for anything -- ANYTHING (a Socialist as Prime Minister? We can do that.) to seize control of the Cabinet.

As was the case in 2009, it would indeed be best for the DPJ to just wait and let the golden apple drop into its lap, again.


Later - My apologies for not fixing the typos earlier. Something has been blocking my access to Blogger.

Taking Up Sides Against The Family

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Both the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan suffered breakdowns in party discipline in last night's no confidence vote.

As I noted in my live blogging of last night's vote, seven members of the LDP remained in the chamber and voted for the no confidence motion:

Nakagawa Hidenao
Shiozaki Yasuhisa
Suga Yoshihide
Koizumi Shinjiro
Kawai Katsuyuki
Shibamasa Masahiko
Matsunami Kenta

Disciplining the first four will be difficult. Nakagawa is already serving a six-month suspension of party privileges for having absented himself from the consumption tax bill vote in June. What to do now -- extend his suspension to a year?

Shiozaki presents an equally difficult conundrum. As a card-carrying member of the "Friends of Shinzo" -- the coterie of fanatabulist radicals who seized control of the government after their leader, Abe Shinzo, was elected prime minister -- he represents the vanguard of what has been a heretofore largely silent segment of the LDP's support base: the haters of postwar Japan as it is. Punishing Shiozaki severely threatens the unity of the Machimura Faction, which while ruled by a dove is filled with hawkish opponents of the current leadership group, its policies and its tactics.

As for Koizumi Shinjiro, he is a superstar, with the looks and the hooks to bring the house down. He has been among the LDPs most effective critics of the DPJ, from the very first weeks of the DPJ's turn as the party in power. He is a fourth-generation lawmaker, who won his father's district without his father lifting a finger to help him, a brilliant impromptu speaker and a winner in a year when the LDP first-termers had nearly zero chance of election.

He does not need the LDP: the LDP needs him.

On the DPJ side, there were two members who voted for the resolution: Kobayashi Koki, whom I disparaged yesterday, and Koizumi Toshiaki, who spent seven years cooling his heels after two terms as a DPJ district Representative. He was revived in the landslide election of 2009 as the Representative for Ibaraki District #3.

In addition to these two turncoats, who submitted their resignations from the party prior to last night's vote, five members of the DPJ's House of Representatives delegation called in sick.

Former Prime Minister Hata Tsutomu's illness was real: he has been hospitalized since February with an undisclosed illness.

Four other members, however, came down with illnesses of convenience:

Hatoyama Yukio
Kawauchi Hiroshi
Nakagawa Osamu
Tsuji Megumu

Kawauchi (Kagoshima District #1, 5th term) has been the human quote machine for a news media complex eager to find members of the DPJ willing to talk trash about the leadership. He has been a DINO (Democrat In Name Only) for as long as anyone can remember. His personal website (Link) has as its top line Kokumin seikatsu ga dai'ichi, the Ozawa Ichiro-dreamed up 2009 electoral slogan and the name of Ozawa's new party.

Kawauchi can and should be joining one of Ozawa's parties. However, he is far more useful to Ozawa as a DPJ irritant. The party should expel him. However, to expel Kawauchi and not expel Hatoyama will be difficult to explain.

Nakagawa is in his second term, having served from 2003-05 as a proportional seat member from the Kinki bloc. His career was revived by the 2009 landslide, where he became the district seat holder for Osaka District #18.

Tsuji Megumu has had a nearly carbon copy career, serving in a Kinki bloc proportional seat in 2003-2005. He lost his seat in the 2005 LDP landslide, then failed as the DPJ's candidate for mayor of Osaka City that same year. His career was also revived by the 2009 landslide, where he won the district seat for Osaka District #17.

The latter two mid-career veterans, with only a single district victory under their belts, have to be looking at the popularity of Hashimoto Toru's Osaka Ishin no kai and figuring that they have no chance at reelection as Democrats. Unfortunately for the pair, they have no chance of reelection as independents. If they had remained faithful to the leadership of the Democratic Party, then they might have at least had the chance to return to the Diet from the proportional list.

That is all water under the bridge now. The DPJ's local party organization will not support them as district candidates for the next election, ending their political careers.

As for Hatoyama, he is a special case. He is the co-founder of the DPJ. He and his mother bankrolled the party in its early years, when corporations would turn their backs on the party. He will be disciplined but in an insufficiently severe way, making it impossible to put a lid on the loquacious Kawauchi.

However, Hatoyama has gone too far. He has been both treacherous and useless. His tenure as prime minister was a disaster for the party, laying the groundwork for the party's losing control of the House of Councillors and thus the ability to set the political agenda. Since his downfall, an unrepentant Hatoyama has never ceased engaging in limp but still corrosive efforts to undermine his successors. He also encouraged Ozawa Ichiro, a man who has never understood the concept of party loyalty, to cause mischief.

Hatoyama should probably be considered the Fredo Corleone of the DPJ. He's family, so whadda ya gonna do? He is safe "as long as Mama is still alive" -- i.e., until such time as the current Diet is dissolved. The mainline leadership of the party will have to keep him at arm's length, but no further. After the Diet is dissolved, however, the present leadership will very probably take him fishing.

This Time, Definitely

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, A friend of mine tells a hoary joke about standing one's ground:

"Look, I've got my principles.  And if you don't like like 'em...well...then I got other principles!"

That is what I have rattling around inside my head when I read the news that Hashimoto Toru's Osaka Ishin no kai will revise its "Eight Policies of the Revival" (ishin hassaku) by or around the 20th of this month. (J)

The last two days have seen a heating up of efforts by opposition parties to topple the Noda government (J). This has understandably lit a fire under the Osaka Ishin no kai to revise its six-months old list of basic goals (J), especially since the original "Eight Policies" were simply nuts. That the Osaka Ishin no kai wants to become a real party and not just a political organization, may also have triggered a sudden "you know, maybe in February we got a little carried away" realization.

It will be hard, for example, for the new Ishin no kai political party to run candidates for office in the July 2013 House of Councillors elections, as the "Eight Policies" Version 1.0 called for the abolition of said House. That an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate the House of Councillors would have to be approved by the House of Councillors (with a two-thirds majority!) seems to have never crossed the Osaka Ishin no kai's directorate's mind.

Ooops.

I look forward to reading the revision.

On Hashimoto Toru's Limited Return

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, As Okumura Jun has noted, Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru is tweeting on Twitter, after a 10 day period of silence following the publication of a report detailing his affair with a bar hostess from 2006 to 2008.

What prompted his breaking his silence was his attendance last Thursday of a bunraku performance, after he swore in 2009 he would never attend another one.

The upshot of this second chance for the puppet theater, for which he had cut off public financial support when he became mayor: he hated it just as much as he did in 2009.

The bunraku theater's choice of having the mayor attend a performance of The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju) was baffling. The story is a complete downer; the motivations of the main characters obscure; their actions nonsensical; and their deaths pointless.

Not what you want to show a man who cut his teeth in the Osaka television entertainment complex.

So he returned to tweeting in order to pontificate on the bunraku and his idea of popular culture, which evolves and thrives without government subsidy.

For five whole days.

Admittedly, there was a brief interlude where he considered an Asahi Shimbun report on his reforms of Osaka's bureaucracy. Otherwise it was all bunraku, all the time.

Finally, on August 1, Hashimoto shifted gears and started bashing one of his more usual great bugaboos: the Board of Education. He then shifted to a discussion of the powers and responsibilities of ward mayors in the city of Yokohama, a part of his own greater discussion his reform of the internal organization and responsibilities of the wards of Osaka City. Not coincidentally, on August 1, Hashimoto held a ceremony at Osaka City hall handing out the mayoralties of 21 of the 24 wards of Osaka, 16 of which were handed out to private citizens -- a step toward his grander scheme of converting Osaka from a prefecture to a metropolitan district. (J)

[An aside: one mystery has always been why, aside from Osakans having a huge chip on their shoulders regarding the Tokyo Metropolitan District, Hashimoto has been so obsessed with this conversion. One possible explanation is that transforming Osaka into a metropolitan district makes it the presumptive candidate for the proposed backup capital to Tokyo, with mirrored national goverment functions in the event Tokyo is destroyed or critically disabled by a natural or human-caused disaster.]

After the Yokohama ward mayors discussion, however, it has been nothing but more bashing of the Board of Education and the freedom the education system from control by elected officials, who represent the will of the majority [A bit of leap there, Toru-kun, given the voter turnout for mayoral elections - MTC].

From his Twitter feed, however, one would never learn that Hashimoto handed off to his protégé Osaka Governor Matsui Ichiro the honor of announcing that Hashimoto's brainchild, the Osaka Ishin no kai, will be participating in the next House of Representatives election as a formal political party (E). To expedite this process, Osaka Ishin no kai will be recruiting five sitting members the Diet to form their own Ishin no kai subsidiary, which Osaka Ishin no kai would then absorb in a reverse merger. (J)

This is huge political news, something that Hashimoto, if his ego were as gargantuan as portrayed in the media, would reserve for himself.

Unlike Ozawa Ichiro, however, who never accepted the political reality that for his reforms to succeed he had to step back and let others run them, Hashimoto acknowledged himself as too damaged by his marital problems to be the man at the microphone at the ceremony announcing the big change.

The reason for the Osaka Ishin no kai's change in course, from a political movement -- which has done extremely well, seizing the Osaka governorship, control of the Osaka prefectural assembly and the Osaka City's mayor's office -- to a full-fledged party is the same reason why Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life First Party seems on a course toward implosion: money.

There are many benefits to being a formal party, due to this blessed land's absurd electoral regulations. As a political party, Osaka Ishin no kai could legally distribute campaign literature, It would be legally empowered to broadcast political ads. With five Diet members as in its embrace, Osaka Ishin no kai would have the ability to have its candidates double listed, as district candidates and on the proportional party list.

The real benefit is, however, the ability to receive money. At present, Osaka Ishin no kai is forbidden from receiving funds from corporations and organizations. It is also, of course, ineligible for public campaign financing (J). It has been sidling up to the small- and medium-sized business owners of the Kansai region, asking them for private donations. However, the prospects of financing a national movement this way are poor. The movement has also had to jump through legal hoops, at one point establishing a non-profit organization with the sole purpose of absorbing one industrialist's gift of 100 million yen. (J)

Just do not ask Hashimoto about the details regarding all this. Oh he knows them; he just will not talk about them. He will refer you to Matsui.

So Hashimoto's back -- but in a truncated form, for the time being.

The July Trade Deficit And The Green Movement

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, While in June, Japan's trade surplus, despite a 24.5% year-on-year increase in the imports of liquified natural gas for power generation, was 60 billion yen -- a minor decline from June 2011, when it was 64 billion yen (J). In the year to June, however, Japan's trade deficit was 2.9 trillion yen, up 103% from the previous 6 month span and greater than the trade deficit for all of 2011. Fuel imports were up 21% in the first 6 months of this year, with LNG imports up a hefty 49.4%. (J)

The trade deficit in July, however, is likely to be even more stunning. With utilities and independent power producers possibly trying to stock up before the worst days of summer, the deficit for just the first half of July was a colossal 368 billion yen. Given unceasing heat waves this blessed land has experience over the second half of this month, it would not surprise if the deficit in July is greater than one quarter of the deficit over the first half of the year. (J)

Headlines regarding a massive importation and burning of fossil fuels for electric power generation will certain provide grist for the mills of those who wish to disparage the anti-nuclear movement. It will be hard to argue for a cessation of the use of nuclear power generation, as the Green Party, established on Saturday, has demanded (J) in this atmosphere. In light of Japan's burgeoning LNG addiction, absolutism about nuclear power is likely to garner the mockery of the news media, the Noda government and the industrial establishment.

The Green Party (Midori no to -- not to be confused with Midori no kaze, the four woman, anti-nuclear, anti-TPP caucus in the House of Councillors) hopes to run district and party list candidates in next summer's House of Councillors election. As for the next House of Representatives election, whenever it is held, the Greens hope to present a list of candidates for the proportional election, while possibly lending support to the candidates of existing and like-thinking parties in the districts.

The existence of a third anti-nuclear party in the proportional voting is bad, bad news for both the SDP and LF. The SDP could conceivably fall beneath the five Diet-member limit for a party eligible for public elections funds. With Green support, however, some of the SDP members fighting for district seats might gain an edge.

Unlike the SDP, the LF has enough viable candidates in the district seats that the Green Party's participation in a House of Representatives election does not pose an existential threat. Nevertheless the LF, with its opportunistic rather than ideological stance against nuclear power, has to worry about a Green Party's whittling votes in the proportional race. The LF's sizable proportional seat contingent in the House of Representatives could face annihilation.

The Greens set out with significant barriers to their affecting policies in the way the party wishes. They will have a hard time fighting an image of anti-nuclear fanaticism. They will also splinter the anti-nuclear movement, paradoxically serving the interests of the moderately-pro-nuclear ruling Democratic Party and the strongly pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party.

By the time Hashimoto Toru's Osaka Ishin no kai enters the ring, assuming Hashimoto Toru emerges from his current funk (J) and assuming Hashimoto still wishes to take on national politics after the parties in the Diet went on their knees yesterday, promising to transform Osaka Prefecture into a Metropolitan District by the end of August (J) -- and given Hashimoto's pragmatic "opposed but oh well we need it right now" approach to nuclear power --the importance of the Greens to national politics will become somewhat clearer.

In Sunday's Yamaguchi Prefecture gubernatorial election, Hashimoto's anti-nuclear advisor Iida Tetsuya Tetsunari, campaigning against the completion of the Kaminoseki nuclear power station, finished a respectable second in a field of four, garnering an impressive 35% of the vote to 48% for the LDP-New Komeito backed winning candidate.

Iida's second-place finish and receipt of over a third of the vote was particularly impressive given he had only been in the race for a month; had no formal organization when he started; was practically a carpet bagger (he has not lived in the prefecture for 35 years); Yamaguchi is absolutely dominated by the LDP; and a former DPJ member was one of the other three candidates running.

Now interpreting the results as indicative of a strong anti-nuclear allergy, even the most conservative and public works-dependent of prefectures, might be premature. Nearly 50% of the public nationwide allies itself with no particular political party, meaning that a powerful anti-all established parties feeling already exists in the electorate. Both the LDP-New Komeito-back candidate and the former DPJ member candidates could have also been victims of an anti-MV-22 Osprey backlash, the controversial aircraft having been deployed last week to the U.S. Marine Corps base in Iwakuni.

The high percentage of the total vote Iida received may have also been aided by the low overall voter turnout. Gubernatorial elections have of late had notoriously low turnouts. Sunday's contest was no exception, attracting only attracted 45.32% of the electorate -- the second lowest percentage ever for the normally politically charged prefecture. (J)

Just what percentage of votes a protest candidate like Iida would win in a national contest, when participation numbers are much higher, is at best unclear.

However, it can be argued that Iida's participation likely sparked interest in what was going to be a lackluster contest, increasing voter participation. If slates of outsider candidates can lure to the polls those who would otherwise toss away their ballots, the LDP and the DPJ, but particulary the DPJ, will be in serious straits. The Noda government's rollout of the Oi reactor restarts was a fiasco, energizing as if with a lightning strike the previously somnolent anti-nuclear movement. All the DPJ, even those favoring a nuclear phase-out, are tarred with the brush of the Noda government's impossibly quick determination of the safety of the Oi reactors.

So what will be the color of the revolution, or at least this iteration of it?


Later - Here is the Nihon Keizai Shimbun report on the preliminary July first half trade figures making the same guess I did above. (J - WARNING - link rot sets in fast)

Much later - Many thanks to reader MP for his alert reading of this post.

He Just Keeps Getting Better And Better

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Over at Japan Security Watch and the search-engine-optimization-hostile σ1, Corey Wallace takes a grand tour of East Asia and the pitfalls looming in the massive wave of government changeovers this fall.

READ IT. (Link)

Mr. Wallace hedges in his final paragraph, describing the post's viewpoint as as "mostly cynical."

You can relax, Mr. Wallace: no one has ever lost any money on "mostly cynical" -- ever.

Hashimoto Toru's Infidelity Revealed

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, On July 18, Shukan Bunshun printed a full-documented article (an oddity, for the publication) revealing the existence of sexual relationship between Osaka mayor Hashimoto Toru and a bar hostess since 2006. Unfortunately for Hashimoto, he had married his longtime live-in girlfriend Noriko in 1995, making his sexual relationship with the bar hostess an illicit affair.

Now Hashimoto's ability to escape damage to his image from the revelation of the affair could be helped if his marriage could be categorized as, to put it delicately, unfulfilling. However, in between 1997 and 2007, Noriko gave birth to 7 children -- which, given suppressed fertility during lactation, is evidence of nearly uninterrupted "good relations" from 1996 to 2006.

To those who would dismiss the matter, noting that many other politicians have had affairs exposed with little effect on their careers, I would offer the proposition that times have changed. True, Hashimoto has claimed to be a poor father, if not poor at fathering -- though he perversely won a "Best Father" award in 2006 -- the year he began his affair with the hostess. Hashimoto's his most famous quote on his parenting skills is: "Without my wife present, my limit of my being with the kids is about 30 minutes."

His rubbishing of his fathering skills (which his wife has echoed, saying, "What could I possibly have to tell you about his childrearing?") is one thing, abandoning his pregnant wife for a fling with a bar hostess will hurt him and his Ishin no kai with women voters, who make up at least half of his and his organization's supporters.

In general, hypocrisy does not wear well on lawyers, particularly ones who have made a career out of calling out others for their hypocrisy and stupidity.

Hashimoto is in heavy damage control mode, repeating since the publication of the story that he has caused his wife and family distress (J). Yesterday at a press availability he told reporters 15 times "This is an internal matter of the family" -- which means, of course, that it is not. (J)

How serious does Hashimoto think this story affects his public image? One measure is the extent to which he has clammed up since the Shukan Bunshun article has appeared.

Let us check out his Twitter feed, to be found at http://twitter.com/t_ishin/

July 8 - 97 tweets (!!!)
July 9 - 25 tweets
July 10 - 16 tweets
July 11 - 39 tweets (25 seem to be misdated July 12)
July 12 - 35 tweets
July 13 - 24 tweets
July 14 - 24 tweets
July 15 - 30 tweets
July 16 - 8 tweets
July 17 - 4 tweets
July 18 - 0 tweets
July 19 - 0 tweets

When Japan's most opinionated and possibly arrogant self-made man shuts up, he is telling you something: that he at least thinks himself in the deep bat guano.


Later - The Japan Times article on the scandal revisits Yamamoto Mona's affair with the married Hosono Goshi (E). The scandal did nothing to dent Hosono's standing within the Democratic Party of Japan. Hosono is indeed now the serving Minister of the Environment and the Cabinet's point man on the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Hosono's being able to shrug off the affair was aided by the popular depictions of Yamamoto, at the time a TV news reader and single, as having been the aggressor in the relationship.

Hatoyama and Hashimoto, Hatoyama and Ozawa, Hashimoto and Ozawa

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Oscar Wilde once described the proper English gentleman on horseback chasing after a fox as "the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." Yesterday on television, we had "the unbelievable examining the undoable" -- Hatoyama Yukio criticizing the "Ishin no Kai Version of Eight Policies From The Ship" (Ishinkaihan no sennchu hassaku). (J)

Nominally, having Hatoyama offering his opinions about the Osaka Ishin no Kai's long-range vision for Japan is a former prime minister calling upon his collected wisdom and practical knowledge to point out the flaws in the policy program of a popular protest movement whose emergence has jolted the political realm. In reality, it is having a man who does not know his own mind commenting about persons who are quite out of theirs.

Why go through this agony? Since Hatoyama has no opinions of his own, he might be channeling the thoughts of his ally/former puppeteer, Ozawa Ichiro. Just what Ozawa is thinking about the Ishin no Kai and its leader Hashimoto Toru is of great interest, as Hashimoto's movement and Ozawa Ichiro's plans for himself and his followers inside the Democratic Party of Japan (the "Is-he-in-or-is-he-out?" question) are the two most glamorized sources of potential disruption of the political sphere.

[Whether or not the two are the most interesting or likely sources of disruption is not relevant. Hashimoto and Ozawa are simply the easiest subjects to write about. In a sense, this concentration of attention is mostly about journalistic sloth.]

Hashimoto and Ozawa coming to some sort of quid pro quo regarding the toppling of the Noda government and the construction of a new political order after a snap House of Representatives election* has been the subject of fevered speculation (E). Just how Hashimoto's corporatism (the next person who calls it "populism" needs to find out how to use a search engine or a dictionary) meshes with Ozawa's Liberal Democratic Party socialism ("Ice cream for everybody now! We'll think about paying for it tomorrow!") has not been clarified, perhaps because elucidating a basis for these two autocrats reining in their colossal egos long enough for a coordinated overthrow of the current, constipated regime is asking too much of the domestic political wind machine.

Finally, for a bit of fun, check out the website for the newest buddy comedy crime thriller Osaka Ishin no Kai (Link). Yes, it does look like a movie version of what a website of a upstart political movement should look like.

As in the life of Hashimoto Toru, politics and entertainment blur.

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* Yes, I know that holding elections at this time would be unconstitutional.  So do all the national political writers and politicians.  However, they still they write and talk about it.

Chaos Awaits

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko managed to slip out of town over the weekend, leaving to Deputy Prime Minister Okada Tatsuya, Loose Cannon Sengoku Yoshito, Environment Minister Hosono Goshi and State Minister for Reconstruction Hirano Tatsuo the unpleasant and somewhat Sisyphean job of trying to convince regional governors and city officials that restarting the Oi Power Plants #3 and #4 reactors is a simply smashing idea. During his absence from Tokyo, the PM managed to slip in and out of the United States without creating much of a fuss or an impression (E - yes, I am aware of the shortcomings of the source). Luckily at the summit, where the PM would normally face probing questions as to what the government of this blessed land will do to initiate the move of Marine Corps elements from Futenma to a replacement facility at Henoko in Nago City, got completely lost in the strategic and human rights nightmare of the Chen Guangcheng Affair, which has so far managed, in remarkable thoroughness, to make everyone including Chen looking bereft of any sort of long-range thinking.

After these two immaculate escapes from tight spots, Noda will be returning to Tokyo, leaving behind only the impression of a heretofore unremarked-upon bulk: "For a Japanese PM, this guy has some weight to throw around."

The Impenetrable One returns to an ambiguous situation in the Diet. The business in the House of Councillors should be grinding to a halt due to the Liberal Democratic Party's boycott of all Diet official business, including committee meetings. Unfortunately for the LDP, however, its electoral and Diet business partner the New Komeito has elected to continue participating in House of Councillors affairs, straining the strong relationship between the LDP and the New Komeito and putting immense pressure on the easily exasperated and not particularly creative LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu to craft a bridge to his erstwhile allies.

Meanwhile, withing the DPJ, the question of Ozawa Ichiro's reinstatement to full party membership awaits. It is not really much of a question: with his trial over, a not-guilty verdict and no chance of the prosecutors refiling charges -- double jeopardy being one of the "Surprise, I Still Got Ya" deviations this blessed land makes from the practices of The Greater Mentor -- the United States -- nothing stands in the way of his reinstatement.

[As regards double jeopardy, I can still remember the look of open-mouthed disbelief on Liberal Democratic Party bigwig Muraoka Kanezo's face when he was told he had been reindicted for his part in the Hashimoto Dental Association Affair. "How is that possible?" he asked, incredulous, his certitude collapsing. He was found guilty in the prosecutors office's second attempt to put him away.]

What Ozawa will do once he is reinstated is the big question. The news media, having the incentive to make politics seem far more exciting than it is, have been predicting that Ozawa, with his allies clustered closely about him rather than loosely as they were in his days of exile, will run rampant through party politics, threatening to withhold their votes on marquee policies such as the enabling legislation for the imposition of a doubling of the consumption tax and for the framework allowing Japan to begin preliminary talks on joining the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement.

Truth is, that even despite the suspension, Ozawa and his allies were running pretty rampant before Ozawa's acquittal was handed down on April 26 (one with an implicit warning to Ozawa that the case against him was not proven, that he was not necessarily not guilty of violations of law, only not guilty of the charges under which he had been tried). That they were unable to derail the prime minister's program of imposing the tax, when solid economic arguments against its imposition were available, shows that the Ozawa team is not quite the machine it is purported to be.

As for Ozawa leading his team of intra-party commandos in a torpedoing the Noda Program (and if anyone can tell me what that might be, please leave a comment below), the man in the surgical mask has always done most of his work at home, where no one can see him or out in the countryside. His attendance record at the Diet and at DPJ functions is abysmal.

Getting his suspension lifted will likely not have much of an effect on Ozawa's activities, especially with 77% of the voters (Kyodo news poll of April 28-29) thinking that despite his acquittal, he still has an obligation to go before the Diet and explain the creative accounting practices of his aides and what, if anything, was going on in his name.

Noda himself must face the wrath of the voters, seemingly dismayed by the government's eagerness to restart the Oi reactors, despite a majority of the voters in the cities and prefectures surrounding the plant opposing the restart as premature. The voters of surrounding communities, ones who have not been bought off over the decades by jobs at the plants, top-class public facilities and services and direct subsidies, find that restarting reactors that are guaranteed safe to operate for the most part (omune ni) is an unacceptably qualified state of affairs. Voters around the nation seem to share these feelings. While the Oi restart cannot be directly linked to the loss of public confidence in the government and the DPJ in April (bloody uninquisitive pollsters...) the restart was the only of two significant rows to break out during the month in question.

That the popularity numbers for the Cabinet are poor is a matter of opinion. I have have argued before that the best an active prime minister can hope for is around 30%, after the initial burst of post-election popularity has dissipated. The Noda Cabinet's current reading of 29%, down two points from the March reading of 31% is relatively good in light of the extremely controversial policies (the consumption tax, the reactor restarts) the government is pursuing.

What is in inescapable is that the popularity numbers for the Democratic Party of Japan are dire and that April was a catastrophic month for the party. To the all important question, "What party will you cast your vote for on the proportion ballot in the next House of Councillors election?" the party-by-party numbers for April 28-29 were as below, with the previous month's figures are in [ ].

DPJ 13.2% [20.0]
LDP 22.7% [23.3]
Your Party 6.0% [7.3]
New Komeito 3.6% [4.2]
Japan Communist Party 3.4% [2.7]
Sunrise Party 1.3% [0.8]
Democratic Socialist Party 0.9% [0.3%]
Japan New Party 0.8% [0.6]
Other 2.3% [3.0]

None Of The Above 46.1% [37.4]

In addition to the pell-mell efforts to restart the Oi reactors, the DPJ's ugly and very public internal battles over the consumption tax likely did little to foster confidence in the party's leadership abilities. Internal debate is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when real compromises are weighed and consequences of decisions considered. Just saying "No" to what the other side is suggesting, however, is a sure way to make your assembly look like an overgrown and overpaid PTA.

The real winner in the month of acrimony was, as is seemingly the case with increasing frequency "None of these b___ds" - which pulled in 46% of the vote, up a whopping 9% from the readings a month earlier.

The goals for the Noda Cabinet and the DPJ, if it can hold together as a party, are clear:

- articulate the reasons why the Cabinet sees raising taxes as a necessity

- continue to find ways of driving wedges in between the New Komeito and the LDP

- hope that after exerting every possible effort to restart the Oi reactors and other reactors feeding into the grid served by Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO), their efforts fail.

The last is a cynical but seemingly necessary failure of the imposition of national will over local governmental authorities. Any responsible national government, looking at the predicted shortfalls of generating power in the Kansai, would be proceeding as the Noda government has proceeded. The politicians and the citizens of the Kansai region, particularly the voters of Osaka City and their mayor, Hashimoto Toru, have perversely been those most opposed to the restart of the reactors, despite KEPCO's assertions that it faces a crushing lack of generating capacity of nearly 20% this summer. (J)

Hashimoto and the voters of Osaka have a deep mistrust of KEPCO, extending back to last year. KEPCO's management has been far from transparent about its power capacity and rate calculations. However, this blessed land dodged a bullet last year, the summer being rather mild and the nation's tolerance for energy saving being exceptionally high. This year may be very different, and will almost certainly be most different not in the capital region or the region hardest hit by the earthquakes and tsunami but in the Kansai and Hokkaido, where the power companies were most deeply committed to nuclear power.

Should Hashimoto and other local leaders persist in hampering the restarts of reactors, and the resulting lack of power generating capacity lead to blackouts, either planned or unplanned, the Kansai's current regionalist challenge to Tokyo control will be severely damaged. Hashimoto's political ambitions may indeed be seriously set back, if the government can pin the blame for the power cuts on him, saying, "We told you so, we told you so, we told you so...and you just would't listen."

A brutal political calculus, perhaps. One that even could lead to some persons actually dying for lack of electricity. However, the blame squarely lies on the ambition and blindness of Hashimoto and his ilk, willing to ride a populist wave, even if it leads to disaster.

Bang A Gong

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, The Spring list of awardees of national honors is out and it is a snoozer. Except for Sakaiya Tai'ichi, Iwashita Shima and Jacques Diouf, one is left asking "Who are these folks?" and in the rare instance where one knows the answer, "Why this award, now?"

Sakaiya Tai'ichi (real name: Ikeguchi Kotaro) has received the Grand Cordon Order of the Rising Sun for his contributions as a former bureaucrat and a writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was, until recently, a key supporter of Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru, providing some intellectual firepower and legitimacy to Hashimoto's Osaka Ishin no Kai movement. He has downplayed his ties with Hashimoto since the Ishin no Kai released its eight point Ishin Hassaku plan for reviving the country, parts of which Sakaiya has derided as rubbish.

Choosing to honor actress Iwashita Shima (real name: Shinoda Shima) with an Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, a decidedly low-ranking award for someone who has contributed so much to Japanese cinema, still represents a pretty gutsy call for the awards committee. Iwashita, whatever her actual morals, always played the baddest of the bad girls. In terms of the number of sex scenes in which she has appeared in what have been classed as serious films, she is simply without peer (if I am wrong in this, please tell me).

That Iwashita travels in rather better social circles than the characters she has played can be surmised by her having been one of the featured lecturers last year at Shimomura Mitsuko's juku.

As for the awards, they are, as they always have been, a way of only adding to the disparity between what bureaucrats do for other bureaucrats and what they do for the populace at large. In addition to their pensions, their lump sum retirement grants, their falling gently into sinecures at corporations or non-profits, bureaucrats and other officials are still receiving the lion's share of the gongs: over 56% of the 4110 handed out this spring. (J)

Also as usual, the over 50% of the population of this blessed land with XX chromosomes got gypped, receiving a mere 9% of the awards.

Not Quite The Protocols Of Zion, But...

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, There is a problem with moles. They live underground, shoveling through the dirt, feasting on worms, safe from predation. But every so often, as if to spite fate, their snouts pop up out of the ground...

City employee list 'fabricated'
The Yomiuri Shimbun

OSAKA--The Osaka Municipal Transportation Bureau said a list of its employees released by a city assembly member as evidence of the bureau's labor union's systematic support of the former Osaka mayor during November's mayoral election was fabricated by a temporary employee of the bureau.

The list was released by Kotaro Sugimura, an Osaka municipal assembly member, in February. Sugimura belongs to Osaka Ishin no Kai (Osaka restoration group), which is led by incumbent Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto. Hashimoto defeated his predecessor, Kunio Hiramatsu, in the November election.

According to the transportation bureau, the employee is in his 30s and works at the bureau's railway service headquarters on a part-time basis. He is not a union member, the bureau said Monday...

[Link]

Evidence of conspiracies against the leader, fabricated! Who would have ever thought it possible?

OK, So Maybe We Are Wrong

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Let us assume that Ozawa Ichiro is right, that the public wants the Democratic Party of Japan to fulfill its campaign promises of 2009 -- and that unless the DPJ returns to the true path (that, we shall not forget, Ozawa authored) by the time the next elections come around, the party.

Or, let us assume that Tanigaki Sadakazu, Ishihara Nobuteru and Oshima Tadamori are right, that the nation is sick to death of the bumbling and stumbling of the DPJ, particularly its inability to come to internal agreement on the government's major policy plank, the revitalization of the social welfare compact through a rise in the consumption tax.

Or, let us assume that the league of anonymous analysts are right, that the government is incapable of making the significant changes Japan needs to invigorate itself, meaning that Noda Yoshihiko is heading downhill and out the door the same way his last five predecessors have.

Then why in the dickens are the support levels of this Cabinet rising at this time? The Kyodo News poll of this morning finds support for the Cabinet rising to 32% from 29% the month before. This finding echoes the Jiji Press finding of cabinet support at 27%, a rise of 3 points from a month earlier (J) and NHK's finding of cabinet support at 33%, up 2 points from a month earlier (link expired). A week ago, the Yomiuri Shimbun found cabinet support at 35%, 5 points up from a month earlier (J). A week before that Nippon Television found a similar 5 point rise in public support for the cabinet (link expired).

Now these moves, while in sync with one another, may not represent an updraft for the Noda government. For all we know, they may represent a firming of confidence in government in general in response to the upwelling of feelings of national unity over the 3/11 anniversary. The politics-news-entertainment complex may have been pulling its punches pre-anniversary, giving the government a breather from the usual battering it faces, allowing the electorate to have a brighter view of the present.

Still, if the Noda government were really messing up, or the country on the way to a political train wreck, one would expect at least some polls to show declines in cabinet support.

Obviously, that is not happening.

Indeed, even more reassuring the PM and his government should be the fall in the percentage those holding negative views of the Cabinet: down 5 points in the Kyodo poll, down 3 points in the Jiji Press poll, down 5 points in the Yomiuri poll.

On the all-important question of which party the electorate will vote for in the bloc proportional vote (noting, of course, that a national survey does not reflect the strength of a particular party's appeal in specific blocs) the prime minister's party still trails the Liberal Democratic Party. The Kyodo poll finds the split to be 20% for the DPJ versus 23% for the LDP: the Yomiuri poll finds find the split to be 17% versus 21% (J).

For both parties, the real pain will be in the Kinki bloc, where the Yomiuri poll found that the top vote getter would be Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no kai receving 24% of the committed vote, with the LDP second at 18% and the DPJ third at 10%. (J)

The Ishin no kai's participation in the next House of Representatives election, even while not generating direct support of greater than a quarter of the voters in its home region, is still popular overall. In the Yomiuri poll, 58% of the electorate has positive expectations over the Ishin no kai's participation in national politics. In a poll the Mainichi Shimbun conducted in the first week of March, 61% of the electorate had favorable views of Ishin no kai participation in national politics (J).

Today's Kyodo polls frames the question of the Ishin no kai's rise and the possible formation of a "true conservative" party under the command of some combination of Ishihara Shintaro, Hiranuma Takeo and Kamei Shizuka in a different way: if the government could be rearranged according to your wishes, what would be its constituent parts?

A government with the DPJ at its heart 8%
A government with the LDP at its heart 13%
A grand coalition government of the DPJ and the LDP 23%
A new structure based on a realignment of the political world 38%
Other 4%
No opinion 12%

(due to rounding, the above does not add up to 100%)

A grand coalition, which the press has been talking up ad nauseum over the weekend after Deputy Prime Minister and designated go-between with the opposition parties Okada Katsuya purportedly talked about a grand DPJ-LDP coalition over several bills --- an offer Okada denies making, not that he might not be making it at some future time, mind you (J) does not set the public's heart a-flutter. The large number of persons wishing for a whole new political world, together with the miserably low numbers for a future DPJ-centered government may light a fire under the tails of some in the DPJ to accept the Noda government's already significant openness to the opinions of the opposition, particularly the New Komeito but the LDP as well (the other opposition parties might just as well not exist).

As to when the electorate next wants a shot at choosing its representatives, those desiring to have an election next year outnumber those wanting an election this year 66% to 27%, with the plurality (44%) wanting the current House of Representatives to serve out their full terms, again according to Kyodo News.

So we are on course for a double (House of Representatives - House of Councillors) election next year in mid-summer -- which is good because the Diet has yet to tackle the black hole in the nation's voting systems, the methods of electing the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors both being unconstitutional.

Tanigaki Sadakazu And Godwin's Law

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, It had to happen eventually, and as almost as eventually, Liberal Democratic Party President Tanigaki Sadakazu was going to be the man at the center of the action.

Hashimoto Toru's blustery manner, tyrannical treatment of civil servants and pursuit of enforced patriotism has emboldened some of his followers to monitor at school graduations ceremonies not only whether teachers and school administrators were standing for the national anthem but whether their mouths were moving (J has led to elites, mostly based in the capital, to deride his Hashimoto's manner and his political quasi-party the Ishin no kai as representing "Hashism."

It was up to Tanigaki to violate Godwin's Law -- which means to confirm it, of course.

On Sunday, in a speech in Kyoto, Tanigaki stamped up and down on subtlety and seemingly stepped in kemo sabe.**

"In saying that party politics is no good, it is like like the emergence of the military faction in the teens of the Showa Era. It seems to be in the same atmosphere that Hitler and Mussolini emerged." (J)

OK, wow, he has gone and done it, called Hashimoto a neo-proto-Hitler.

Somebody had to do it.

One cannot not deride Tanigaki's musings as a full expression of Godwin's Law, where given time and an ever enlarging number of comments the chances of a debate devolving into comparisons with Hitler comes to equal 1. Kamei Shizuka called former prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro a "Hitler" in 2003 for having the temerity to use his powers a president of the LDP to force members to toe the line he set for the party (E). Boy, I am sure Kamei was surprised when Koizumi forced him out of the LDP two years later!

Tanigaki's comparison of Hashimoto Toru's rise that of Hitler comes prefaced by negative remarks about the rise of the military faction in the Japanese government during the 1930s.

Such talk would seem odd from the grandson of one of the generals who commanded the forces invading and occupying China. However, Kakesa Sadaaki was not your ordinary 1930s general. Indeed, he was transferred out of China and plopped on the island of Rabaul on the direct order of Prime Minister Togo Hideki for having being too solicitous and respectful of the Chinese.

One of Tanigaki's main political peculiarities, one which is not so peculiar given the example set by his grandfather, is his comfort with things Chinese as compared the rest of the LDP, which tends to be extremely suspicious if not paranoid about China. While his affection toward China is focused more on its classical tradition, thinking positively of China would, in a happier world, serve as a bridge between himself and Ozawa Ichiro, who has cultivated close relations with the leaders of China, despite the political unpopularity of such behavior.

Should sinophilia be seen a litmus test in Japanese politics against fascism? In Ozawa's case it is clearly does instill distaste of strong man rule, when the policies merit it. Just who might be the judge of the merit of said policies is the question. Ozawa clearly took Democratic Party of Japan's 2009 House of Representatives victory as a justification of the implementation of the party's 2009 manifesto. That the DPJ victory might possibly have been as much the result of disgust with the LDP as a stamp of approval for the manifesto did not serve as a bridle on Ozawa, who saw to it that the promises were carried out, even at the cost of party unity, party popularity and the term in office of his puppet Hatoyama Yukio.

But back to what happened on Sunday. Despite Tanigaki's tendency to misunderstand situations and concepts, his sincerity he feels in comparing "Hashism" to its namesakes is not as easy to dismiss as it would be had the above quote issued from other lips.

-----------------------------------------

* This last news item has already been mentioned by another blogger. However I do not remember who it was. My apologies to him or her for not being able to extend a tip of the hat.

** This is a joke regarding an upcoming Johnny Depp movie. Don't worry about it.

Later - This post has been edited for greater clarity - MTC.

The Poetry of the Everyday – Part II – Senryu for the week of February 26

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Haiku has a bastard cousin, senryu. If haiku takes a moment and seeks to make it poignant and timeless, senryu takes a subject, comments on it in the present time, then gleefully evaporates into nothingness.

Relentlessly topical, senryu have a lifespan of about two weeks, or sometimes even less. There are no schools or traditions to follow. Authors, invariably non-professionals with a gift for word play and a brazen willingness to tell bad jokes in public, take the basic 17 syllable verse unit – with some leeway as to how one defines 17 syllables — and run with it. Punning, rhyming, assonance and slipping parentheses are applauded, as are references to popular culture and most importantly, politics.

You can probably guess which poetry form I prefer.

Here is a selection of senryu from the Tokyo Shimbun of Saturday, March 3.

日本丸「八策」よりも「金策」急
Nihonmaru
hassaku yori mo
kinsaku kyu

The Japanese ship of state
Rather than the "Eight Proposals from the Ship"
Has to hurry up with "the scramble for cash"

Here the apposition is between the policy program of Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no kai which the proto-party has pompously called the “Eight Proposals from the Ship” (hassaku) in reference to Sakamoto Ryoma’s reform proposals of the same name — and the grubby search for revenues, including seizing dormant bank accounts, currently gripping the government (kinsaku). Both hassaku and kinsaku have the same second Chinese character. "Nihonmaru" is here used both as a common metaphor for Japan and specifically as a ship reference, as Sakamoto composed his eight proposals while onboard a vessel.

お馬鹿キャラクイズに弱い防衛相
Obakakyara
kuizu ni yowai
boeiso

Our idiot role-player Minister of Defense
Who is weak at quizzes

or

Our Minister of Defense who is weak
At even quiz shows for idiots

Minister of Defense Tanaka Naoki has been an absolute disaster in parliamentary committee meetings. He has been constantly providing laughable interpretations of law, misunderstanding questions, pathetically stalling for time and coming back from gaffe after gaffe with apologies for either providing false information or no information. In this he is like an obakakyara, an archaismic version of the obakatarento, the “idiot celebrity,” the likes of whom have been infesting the airwaves en masse since five years ago. These are individuals, usually pretty young women, who have absolutely nothing in between their ears. Their abject stupidity is their charm. They are popular guests on certain quiz shows, or at least get booked on them, precisely because the answers they concoct are so idiotic.

再建に記憶絞れよエルピーダ
Saiketsun ni
Kioku shibore yo
Erupida

In restructuring
Let's extract some memory, shall we?
Elpida

The word play is in the phrase "extracting memory" (kioku shibore) since Elpida, which filed for bankruptcy last week, is a memory chip maker. The writer is hoping that Japan's powers that be learn something from the experience of trying to cobble together and prop up a national champion manufacturer in an industry where Japan has no clear national competitive edge.

言うだけの番長やがて腰くだけ
Iu dake no
bancho yagate
koshi kudake

The gang leader who just talks tough (iu dake no bancho)
Has at last had to take a fall

On the 23rd of last month, Maehara Seiji, the Democratic Party of Japan's policy research chairman, took the extraordinary step of banning from his press conferences the right-wing national Sankei Shimbun. The Sankei had it coming, as it is, to be polite, a "fact-challenged" newspaper. The Sankei raged, the other newspapers tut-tutted, but Maehara stood firm. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, when asked what he thought of the brouhaha, did not say that he supported the action. He did say, however, that he would leave the matter up to Maehara. After five days, Maehara let the Sankei back in. When the Sankei reporter asked his first question — "Why did you ban us?" – Maehara shot back, "You wrote things not based on facts. As the questions and answers you had in your text never took place, I refused you entry." (J)

What is interesting here is the author takes the Sankei's view of the incident – which is all the more interesting as the Tokyo Shimbun is a card-carrying lefty paper. He (and it is a he, as the names of the authors along with the towns they live in are listed alongside the verses) says that Maehara had to bend at the hips and fall (koshi kudake) which, given the broadside Maehara shot off at the Sankei reporter (which all the other papers dutifully and merrily reproduced) is a very idiosyncratic interpretation of the outcome. He also uses a slightly modified version of the Sankei's personal epithet for Maehara, the "gang-leader who just talks" (iudake bancho) which is itself a near homophone of a famous manga series Yuyake bancho (You Tube video). The first four syllables of the poem (iu dake) also rhyme with the last three syllables (kudake).

Here is one for the Japan-U.S. alliance fans, one which is also blessedly straightforward:

普天間と辺野古動かぬ千日手
Futenma to
Henoko ugokanu
sen'nichite

Futenma and Henoko
The endless series of non-moves

Sen'nichite, according to my dictionary, is a term from shogi describing "a potentially endless repetition of moves leading to a draw." Which, 15 years into the process, is a damn accurate description of the Futenma mess.

If you have persevered this far, time for some serious play.

ハシズムもいつかはシズム時がある
Hashizumu mo
itsu ka wa shizumu
toki ga aru

Hashism
Will also have its time when
It will sink

or

Hashism will also have its time

Those skeptical of or antagonistic toward Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru’s blend of enforced patriotism, browbeating opponents and lacerating bureaucrats deride his political program as hashizumu (“Hashism”) a play on fascism (fuashizumu).

The joke in this poem is in the way shizumu, “to sink” is written in katakana, rather than in kanji and/or hiragana,. It follows the topic marker wa, written as it should be with ha of hiragana. Together, the wa and the shizumu together become hashizumu, repeating the first word.

Then there are the senryu that, try as I might, I am at a loss to understand.

原発は嫌とムンク「叫び」たり
Genpatsu wa
Iya to Munku
"Sakebi" tari

Ok, we have the reference to Edward Munch's "The Scream." We have folks screaming that they hate nuclear power plants. How it all fits together, seeing as how there are only six syllables in the middle line, defeats my meager powers of interpretation.

Anyone willing to have a go at it?

Then Again, It Could Be...

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, On Friday, I was wondering what Noda Yoshihiko, Prime Minister and leaders of the Democratic Party of Japan was doing meeting with Tanigaki Sadakazu, the president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Since the two parties are rivals and talk of a "discussion dissolution" (hanashiai kaisan) was out of the question due to the immanent and now existing state of unconstitutionality of the system used to elect the House of Representatives and talk of a coalition government cutting out Ozawa Ichiro and his supporters in the DPJ could conceivably split the DPJ in half.

The simple answer, in retrospect, is that Noda has counted up the number of the members of the DPJ willing to follow him over the wall on the raising of the consumption tax and found that he does not have the votes to get the legislation passed. Ozawa Ichiro, who has been running rampant ever since it became clear he has almost no chance of being convicted in the illegal campaign fund accounting trial against him,is marshalling the disparate forces within the DPJ who either hate or are terrified of raising the consumption tax, despite warnings from the party leadership to cease and desist. (J)

If Ozawa is feeling pretty sure of himself, he perhaps needs to be a little more careful. Yes, he is almost certain to be exonerated when the judge hands his decision in mid-April. Yes, he will be reinstated to his full rights as a DPJ member immediately afterward. Yes, a huge number of DPJ Diet members, not just Ozawa's and former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio's adherents but many nominal followers of members of the current government and party leaders could be induced to jump ship if the Noda government persists in pursuing a rise in the consumption tax. Yes, the prime minister has been robbed of his most potent weapon, a dissolution of the Diet and a House of Representatives election -- an election in which most of Ozawa's followers would be swept away into oblivion -- by the unchallengeable unconstitutionality of the current electoral map.

However, all that the Prime Minister needs to do is go across the aisle to the LDP and the New Komeito with a multi-step proposition:

1) The groups of lawmakers loyal to the present government and leaders of the party cooperate with the LDP and the New Komeito to pass the LDP's bare bones reform of the Diet -- the so-called +0/-5 plan -- with no reduction of the number of House of Representatives elected from the proportional list, the latter being the private terror of the New Komeito (all of its current members of the House of Representatives were elected from the proportional lists).

2) In return, the LDP and the New Komeito vote for the national budget, the budget enabling legislation and the rise in the consumption tax -- which is no big stretch for the LDP as the raising of the tax to 10% is a promise made in the LDP's 2011 election manifesto.

3) In return, with the electoral map fixed so as to pass constitutional muster, Prime Minister Noda dissolves the Diet and calls an election.

And in this snap election, Ozawa and his troublesome followers, as Horatio would say, go to it.

A bit of a song-and-dance -- but not entirely unlikely, given the trouble that Ozawa has been stirring up and his half-endorsements of Hashimoto Toru's (no, I cannot seem to write a post nowadays without mentioning him) radical populist Ishin no kai movement -- the still immature but clearly deadly enemy of both the DPJ and the LDP. Both the major parties have an incentive to hold a snap election now before the Ishin no kai transforms itself into a national movement through its yet-to-be-opened training school for politicians. (J)

So the super-secret conversation on February 25 could have been about an early election. Discussion on trans-party cooperation any other subject else would have infuriated a huge number of LDP members and led to calls for Tanigaki's immediate resignation. That no such outburst has occured seems to indicate that everyone who is anyone in the LDP was au fait to the fact that an early election was what was on the table.

The Enforcers of Patriotism - An Addendum

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, As of March 2, Osaka Prefecture had recorded 20 instances of educators disobeying the prefectural ordinance to stand for the national anthem at graduation ceremonies, this at 17 of 107 schools. The 20 instances is only a preliminary number for the number of violations of the ordinance, as the graduation season will not end until March 16, when the last of the remaining 105 ceremonies will be held. (J)

Last April at the ceremonies marking the beginning of the school year, 38 educators at the 212 prefectural schools violated the requirement to stand for the national anthem, leading to the disciplining of two. (J)

These singling outs of teachers for disciplinary action are being made under the Osaka prefectural ordinance passed by the Isshin no kai-controlled prefectural assembly for the prefecture-managed schools. They have nothing to do with the Osaka City ordinance passed by the Osaka City assembly on February 28.

That fun is yet to come.

The Enforcers of Patriotism

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, On Tuesday, the Osaka City Assembly overwhelmingly approved an ordinance requiring teachers and schools officials to stand facing the Hinomaru flag and sing the national at school functions. The ordinance, crafted by Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru, passed overwhelmingly, with support by his own Ishin no kai, the Liberal Democratic Party and, amazingly, the New Komeito. A similar ordinance had passed in the Osaka prefectural assembly in June of last year but only on the strength of the then governor Hashimoto's Ishin no kai. The LDP and the New Komeito voted against the measure.(J and E)

What has happened in the interval? How can the New Komeito, which is purportedly sensitive about enforced patriotism issues, its founders having been imprisoned by the authorities in the pre-1945 era, suddenly switch sides on the issue seven months after it first came up, the two ordinances being nearly identical?

Certainly Hashimoto's victory in the fall mayoral election, despite the united opposition of all the national parties including the usually standoffish Communists, has changed the political calculus for the New Komeito and the LDP in the Kansai area. With his Ishin no kai rising in prominence, becoming the default anti-Democratic Party of Japan party in the event of a House of Representatives election, at least in the Kansai region, the local branches of the LDP and the New Komeito have an incentive to helping Hashimoto realize his sweeping reformation of the government of his Osaka bastion. By allowing themselves to be co-opted by his movement, the parties seem to be hoping that they will, in direct negotiations with the Ishin no kai, reserve a number of House of Representatives districts for their candidates.

Unsurprisingly, Hashimoto's emphasis on patriotism and destruction of the left-wing teachers and civil servant's unions has brought all kinds of characters out of the woodwork. Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, whose administration had seen the first ever amendments of the 1947 Basic Law on Education, this in order to emphasize greater pride in being Japanese (whose first draft was rejected by the LDP's ally the New Komeito, the only force in the Diet at that time that could oppose it) met on the 26th with Hashimoto's handpicked successor as governor of Osaka Prefecture Matsui Ichiro and the personal represetive of Hashimoto, former Yokohama mayor Nakada Hiroshi. Both Abe and Matsui came away from the meeting declaring that their ideas about reforming education, the Constitution and the civil service were the same. (J)

Among other persons who have been laying low, or have been at least off the nation's radar screens, is right-wing education reformer and close Abe advisor Yayama Taro, who emerged on Wednesday with an op-ed in the Mainichi Shimbun praising Hashimoto efforts to rein in the freedoms of the teachers of Osaka, whilst avoiding to specifically mention the now enforceable command to pay honor to the flag and sing the national anthem.

Protectors of the freedom of conscience had already received a blow on February 10, when the Supreme Court ratified the Tokyo Metropolitan City ordinance requiring similar patriotic behavior from Tokyo teachers. The reprimanded teachers had won in the first court decision but the appeals court and now the supreme court have found the ordinance constitutional. (E)

One would think that the leaders of Japan's major cities and prefectures would have greater issues on their plates than whether or not to punish or even expel teachers who do not leap to their feet when they hear the national anthem (even in the very patriotic land where I was born, the announcer always says "Please" when making the request that everyone stand for the national anthem). However, these trivialities loom large in the minds of the sliver of the populace with illusions that the left-wing teachers unions have hobbled Japan's development into a normal or even a powerful nation. That the only Socialist to ever become PM since 1955 did so with the full support of the hardliners in the LDP seems to indicate that whatever effect the teachers may have had on the minds of young Japanese, it sure did not show up at the ballot box. Lefty education influence may have made the bureaucrats into a bunch of wusses -- but someone will have to show me evidence of supporting such a proposition.

The major problems Abe, Yayama and their fellow travelers have is with the Japanese people themselves. Dissatisfied with the Japanese as they are, these activists want a whole new set of citizens, molded and defined by a more patriotic education system and Constitution, and policed by a more unswerving state power-oriented bureaucracy.

It remains to be seen whether Hashimoto should be added to their number. For the most part his crusade seesm limited toward producing a more cowed and obedient civil service, with any expression of opposition from those under him being met with a sledgehammer reaction from Hashimoto. His views seems more corporatist than statist, likening civil servants to corporate employees and drawing biting ironic comparisons between the behavior (and remuneration!) of workers in the private sector with those working in public offices. In so doing he taps into the deep resentment of those in the private sector toward the public servants in local and prefectural government, as these public servants have not undergone the ferocious browbeating and economic stress the national bureaucrats (kanryo) have suffered for the past two decades.

For the present time it seems that Hashimoto is following the beat of his own drummer, making deals with those who need him and whom he needs, rather than listening to the siren calls of the descendants of the Pacific War's leaders and their opportunistic sycophants. Hashimoto apparently comes from entirely different stock. Though folks like Abe and Yayama may see in Hashimoto a kindred spirit, he may have entirely different psychological underpinnings to his actions.

What Hashimoto is doing ("Stand up or lose your job!") may look like nationalism, patriotism's ugly twin. However, just where Hashimoto is taking his home city and prefecture is still very much up in the air.

So Far, No Disaster

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,

Just give me what I want
And no one gets hurt.

- U2, Vertigo (2004)

So far the release of Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no kai's radical campaign manifesto has not seriously damaged the credibility of the proto-party. So far the number of defections from the front of allies, friends and wannabee friends has been limited.

Hiranuma Takeo of the Sunrise party, who has been discussing with Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro and People's New Party leader Kamei Shizuka the founding a new, broader-based "true conservative" alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party, said the document demonstrates "a lack of sense of the nation." Hiranuma continued, "This requires all kinds of changes to the constitution; I had been wondering whether or not he [Hashimoto] really thinks this way, a thing I sensed."

Perhaps more painful for Ishin no kai's spiritual leader is the loss of the former unswerving support of former bureaucrat and prolific author Sakaiya Taiichi. Sakaiya's appearances at Hashimoto's side has given Hashimoto's brute populist movement a sheen of intellectual legitimacy. Sakaiya has shaken his head in wonder at the manifesto's radicalism, calling it a plan for the distant, distant future. As for the promise to abolish the House of Councillors, he has called it "incredible." (J)

However, Hashimoto still has on board some important allies and potential allies. By showing a thumbs up signal on the Ishin no kai manifesto, Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi kept sensible members of his party from voicing any skepticism over the document. Ishihara has stayed fully in support, making such encouraging statements as, "There are parts with which I am totally in agreement" and "As for the other things, they resemble the kinds of things I myself was saying long ago, so they are really all right." (J) Kamei has remained silent about the manifesto, even though it declares support for Japan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a rise in the consumption tax, two Kamei no-nos.

An aside, but all of the above prompted a senior member of the LDP to remark that if the planned party led by Hiranuma, Ishihara and Kamei goes forward and links up with Ishin no kai, the result will be "an unholy alliance." (J)

No polling data yet exists to show whether the manifesto has affected the public's view of Hashimoto and the Ishin no kai as standard bearers for a viable political movement. The relatively low-level coverage of the Ishin no kai manifesto's contents on television, however, indicates that the release of the document is not seen to be a front burner issue. We will have to see if coverage picks up after all the brouhaha over the emperor's bypass surgery dies down.

If the more radical elements of the manifesto are brushed off as adolescent blowing off of steam, as Ishihara would want us to do, and the Hashimoto-led populist movement still represents a looming threat to the established political parties, then we can expect more cooperation of the sort we saw on Friday, when the policy research council chiefs of the three major parties signed off on an agreement to pass a bill cutting the salaries of national bureaucrats by an average of 7.8% (J). The bill was drafted by the New Komeito and was opposed by the Rengo national labor union organization, the political ally of the Democratic Party of Japan (J). However the cutting of the cost of government is an essential building block for the DPJ public relations effort to swing the public opinion on the divisive and unbeloved bill raising the consumption tax - a bill the prime minister wants passed in this Diet session.

Keeping the main national political parties in a state of terror promotes Hashimoto's immediate goal of transforming Osaka Prefecture into a metropole like Tokyo. Hashimoto needs revisions to the laws concerning municipalities before his vision can be realized. He will need the cooperation of the parties currently dominating the Diet to pass these revisions. Since members of the Diet would under normal circumstances either tell Hashimoto to go take a hike or let the revisions die in committee from neglect, the fear factor the Ishin no kai engenders will encourage the national political parties to pass the required revisions and thereby keep the man-in-an-awful-hurry happy.

Or so the national parties hope.

Image courtesy: The Sanyo Shimbun

The Revolutionary Council Overreaches

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, It was strange watching the video of Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru presiding over the meeting of an Ishin no kai steering committee as the delegates ratified list of ultimate goals for the quasi-party, if and when it participates in national elections.

The list of the Ishin no kai goals includes:

- abolition of the House of Councillors

- direct elections of the Prime Minister

- abolition of the prefectures in favor of larger regional units resembling the German lander (the various plans known collectively as the doshusei).

- abolition of the grants from the national government tax revenues to local areas (chihokofuzei) in favor of direct taxation carried out by the local areas themselves

[By the way, where are the sources of the chihokofuzei grant monies?

32% of income taxes
32% of taxes on alcohol
34% of corporate income taxes
29.5% of the consumption tax
25% of tobacco taxes (Source)

Not a bad cut of national revenues...]

- elimination of national pension payments to the wealthiest taxpayers after their retirement (nenkin hokenryo no kakesute - J)

What was so strange about the video clip was how disengaged Hashimoto looked (especially since that last idea is his). Whether it was out of boredom, madness or a desperate attempt to anesthetize himself to the berzerk radicalism of his minions, Hashimoto was simply not there, emotionally or intellectually.

The list of campaign promises, which the Ishin no kai, in complete agreement with its ersatz Meiji Restoration revivalist ethos has called its "Eight Policies from the Ship" (senchu hassaku) in imitation of Sakamoto Ryoma's famous missive, has already drawn guffaws from the established political parties. The leaders and spokesmen of the parties had a field day yesterday, pointing out that item after item would require not just a revision of numerous laws but even amendment of the Constitution, a document which has not seen the alteration of even a single punctuation mark since its promulgation on November 3, 1946. (J). That any and every amendment would require not only its passage through the Diet with a two-thirds vote in both Houses but approval from the voters in a national referendum (the governing rules of which came into effect less that a year ago - J) casts the Ishin no kai wish list into the realm of fantasy.

Applause did come from some quarters yesterday. Predictably, the terrible twins of the Chubu Region Aichi Governor Omura Hideaki and Nagoya Mayor Kawamura Takashi had nice things to say about the quasi-party platform (J). Omura echoes every decentralization plan coming out of Osaka and Kawamura, well, he is just nuts (but in a damnably warm and clever way. His tour de force has been providing the depleted Tohoku with wave after wave of Nagoya civil servants to replace persons lost in the triple disaster or for the training of their replacements -J).

The surprise was the positive reaction of the Your Party to the Ishin no kai proposals. Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi praised the list, saying that in terms of bringing the national bureaucracy under control, decentralizing of authority and making Japan a nation of prosperity, the goals of the Ishin no kai and the Your Party are completely in sync (J).

Maybe he just scanned the text.

Major media outlets have panned the proposals. The Asahi Shimbun suggests that the ideas expressed needed a little more intra-party discussion before being released (J). The Sankei Shimbun wonders what happens to the Emperor as head of state, if the prime minister is popularly elected (J).

Up until now the Ishin no kai has been on a roll. It had, possibly because the reality of what it represented had not been spelled out, been gaining popularity in the public imagination.

It remains to be seen whether the release of this wild wish list slams the brakes on the what had been until a hurtling "Go Go Hashimoto" freight train.

Essential Reading on Hashimoto Toru

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, This has been a fertile weekend for postings on the rolling snowball that is Hashimoto Toru.

First we have the essay from Spike Japan on the personal history, amazing sayings and local achievements of Osaka's more-than-just-a-mayor. (Link 1)

I, for one, do not really care if Hashimoto and his family came from the wrong side of the tracks. The Liberal Democratic Party's Nonaka Hiromu came from the wrong side of the tracks and he managed through grit, patience and knowing-where-you-had-dinner-last-night-and-with-whom to push past many a princeling and former elite bureaucrat to become a force within the party, eventually becoming secretary-general. Nonaka, however, never forgot about where he came from, and he would lacerate bureaucrats for their institutionalized prejudice against persons with suspicious ancestral addresses. Nonaka also retained a sympathy for Japan's North Korean population -- the country's least beloved and most misunderstood minority.

What worries me about Hashimoto is he has seems to have the airs of a self-made man. Few things are worse than self-made men, as they believe their success is due to their own special form of greatness, rather than because in their case talent transected with chance and opportunity.

Then we have the always comprehensive Corey Wallace on the confusion Hashimoto has whipped up in the political world, particularly the cosy little corner of the world inhabited by the Liberal Democratic Party. (Link 2)

The part of Hashimoto's Ishin no kai's declaration that has me shaking in my boots (and I am wearing boots) is the proposal for direct elections of prime ministers. (J) Such a proposal faces the same soaring constitutional hurdles as the other major radical reform: the abolition of the House of Councillors. Unlike the abolition, which has no chance of passing as the House of Councillors would have to vote itself out of existence -- a decidedly unlikely event -- a move toward a direct election of prime ministers could gather up enough support to pass through both Houses of the Diet and then received the people's imprimatur in a national referendum.

Nothing would guarantee gridlock in the Diet or, paradoxically, tyranny than to have a popularly elected prime minister. Floating Japanese voters do not vote for something, they vote against the status quo, often in the absence of logical examination of the content of a person's political program (Japanese undecided voters are, of course, far from unique in possessing this trait). Japan lacks the formal institutional brakes or political and social structures necessary to channel the energies of a leader voted into office for negative reasons into positive, rather than merely populist, directions.