Abe Shinzo: The Remembering

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Some subjects are just not funny. This post will be about one of them. If you are visiting for the usual irreverent take on the Japanese political scene, you should probably stop reading now.

In honor of the zeitgeist, I will address the subject directly, though he is not really here.

Abe-san,

Forgive me for addressing you as an equal. I know you are not used to it.

Abe-san, you frighten me. On Wednesday the 29th, you went to the offices of Machimura Nobutaka, your faction leader, to tell him you are running for the position of president of the Liberal Democratic Party. (E)

I knew relations between you and Machimura were bad. I knew this on April 23, when the Machimura faction held its annual fundraising party. I was there; you were not.

Incidentally, the take at the party you did not attend? 600 million yen. Not bad for a guy whose leadership you fail to respect.

I hope, I pray that you told Machimura of your intention to run only to dissuade Machimura himself from running, as he has indicated he might. I hope, I pray that your formation of a study group, the usual first step toward a run for the presidency, is just a feint. I hope, I pray that the sixty-one lawmakers signed up for your study group are just a show of force by what used to be called the "non-mainstream" segment of the LDP, not the nucleus of an actual support group.

I hope, I pray that on September 14, your name will not be among the roster of candidates.

As a defender of the Democratic Party of Japan, which has never had a serious chance at undoing 54 years of LDP malfeasance, I should be dancing a jig on the tatami. There is no potential leader of the LDP that the DPJ would rather run against. You have foreign policy prescriptions that would have would have the entire region in flames (You have limited your study group's focus to the revitalization of Japan's economy so maybe even you have some awareness of just how inflammatory your security views are). Your silver-spoon-in-mouth upbringing just irks, in comparison to DPJ leader Noda Yoshihiko's relatively modest beginnings and Hashimoto Toru's emergence from the muck. Your history of political thuggery, of simply ignoring the opposition (Remember June 30, 2007, the last day any business got done in the House of Councillors prior to the election? The vote after vote in the morning, every one with the same result: 123 to 96, 123 to 96, again and again? Remember how the opposition just gave up over the lunch break and did not return?) will be disinterred. Your groveling lust for power, refusing to follow the LDP's tradition of the party president resigning after the party suffers a humiliating electoral loss, will be revisited. The chaos that your refusal caused, making unclear exactly who was running the country in August 2007, will be page 4 analysis again.

And of course, your suddenly quitting as prime minister, after saying you would not. For medical reasons, even though you never mentioned them in your resignation speech.

Yes that.

Abe-san, you may not remember that last stunning week, almost exactly five years ago.

Let me help you.

You came back on Sunday night, from the APEC meeting in Sydney, burnt out. August had been a terrible month for you, with many of your party members screaming at you to resign, with Aso Taro conspiring with Yosano Kaoru to replace your "friends of Shinzo" cabinet with one to their and the faction leaders' liking. Your trip to India, Malaysia and Indonesia had been a complete bust politically and left you physically debilitated from the food and the travel. The Cabinet was reshuffled and blew up almost immediately, with Minister Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Endo Takehiko forced to resign after a week in office -- not at your request, but at the request of Aso and Kaoru, who had arranged to have themselves appointed LDP Secretary-General and Chief Cabinet Secretary, respectively.


Then came summit in Sydney. You promised Prime Minister John Howard and President George Bush that Japan would be their stalwart ally on the global stage, when you knew full well that upon returning to Tokyo Ozawa Ichiro's majority in the House of Councillors was going yo kill Japan's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom.

It was the last straw.

Upon your arrival back in Tokyo, you told Aso, who was waiting for you, "I cannot go on."

Unfortunately for you, you chose as your confidant a man with zero sensitivity as to human frailty, a man who when he became prime minister a year later appointed an alcoholic as his minister of finance, in the midst of the worst financial crisis the world had known in eighty years*.

He told you to gambaru, the most heartless and vapid of wishes.

The next day, Monday, you delivered a policy address opening the extraordinary session of the Diet that was so pugnacious and ambitious, it sounded delusional.

You somehow made it through Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, however, either you or someone near you decided you were finished, done, finito, deep-fat fried. You resigned in the afternoon, claiming you were not capable of saving the Indian Ocean dispatch legislation.

Then on Thursday morning, you left the office of prime minister prematurely, never to return.

Abe-san, do you remember how you left?

Not in the back of ambulance, like most persons suffering from acute, chronic gastroenteritis would. Not with your loving wife beside you. Not with a doctor monitoring you. Not having arranged a formal transfer of your prime ministerial powers to another member of the Cabinet.

No, in the back car of a two-car motorcade packed with panicked SPs (Japan Secret Service) with you in the back seat of the second vehicle, barreling through traffic to the Keio University Hospital.

Remember?

I will be honest: your breaking down was the first hint I ever caught of your being human. Your previous behavior, until the voters of Japan liberated us of you, left me speechless with horror.

Which is why I am terribly afraid at the news you want to be LDP president again.

The LDP, the country, does not need a leader as brittle and fragile as a glass vase, especially as the next LDP leader will be facing a political situation many times more complex, more poisonous and more energy-sapping that the one that felled you in 2007. The LDP, the country does not a new improved bullet proof Abe Shinzo either. You are the archetype of the fantabulist conservative, a man who disdains his country and its people, wanting through revisions of the education system and the Constitution to create a new citizenry, replacing the one you cannot stomach.

Whichever Abe Shinzo you are, after your five years of rest, you should not be running for the presidency of the LDP.

Sincerely,

MTC

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* A belated word of praise for the bizarrely departed Nakagawa Shoichi. To his eternal credit, until that fateful plane flight to Italy, he had remained, probably for the longest period of his adult life, clean and sober. He was an addict, in the grips of a terrible addiction, yet for the good of the country and world he toughed it out.

Do Japan's Progressives Have To Lose Their Minds?

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

Something has gone wrong
Sighing, sighing
Faces have turned long
Crying, cryin'
Hear them sob and whine
Tearful, tearful
That's a real good sign that they're feelin' glum
Sad sad times have come...

- REM and CTW, "Furry Happy Monsters" (1998) *

In the same edition of the Tokyo Shimbun as the cartoon featured in yesterday's post (thank you again Jordan) the powers that be there printed an editorial that simply boggles the imagination.

Read it, please.

But wait! Before you do, get down in a prone position! I was luckily already on the tatami when I read this piece. Otherwise I would have hit the floor at a possibly injurious velocity. (Link)

For those with neither the time, inclination or capacity to read the original, here is the deal.

The Tokyo Shimbun, while it is only a prefectural newspaper and the offspring of the Nagoya-based Chunichi Shimbun, is fairly well established as the broadsheet of progressivism. Some might ask whether or not The Asahi Shimbun is not the standard bearer here. Sadly, the Asahi is not progressive, merely confused.

Anyway, the Tokyo Shimbun is the reliable voice of the non-Marxist left.

Which is why the editorial so shocking: it echoes the rhetoric of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito regarding the need for a Diet dissolution and elections.

Since a direct translation will take too long, here is a synopsis:

1) The "politics of being able to come to a decision" (kimerareru seiji) was just a cover story for the passage of a bill raising the consumption tax.

2) Now that there are only 10 working days left before the official end of the Diet session, what could the DPJ-LDP-New Komeito working arrangement hope to "decide"?

3) The first thing that needs to be decided is the matter of the disproportionately represented districts. The DPJ submitted to committee its version of a reform bill (I have argued previously that this bill is a red herring, meant to fail or never be voted upon - MTC). Opposition parties boycotted the session, leaving the DPJ representatives voting to send the bill to the floor of the House of Representatives in a show of force (kyoko).

4) This was no way to handle a matter as fundamental as the means by which Diet members are to be chosen.

5) Since the opposition parties control the House of Councillors, the sending of the DPJ bill to the floor without the consent of the LDP and the New Komeito is pointless, especially as the current bill is a patchwork of ideas without a guiding principle.

6) Did they DPJ not send to the floor this ragbag bill without a hope of passage only to delay the House of Representatives election where they are predicted to go down to ignominious defeat?

7) In order to put the questions of the necessity of raising of the consumption tax to the voters, hurry up and pass the minimal +0/-5 revision, then dissolve the Diet.

8) As for fundamental reforms such as cuts in the number of Diet members, what is realistic is to leave the problem to be solved in the interval between the upcoming election and the election after, through the setting up of a commission of experts to debate the problem.

9) Before attacking the proportional seat numbers, which reflect the people's will, try the more painful cuts of the number of districts; of the amount of public campaign finance extended; of the salaries of seat holder salaries and stipends for PR and research purposes.

10) The DPJ decided to send to the floor the bill on the issuance of new bonds without the LDP present at the committee meeting. This was impermissibly impolite conduct of Diet business.

11) The LDP intends on submitting a censure bill to the House of Councillors on the 29th. If it passes, the Diet will thereafter be just spinning its wheels. The disproportionality issue will be left in abeyance and the bond issuance bill will be put off for later.

12) It is difficult to accept a "politics of being able to come to a decision" when its result is the increasing of the burdens shouldered by the populace. It is time to put an end the politics of that fails to decide what should be decided, leaving only each side blaming the other.

This is the product of a diseased mind. Point #8 is beyond bizarre: no one could possibly believe that anything approaching fair and unbiased redistricting would be possible were the LDP to regain power, as the LDP would should the +0/-5 solution be adopted. The LDP had 54 years in power during which it could have installed a mechanism for assuring the proper representation of all the citizens. For its own profit it did nothing. Only under after its brush with life in the opposition in 1993-94 did it consent to the first serious reforms of the districts. To belive that a panel of experts would achieve diddly squat under an LDP regime is flat out nuts.

As for the lack of politesse in voting of bills out of committees when the opposition is boycotting, when did the LDP ever restrain itself on this issue during its years in power? Besides, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, if the other side does not want to show up, you cannot stop them.

Some folks are angry that the DPJ has not been able to fulfill the promises of its manifesto. Many are furious that Noda Yoshihiko staked his and his party's political life on rasing the consumption tax, an LDP manifesto promise.

However, that the editorial division of a major newspaper should forget history and despise political reality (where the LDP-New Komeito's control of the House of Councillors gives them a perverse control of the government's agenda) to the point where it is screaming "Oh, just tear it all down!" indicates we are on the precipice of a descent into nihilism.

C'mon boys and girls (and furry monsters too): things are not so bad. So the Augean Stables are taking a bit longer than a weekend to clean up. What do you expect after a fifty-four year-long elective dictatorship?


* The original version of this song has an East Asian history angle. The first line of the chorus, "Shining Happy People Holding Hands," was the title of a PRC poster lead vocalist and lyricist Michael Stipe saw in 1991. The poster had been issued as a part of the propaganda campaign encouraging national unity in the aftermath of the Tien An Men protests and subsequent crackdown. The song was meant to be sickly ironic. However, as was the case with the band's song "The One I Love," the story of an abusive relationship, the public absorbed the meaning of the song in a manner exactly opposite the way the artists had intended. The band had to just go with the flow. As a result the above linked video is a subversion of a subversion of a subversion of a suppression of a subversion.

Six New Fredos

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

Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do.

- Michael Corleone, The Godfather, Part II (1974)

On Friday, six Democratic Party of Japan members of the House of Councillors voted against the ittai kaikaku reform bills, including the bill raising the consumption tax. These six defectors are new, not a part of the 12 DPJ members who left the party to join Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life First Party (33 days since its founding and still no party website) or the 3 who left to form the Green Wind caucus.

The six are:

Tokunaga Eri (Hokkaido district seat, elected in 2010)
Mito Masashi (Kanagawa district seat, elected in 2007)
Uematsu Emiko (Kagawa district seat, elected 2007)
Okubo Yukishige (Nagasaki district seat, elected 2007)
Arita Yoshibu (proportional list seat, elected 2010)
Tashiro Kaoru (proportional list seat, elected 2010)

Mito, Uematsu and Okubo face reelection next year,. The other members are in for the long haul. Like House of Representatives member Kawauchi Hiroshi, all six really belong inside the LF. However, they are far more useful to Ozawa as fifth columnists inside the DPJ. Through them he can still influence DPJ policies, even though he himself is no longer inside the DPJ.

The six cannot be expelled or even severely reprimanded. After the defections to the LF and the Green Wind in July, the DPJ is left with 85 members in its House caucus, only one member more than the Liberal Democratic Party. Were the six traitors of Friday to leave the DPJ, the party would fall to the #2 rank in the House, losing the majority of committee chairmanships and most likely the position of President of the House.

Ozawa knows the DPJ's loss of control of the House's chairmanships would eliminate his ability to influence politics. It should surprise no one that he has his acolytes remain inside the DPJ House of Councillors caucus.

Speaking of disobedience, the LDP has decided upon the punishments to be meted out to the seven of its members of its House of Representatives delegation who defied orders to abstain from voting on the no confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet. The seven will receive reprimands, the second strongest of the eight levels of punishment the party can mete out to its members. (J)

This slap on the wrist is surprising, as one of the sinners, Nakagawa Hidenao, was served with a six-month suspension of all party privileges for having abstained from the June House of Representatives vote on the consumption tax.

The leadership had solid reasons to be lenient. The participation of Shiozaki Yasuhisa in the mini-mutiny was a transparent threat of a greater hard-right rebellion against Machimura faction leader Machimura Nobutaka for his milquetoast leadership and his support of LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu. A severe punishment could also push Koizumi Shinjiro to run in the next election as an independent, an outcome the LDP is desperate to avoid. Koizumi the Younger (Koizumi IV) is, as Okumura Jun has put it, the LDP’s Chosen One, the prophesied future leader of the party.

It would furthermore be the height of hypocrisy for the LDP to punish the seven for voting for a no confidence motion only a day after Tanigaki and the LDP leadership abandoned plans to submit their own no confidence motion.

So the six DPJ House of Councillors and the seven LDP House of Representatives members, traitors to the party line each and every one, are virtually untouchable.

The weak responses by both the party leaderships presages further breakdowns in party discipline. An inability to get a straight answer from the LDP will endanger Prime Minister Noda’s plan to squeeze the LDP into voting for the bill authorizing the issuance of new bonds. The LDP leadership is eager for a quick deal on a redistricting bill – a necessity as the dissolution of the House and the calling for new elections would plunge the country into an irrevocable extra-constitutional state. However, if the LDP cannot guarantee party unity on the bond bill, it is of little use to the DPJ as a negotiating partner.

Of course, what can be said of the LDP applies equally, if not more so, to the DPJ. True to the nature of its former leader Ozawa, who recruited the majority of the DPJ’s serving Diet members, party members seem to have only the weakest of understandings of the fundamental importance of loyalty to the party. Disagreements over policy have thus led to a splintering of the party, not along the ideological lines the pundits predicted three years ago, but on the degree of loyalty to Ozawa the person.

Later - This post has been edited for clarity.

Japan's Depleted Politics

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, This Sunday's morning talk show lineup provided a stark demonstration of the depleted state of this blessed land's politics. Following a week of significant action -- the defection of four more members of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the consequent formation of two new parliamentary caucuses in the Diet and even more more in the local assemblies (J - Yamanashi and J - Tochigi); the public humiliation of Ambassador to China Niwa Uichiro, the first non-bureaucrat to hold the post, over his matter-of fact assessment that a purchase of three of the Senkaku Islands by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government would likely lead to great frictions in between Japan and China (E - When will the Government of Japan get around to issuing the "It's OK talk to anyone -- ANYONE -- just not the Financial Times" directive?); the first serious hiccup in the seemingly unstoppable march of Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru (for those keeping score: July 21 = 0 tweets) -- the best that Nichiyo Toron, the national broadcaster NHK's flagship political debate program could come up with was a debate in between Jojima Koriki and Kishida Fumio, the Diet Affairs chairmen of the DPJ and the Liberal Democratic Party, respectively. For 22 minutes, rather than the customary hour. And with Kishida not even in the Tokyo studio but piped in from outside.

This is nearly unprecedented. Nichiyo Toron almost always has at least the policy chiefs of all the major and mini-parties of the Diet on display, if not the party secretary-generals. True, the result looks ludicrous, with the representative of the ruling DPJ and the representative of its coalition appendage the People New Party on one side facing off against six (now, with Ozawa Ichiro's new Livelihood Party, it would be seven) representatives of the main opposition parties on the other, requiring the moderator to carry out a delicate dance of traffic control in between the criticisms of the opposition and the assertions of the ruling coalition and in between the positions of the significant parties and the sad bleatings of the insignificant.

The abbreviated face-off covered only a tiny range of issues. Both men offered their party's positions on:

1) the progress of the main reform social welfare and pension bills (ittai kaikaku hoan), including the bill raising consumption tax to 10%, through the House of Councillors

2) the schedule for the holding of House of Representative elections, once the ittai kaikaku bills pass the House of Councillors, as the written agreement in between the DPJ, LDP and the New Komeito requires

3) the likelihood of the LDP cooperating with the DPJ in passing the all-important bond issuance bill necessary to implement the DPJ-drafted budget, before the money runs out of money in October (E)

4) the competing bills of the DPJ and LDP on reforming the districts and size of House of Representatives, in order that an election might be constitutional

5) the stability and legitimacy of the DPJ-led government, in light of the recent waves of defections from the DPJ

These five subjects are all linked together as in a chain: the solving of one leads to and depends upon the solving of others. As the sparse attendance at Nichiyo Toron debate indicates, these are issues the DPJ and the LDP have to work out between themselves, as no combination of either party with any of the other parties in the Diet can approve any of the necessary legislation.

The greatest hurdle is an agreement on the reform of the House of Representatives. At present, 97 districts have populations greater than 2 times the population of the smallest district, meaning that over half the votes in those 97 districts are essentially thrown away. Despite a history of deference to the executive and legislative branches, the Supreme Court has thrown down a challenge, declaring any disparity greater than 1.99 to 1 unconstitutional, putting some meat on Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees citizens equality under the law.

The LDP bill, known as the +0/-5 Solution, is a clever response to the Supreme Court's challenge. Rather than giving the voters in the 97 grossly underrepresented districts a greater say in the running of their government, the bill would simply abolish the five smallest districts. The disparity of between the 97 largest districts and the smallest district would then fall below the 1.99 limit.

The attraction of this bill for the LDP is obvious. It preserves almost intact the inequalities that perpetuated LDP rule for 50 years. The urban and suburban, revenue-producing districts are denigrated, while the largely rural districts, with their government contract- and regulation-protected economies, are elevated.

The competing DPJ bill has as its core the +0/-5 Solution, which is contrary to the interests of the DPJ's natural constituency, the abused urban and suburban electorate. Tacked on to the +0/-5 core, however, are a pair of amendments that at once entice and repel the New Komeito, the LDP's alliance partner.

The DPJ bill is thus not a bill at all. It is a red herring, a lie told in order to keep the LDP and the New Komeito engaged, under the illusion that a weakened DPJ is ready to cut a deal on redistricting. In return the LDP and the New Komeito, out of their present eagerness to hold an election, are expected to offer concessions on pending bills, such as the all-important bond issuance bill.

However, all the gamesmanship cannot disguise a basic reality: the DPJ and the LDP no longer have the luxury of playing ruling party versus opposition. With the recent defections of 16 House of Councillors members, the DPJ no longer has the option of teaming up with the New Komeito to pass bills through both Houses of the Diet. Only a DPJ-LDP consensus can guarantee a bill's passage.

Furthermore, as Okumura Jun has noted, barring the intrusion of a Hashimoto Toru-led national political party -- which, due to this week's revelations and Hashimoto's sudden loss of his voice, suddenly has become far less of a threat to the status quo -- there is no plausible set of election results altering the necessity of DPJ-LDP cohabitation. An election, if held today, would not prove or solve anything.

Furthermore, the LDP membership does not really want to have an election, not now. Party president Tanigaki Sadakazu has proven a disappointment, unable, since his election in 2009, to improve his party's standing with the electorate, despite the DPJ's many stumbles and bumbles. Tanigaki's term ends in September; several of his more aggressive and thoughtful colleagues are poised to replace him. Eager to force an election before his term runs out, Tanigaki advocates implacable confrontation with the DPJ. His intra-party rivals, unwilling to undermine the authority of the party presidency that they themselves covet, echo his intransigence, though with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Hence the current poverty of Japanese politics. While a multitude of decisions await, the direction of the country is hostage to the passage of a handful of bills. Furthermore, a faith that party identity is honed through conflict with the other side, a legacy of the LDP's long reign in power, holds the two major parties back from inescapable collaboration.

The Illusion of Choice

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

"What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can't have babies?

- Reg, Life of Brian (1979)

NHK (J - Time Sensitive) and Fuji TV (J - Time Sensitive) released the results of their latest random dial public opinion polls last night.

The pollsters found that:

- The popularity of the Cabinet remains mired in the zone of mediocrity, indicating the Prime Minister received no bounce for ridding his Cabinet of its most troublesome members.

Do your support or not support the Noda Cabinet?

NHK
Support 27%
Do not support 51%

Fuji TV
Support 28%
Do not support 61%

- That anti-nuclear power feelings in the country are not visceral, at least not on the national level, and do not extend to a continued moratorium on the restart of Kansai Electric Power's Oi reactors.

NHK
Do you agree with the prime minister's statement on Friday that the restart of the Oi nuclear reactors is necessary to protect the livelihood and security of Japan?

Agree 31%
Disagree 27%
Neither 37%

Fuji TV
Are you in favor of a restart of the Oi reactors?

In favor 49%
Opposed 43%

- That the country is once again favoring an early election, after backing off earlier this year.

When should the next House of Representatives election be held?

NHK

As soon as possible 20%
Before the September leadership elections of the DPJ and the LDP 15%
Before the year's end 21%
At the end of the current Diet's tenure 36%

Fuji TV

Summer this year 27%
Before the year's end 26%
At the end of the current Diet's tenure 34%


As to who would prevail in an early elections, one has to consult other survey results. The Kyodo poll of June 4-5, which found support for the Noda Cabinet at 32%, makes for grim reading for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

Which party would you vote for in the proportional seat selection of the next House of Representatives election?

DPJ 16%
LDP 30%
Your Party 7%
New Komeito 4%
Communist 4%
Socialist 2%
Other 5%
Do not know/no response 33%

Given party support numbers like these, the probability that Prime Minister Noda will call a snap election is zero. He will not lead his party into oblivion.

Nevertheless, the news media dutifully reports that in his Diet testimony yesterday Noda signaled that should the bills raising the consumption not pass during this Diet session, he might ask the Emperor to dissolve the Diet, triggering elections. The prime minister was purportedly cracking the whip at the anti-tax forces in his own party, most of whom are allied with former party leader Ozawa Ichiro and many of whom would lose their seats should an election be called tomorrow. (J)

Except of course, that the Diet cannot be dissolved tomorrow. Technically the emperor could dissolve the present House of Representatives but the result would be the implosion of the 1946 Constitution.

My bet is that the Heisei emperor will not honor a request to dissolve the Diet -- a refusal that itself would trigger a constitutional crisis.

Indeed blessed land's continuing constitutional constipation and the ruling party's abysmal poll numbers combine to form a blockage rendering public opinion largely moot. The public may dislike or hate certain decisions the government is making. However, that displeasure has no outlet. Unless an alliance is forged in between Ozawa's followers and the LDP -- a pact that the LDP, having once concluded with Ozawa, is determined to never conclude again -- nothing can budge the Noda government from its perch.

So while the poll takers continue to take the pulse of the people, the opinions expressed have no impact on the government's actions.

It is the illusion of choice.

Catching Up On The News - Unconstitutional Elections

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Something huge happened yesterday.

In a footnote to my post of yesterday, I noted that NHK announcer Okoshi Kensuke last Thursday confronted Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko with the bald fact that the current map of the House of Representatives districts is unconstitutional, rendering an election impossible on technical grounds. While the Prime Minister had no alternative but to concede that the current map is unconstitutional, he dodged the thrust of Okoshi's question, saying that the Diet had too many important and difficult issues before it for anyone to be discussing a dissolution and an election at this time.

Noda had been, until the live NHK interview, careful to not get cornered on the question of the constitutionality of holding an election. He had left it up to Koshi'ishi Azuma, the Democratic Party of Japan's secretary-general, to tell the seemingly bone-headed members of the political press over and over again that since the issue of the disproportionality of a single vote (ippyo no kakusa) had not been resolved in accordance with the standards set down by the Supreme Court judgment of March 2011, no House of Representatives elections could take place.

While any position aside from the one Koshi'ishi has taken is ludicrous -- unconstitutional meaning “contrary to the basic law of the land, the law upon which all other laws are based” -- Noda has been careful to preserve the notion that the holding of an election is a matter of opinion -- his opinion -- rather than a matter of law.

The reason Noda has needed to maintain this fallacy is simple: his power to call an election is the whip he needs to keep the followers of former DPJ party leader Ozawa Ichiro in line. Nothing terrifies the Ozawa-vetted first termers like the possibility being plunged into an election. With the disdain the public has at present for the DPJ and perhaps permanently for Ozawa, each and every one of these Ozawa acolytes would be wiped out.

Perversely, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have aided Noda in the maintenance of this illusion. The leaders of both the LDP and the New Komeito know just as well as anyone else that elections are impossible if the districts are unconstitutional. Nevertheless they have been calling for elections for two years straight. And why not? It is the biggest free lunch in history. The public opininon polls on the level of public support for the LDP and the New Komeito could find that both have 0% support and it would not matter: the two parties would still call for elections.

Noda, for his part, tacitly used opposition demands for elections as a means of bolstering the illusion he has wished to preserve. If the opposition is demanding elections, it stands to reason that the opposition at least believes elections can be held.

Hence the sound of breaking glass yesterday when LDP Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru asked Prime Minister Noda, in special Diet Committee session, whether in fact the failure to correct the disproportionality of votes in the electoral districts put a shackle on the right to dissolve the Diet. Noda replied that no, failure to act did not shackle the right and that elections would be held when they he thought they were needed. (J)

Technically, both men are correct. Following through on Ishihara's thought, a dissolution of the Diet would trigger the implementation of Article 54 of the Constitution, which states that following a dissolution of the Diet, an election must be held within 40 days. Since the current electoral districts have been ruled unconstitutional, and the Diet would no longer be in existence to fix them, the election would a priori be void.

As for Noda's insistence that the right to dissolve the Diet is not compromised, his position is true only via the most painstaking of hairsplitting. The right to dissolve the Diet, held by the Emperor but exercised upon the advice of the Prime Minister, is not compromised until the moment the right is exercised, at which point the country would be blasted out into extraconstitutional space.

While the constitutional implications of this conundrum are fascinating*, what was of immense political importance in Ishihara's question was that unless the LDP tries to pull off the same trick that the DPJ has been pulling -- i.e., having the party secretary-general insisting that holding a House of Representatives election is impossible while the party president maintains that it is not -- the delicate minuet Noda and the opposition have been dancing together has come to a sudden stop. If a gaggle of reporters corner LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu and press him on whether or not Ishihara's question means the LDP now believes holding elections is unconstitutional, chances are the not terribly swift-thinking Tanigaki will not have an intelligible response.

If and when Tanigaki flubs his moment in the spotlight, the political game board will become completely scrambled, just when Ozawa Ichiro, the master of Go (Part 1 and Part 2) is set to meet with the prime minister. (J)

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* The current emperor, being the conscientious, cautious but independent-thinking man that he is, would likely, on the most perfect of legal grounds, toss post-1945 precedent into the dustbin by refusing the prime minister's request for a dissolution.

Constitution Day Readings

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, It is Constitution Day. The front page stories are about specific Articles of the Constitution. It is otherwise a slow news day, aside from the complete bordel of the Chen Guangcheng affair. On television, the revisionists and the anti-revisionists are slugging it out (on NHK it's Morimoto Satoshi versus Egawa Shoko in a no-holds barred death match. As she is the crusader who took on Aum Shinrikyo and survived, my money is on Egawa).

Michael Auslin has a new essay up at Foreign Policy riffing on the Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's semi-summit (no dinner?) with President Barack Obama, the face-saving agreement signed at the last minute regarding redeployment of U.S. forces currently on Okinawa, the changes in Japan's positions on arms exports and the U.S.-drafted Constitution.  (Link).  It is a reality-based piece, noting what are real changes in the way this blessed land has interpreted the limits set by Article 9. 

I am afraid though, that Auslin goes too far by mentioning two subjects one should not bring up in polite company: the F-35 and Abe Shinzo.  The F-35 program is imploding under its own weight (E) and one observer even declares the plane a threat to the Japan-U.S. alliance . It would be unseemly of me to say I told you so... but I told you so.

As for former prime minister Abe Shinzo, the wiser course remains to pretend he never happened. Even his good ideas are not being copied.

To every Auslin, who knows something about the Constitution and how difficult it would be to alter it, there are a passel commentators blessedly ignorant of it.

The winner of this year's I Don't Know Me No Constitution Award goes to the milbloggers at TIME magazine, who are making this something of a bad habit.

Where to begin when a post begins with this humdinger of an assertion?

The prospect of U.S. and Japanese troops fighting side by side in the next land war in Asia — and heaven forbid the need for either — comes a step closer with a little-noted provision in U.S. realignment plans announced last week.

(Link)

"Fighting side by side in the next land war in Asia" - takes the breath away, does it not?

Yes, I have noticed that the motto of the milblogs of TIME magazine is "Where military intelligence is not a contradiction in terms."

Excuse Me, But What The [Expletive Deleted] Does That Mean?

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, We were talking about Liberal Democratic Party President Tanigaki Sadakazu and his huge problem: that in 2 and 1/2 years as LDP president, he has taken the party virtually nowhere in terms of its popularity.*

It seems that certain members of the party have been aware of this problem for some time now. Indeed, in the fall of last year, the party established an advisory committee to help Tanigaki develop a more appropriately conservative doctrine and image for the LDP.

The members of this council of advisors?

Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro
Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo
Former Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo
Former Prime Minister Aso Taro

I know what you are thinking: "Wise men...and winners...each and every one."

Put aside for a moment the comedic possibilities of having these four elder statespersons offering adobaisu (just quoting the Japanese text here) on how to make the LDP a more vital party and Tanigaki a more inspiring leader.

You're right, I can't do it either.

Be it as it may, the first public meeting of the group took place on Monday. Well, actually, not. There was a meeting but only Abe and Aso showed up. Mori and Fukuda had better other things to do.

At the meeting the pair representing the collective wisdom of the foursome presented nine proposals. These nine proposals were so salient and pertinent that not a single news organization has published them in their entirety. They furthermore cannot be found on the LDP's, Abe's, Aso's or Mori's websites. It is possible Fukuda would post them on his website, if he had one.

The Tokyo Shimbun, whether out of duty or pity, reproduced two of these proposals in its article on the meeting. (J)

The first suggestion is that rather than focusing on improving the efficiency of fiscal policies and reforms of the tax system, the party should emphasize fiscal reconstruction and not passing on a burden to future generations.

If you can tell how those two ideas are different in a significant way, or how doing the one precludes doing the other, please send me an email.

[Ed. - See Comment #Alex]

The second suggestion is even better than the first. It is -- and I am not making this up:

"Reform of the Constitution and the establishment of a Japan that is more like Japan."

Now this particular suggestion has Abe Shinzo's paw prints all over it. It was Abe who declared that one of the primary goals of his term in office (which turned out to be far briefer than he imagined it would be) would be the promulgation of a constitution "written by our own hands." It seems that the current constitution, drafted in English and in haste by an ad hoc team of SCAP staff members in 1946, suffers from a lack of legitimacy and sensitivity to Japan's spiritual identity.

Tossing away the context -- the faith in Japan's right wing that the U.S. Occupation Forces-drafted Constitution condemns Japanese to an eternal self-flagelatory inferiority complex and domination by left-wing teachers unions -- just what exactly, in an absolute sense, is "a Japan that is more like Japan?" I do not think that the four former prime ministers could come up with a single answer, much less 126 million Japanese citizens. I do not think that Abe and Aso, who managed to both agree to make time in their schedules to show up at this meeting, could come up with a single answer.

To whit, a huge cartoon of a grinning Aso overlooks the maid cafes, electronics bazaars, game figurine emporia and various shrines to AKB 48 and its spin offs in Akihabara. The image of the manga-fan former PM declares his love of all he surveys, the epicenter of Japan's post-post modernist otaku cultural earthquake.

Would Aso classify the seething, transmogrifying mass of Akihabara's simultaneously infantilist, hypersexualized, exhibitionist and alienated sub-cultures as part of Japan that is truly Japan? Judging from what is written in his book, you bet.

By contrast, I do not for one second believe Abe Shinzo has ever spent any amount of time in Akihabara...and if he were ever to spend any time there, I am sure, from what it is in his book, he would not like it.

Not one little bit.

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

* The very most recent polls have had some encouraging news for Tanigaki. When subjects were asked which party they would likely vote for on the proportional ballot in the next House of Representatives election, around 23% have said they would vote for the LDP and only around 14% have said they would vote for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (one example - J).

These figures are far more promising for the party than the absolute party support numbers, which have the LDP and the DPJ in a near statistical tie in their unpopularity.

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.