The Emperor After The Fall

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Today is The Big Day -- when the judge in the Ozawa Ichiro trial on violations of the Public Funds Control Law Political Funds Control Act hands down his verdict and if Ozawa is found guilty, his sentence. The news is full of analysis of the meaning of the Ozawa verdict, including these two pieces by Toko Sekiguchi (E) and Aurelia George Mulgan (E).

I hate to be the grump in any instance -- but the verdict today is largely irrelevant. As Sekiguchi points out in her piece, Ozawa will appeal if he is found guilty. If he is found not guilty, the Association of Those Seeking the Truth (Shinjitsu o Motomeru Kai) will have failed in its quest to milk the arrest of Okubo Takanori for some evidence to put Ozawa away. Given that the members of this group, whoever they are, all seem to be in retirement and thus with plenty of time on their hands to cause mischief (the Devil makes work for idle hands, after all), it is likely the Association will just find another blind alley to send prosecutors running down.

(An aside: the slavering anti-Ozawa weekly Shukan Bunshun decided that yesterday, the eve of the verdict, was the perfect day to release an exclusive story about a heretofore unknown child Ozawa fathered out of wedlock. Classy rag, that Shukan Bunshun.)

Whatever the purported goals of the cases against Ozawa and his aides, the political purpose has been served. The arrest of Okubo forced Ozawa to resign as head of the Democratic Party of Japan on the eve of the election that was to push the Liberal Democratic Party off its perch and install a DPJ-led coalition government. The resignation as party leader prevented Ozawa becoming prime minister. While Ozawa was able to engineer the election of his ally-puppet Hatoyama Yukio as his replacement, with Ozawa taking the role of effective party leader through the post of DPJ Secretary-General, Ozawa was denied the prize which he had long desired and had long labored to seize. As for the arrests of former aides Ishikawa Tomohiro and Ikeda Mitsutomo, on the basis of evidence of violations of the Public Funds Control Law found by the prosecutors after a proctological search through the documents seized in relation to Okubo's arrest, these weakened Ozawa's position in the party, making it possible for middle-level legislators to challenge his stranglehold on party policy making.

Ozawa's indictment on January 31, 2011 (E) gave the anti-Ozawa members of the DPJ, including prime minister Kan Naoto, the leverage needed to force party secretary-general Koshi'ishi Azuma, an Ozawa ally, to suspend Ozawa's party privileges.

Stripped of all formal party positions and even access to party funds for his own reelection. Ozawa had to exercise influence indirectly through the first-term and second-term legislators in Houses of Representatives and the House of Councillors whom he had hand-picked as candidates, and through the largely second- and third-grade legislators who had followed him through party after party. These nominal disciples number about 150 legislators, a third of the DPJ's membership in the Diet.

However, without his hands on the money spigots of the party, particularly the public financing provided to finance elections, Ozawa has had to rely on the bonds of affection, loyalty and his own funding apparatus to keep his allies faithful. This bond has weakened, however, as Ozawa's time in internal exile has dragged on. On issues of policy, such as opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the rise in the consumption tax, he has had to ally himself with other disaffected elements of the party, such as Mr. No To Everything Yamada Masahiko. He also found himself, in June 2011, on the verge joining hands with the LDP, the party he had worked so hard to unseat and dismantle, in a vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Kan. Only a last-minute and ultimately empty face-saving compromise worked out by the feckless Hatoyama prevented Ozawa from fulfilling the media's negative portrayal of  him as a selfish destroyer of parties and governments.

Even this indirect influence over party policy making has evaporated, however. In a show of principle and utter political naïveté, Ozawa's allies in the DPJ dragged out the party debate over the legislation raising the consumption tax from a projected 3 days to 3 weeks. Exasperated, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko cut off debate, giving the final decision on the legislation to Policy Research Chairman Maeda Maehara Seiji -- an outcome that effectively negated the entire three weeks of debate. In response, four of Ozawa's acolytes in government positions and 30 in party positions resigned their posts. Eager to preserve party unity, the party leadership refused to accept the resignations, giving the legislators and Ozawa a chance to reconsider their actions. After six days of waiting, the government accepted the resignations of the government appointees on April 5 (E). It still left the door open, though, for those who had resigned party posts.

The party, however, very quietly shut that final door on Monday (J,) accepting resignations of the Ozawa allies who had resigned their party posts.

So as the political commentariat and twitterati await the verdict with bated breath, the political impact of the outcome is less significant than political observers will admit. Ozawa is now more shadow than shadow shogun. The current leadership group, knowing his tendencies, will not permit his appointment to any position of power. He will not be allowed near the party's pot of political funds. His followers have abandoned the positions they could have used to influence or if necessary gum up policy making.

Ozawa has been the most influential, hated and fascinating politician of the last 30 years. However, whatever happens today will not shake the political world to its roots. Its branches may shiver a bit -- but that is all.

 Later - My apologies for the HTML failures that led to half the original text being swallowed up into the ether.

Still later - Many thanks to alert readers O.J. and M.P. for catching the errors.

On Kiuchi Takatane's Departure From The DPJ

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, The top news this morning regarding the consumption tax is the first departure from the Democratic Party of Japan since the Cabinet's approval of the government bill raising the tax to 10%, an event that blew apart the DPJ's coalition partner, the People's New Party.

The departing MP is Kiuchi Takatane, a first-time district seat holder from the Tokyo #9 constituency. According to his blog, he has tendered his resignation from the party on the grounds that he ran on the program of changing the way government conducted its business. He wants the government to cut back on its own spending and the losses incurred through the various quasi-governmental organizations living off the public purse. However, the Noda government, rather than focusing on putting the government and the social welfare system on a more sustainable course, is simply swallowing the consumption tax rise cooked up by the Ministry of Finance, without considering the significant economic impact the tax rise will have on the Japanese economy. (J)

Now this is the basic Ozawa Ichiro line regarding the Noda government's approach to the consumption tax. In terms of political optics, the Ozawa approach is the smarter one: pass bills cutting the number of legislators and their wages, carry out the recommendations of the Government Revitilization Unit (GRU), then go to the people asking for more of their hard-earned yen. A group of 33 first-time legislators indeed presented a letter to DPJ Policy Research Council Chairman Maehara Seiji on the 29th begging him to move forward on a bill reducing the number of proportional seats in the House of Representatives from 180 to 100 -- even though this cut would eliminate the reelection chances of some of those with their signatures on the letter.

However smart this plan in terms of electoral politics, it is unworkable in terms of Diet politics and the Cabinet's hopes of implementing any changes in government policies. The New Komeito, and by extension its ally the Liberal Democratic Party, will not countenance a bill cutting the proportional seats in the House of Representatives by any significant number on the grounds that all of the New Komeito's seats in the House of Representatives are proportional seats. As for carrying out the recommendations of the GRU, Prime Minister Noda seems to realize that despite the DPJ's historical antipathy toward the national government's bureaucrats, he cannot fight wars on two fronts simultaneously: one against the opposition parties in the Diet and another against the bureaucrats. Not that Noda not willing to stick it to the bureaucrats when the opportunity presents itself, as the passage of the bill cutting bureaucratic pay by an average of 7.8% indicates. However, this cut was a New Komeito proposal, meaning that Noda had to expend almost no political capital in winning its passage through both Houses of the Diet.

There is, of course, the other problem with the Ozawa program in its being irrelevant to the actual budgetary problems of Japan. While there is tremendous waste of government resources, the squeezing of ministries and the quasi-governmental organizations will result in risibly small savings.

So why is Kiuchi first out the door?

Undoubtedly because Kiuchi can afford to be. He is a former Mitsubishi Bank executive who left the bank for stints in the securities departments of Deutsche Bank and UBS, finishing out his finance career as the managing director of investment banking at Merrill Lynch Japan. (J)

In other words, Kiuchi does not rely on his Diet member paycheck to maintain his lifestyle. For him, it must look like pocket change.

Ozawa was smart in choosing his followers, targeting not only telegenic young candidates but also local worthies of independent means, for whom politics was not a career or a job but a passion.

Kiuchi will not be joining the Kizuna Party (J), the party founded by mostly Ozawa loyalists who defected from the DPJ late last year in opposition to the government's plans regarding the consumption tax. Shinto Kizuna has proven to be something of a political Siberia, unable to work with the government of course, but unable to join the opposition either. (J)

The party has the smell of death about it.

Instead Kiuchi will be, or in his eyes already is, an independent. Running as an independent is a bit of a gamble as his opponent is the former LDP holder of the #9 District seat. Kiuchi beat his LDP opponent 47% to 42% in the August 2009 elections. Come next election, Kiuchi will have no institutional support or anti-LDP wind at his back. He will also be the incumbent when the electorate may be in a "throw the bums out" mood. On the plus side, Kiuchi can run as the anti-tax candidate.

Will many other member of the DPJ be following Kiuchi's example, putting pressure on the government to abandon its plans of a quick vote on the consumption tax bill in the House of Representatives? Possibly, though few can boast the ability to support oneself available to Kiuchi.

Will the defection of Kiuchi and others make it easier for LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu and New Komeito leader Yamaguchi Natsuo to pretend to ignore Noda government entreaties to have their parties' members vote for the bill in the House of Councillors? Sure, for at least a while. Given Ozawa's political smarts, after having delivered the double punch on Friday of the resignations of some 20 his stalwarts from their government and party posts, he will likely have defections of his followers coming out in dribs and drabs so to have the news of the DPJ's coming apart dominating the political narrative. The longer the blood letting goes on the harder it is for Noda Yoshihiko to offer a credible front in his bargaining with the opposition.

The Usual Suspects; The Usual Outcome?

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, They were supposed to wrap things up on Friday but they could not come to an agreement.

They were supposed to come up with some neat ideas over the weekend to patch up the yawning fissure in between the two sides. However, there were no realistic ideas, just a lot of wishes expressed.

Monday was supposed to be the day when the final offers were made...but...you can guess the outcome.

Finally, in the wee hours of this morning, the chair of the Democratic Party of Japan ad hoc committee trying to forge an intra-party consensus on the conditions for the raising of the consumption tax declared the debate over. Those opposed to the raising of the consumption tax raised a fuss...but that is what they were going to do anyway.

So the drafting of the final language of the bill is handed over to (ichinin suru) Policy Research Council Chairman Maehara Seiji, which is tantamount to this multi-week debate's never having taken place.

The Noda Yoshihiko led-executive did offer some last minute concessions. The first was the mentioning of economic growth targets in the body of the bill as a necessary consideration for reconsideration of the appropriateness of the timing of the tax rise, without actually having those targets serve as triggers. What was promised was sort of "It would be nice if we have nominal growth of 3% and real growth of 2% when the tax is raised. It we do not have these levels of growth we will be vewy, vewy sad." Opponents to the tax rise have been demanding the numerical triggers. They were, shall we say, less than impressed at the leadership's offer.

The other concession was the elimination of the article in the bill which left the door open for further raising of the consumption tax beyond 10% after 2014. Both sides of the debate, however, knew from the outset that that particular article was a sacrificial lamb, so its elimination is more an insult than a concession.

So the bill is set for approval by the Cabinet this Friday, meeting a deadline set in a 2009 bill for reforms of the consumption tax. Will the anti-tax group, most of whom are either supporters or past supporters of splitists (borrowing the Chinese pejorative) Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio, go so far as to break away from the DPJ?

No.

Why say that with such conviction? These folks have been staying up late (last night's session lasted 7 hours), night after night, doing their darndest to stymie the leadership from offering to the Diet its own version of the bill.

Yes, and after all that effort, they did not manage to do diddly, did they?

Let us surmise that this was a debate with a pre-determined outcome, a pantomime show put on for the benefit of those either hoping for

1) a break up of the DPJ,
2) a halt in the raising of the consumption tax,
3) evidence of real, considered policy debate within the ruling party,
4) an intra-party political drama keeping the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito off the nation's TV screens and political news pages, or
5) any combination of the previous four elements.

The first hint that this was a set piece was the players. In a real debate, there would be twists and turns, unforeseen heroes, impromptu memorable quips. However, in this show, we saw the same seven characters:

Policy Research Chairman Maehara Seiji
Tax Committee Chairman Fujii Haruhisa

in the pro-tax corner

Azuma Shozo (now with a beard)
Kawauchi Hiroshi
Yamada "Mr. No To Everything" Masahiko

in the anti-tax corner

with Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio catcalling in from undisclosed locations, never from within the confines of the committee room itself (the place was packed last night, with 200 legislators attending)

saying the same darned things one would expect them to say.

The second hint was that this debate was framed as an "Ozawa vs. the Leadership" smackdown. By now we should have learned that when push comes to shove, Ozawa does not have the numbers to back up his either dominating the DPJ or breaking it. The closest he came was in September of 2010, when he ran directly against Kan Naoto for the post of party leader. At least among the Diet membership, Ozawa came tantalizingly close to beating Kan in the voting. The takeaway from that date, however, is that despite having so much of the present membership of the Diet indebted to him for their seats, he still failed to win a majority of the votes of the Diet membership. As for the votes of the assembly members and the party supporters, Ozawa got snowed under.

When Ozawa had the chance, nine months later, to put Kan away by leading his followers in voting "yes" for an LDP-sponsored no-confidence motion, he demurred, not even bothering to show up at the Diet chamber for the vote.

So when the fight is billed "Ozawa vs. the powers that be" we should be suspicious, even with the big dog about to slip his leash.

Of course, there is a major problem looming for the leadership: Kamei Shizuka's opposition to the consumption tax hike. Friday's Cabinet approval has to be unanimous. If the People's New Party's representative in the Cabinet, Financial Services Minister Jimi Shozaburo (who is kind of busy right now) does not vote for the proposal, it cannot be offered to the Diet as a government bill. Oddly, the commentariat is largely silent on the possibility that Noda will have to fire Jimi in the same way as Hatoyama had to fire Consumer Affairs Minister Fukushima Mizuho when she refused to sign off on the Futenma-to-Henoko decision. If Noda fires Jimi, then the PNP will likely follow the Democratic Socialists out of the government.

While the departure of the PNP would not mean much for the Noda government in terms of lost votes in the Diet, the optics of such a break up would be poor.

Since Kamei has been talking on and on about the establishment of a new "true conservative" party, however, it is possible that the PNP is already dead. Jimi can thus be ready to vote "yes" for the bill on Friday, making the PNP's moribund state official, and allowing Noda to move on to the next phase: corralling either the LDP or the New Komeito into voting for the bill.

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?