|
MaterialConceptual posted:I'm going to try to translate an article about Hashimoto and neoliberalism I read in this month's edition of the Communist-affiliated economics monthly Keizai. I'll post the translation here if I get it done. My general impression is that Keizai is usually painfully dull, but that sounds like it's worth reading. I'll definitely read the translation--hell, I'll DO half the translation if you send me a pdf. When I lived in Yokohama you could get Zen'ei at most of the big bookstores, though I guess Keizai sort of looked too specialized to stock. I usually just wound up reading sekai and small lefty journals anyway. Have you ever tried to read anything by Fuwa Tetsuzo? It's really really dull. EDIT: for additional stuff. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Jun 28, 2012 |
#
¿
Jun 28, 2012 03:32
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
ErIog posted:
There used to be a pretty substantial center-moderate 総合誌 called Ronza, but it died. Aera is kind of a mix of real journalism and lifestyle pieces, and you can learn a lot about random Japanese social anxieties from it. Both エコノミスト and 東洋経済 are a lot like the Economist, though they're a lot more Keynesian.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2012 03:46
|
|
|
So it looks like today's antinuclear protest drew about 150,000 people. Photos from asahi here: http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0629/TKY201206290577.html Watch international media not cover this.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2012 20:24
|
|
|
ErIog posted:There's not a lot of actual room for a green party in Japanese politics because most green issues that would be fringe green issues in other countries are mainstream political issues dealt with in the some fashion by the main political parties. In other countries this isn't the case, but Japan's a fairly small an island nation that's pretty concerned with not loving itself over. I think you'd get pretty different accounts of how serious the Japanese government is about environmental issues and the necessity of more ecological focus depending on who you ask. Particularly recently, what with the radioactive food. Anyway, there have been numerous attempts to start a Green Party in Japan and keep it going: the website of the most recent one is here: http://www.greens.gr.jp/ The main reason they aren't more successful is because there are already two other minor left parties which account for about 10% of the popular vote and there isn't room for a third.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2012 04:03
|
|
|
Jkid posted:A note about prime minsters being elected and then resigning: They seem to make the resignation of the prime minster position almost ritual. Why can't a prime minster in Japan be committed long term to the job? It's a question a lot of people have asked. 1.) The Prime Minister in the Japanese Constitution is a weak office compared to the President in most places or even a lot of Prime Ministers in other countries. 2.) Historically there's generally been a powerful informal elite behind the office. This was more true with the LDP. Nakasone is still powerful in the LDP even though he's in his 90s and finished his term in office in something like 1987. Some of this has to do with families. For example, four generations of Koizumis have held power in Koizumi Shinjiro's district in Kanagawa, basically since universal male suffrage was adopted in the 1920's. Within the LDP, many of these families marry each other, and there are blood-based political alliances. 3.)(my take) In general, it deflects some responsibility from the party if the PM is offered up as a sacrifice to public opinion. 4.) (my take) It's also a hangover from the prewar system (where the PM had very limited authority) in the context of what's generally a very corrupt and undemocratic political system. There's a historical shadow of some other, more 'competent' institution being able to come in and bring some forcible order to the messy business of democracy. 5.) (bonus) A lot of analysts and some newspapers now basically see the elected government as unable to control the ministries, which hold the real power--Japan has a 'sovereign bureaucracy.' By that token, the PM is a complete fall guy with no real power. EDIT: Clarity. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jun 30, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2012 04:25
|
|
|
MaterialConceptual posted:
Off the top of my head, I think they have at least one district seat in Osaka and maybe one or two more in Kansai? I think they still have a strong base in Hokkaido, from what I remember, and maybe in Tokyo. As far as why they didn't amalgamate the two parties, there's the geopolitical stuff, but I think most sane people would recognize that those stances are now anachronistic at best. the main thing is that neither side would have gained anything immediately obvious from merging the parties. A lot of support for both still runs through union affiliations, identities and legacies of political fights on that turf. A lot of people vote for the JCP or the SDP because those are the parties that gave them their specific job security, not out of a deep sense of identification with the left. (Still more people vote for them out of simple exasperation with everything else.) Also, under the cuddly, the JCP is still a Leninist, democratic-centralist party that makes its political decisions based on a political line, and there's no mechanism for bargaining on specific points. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jun 30, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2012 06:50
|
|
|
MaterialConceptual posted:Thank you for the interesting reply. Could you expand on this point? I can't say my experience in the social democratic NDP in Canada varied all that much from this description (Policy basically seemed to be decided by which faction seized control of the party leadership and dissenting voices were utterly marginalized) so I'm not sure how the SDPJ would really differ in this manner. The JCP doesn't have factions--once a position is adopted it's the position of the whole party and the discussion is done. And in principle those positions are supposed to come from a coherent single analysis of Japanese society. So it's difficult for a dissenting position to creep in because it's basically predetermined what group w/in the JCP you would belong to (based on occupation and where you live) and those groups are arranged in a hierarchy at the national level. They also don't tend to have very specific arguments. On class, basically the ruling class is the major parties and the working class is 'the people.' They talk about issues like precarity but the upshot is usually something along the lines of 'people shouldn't be treated this way.' A more nuanced understanding is no problem, but it's hard to find things to actually disagree with.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2012 20:28
|
|
|
Deleuzionist posted:I'm so sad that video is titled "Revolutionary Fascist" He's not the only one working the gag (?): this guy will show up to your event in his tricked-out hearse (click the rightmost link) http://www.torihada.com/syoukai_top.htm
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2012 05:29
|
|
|
A sexy submarine posted:Michael Cucek from the shikaku blog seems to think Ozawa's commiting political suicide here. Although, seeing as how his corruption charges have been refiled and the LDP/Komeito alliance are willing to back Noda just to get him out, its more like a man on life support smothering himself. It's just a question of how many people he's going to take with him. This seems a little hasty to me--if the x-billion minor parties (Your Party, etc.) pick up votes in the next election and there's a stalemate with no clear mandate, Ozawa could swing a lot of weight. Not that this will help anything.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2012 02:39
|
|
|
A sexy submarine posted:
I rest my case. But in all seriousness, even if there's no prospect of a coalition the diet still has to pass legislation. I don't think that the major parties can indefinitely ignore the votes of 70-odd legislators on the basis of a grudge. BTW, I have no particular love for Ozawa, but Watanabe Tsuneo is ten times more of a cancer on Japan than that guy. (BTW, no, I am not a Hanshin fan) Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jul 3, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2012 05:19
|
|
|
I don't think anybody's claiming that Ozawa's at the top of his career right now. But it's silly to claim that he was all about becoming prime minister when he was more politically powerful than half of the prime ministers of the last ten years. Here's another way of reading the narrative. There are two schools of thought on Ozawa. One hates him personally, one just sees him as an opportunistic weathervane. The difference? What narrative you buy into about the larger direction of Japanese politics. And it has everything to do with the consumption tax. People who favor the first narrative effectively favor some version of neoliberalism (aka 'structural reform') and a therefore a strong prime minister who can shove legislation through. But the systemic aspects of the Japanese economy are different enough from US and Europe so that neoliberal policies don't look the same as over here. Take the consumption tax. It's tax, right? But it's a really regressive tax, in a country which has seen explosive growth in inequality in the last ten years. And all the money is going to go to debt management, so that Japan's credit rating doesn't get slashed again. People who favor the second narrative know what's going on, which is that in many ways it will be BAD if the diet starts 'functioning' and passing legislation like crazy. Ozawa has no principled reasons to be against this drift in political culture towards gutting economic security (which under Hashimoto--to take an extreme case--would just be some kind of Berlusconi scenario) but he knows that most people intuitively hate it, so he rides the wave. In short, the reason you have figures like Ozawa is because there's no effective representation of left opposition and the ruling party is squashed between popular opinion and keidanren. All it takes is one old-guard guy who's not an idiot or a technocrat. quote:
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2012 22:32
|
|
|
So, yesterday was the second or third huge antinuclear protest in Tokyo. I'll post some thoughts on this in the next day or two, but the main thing I'm struck by is very the weak response and interest here in the US. Particularly on the left. I'm not sure if it's the result of a hangover from Occupy, the weakening of interest in antinuclear issues per se (which I have complicated feelings about) or just the total cession of Japanese politics to the conservative policy status-quo machine here in the US. It says a lot that some of the best coverage of the protests has been in Vice magazine, viz: http://www.vice.com/read/how-to-protest-like-the-japanese
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2012 05:37
|
|
|
Silver2195 posted:Stopped reading the article after I saw the words "kawaii" and "fail". The cute is actually a calculated thing because of the legacy of protests in the '60's, some of which were violent. As in you could get killed.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2012 08:58
|
|
|
Konstantin posted:They should care, if only to say "Shut the gently caress up, nuclear is an essential part of any clean energy plan, and is both safer and much better for the environment than fossil fuels." Nobody has died due to radiation exposure at Fukushima, as opposed to the countless disasters that have happened due to the gathering of fossil fuels and the many deaths and illnesses that air pollution causes. Some quick notes on this: Apart from the fact that the above post is based on a false dilemma (Japan has the option to reduce demand, which is basically what it has done) 1.) From what I understand, the issue at Fukushima is that very large numbers of people may receive doses that are right around the acceptable lifetime exposures that are set for nuclear plant workers. Nobody really knows what the health effects of that will be. It might be nothing. It might be a lot. But anyway: 2.) The shutdown of nuclear plants that happened after the disaster didn't really have a huge social or economic effect. 3.) Japan was not chosen for nuclear power generation because of conservation concerns. It was chosen for atoms for peace by the US in the belief that it would reduce the Japanese 'nuclear allergy' and make Japan more amenable to being part of the US nuclear weapons strategy. 4.) There are lots of issues with government responsiveness in Japan that don't have to do with nuclear energy per se. The disaster at Fukushima has catalyzed response to this. 5.) This unresponsiveness is strongly related to the GOJ's demonstrated belief that people are ultimately too stupid and ignorant to handle their own affairs where nuclear power is concerned and should be essentially told to shut the gently caress up. The refusal to shut the gently caress up and do what the right-wing plutocrat tells you is sort of what these protests are about. 6.) However, risk, and risk perception is a social phenomenon. It is not some manifestation of collective idiocy that can be solved by patting people on the head or beating some education into them. BTW, I'm not partisan against nuclear energy. I don't think the argument that plutonium is evil is any more compelling than the argument that carbon is evil. In fact, I think nuclear is the best choice in places with rapidly growing economies and serious issues with environmental degradation, like the PRC. Unfortunately, that's not how decisions in energy politics are made. Instead, they're made for geopolitical reasons that serve the interests of great powers and the giant corporations attached to them. It's true for oil, and it's true for nuclear. TEPCO is a huge, arrogant energy company with insanely excessive political power, just like Exxon or BP, and I think it's fortunate that it has been nationalized, though that's just a start. However, I do believe that the fracturing of politics, including environmental politics, into disassociated interest politics that is willing to reduce its goals into things like temporary compromises on things like fossil fuel consumption in order to constantly broadcast the impression that it has solutions amenable to reduction into sound bites, has played a major part into turning politics into the pointless competition of talking heads which is today visible around the world. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Jul 9, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2012 23:35
|
|
|
I am OK posted:Maybe. I haven't been here long enough nor understand the language well enough to notice. Arseholes like that are everywhere though. People may notice Japanese micro-aggression more because it's the first time that the inevitably white, well-off person has encountered anything like that in their life. I know it was for me the time some old man (again, seriously, what the gently caress is wrong with these guys) started shoving me in the chest and shouting at me on a packed train. Yeah, that does suck, and it does have to do with race, but I think that's more of an instance of somebody out to pick a fight going after the person who stands out (which is a whole other thing). The really nasty forms of racism that exist in Japan are the life-changing, crushing and private kind, and they're mostly directed at Zainichi and people with Burakumin ancestry. There are also the issues that immigrants from China and SE Asia have to face, but that's also a different discussion.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2012 00:19
|
|
|
Will2Powa posted:
Which differentiates it from the US/Europe, etc. how?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2012 02:17
|
|
|
z0331 posted:Like I mentioned, my hope is actually that they, as a nation, can reduce their need for energy to the point where clean power becomes viable. If any country can do it, Japan is probably it. Supposedly Germany's already running about fifty percent off of solar. It makes a lot of sense for Japan to pursue it because a lot of the costs are in R&D and Japan is very strong in high-tech engineering. And since, as we all know, the real backbone of the Japanese voting population is sixty-something NHK viewers in fisherman's vests, it's political gold.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2012 06:48
|
|
|
dilbertschalter posted:Germany gets 3% of its electricity from solar. Am I totally misreading this, then? " Even in rich countries, small reductions in emissions offer no sign of the real break with the status quo we'd need to upend the iron logic of these three numbers. Germany is one of the only big countries that has actually tried hard to change its energy mix; on one sunny Saturday in late May, that northern-latitude nation generated nearly half its power from solar panels within its borders." via http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719#ixzz21B3kWWzd
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2012 16:35
|
|
|
Silver2195 posted:If anything, I'd say anime and other Japanese media tends to avoid overt political commentary. Whenever there's some sort of political message, it's always very general and "safe" (either vague environmentalism or hypocritical quasi-pacifism). Even with shows that can be interpreted as political, everyone involved will deny that that was the intent (Code Geass comes to mind). The opposite is the case with the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime, which is actually supposed to be a commentary on the Iraq War, but that interpretation didn't occur to me at all when I actually watched it. Japanese political culture is pretty different from American political culture and it takes a while to get. If you're looking for subtext in things like anime, a lot of it is going to be about society, the generation gap and feeling misused by the system. Evangelion had a social subtext for a lot of people in my generation (now early 30's) who watched it, especially because it aired right around the time of the Aum stuff. A big part of getting something like NANA is knowing the conventions of shojo manga, but also that NANA is a sort of social-realistic character and there's a whole history of writing about working women with cultural aspirations in left-wing fiction in Japan. If you're looking for anime that's intellectually ambitious, Ergo Proxy is pretty solid science fiction.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2012 08:34
|
|
|
Deceitful Penguin posted:Ok, can you give me more info on what/how they've failed in doing? Is the strong Yen hurting exports or is there more to it? There are a lot of books, mostly written in the 1980's, which claim to explain this and are all still relevant, though kind of out of date. The best one is Gavin McCormack, 'The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence.' Basically, a lot of electoral consent in Japan after World War II was secured through big infrastructural development projects, particularly out in the sticks. So your local LDP politician would secure a gov't level contract for a hydroelectric dam or a highway or a bizarre theme park working with the key ministries, mostly construction and finance which would plan the thing and then a big construction company connected to a keiretsu (say, Seibu or Mitsubishi) would build the thing, producing employment and possibly even a quality of life improvement. In return, you voted for the LDP politician, who did what the keiretsu said otherwise and let the ministries decide policy while worrying about getting reelected. So, for example, this is how the Fukushima plants got built. There is a lot more to the story, like bid-rigging, local opposition getting plowed under, keidanren (the Industrial Manufacturers Association) writing gov't policy, gerrymandering, and so on. The big story now basically has to do with how this all got financed (read: bonds, public debt) plus the fact that the policy was all based on long-term projections about economic growth which turned out to be wrong after the bubble ended. So there are now a lot of little municipalities in dire debt with declining populations and no economy because their long-term development plan was based on endless demand for, say, sheep insemination theme parks (I'm making that up, but barely.) McCormack's book has one account of a municipality who decided to make their theme park about gold, so they bought lots of gold objects...they were either completely caught in the fever of the 80's or very, very, smart. SO basically that system doesn't work any more, except that the gov't is so divided that by most accounts the power of the ministries has actually increased. The best explanation I've heard of the political gridlock is that the Diet is actually sandwiched between popular opinion and Keidanren and can't do anything: see the consumption tax, which is a pure austerity measure, basically dipping into peoples' personal income for debt service. PS: a lot of this also has to do with the fact that the judicial branch of government in Japan does close to literally nothing whatsoever. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Sep 21, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2012 05:56
|
|
|
hadji murad posted:The Japanese Finance Ministry has been burning money at a record rate trying to stop the strong yen, with as much effect as anything else they do. There are lots of things in Japan that do work well but get no attention. The health care system is excellent, particularly when you consider that Japan is actually not particularly rich by OECD standards. For all the greenwashing, Japan does very well on some environmental issues, particularly transportation, and it's easy to forget how environmentally soviet-style, wrecked and lax Japan was into the 1970's (Tokyo had brown air, people were getting chloroacne from household products, etc). Also, it's a cliche but keep in mind Japan used to be -really- poor per capita. As a country Japan has been rich and powerful for a lot longer then people tend to assume, but that's because Japan is a big country. Most average people saw none of that wealth until the 1950's and 1960's.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2012 06:35
|
|
|
LngBolt posted:Japan is doing less well than it could if it had full employment. Which it could have, but doesn't, because interests within the leadership refuse to utilize their sovereign currency to the maximum extent. Oh and the austerity, consumption tax stuff isn't helping either. Full employment in Japan historically has been defined at 0% unemployment. In the US, it's 5%. The bigger problem is actually underemployment, hidden unemployment and exploitative poo poo jobs. There are a lot more people than you'd think working 37.49 hours a week at 100-yen shops with 16-hour shifts.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2012 21:03
|
|
|
A sexy submarine posted:Did anyone read this hilarious article on foreigners joining the anti-nuclear rallies? Has anybody here seen the Yasukuni documentary? There's this bizarre sequence of an American guy, white, in a bad suit and tie and dark sunglasses, showing up to support Koizumi's visit and being assaulted by a crowd of elderly Japanese men. None of the trailers seem to have the sequence, though. Edit: Wait, we're in luck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Iwz2AFbqY&feature=channel&list=UL Starts at 4:20, subtitles in Chinese. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Sep 24, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2012 07:41
|
|
|
Lemmi Caution posted:It starts off very friendly until the police show up. I'd actually recommend seeing the whole thing. With the pissing contest between Japan and the PRC back in action, it's sobering to see the actual human beings affected by what is, in the last analysis, pretty much the enduring presence of fascism in Japan. I saw it in Tokyo when it came out in and uyoku were calling in bomb threats to the theaters, and was emotionally gutted by the close of the film. trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YVLCaitzPg Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Sep 27, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Sep 27, 2012 05:38
|
|
|
Munin posted:But still any word on why the members of the diet went for him? Why was he still in the running at all? Does he have a huge patronage network? Is he a puppet for someone else? My guess? The Mori faction (or whatever Abe is in) has some kind of pull now for reasons that have nothing to do with public politics. Abe is patently unqualified to hold the position--didn't he have a psychological breakdown in office because of stress already?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2012 23:24
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:...Ishiba's support comes mainly from the base... Well, screw that, I guess. It's not like there's an election coming up or something which would require motivating a huge floating base of indifferent, alienated voters. God, the LDP.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2012 00:42
|
|
|
Ganguro King posted:According to the news they have to hold a special election to choose a new governor within 50 days. Who can follow Ishihara? The choice is clear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuumGX-6uc
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2012 03:10
|
|
|
MaterialConceptual posted:This guy is a fascist so I guess it would fit the times. No! It says it clearly right there! He's on the far left and the far ri.... Oh, wait.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2012 03:26
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:Isn't this one of the things the new Japan Restoration Party wanted to do too, or am I mis-remembering? I think he wanted Japan to have only one house of parliament instead of two, which would of course mean completely changing all that stuff. It's less extreme than what's effectively being done in practice with this debate, namely, eroding the authority of the judiciary into nothing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2012 19:12
|
|