After the uprising of the 17th of JuneThe Secretary of the Writers' UnionHad leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeStating that the peopleHad forfeited the confidence of the governmentAnd could win it back onlyBy redoubled efforts.Would it not be easierIn that case for the governmentTo dissolve the peopleAnd elect another?Bertolt Brecht, "Die Lösung" (1953) Deputy Prime Minister/Finance …
Tag: Japanese conservatism
Is constitution revision actually possible?
Last week, the Sankei Shimbun reported that, in the face of mounting public opposition, the LDP would in fact not put revising Article 96 of the constitution at the heart of its upper house campaign strategy. (Naturally, the next day Sankei published an editorial arguing that the LDP should make revising Article 96 central to the campaign …
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The politics of Kan’s apology
"I would like to face history with sincerity," said Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto in a statement issued on 10 August, the 100th anniversary of Japan's annexation of Korea. "I would like to have courage to squarely confront the facts of history and humility to accept them, as well as to be honest to reflect …
The Yosano-Hiranuma alliance of convenience
Michael Cucek has already pondered Yosano Kaoru's thinking behind his strange alliance with arch-revisionist Hiranuma Takeo — which has resulted in party that will supposedly be called Stand Up Japan! (the SUJ? As if Your Party wasn't bad enough) — but there's another factor beyond the electoral factors considered by Cucek.The alliance is a marriage …
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Exit, voice, and loyalty in the LDP
On Saturday, Yosano Kaoru, onetime contender for the LDP presidency and the Aso cabinet's second finance minister, met with LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu and filed notice that he will leave the party from next week. Sonoda Hiroyuki, Yosano's ally who was forced to resign as a deputy secretary-general last month over criticism of Tanigaki, is …
Tamogami, Palin, and populist conservatisms
It has been just over a year since General Tamogami Toshio (ASDF-ret.), then the chief of staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense Forces, was drummed out of the service after he was awarded the top prize in an essay contest sponsored by the APA Group for his essay "Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?"In the year since …
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The end of an era
Nakagawa Shoichi, the finance minister under Aso Taro who, becoming infamous worldwide for his behavior at a G7 meeting in Rome in February, was forced to resign and then lost his seat in the August general election, was found dead at his home in Tokyo's Setagaya ward Sunday morning. Yomiuri notes an absence of external …
Practical politics, symbolic conservatism, and the decline of the LDP
The LDP's presidential race is in full swing, and Tanigaki Sadakazu appears to be in command of the race against Kono Taro and Nishimura Yasutoshi. Polls of LDP Diet members suggest that Tanigaki enjoys the support of roughly a majority of the party's 199 Diet members; Yomiuri has Tanigaki with 102 votes, Nishimura with 30, …
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Sankei’s revealing gaffe
In case anyone doubted that the conservative media will have it out for the incoming DPJ government, the Sankei Shimbun has done everyone a favor and admitted that, like the LDP, it has gone into opposition.Sankei's city desk recently established a Twitter feed, at which the following was posted on 30 August even before voting …
Aso’s strenuous life
In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil …
Tobias S. Harris 