JABbering Stooge

すごい! (Sugoi!)

DPJ hands historic loss to LDP, takes over government

In an unprecedented political upheaval that could change the way Japan is run, the Democratic Party of Japan seized 308 seats in Sunday’s Lower House election, bouncing the Liberal Democratic Party from power.

The DPJ’s tally far exceeded the 241 seats needed for a single majority and surpassed the 296 seats the LDP won in its landslide victory in the previous Lower House election in 2005.

The LDP did not just lose the election; it was humiliated.

By virtue of this landslide victory, DPJ chief Yukio Hatoyama is set to become Japan’s new Prime Minister. Remember, the right-wing “Liberal Democratic” Party has dominated Japanese politics since the end of the Occupation. For them to be so thoroughly pwned in parliamentary elections is quite a feat.

Time will tell if this is a temporary setback for the LDP or the harbinger of a new age in Japanese politics. But if it is indeed the latter, then that’s just すばらしい (subarashii)!

* The phrase 易姓革命 (ekiseikakumei) refers to the ancient Chinese concept of a dynastic revolution that occurs when the ruling dynasty loses “The Mandate of Heaven.” Seemed rather appropriate, given the circumstances.

初日の出 2009 (Hatsuhi no de — the Japanese tradition of viewing the first sunrise of the new year)

Sidebar: the Japanese expression in the title reads “kinga shin’nen” — one of many ways to say “Happy New Year!” in Japanese.

Here’s a good candidate for the WTF?! Files:

Das Kapital turned into a manga comic
Karl Marx’s seminal anti-capitalist tome Das Kapital is to be reincarnated ­ as a Japanese manga comic.

By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Last Updated: 12:04PM GMT 18 Nov 2008

Das Kapital, the manga version, is due to hit bookstores across Japan next month with its complex ideas ambitiously repackaged into digestible comic format.

The appearance of the famous economic treatise in the form of a comic is the latest sign of a resurgence of leftwing literature in Japan as the world’s second largest economy sinks into recession.

The rise of part-time workers and increasing erosion of financial security have fuelled a boom in Communist Party membership in Japan along with a fashionable revival of anti-capitalist literature.

Heh. Mangaka of the world, unite!

Right.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING: For those of you who cannot read the post title (for one reason or another), I’ve updated the post slug to be the Romanized version.

The Buddhist monks at Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, Japan have decided to take a stand on China’s human rights abuses in Tibet. They are refusing to allow the famous temple to be used as the starting point for the Japanese leg of the Olympic torch world tour.

Good for them. China had been hoping to use the Olympics as a PR coup, but it’s turned into a real PR nightmare for the communist country. Which makes the recent crackdown in Tibet all the more idiotic on their part. They knew the world would be watching closely, yet they went all Miniluv anyway. Idiots.

* Rentai is Japanese for “Solidarity.”

In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, today is also known as White Day (Howaito Dē in Japanese — don’t ask why the extra syllable in front of the Japanization of “white;” I can’t figure it out.) And yes, the fact that it’s exactly one month after Valentine’s Day is significant.

You see, Valentine’s Day works a bit differently in Japan. Valentine’s gift giving in Japan is strictly one-way: women giving to men. In 1978, Japan’s National Confectionary Industry Association, seizing on a perfect marketing opportunity, and playing heavily on the Japanese concept of giri, started White Day as a tradition for men to return the favor.

That’s basically White Day in a nutshell. You can find more (read: better) information at the Wikipedia entry or at the Kid’s Web Japan website.

Via ThinkProgress, the Wall Street Journal reports that the dollar has fallen below ¥100 for the first time since November 1995.

Yep. Them Republican fiscal policies sure are workin’ wonders, ain’t they?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announces his resignation.

It travels between the continents like trade winds.*

Case in point, the Japanese man who mailed his severed finger to the offices of the ruling right-wing Liberal Democratic Party in protest of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s refusal to visit Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender, which marked the end of World War II.

Yoshihiro Tanjo, a 54-year-old member of an ultra-right-wing group in Okayama, western Japan, was arrested on charges of threatening Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, a prefectural police spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. He said no other details could be immediately released.

Kyodo News agency said Tanjo mailed his severed left pinky finger, a DVD showing the finger being chopped, and a protest statement to the LDP headquarters on Aug. 16, the day after the anniversary of the war’s end.

I for one, hope that Abe will not be intimidated by this thug, and will continue to avoid the controversial shrine. Though that would be expecting a lot from someone who had the JGSDF spy on anti-war groups.

* The title and first line were adapted from a line in the Babylon 5 TV movie “In the Beginning,” which is about the Earth-Minbari War.

Did you hear the one about the Japanese Prime Minister that refused to step down after his party suffered a humiliating defeat in national elections? That’s what happened to current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday, when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Shin Komeito coalition government lost its majority status in Japan’s House of Councillors. In addition to calls for Abe to resign as Prime Minister and head of the right-wing party that has dominated Japanese politics since the end of the Occupation, the embattled Prime Minister has been under tremendous pressure to announce a snap election to determine control of the lower house of the Diet.

From the moment he was elected to succeed Junichiro Koizumi, the Abe government has lurched from one scandal to another, much as the Bush administration has done here in the U.S. ever since Hurricane Katrina brutally rubbed our noses in Bush’s fallibility. If this proves to be the LDP’s political Waterloo that leaves them out in the wilderness for a while - and to be honest, Jerry Falwell has a better chance of coming back to life and announcing that he’s gay - then Japan will be all the better for it. As I’ve said before, despite its name, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is hardly democratic, much less liberal. Frankly, the I don’t think the world can stand much more right-wing domination of any country’s politics.