Politics is Politics and noisy cars
Trip Start
Jul 23, 2005
1
6
72
Trip End
Jul 25, 2006
Kitana,
Japan
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
I wake up early one morning to hear like five of these things going on. (Ok, I am exaggerating, but you get the point.) There were a few, and they were loud and it was early and I was annoyed. But I was also curious. "What is going on? It must be something important! And these sound like they are moving. What the hell? They must be evacuating the island, or telling us we have been invaded by aliens. It sounds important!" I go to take a shower.
When I get to school, (a few hours later because we are still on summer vacation) I ask a teacher and he laughs at me. Then he continues to explain to me that they are campaigning for an election. An election I think, when did that happen? I am trying to read the news of what is going on in Japan (in between trying to figure out what the hell is going on in America). I do not understand a lot of Japanese news, but I did not see anything about an election. Ya, he tells me, it happens on September 11th. I think oh, ok, that makes sense, they have two weeks to campaign and the way they do it is by driving around in a car or van shouting at people early in the morning! I tried to ask him more questions, but did not really understand what he was trying to tell me. Something about the guy in charge and the post office. I am frustrated and curious.
I proceeded to ask everyone that I knew about the election and what was going on. This includes Chiye, and the six teachers at school that speak enough English, and whose opinion I could maybe trust. One week later, I think I have finally figured it out, and may possibly be able to explain it in a way that others can understand too! (And it has to do with me taking over the world- first I have to become the leader of Japan-Just kidding!)
One finally did a really good job of explaining, and I put it together with the rest of the information I had collected and now I know what this election is about, I think! First, Japan is a parliamentary system. The Prime Minister, Koisumi, is not up for election, as I had originally misunderstood. He made a bill, or proposition to the "upper house", that the post office in Japan should be privatized. I must interrupt my story to tell about the post office. The post office is a very important place, as you cannot only send mail, but you can also have a bank account there. I know, now this is perfectly logical-- You open a bank account at the post office basically because it stays open one hour later than a regular bank. Unless you live in a rural area, in which case you only have a post office to do your banking at because it is required to be there by the government. That is a key point in this story actually, post offices are really important in rural areas. IE- the outer islands of Okinawa, and some of the northern parts of the main island. So why would Koisumi want to privatize the post office? Good question- basically because they are government run facilities now and the government has to pay all of the employees. If they were privatized, the company would have to pay the government taxes, and the government would be making money instead of losing it. And there is something that one teacher told me about freeing up money in there, which makes him think that the post office should be privatized but I am not exactly sure what he meant by it. Moving right along, the upper house rejected Koisumi`s idea. And so Koisumi told them to F-K off and dismissed them. Which means they had to have an election and I have to listen to all the lovely campaigning that makes no sense. So now, the people of Japan are in charge of deciding whether or not they want the post office to be privatized. If they elect people that are in Koisumi`s party, and that will vote to pass his motions, they want the post office to be privatized. If not, they will vote for another party. There are five or so parties from what I understand. In another two months I will be able to tell you what they are and what they stand for. I know that one is religious and one is communist and that is as far as I have gotten when it comes to learning about politics by communicating to teachers. By the way- if you are someone that is in Okinawa and you are reading this and I have gotten this completely wrong- please post a comment and correct me!
But politics is politics is ya. I have been thinking about them a lot lately due to my detective work as to what is going on in Japan with the noisy vehicles, but mostly because of all of the articles that I have been reading about Katrina. It is ridiculous that people are wasting their time writing about the politics of it, especially, already- but I cannot help but find it interesting. The state government wants to blame the federal government and the federal government wants to blame everyone but themselves, and lots of people want to blame Bush. And then there is bureaucracy, and going through red tape and approvals for procedures. And what about democracy anyway, I thought it was- of the people, by the people, for the people. I do not think that anything was completely for the people immediately. It's a black issue, it's a white issue. It is a poor and a rich issue. It's a "the superpower" is weak issue. Blame it on poor communications issue. It is not any of the above, it is a people issue, and people need help, no matter their race, gender, party, class......we need to come together as a nation and help these people. We are trying to figure out what went wrong, what happened. We need to stop doing that, and just help the people in whatever way possible. For me personally, I have been a little obsessive about it, reading about it and different things going on whenever I get a chance- I of course do not have 15 different channels of news covering it constantly- to the point you get sick of it and turn the channel. I have a very limited source of that, and so when I finally saw people on the television asking to find their loved ones, the most important people in the world to them, I stood in my living room and broke down it tears. I come to school and look at news sites and I see all of these stories. I know you said it brings out the worst and the best dad, but it is really hard to find to best right now. I have been searching for a good story among the depressing ones all day. And I finally found it, and I feel better. It was a story about a man in a wheel chair, whose family got out of New Orleans in time, but they were just planning on sleeping in their van for awhile, and a woman they met in the gas station offered the family a room in her home.
In a very long winded way, the real point I wanted to make about the title or headline (incase you did not catch it)- politics is politics- is that politics do not really change where ever you go, no matter what kind of system you are in. Politicians get to do whatever they want, whenever they want- they have a lot of (insert explicative of choice here) Power. And they do not really get a lot accomplished and they don`t always do what`s best. But even if you are an average person, there is a lot of power in an act of kindness. A lot. And I hope to be seeing a lot more of those stories in the near future and not the ones about politics.
Comments
nihon no yubinkyoku
First off, I have to say you are making me miss Japan l lot. I remember learning about all the strange/foreign things for the first time. I too was confused by the talking cars... and many many other strange things.
Though I would shed a little knowledge form an econ perspective about the whole postal privatization bill that has caused political uproar in Japan. You where right when you said the point of the privatization is about freeing up money, but not just wages and other operating expenses.
The Japan post is the world's largest bank and also deals in insurance, with total assets over 3 million US dollars. That is a lot of money (three F$#%ing trillion dollars Think, it will take 140 billion to fund Katrina's reconstruction, the whole Iraq projects only cost a couple hundred billion), which if used efficiently could provide a lot of investment to help propel the Japanese economy. But as we all know too well, where politics and government are involved, efficiency is not. This is where the Japan Post's other role as a political machine for the LDP (Koizumi's party) interferes with its role as a bank. When someone deposits their money in the Post, the government guarantees the deposits, but the money is in effect transferred into the government coffers for use for any sort of government expenses, facilitating a role almost like a government bond. This money is then often used for poorly planed projects, often infrastructure, aimed at creating jobs in rural areas, appeasing many of the LDP's rural constituents. So rural MPs lobby to fund projects within their constituencies, they get approved because there is so much money nobody knows what to do with it (they are politicians not investment bankers) and then constituents get jobs and economic spillovers from huge infrastructure project in their area. Happy constituents are loyal constituents, and this is how the LDP has held power since the war.
The projects are usually unneeded river dams and highways, but they aren't limited to that. Ever wonder why there is concrete EVERYWHERE? Why every river in Japan is dammed countless times? Why there are highways that lead nowhere and sit uncompleted?
So the idea goes, privatize the Post, get the funds out of the hands of the politicians and into the hands of a capitalist and let the market determine where the funds go. This leads to a more accountable government and banking system for Japan, both good in my opinion.
-matt
Re: nihon no yubinkyoku
Thanks for the economic perspective, I think that is actually what one of the teachers told me- but me and money and numbers don`t mix well and throw Japanese in the mix and I am lost. But your explanation made complete sense! I love Okinawa-thanks for the recommendation!!