Doshisha Days

Well put by the New Yorker as usual...

Well, the time is upon us - the dreaded entrance exam date is now less than a week away. I am not one to get all bent out of shape over such a thing, but to say I am not fretting would be just as much of a canard. Still, I spent today doing basically nothing of value, so the blame will fall on me if I do not perform adequately.

I was going to take a break from Japanese politics for a second to talk about some things going on in the US. November 7th is the mid term elections where the entire House of Representatives is running and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs, and by that I mean the handful of house seats that have not been gerrymandered out of contention will decide who controls the lower house, while control of the senate will likely fall on the outcome of three or four races that are too close to call right now. Of course, the issues that will determine these are the same that have been in the news: Iraq, the economy, etc. Of course racism, homophobia will likely sneak their way into the debate as "moral" issues as they always do, but hopefully this time real issues and dissatisfaction with the status quo will trump these distractions.

I try not be really partisan when I talk about politics because it seems that there is a lot of people who don't see the big picture because they are too busy cheering on their own team and neglect to evaluate their own side while they tear their opponents apart through distortion and the manipulation of facts and media. That being said, after six years under President Bush and four years of having a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, the fiasco that is Iraq, the fiasco-to-be in Afghanistan, a nuclear North Korea, nuclearizing Iran, Hurricane Katrina, massive deficit spending, erosion of civil liberties, widespread graft, and countless other things that either represent negligence, malevolence, incompetence or mixtures of all three, it is obvious that a change in congress is compulsory to turning the tide.

I was watching this video (on youtube of course) of U2 and Green Day performing "The Saints Are Coming", which was dedicated to Katrina victims. In the video, footage of Katrina was overlapped with CGI of fighter jets, helicopters flying through the overcast skies of the deluged Superdome with faux news headlines along the bottom stating the troops had been redeployed from Iraq to help people in New Orleans. While it is somewhat specious and self-serving to assert that a massive redeployment would have made an overall new positive effect on both New Orleans and Iraq. The US military has been shown to be good at blowing stuff up (ask the Hussein bros.), but not with the reconstruction/hearts and minds type work that is currently needed in Iraq. On the other hand, the video did make my blood boil to think of the squandered resources, the thousands of dead US service men and women - not to mention Iraqi civilians - and the potentially mortal blow American credibility has taken as a result of bad planning, obfuscation of facts and the sheer inability to both acknowledge mistakes, and to correct them. I would even forgive a lack of an apology if in its place was a capability to change.

One of the worst things I have seen is the wonderful use of what are called "straw man arguments". Instead of debating an issue with your opponent by criticizing his position, you spin it to the point that it is indefensible and then you tear it apart. Here are some greatest hits...

1. The anti-war, we-never-should-have-invaded position: These idiots love Saddam. They think everything was all nice and peaceful under Saddam and his rape rooms (this word almost always comes up).

2. Those against coercive interrogation techniques (torture-lite): These guys don't want to do anything to protect us; they will send terrorists to minimal security prisons if they don't outright set them free.

These B.S. arguments are all over the place and it is really sad how those who eschew nuance in favor of platitudes and catch phrases are given the power to deal with issues, which - if they are familiar with - they avoid the appearance of such familiarity. No wonder diplomacy was doomed from the get go!

In sum, I am way too much of a realist to think that November 7th will usher in sweeping change and signal a return to some grand debate, West Wing type era. On the other hand, I do hope that on November 8th, I will feel a bit better about the trajectory of American politics.

There has been a month lull between posts which was not my intention. In fact, the past month has passed without much fanfare and I as much as I would prefer to blame someone else (I am looking at you, You Tube) my conscience will not allow me to.

The Fall term is three weeks old and I am preparing for my entrance exam in fits and starts. In fact, I probably should be writing this in Japanese, but I don't want to alienate anyone who either doesn't know Japanese or annoy anyone who is better versed in Japanese than me.

Anyway, I don't want to post another post about my lack of posts. Still, I was wondering what the hell I should write about. A polemic? An educational post about Kyoto or Japan? How about both?

The new Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, is a somewhat of a cypher at the moment. On one hand, he is more of a hard liner than Koizumi, the previous P.M, according to most analysts. On the other hand, he does have a chance to mend the currently deteriorating relations with Beijing and Seoul, which he did by paying visits to both nations before the usual trip to Washington. North Korea happened to be testing a nuclear bomb while he was in Seoul, although it is far too early to tell how this will affect relations between the East Asian nations.

Still, there is still reason to be pessimistic. First off, Abe is a staunch nationalist who wants to revive Japan's Constitution to allow it to have a fully operational military. This would not be a serious problem if it were not for the fact that he is also an annual visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo which houses - among the hundreds of thousands of fallen soldiers who have died since the Meiji Restoration - 15 Class A War Criminals. Abe's grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, was also held as a war criminal for overseeing the forced labor (i.e. basically slave labor) camps during the war. Kishi was not sentenced and ended up becoming Prime Minsiter of Japan in the 1950s. It is doubtful that these things will not be an issue when it comes to Seoul or Beijng.

Japan's actions during World War II in Asia still resonate throughout Asia. On one hand Japan apologies have been undermined constantly by the actions of politicians that have been at best insensitve and at worst revisionist and outright distortionist. On the other hand, in doing so, Japan has allowed these issues to be co-opted and used a wedge and a rallying cry by nationalist and oppurtunist groups in both China and Korea. In order to move on from such issues, they need to be confronted, not ignored. It remains to be seen if Abe is the one to do so, but if I were a gambling man, I would not bet on it.

Next, I'll talk about how You Tube ruined my life...