The world can be remorseless. Immune to wall-to-wall artificial bonhomie and treacly theme-music ‘special reports.’ While we endure yet more cable news producers’ wet dream narratives this weekend maybe we might see in the ‘crawl’ the historic collapse of Japan’s (American crafted) permanent 53 year old one party rule.
By next week the opposition Democratic Party of Japan will have overthrown the American-sponsored collage of rightist parties that governed Japan as a one party state since 1955 (with one brief hiccup in the 1990s) as the Liberal Democratic Party. The revolution is as much psychological as well as political. Sure, the U.S. will finally have milked the last drops from Camelot’s bloated absurdity. Japan? She will enter her first days of her post-post-war future.
As is usual throughout history, the political lags behind the social. Japanese since the 1980s increasingly became confident about their own popular culture, from the initially underground (and subversive) anime from garage studios to popular music and ‘tech’ culture. And thereby created a pop culture export juggernaut.
As we discussed at length at STSOZ 1.0 Americans remain clueless how Japanese soft power eclipsed them across the Pacific Rim. Teenagers in Malaysia to the Korean peninsula take their cues from the Tokyo Shibuya kids, not California. Obama can’t change that. Most American parents are oblivious that most of what passes for American non-‘urban’ youth mall pop culture today is similarly derivative whether it’s movies to video games to tv shows, etc. (You may not know Disney stole ‘The Lion (Lyin’) King’ from Japan as well).
Given the Warlord’s catastrophic misreign it’s remarkable that the Japanese ‘velvet revolution’ waited until August 2009. Testimony to the inertia characteristic of the 1955 System itself. One could wonder at the patience before Japan began her turn away from the demonstrably incompetent, bankrupt and depleted ‘Older Brother’ (or sempai). Take a minute and imagine if the roles were reversed. And you thought this August was pregnant with latent tension.
The opposition state upfront that they intend to jettison the subordinate (subservient?) role to American security interests. The Chinese are right to be optimistic.
So far, the Administration correctly is playing things low key. It began by sending Democratic fundraiser John Roos to Tokyo. Who you ask? Precisely. Previously, this slot was reserved for the most prominent Americans of that time to show the importance of the alliance. Some, such as Mike Mansfield, went native and became Japan’s ambassador to the State Department. Nonetheless, Asia can read er, the Roos tea leaves. Obama’s eyes are on Beijing. Inviting the walking political corpse Prime Minister Aso as first foreign visitor to the White House this Spring fooled no one.
Most commentary about the elections will focus on the usual suspects of U.S.-Japanese relations: what will the new Democratic Party government do regarding transitioning Marines to Guam from Okinawa (Japan is paying for a majority of it)?; will it continue to help refuel U.S. ships in the Indian Ocean (scheduled to expire in January)? Etc., etc.
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that the new Tokyo will serve up hot rhetoric and tinker at the margins. And the Administration will simply overlook it, to the satisfaction of both.
We doubt it. The crucial geo-political reality is the U.S. Asian alliance system is crumbling. Even as HRC announces to ASEAN that ‘we’re back’. The U.S., like its former kohaiTokyo, and all the rest of the periphery for practical economic and political reasons are forced to court Beijing. The Middle Kingdom naturally welcomes this competition. If only to savor psychological notions of cultural ascendancy.
Put that in a MSNBCNNFOX crawl.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Inquire, the spam filter must have gobbled it. Went to look and did not see it. Have no worries, any comment from you is always welcome. Generally, the spam filter blocks comments with multiple links, etc. If you encounter it again please feel free to drop me a line leostrauss (at) stiftungleostrauss.com
inquire says
I had submitted a comment to this thread that got filtered as spam and has yet to appear – would you be able to correct that? I hope you will agree it is suitable for publication…
Anon says
Is funny to see how autocratic people out of absolute power think here in US… The ones in power, that I met in South America eventually realized they couldn’t kill half of the population, and that was the price to silence dissent. Some of them wanted to, but got no sizable amount of followers down that path. Not for long.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Obama, non-Movement ‘Republicans’ and Democrats are all illegitimate and deserve destruction. ‘We don’t talk to terrorists’ and ‘We must *eliminate* dissent’. They literally do not see the world and sky as we do. That’s after decades among them.
Comment says
The MSM should hold Cheney to the tacit understand – ie Obama et al lay off prosecution (just like post ww2 many Germans were allowed to escape accountability) and in turn cheney shuts the FU.
But Cheney is acting as if he is not a criminal –
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hatoyama’s baby steps.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hlQO-kyvIEyrc0I90V5l0LFN7JTwD9AE4AOG3
Comment says
Cheney is regarded as a war criminal by wide swaths of public opinion – Yet CNN contextualizes Cheney was a legit critic of Obama over Korea policy and implies – without evidencee or logic – that Obama et al must defend against Cheney’s charges.
Beginning to think Greenwald is right at Cheney should be put in the dock.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Murdoch’s WSK now want Cheney to seek office. A major accelerant to the death liberal democracy was media’s inability of ‘media’ to distinguish between those who disagree but are committed to participation in the system and those who are determined outside but will use every advantage it offers.
Of course ‘media’ is just another P/L vector for earnings so in the end it doesn’t matter, really. Perhaps when a society permits that to happen it has little to complain about what happens thereafter.
Dr Leo Strauss says
A great clip, Alex. Slipped it to an acquaintance high on the Fox Nation hierarchy suggesting the Japanese candidate would be an ideal tea bag franchisee. We’ll see. Certainly more charismatic and eloquent than the plumbing guy.
Then there’s this gem from tonight’s NYT:
“Rather, the nation has been transfixed by the saga of the governing party’s kingpins fighting for their political lives amid the anti-incumbent sentiment. Tabloids have reveled in reporting on former prime ministers and party power brokers in losing battles against largely unknown opposition candidates, many of them charming younger women widely referred to as “assassins” because of their devastating political effect on their opponents.
One former prime minister, the gaffe-prone Yoshiro Mori, 72, drew the ire of many when he told voters not to be fooled by the “sexiness” of his opponent, a 33-year-old former temporary worker named Mieko Tanaka.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/world/asia/30japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
We changed the graphic. Among the change this weekend wanted to get the real 59-foot tall Gundam at Shiokaze Park in Tokyo built to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Plus giant spiders in Roppongi are always cool.
Alex says
Speaking of Japan: current mood.