Japan Election ‘An Incredible Dissociation From Public Opinion’

Richard Wilcox, Contributor
Activist Post

In a recent article I wondered why the heck people would be so crazy as to vote for the pro-nuke Liberal Democratic Party in Japan’s election (1). Though citizens are overwhelmingly anti-nuclear, they still “elected” a pro-nuke party. Clever parlor tricks by the oligarchy have set up voters as patsies in the auto-genocide of their own democracy.

The mechanism for this to occur is that Japan has begun to reform the more democratic proportional representation model toward the US model of winner-take-all. Through this new system voters are given fewer choices for candidates. Like the US model: vote for tweedle dee or tweedle dum, it’s “democracy.”

The main choices in Japan were between the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) which was just an offshoot of the LDP to begin with, and the LDP. With the erosion of proportional representation, the “LDP Managed to Win 2/3 of Seats Even Though It Only Got 42% of Votes Cast” (2).

The critically minded Tokyo News stated:

The current election system for the Lower House is Small Electoral District Election and Proportional Representation Election. The Small Electoral District Election is aimed at creating a two-party system by concentrating the votes, and LDP won three times as many seats as the percentage of the votes in the total eligible voters indicates. It is an incredible dissociation from the public opinion.

As the Ex SKF blogger notes, electoral reform was pushed for “in order to create the ‘two-party system’ for political stability. It has resulted in a huge swing, instead. The US has the Small District Election system, but not foolhardy enough to elect all representatives all at once” (Ibid.).

It may be true that “[t]he public were looking for a way to punish the ruling Democratic Party of Japan for its policy failures” (3). But they may get the opposite of what they want. That is called cutting off your nose to spite your face. Ouch!

None of this is a big surprise, as my hard-boiled journalist acquaintance Finnie says–when not using the “F word” in every other sentence– “today governments have evolved into blatantly criminal organizations.”

After World War II the United States of America’s Central Intelligence Agency created the LDP to serve as a compliant partner in American imperialism (4; 5; 6). Japan’s economy thrived during the Korean and Vietnam wars, morality aside, it was an astute business strategy that Japan was offered and took full advantage.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, the Japanese economy benefited from a special Cold War relationship with the United States. This relationship allowed Japanese firms relatively easy access to American technology and American consumers. In addition, the Korean War and the Vietnam War provided Japan with an unusual external fiscal stimulus from American procurement spending that poured billions of U.S. dollars into Japanese firms who supplied the American war effort (7).

Thus, whoever voters cast their ballots for, major candidates are controlled by the Nuclear Cartel (8). When Prime Minister Naoto Kan stood up to the bastards they tossed him aside like a rag doll and put Noda in his place, followed logically by the even more brazenly criminal minded Shinzo Abe.

The LDP president who can fast-eat curry and rice with pork cutlet on top, who can steal a seat from a senior citizen on JR train and pretend he’s asleep after scolding him for scolding him, and a third-generation politician whose grandfather, having been arrested as ‘Class-A war criminal’ after the World War II, was somehow escaped execution and later became the prime minister of Japan, wants to change the Japanese Constitution. (9).

Abe’s strategy is to essentially follow the EU/USA anti-democratic model of having policy decided by pointy-headed bureaucrats (EU) and dictator executives who bypass congress and sign endless executive orders to detain and murder us with impunity (Bush/Obama).

Prying power away from the nuclear industry won’t be easy given their stranglehold on politics (10) and their fiendish plans for the public to “let them eat yellowcake” (11). Abe has threatened “that he will consider revoking the ban on construction of new nuclear reactors after he takes office.”

Astonishingly, despite the March 11, 2011 nuclear disaster and the blundering stupidity that led to it, “three reactors are under construction and nine more are at the planning stage.” Abe stated that “[w]e’d like to review how to think about the issue nationwide.”

This is patent nonsense– many polls and petitions show the public’s overwhelming opposition to nuclear power. All the fuss is unnecessary given there are viable alternatives to nuclear, oil and coal energy dependency (13; 14).

My feisty activist colleague, Tony Boys, told me that there is still a small but vibrant anti-nuke movement at work. He went to the nuclear phase-out summit at Tokai Village where the 800-seat hall was packed. He related that nuclear expert, Hiroaki Koide, “was very persuasive” in urging folks to keep up the fight.

A few years ago Tony and I attended a lecture at a Japanese university given by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute. Worldwatch is credited for many years of environmental research and the popularizing of energy consumption issues. The professor who was in charge of the lecture, a Japanese fellow with a distinctly dazed apparition, droned on for 45 minutes hemming and hawing and promoting HIMSELF, all the while Lester sat there. Finally they let Lester speak, wearing his trademark bow tie, for only 20 minutes. His microphone did not work. Somehow we managed to make out that Lester strongly recommended geothermal as an important energy producer for Japan. He even chastised the audience as if to get them riled up and do something about it.

However, the true role of universities it is to promote fluffy graduate programs that do not challenge the status quo. Hotshot professors (intelligence operatives?) receive lavish remuneration and government subsidies for what passes as research– while letting exciting ideas flounder.

By the way, don’t eat the flounder, it may be radioactive.

Richard Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://richardwilcox99.blogspot.jp/ and are regularly published at Activist Post, The Intel Hub and Rense.com. His interviews with Jeff Rense are available at the website www.rense.com.

References:

1. Far Right Dinosaur Party Wins Japan Elections
http://rense.com/general95/farright.html

2. Japanese Election: LDP Managed to Win 2/3 of Seats Even Though It Only Got 42% of Votes Cast
http://ex-skf.blogspot.jp/2012/12/japanese-election-ldp-managed-to-win-23.html

3. Japan anti-nuclear vote melts away
http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/japan-anti-nuclear-vote-melts-away-2

4. How The CIA Helped The Yakuza & The LDP Get Power & Promote Nuclear Power
http://www.japansubculture.com/how-the-cia-helped-put-the-yakuza-and-the-ldp-in-power/

5. From Hiroshima to Fukushima, 1945-2011: A Nuclear Narrative of Hubris and Tragedy
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/28/from-hiroshima-to-fukushima-1945-2011/

6. Secrets of the CIA, part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck

7. Japanese Economic Crisis — Expectations for Future Growth?
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/japancrisis.htm

8. Japan’s Nuclear Cartel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/japan-s-nuclear-cartel-atomic-industry-too-close-to-government-for-comfort-a-764907.html

9. Victorious Abe’s Priority: Amend Constitution So That Only a Majority Vote Is Needed to Amend It
http://ex-skf.blogspot.jp/2012/12/victorious-abes-priority-amend.html

10. Power Politics: Japan’s Resilient Nuclear Village
http://japanfocus.org/-Jeff-Kingston/3847

11. Beware the nuclear village as it readies to rear-end docile Japan again
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121223rp.html

12. Abe hints at scrapping reactor ban
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121223a1.html

13. 25 Nuclear Power Plants Could Be Replaced By Geothermal In Japan
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/22/25-nuclear-power-plants-could-be-replaced-by-geothermal-in-japan/

14. Fresh Currents
http://download.freshcurrents.org/

Richard Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://richardwilcox99.blogspot.jp/ and are regularly published at Activist Post, The Intel Hub and Rense.com. His interviews with Jeff Rense are available at the website www.rense.com.