Is Japan really a democracy?

I'd say Japan is a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary government.

Japan_Observer said:

I don't think there's a country in the world -- certainly no developed country, anyway -- that doesn't have some kind of bizarre, frightening ultra-right fringe, which is why I find Crazy Russian's singling out of the Baltic countries bizarre.

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Even the US had a white supremacist run for president in the late 80s.
David Duke. That crakkka stuff is still alive in the US of hate. unfortunately.
But that alone would not mean a country is neo-fascist.

Today real fascists wouldn't advertise. And may or may not be racist like the German fascists that called themselves nazis. They'd certainly have some sort of supremacist streak in them. Maybe they'd believe their nation was blessed by god to be above all others? And they might be deluded by their technology as proof of others' backwardness. Afterall, war, famine, disease is all "over there" and "they" just can't seem to get it together. By golly. (never mind real history with the cia at the behest of US presidents keeping other nations fighting, arms sales, etc.... no. that doesn't have anything to do with why it looks so scary "out there")

I agree that the word "fascism" or "fascist" has been way over and mis used.

For me, when I heard that certain winners of certain wars hired war criminals and kept them from prosecution, those countries' credibility went to absolute zero in my eyes. And that it was more than just "my side" good no matter what.

Non-suck-up historian Howard Zinn asks the following:
"But what about fascism -- as idea, as reality? Were its essential elements -- militarism, racism, imperialism -- now gone?"

The US has certainly militarism. Witness the toys many of us grew up with: action figures and video games. And now the US spends more on military then the rest of the world combined. combined. the rest of the world.
Racism, certainly is still present in the US. in individuals as well as policy. When there's as much drugs in a Manhattan office building as there is in a ghetto and who goes to jail?
Imperialism? The sourge of the post war years hidden behind politically correct terminology such as "the ruskies are out to get us" and the "free market". And now the facade is dropping with a number of pundits actually having the gall to claim there is something remote to honor to go with imperialism. How disgusting. Like there's such a thing as a benevolent dictator? There is no benevolent imperialism.


What were we talking about again?
democracy - in japan.
compared to say the US.
if there is the claim that the US has it I see no reason why one cannot claim Japan does too. however the US does not.
little repression does not a democracy make.
if people don't make a fuss, there is nothing to repress.
maybe people are happy having their government in the hands of corporations? maybe the corporations own most of the media and any innovative idea is laughed away as unrealistic or fringe because, afterall, if it was a serious idea someone in the capital city would have brought it up.
nor does voting alone. especially when the choices are chose for you.
the Soviet Union had elections but only one party to vote for.
The US has 2 parties that supposedly represent different ideas.
Like maybe disagreements on 'where to place the deck chairs on a sinking ship'. ha!
And Japan as had a defacto one party state thanks to the US funnelling money for years to the LDP.

blah, blah, blah.
a lot of this stuff is connected.
but democracy cannot be forced upon anyone.
that is why we do not have work place democracy yet
like they do to some extent in Mondragon or with independent unions
that do not mirror the top-down corporate model.
blah, blah, blah tangent, blah, tangent, tangent....

Japan_Observer said:

Hey, the cold war's over, and Russia lost,

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According to Noam Chomsky in an early-mid 90s lecture "Resisting the Corporate War" who won and who lost the cold war? It was workers in both Eastern Europe and the "pampered western workers" he quotes the business press as calling workers in the "west" who will lose. The new 3rd world is what the old Soviet bloc would be. The winners are western corporations and old Soviet bosses many of whom are the new capitalists who are richer than they ever imagined. "Green shoots in communisms ruin" I think was the title of the article Chomsky referenced. The new 3rd world with cheap exploitable labor that workers in the west would have to compete with. Union representatives would have to concede to the demands of the corporations otherwise they'd move the factories to cheap labor areas under the guise of the "free market".

Chomsky is not a fan of the Soviet Union. Just a keen observer of what governments and their corporate backers say.

Crazy Russian said:

And, please, do not flash English, American, etc. sources (i.e. those sources you consider reliable) around. I do not believe them. I know that many of them still wage information warfare

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I do not take much faith in the US corporate media either.
For the most part they are "stenographers for power".
Investigative reporting takes money. Since most of the media
in the US are themselves huge corporations they buy others and consolidate
resources and rely on wire services such as the Associated Press.
It is cheaper and they are in it to make a buck first. They are a business.
And they do not want to offend advertisers.
Fox news in the late 90s made this obvious when a local affilliate in Florida demanded that a wife and husband team rewrite their report on rGBH bovine growth hormone some 30? 60?+ times http://www.foxbghsuit.com/
for fear of offending advertiser Monsanto.
And other media that refused to air advertisements for BuyNothingDay even though those wanting to place the adds would pay full regular price.


As for Anna Politkovskaya?
I wonder if the Russian government was involved or it could have been someone else as well. The "Russian mafia" ? The Russian gov't certainly had the motive.
For Chechen news I trust the independent journal Covert Action Quarterly as one source.
Here are 2 articles regarding Chechenya
http://covertaction.org//content/view/45/75/
http://covertaction.org//content/view/46/75/

They reported in the late 90s that the US wanted to keep this area "open" as a possible oil pipeline route to the west. It is in their articles I first heard of Dagestan which also wants to leave Russia? I don't know. I do not trust war or militaristic governments no matter where on the globe they are.
Funny, since I almost joined the military when I was younger. Nothing to do. The world around me was boring.

The US corporate media are useful for seeing what "they" are saying.

I've not read much on the Japanese media, so I could not comment on that.
But Kenichi Asano a reporter from Japan has something to say. He says Japan's version of democracy is much like that of the US : "an alternative conception of democracy." That is, under this conception, citizens must be barred from managing their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and rigidly controlled.

more useless rantings....

It's an eye opener,many people doubted Japan is actually a democracy !

All right, this thread has descended into paranoid left-wing / Russian national weirdness.

Not worth my time, because you're all living in wholly different political universes.

I'm out.

Japan_Observer said:

All right, this thread has descended into paranoid left-wing / Russian national weirdness.

Not worth my time, because you're all living in wholly different political universes.

I'm out.

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To really understand democracy, I think you must know first hand what life would be like without it. Put yourself in the position of a poor person living in a country like North Korea. Go to bed hungry every night and live a life without all the wonders of modern day life and be able to do nothing about it. Watch loved ones around you suffer and die and be powerless to change things. Have to watch every word that leaves your mouth lest a spy/friend reports you. Suffer day to day a life like that and maybe you can then understand and appreciate freedom/democracy.

Frank

Why are you telling me that? I know, I have a pretty good idea of how lucky people who live in places like the US, Japan, etc. are. I doubt, however, that my interlocutors, who think that America is a kind of crypto-fascist state, appreciate your point.

Japan_Observer said:

Why are you telling me that? I know, I have a pretty good idea of how lucky people who live in places like the US, Japan, etc. are. I doubt, however, that my interlocutors, who think that America is a kind of crypto-fascist state, appreciate your point.

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Sorry, my dumb way of trying to explain why getting your point across is so difficult. I was upset about you getting upset, don't want to lose your posts here.

Frank

paying attention to history is "left-wing"?

Back during the US/Vietnam war in the states the US gov't spied on and actively tried to disrupt and discredit and otherwise "nuetralize" the anti-war movement via the fbi. They also did the same against other various political opposition groups such as leftist groups, the American Indian Movement, Puerto Rican independence movement, as well as Black Nationalist movements. I'm sure you've heard that Martin Luther King Jr was spied upon by the fbi. Also the fbi in attempts to work against 'new left' groups teemed up with local kkk groups because the 'new left' groups were working on interstate bus desegregation. Lest you think all that "fascist-like" stuff was only under Nixon, it was not and spanned 3 decades under the program title "cointelpro". Much of this was covered by investigations by the US congress in the 70s under the Pike Committee and the CIA messing with other people's countries investigated under the Church Committee. Lest you think it is some sort of "left-wing" conspiracy stuff. The US congress investigated it. It's there. Real history. The sad thing is, how many people were prosecuted for such flagrant violations of the law? And that's the scary thing too.


While it is nothing like living under the NKorean regime, the Burmese regime, or any of the other regimes the US either helped into power and/or helped prop up such as Pinochet's Chile or Suharto's Indonesia, the Shah of Iran, or Guatemala, etc. the fact of the matter is, the US gov't does mess with other people's democracies including Japan as noted in this Japan Today article:
CIA secretly gave money to LDP to weaken leftists in 1950s-60s: U.S.

More in depth at the Japan Policy Research Institute which receives neither government nor corporate funding.

Again, who has been prosecuted for violating the laws?


If a political party in the US received money from a foreign government or source opposing political parties would be furious. And rightfully so.

One does not have to be a "left-winger" or an advocate of "Russian national weirdness" to be opposed to the real above anti-democracy acts. It's not paranoia, merely history and trying to remember it or at least trying to learn about it in the first place. Remember it wasn't only Nixon. The unconstitutional Iran/Contra that almost got Reagan impeached? And why was Nixon pardoned? Oh, we just want to put this behind us, get over it. read: cover-up. It has been pointed out that Nixon's only mistake was going after fellow political elites, the Democrats with Watergate. Was he almost impeached for spying on other political groups? no. It was Watergate. Or was whichever president almost impeached for subverting Japanese democracy? Or helping Pinochet (may he rot in hell!!) to power and keep it? (may he rot in hell? ha. just kidding. some say even Judas of the Christian bible was eventually forgiven). Or Ford (may he also rot in hell!) along with Kissinger (eventually)(especially Kissinger the blatant war criminal if there ever was one) for allowing their dictator friend Suharto to take over a soon to be democracy in East Timor Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to
Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor

I've rabbled on enough of very non-left wing stuff.

The US has a history of anti-democracy foreign policy. There was no reason for me to believe they had that in mind when invading Iraq or Afghanistan or when the did a coup on Aristide in Haiti or attempted one on Venezuela, both documented fairly well.
As is the CIA subverting Japan's 'democracy'.

Maybe "fascism" isn't the proper word for propping up dictators, subverting democracy both abroad and at home in the US? maybe "*******" is the proper word? but it certainly isn't "pro-democracy" or "freedom loving" or "peace loving", that's for sure.

You also probably notice that govermental domestic survilance is also common in Russian(kgb, Fdi). So what, even germany and Finland has their own survilance.

Oh,Japan is not really a democracy heh ?

Its hard to be democracy if people are not equal.

I don't know your major, Mrjones, but take the teacher lisence course at your school, and many local schools accept you as even a Japanese teacher at public schools without renouncing your Finnish nationality.
If you want to be a lawmaker like the Finnish Japanese guy here or school principal, you have to be naturalised like the guy did here.

"I don't know your major, Mrjones, but take the teacher lisence course at your school, and many local schools accept you as even a Japanese teacher at public schools without renouncing your Finnish nationality."#

can you be little bit more spefic... sorry if this is your local way to stay things...

And i am sorry for MY WORDS...BUT WHAT THE HECK HAS THIS TO DO WITH democrasy ?

Non-Japanese can be a public servant.
And if you want to be higher ranked offical, all you should do is to became a Japanese national.
If you're a philosopher, you could say something like you said below...

Its hard to be democracy if people are not equal.

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Don't know if you take a lecture on the Japanese constitution.
But we have a famous case law about non-Japanese nationals and political activity in Japan, Mclean v. the government.
The case itself was way back in the Vietnam war, but your right to be loud is granted like Japanese here, but when you hurt something/someone no matter how right you belief is, you will be punished not for what you think, but for what you did to others.

After you finish your semester test, just make a research about it.
Interesting to know what is the difference between Japan and your country.

I know japanese voting system enough, to say Japan is not democrasy at least as we know it.

if you want to provide me some links what what makes Japalnese sexes equal please show me those.

there might be sexism in japan but japanese women have voting rights

The thing is the voting power is trippled for persons who live in rural areas, against voting power of people who live in big cities like Osaka or Tokyo. It has nothing to do with, with woman rights this time.

I don't know which part of Gunma you're living now, but you will get more interesting ideas if you will ask Yuko Obuchi for more women in the policy making process here. Being a student is a great privilege to access public figures easily.
And during your winter break, I suggest you should make a research, or just google, how much money a local policy maker make in your city/prefecture.
It is a good idea to know for your futher research, which is more efficient, volunteered Finnish one or Japanese one.

I know japanese voting system enough

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So what do you think a lucky guy in social democratic party, former socialist party, won his seat after the ruling LDP won the election too much?
What a ridiculous system...

FIY
There are tons of Abe-san in Gunma, but if you're refering to Abe san as prime minister, he is not from your prefecture. Maybe it was just a typo, Fukuda, Nakasone or Obuchi, wasn't it?

Well which prefecture is he from then? my landlord told me he is from Gunma though.

He's from Yamaguchi Prefecture, formerly Choshu, one of the major players in the Meiji Restoration and nursery of prime ministers.

The Financial Times (London) ran an excellent profile of Abe and his connection to Yamaguchi's (Choshu's) role in the making of modern Japan back in September, before his election. The Choshu link would explain the prime minister's apparent noblesse oblige.

Japan_Observer, could you share your opinion upon the Tsunoda's case later when you become a leading Japanologist or when you leave your office of DPJ at the age of 70 (in case you happen to be a candidate of DPJ in the future).

Tojo, takashi Hara,Korekiyo takahashi and etc... were from Aomori, that is rebel (vs choshu,satuma..)