CHANGES

There has been a lot to mourn these days. In the past few weeks we have seen:

• the death of an important musical icon,
  
• the death of an important dramatic icon,
  
• a sad reminder of the death of free speech in the U.S.,
  
• an even sadder reminder of the failure of the civil rights movement in the U.S.,
  
• and the sudden, unexpected resignation of the Prime Minister of Japan followed by his even more unexpected hospitalization.
  

At least in the last case there is a tiny glimmer of hope. For many, Abe was the epitome of the sadly-misnamed "Liberal Democratic Party" in Japan (which is neither liberal, democratic, nor a party). The ironically right-wing LDP, which has controlled the Japanese government during the overwhelming majority of the years since WWII, would be more correctly called the "Corporate Party", since it has always represented big business interests far more than those of the general public. Not surprisingly, its history has long been tainted with scandals, and Abe has wound up being something of a poster boy in this regard. The public is obviously fed up, which is why the LDP just suffered one of its worst election defeats in the Diet...ironically only a year after it enjoyed one of its biggest election victories. Many said Abe should have taken responsibility and resigned immediately, but noooo...he had to complicate things. He made a bold policy statement...and then ducked and ran a few days later.

The fight for Abe's successor as president of the LDP (i.e. the Prime Minister by default) was complicated at first, but it came down to a surprising duel between two men, former foreign minister Taro Aso and former cabinet spokesman Yasuo Fukuda. Aso was notorious as a very (obnoxiously) vocal jingoist with a horrible case of foot-in-mouth disease. Among his gems were a claim that Taiwan should be "grateful" to Japan for colonizing and "uplifting" them and a statement that Japan could succeed where the U.S. would fail in geopolitics because Japan is "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race". The man has a penchant for the irrational, but his loudmouthed patriotism nevertheless led to his forming the largest faction within the fragmented LDP. Fukuda, on the other hand, was famous for being what the other big-name LDP politicians weren't, i.e. he was prudent, rational, measured, resourceful, and always spoke and acted from a position of common sense. In other words, he was seen as a wise advisor, but not as a charismatic hero.

Needless to say, the media favored Aso to win. Guess what: he didn't. Yasuo Fukuda is now president of the LDP and, therefore, PM for the time being. It will be VERY INTERESTING to see how things proceed from here. I, for one, hope that he is able to bring some small amount of sense to the government before the "real politicians" bury him.

Incidentally, and not surprisingly, the Western world is already making jokes about Fukuda's surname and the way English-speakers who don't know better would read it (e.g. "Farkuda" on Fark.com). For your information, it's "FOO-KOO-DA". Now fuk u and get a life!