Comments on: Japan’s Prime Minister Abe: Moving from one success to another

By: PM Abe Apologizes to Comfort Women at ROK Drop

PM Abe Apologizes to Comfort Women at ROK Drop — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:17:13 +0000

[...] appears to be trying mend some fences with Japan with this week’s visit to the country. Via Ampontan here’s some of what he [...]

By: David

David — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:44:20 +0000

Thanks for the post, Ampontan.

I’m glad to read we more-or-less saw the same things come out of the Wen visit to Japan.

Regards,

By: Topcat

Topcat — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:51:35 +0000

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:06:57 +0000

Hi Anpontan,

The date is 平成年７月２８日、or ２００７年月２５日。

The front page says 中国「対日特務工作」黒書。

One thing I can say about about SAPIO is that they consistently have the best headlines on the cover, thats for sure.

By: ampontan

ampontan — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:18:05 +0000

No, Matt, haven’t seen it. What’s the date on the issue?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:46:39 +0000

Ampontan, the current issue of SAPIO goes into great detail about this issue. Do you read it?

By: ampontan

ampontan — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:53:45 +0000

Thank you Joel!

You might be interested in reading this post by a British political intellectual who also has a blog.

http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/a_parody_of_dem.html

We do not share the same political philosophy, but I enjoy reading his site because he has ideas worth thinking about and he writes well.

I suppose there’s room for all sorts of things in the blogosphere, but I do not understand at all the so-called “pundits” who just repeat what they read in the newspaper, or upload posts to serve as a sort of alternate RSS feed.

In fact, Kamm strengthened a vague intent I already had to avoid quoting Wikipedia (English version) whenever possible. (For some reason, I’ve had better experience with the Japanese version, so far, anyway.)

By: Joel

Joel — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:42:57 +0000

“Parrot blogs,” c’est le mot juste, non? I’m getting pretty discouraged about the implications of so many more voices in the public sphere. Blogs seem only to have strengthened the tendency for democracy to evolve into irrational mobocracy, with witch hunts, character assassination, Maoist-style “struggle sessions” and Hollywood-level spectacular public violence: the “60 Minutes” culture writ large. Instead of a counterweight to our crusading elites–politicians, the media, and activists of all types–the net seems to have done more to enlarge the size of permanently outraged mobs they recruit, rather than the much-needed more skeptical mobs who shout down their rhetoric.

By: Topcat

Topcat — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:32:45 +0000

Hi Ampontan-san,

William Pesek would be surprised (or shocked?) if he knew that one of the reasons for the drop in poll number was that PM Abe inherited Kono Statement and disappointed his supporters（笑）.

By: ampontan

ampontan — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:06:02 +0000

Ken: Thanks for your comments.
As you say, with the makeup of the current Diet, anyone could have gotten the referendum bill passed. However, I think the reason the bill is on the agenda now at all is due in large part to Abe’s efforts inside the party over the years to put it on the agenda and keep it there.

I wanted also to make the point that it was a practice in years past to establish Cabinets in Japan for specific purposes. In other words, a Cabinet would be formed to implement certain policies, and then it would give way to the next.

I suspect that some of that is the reason for Abe’s selection as prime minister. The LDP thinks the time has come to take certain steps, and they put Abe in charge of doing it, in part because he was the person pushing those steps to begin with.

I was going to put that in the post, but it was long enough already, and it was too late at night as it was!