Loopy
Posted by ampontan on Friday, April 23, 2010
MORE THAN a few Japanese—at least in the print media—got a bit sulky after an op-ed columnist in the Washington Post referred to Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio as loopy.
That suggests the Japanese journalists don’t spend a lot time reading overseas English newspapers. Calling a politician loopy—even a foreign head of government—is not going to make anyone spill their coffee at the breakfast table, especially these days.
In fact, choice pejoratives from foreign countries about American presidents are regularly reported in the United States, and most Americans who read newspapers have learned to discount it by the time they’re graduated from high school.
One reason Yanks let it roll off their backs is that a lot of it is criticism just for the sake of criticism. That was particularly true of the Germans before national reunification. Whenever a Republican was in the White House, the West German press would get upset at the hard GOP line against the Soviets and worry that it might antagonize them. Whenever a Democrat was in the White House, they would get upset at the wimpy appeasement of the Soviets and worry that Red Army tanks might roll into the country any minute now unless they grew a spine.
To see some serious political slicing and dicing, the Japanese media might read the British press. If they aren’t the heavyweight champions of the world at this sport, I don’t know who is.
For example, take a look at this blog post by Gerald Warner in The Telegraph that appeared earlier this week. He’s writing about the sudden emergence of Liberal Democratic Party head Nick Clegg as a serious candidate in that country’s upcoming election. In two paragraphs, he manages to savage Mr. Clegg, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Conservative Party head Dave Cameron, the late Princess Diana, and the people who created a cult around her:
Even Bambi’s rise to three-election ascendancy was more gradual than the trajectory of Meteor Clegg. So, is there a precedent? Yes, in a sense, there is: the hysteria surrounding the cult of Diana, the “People’s Princess” (proclaimed as such by the Great Charlatan Blair in one of his more shameless moments). That is the nearest parallel. Princess Nick has answered an emotional need of the masses…
But every disaster has its compensations. In this instance it is the delicious spectacle of the Vichy Tory Party – Dave’s arrogant, vacuous, PR construct and its enforcers who, in the name of thinly disguised cultural Marxism, imposed their will, their pathetic imposture and their air-head candidates on what was once a great party of state – stretched on the rack by the sudden advent of an even bigger fraud than David Cameron. On reflection, make that almost as big a fraud as Cameron.
That’s a bit intense even for the Brits, but fusillades of that sort are common everywhere in the country’s print media, regardless of which corner of the political pasture the writer is grazing.
Some Japanese journalists can be rather wicked themselves, but they save it for the weekly and monthly magazines. Those who work for the mainstream daily press have to operate on a very short leash in the press club system. Any journalist who used language as a lash in the manner of Mr. Warner would have his chain jerked rather quickly by the government in power. Criticize the bureaucrats too heavily, and they would lose their anonymous scoops from “high government officials”. It is the price they pay for a near monopoly on access.
But the sensitivity also suggests the Japanese print journalists might not be paying very much attention to their own public, either. The J-Cast website has an article today discussing the respective poll numbers of Your Party (very good for a small party less than a year old) and Prime Minister Hatoyama (Do not ask for whom the bell tolls…).
They refer to an online poll conducted earlier this week by the Nikkei Shimbun, the country’s premier business and financial newspaper. The Nikkei recently rolled out a fee-based Internet edition, but this poll was for registered users regardless of their fee-paying status. They received responses from 3,503 people. To the question, Do you support the Hatoyama Cabinet, only 11.8% answered yes.
More interesting was the response to another question: “What do you think of the harsh criticism Prime Minister Hatoyama received from the American media during his American visit?”
A total of 84.7% of the respondents answered, “They took the words right out of my mouth.” (同感だ)
Loopy Hatoyama | Japan Probe said
[...] approval ratings plummeting, it would seem that some people agree about the loopyness. Ampontan writes about an online poll conducted by Nikkei: To the question, Do you support the Hatoyama [...]
Aceface said
Let’s just say that I belong to the minority opinion.
No foreign media should call our PM “loopy”.That’s way beyond line.
Pat Donnelly said
Aceface
So you would try to censor such comments?
Or take official action against the persons or assets involved?
Free speech is the right to allow others to judge an issue. Should you not trust others on that?
Where does the censorship stop?
Aceface said
Too bad we don’t do that in this country.The NewYorkTimes and other establishment actually respects Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew partially because of that.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gGg8uUSPiBjYefuEejHIS17FU7MAD9ELK1101
But then again,I said “should”,not “must”.
Besides Hatoyama is tackling the issue that many Japanese PM(and US presidents)tried to ignore for thirty years or so.The man could be a loopy,but certainly no coward.He gets my vote for his “stick it to the Man”attitude.
slim said
Hatoyama is practically the definition of loopiness.
Aceface is confusing the NYT’s paying a court-ordered fine with “respect”. You should not wish Singapore’s stifling political culture on anyplace outside of say, China, North Korea, Iran, Burma or Zimbabwe — paces upon which it would be an improvement.
Aceface said
No.I understand the situation perfectly Slim.
NYT is simply following a order of Singaporean court,a political joke where the government and Lee Kuan Yew(himself was a lawyer in the past)always win.The Singaporean court’s order can be ignored just like NYT would with the laws of say,North Korea,Iran,Burma and Zimbabwe,or they can wisely follow the footsteps of Google in China.But instead they fell on their knees and and begged for forgiveness to the longest thriving dictator in Asia.Only because they want International Herald Tribune(a joint venture with Washington Post at the time of Lee law suit in ’94) to be sold in Singaporean news stand.
And these greed driven American papers can hack on the most liberal prime minister in the most democratic nation and a staunchy ally in the region as much as they like in the name of freedom of press?
Give me a break.
Hatoyama is trying to make Japan more neighboring nation friendly,something the paper like NYT has been preaching to Japan for a long long time.Anyone remember how the American press has been bushing the recent PMs?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/opinion/25thu3.html
Hatoyama is also trying to find a solution to the agony of Okinawans where large portion of the islands has been occupied by the U.S bases.Thanks to three U.S marines abuducted and rape a schoolgirl,the anger in the island became a threat to the security relationship between the US.Something Washington is less than helpful and stick to the deal they made with a once CIA funded political party by the name of LDP.
The insult from Washington Post striked Hatoyama at the occasion of so-called Global Nuclear Summit.As a nation that has experienced the horror of nuclear weapon and anti-nuclear feeling has evolved into a national cult.Japanese government has also been a close ally with the U.S in nuclear proliferation against North Korea and Iran(Japan even abandoned signed deal of purchasing the drilling right at Azadegan oil field.a long desired energy deal.After Japan pulled out Tehran simply handed it over to China)
and this is what we’ve got in return for attending a pretty meaningless summit held only to makeAmerican president a big guy?
Like I said,Hatoyama may be a “loopy”,but he certainly is my “loopy”.And no matter what happened to his political life after May,the issue he raised won’t go away as Washington wants it so.
ampontan said
The only disagreement I have is the use of the word “tackling.” “Stumbling over” is more like it. Should the treaty be reconsidered? Sure. Do the Okinawans need to be considered for once? Sure. But I’ve seen no sign whatsoever that he had absolutely any idea what he was doing. An issue with this many sensitive aspects needs some serious groundwork and a general plan instead of hot air, and he had none. He and other DPJ members ran all around Okinawa making promises for votes before the election, but once they won they had no idea what to do next, and still don’t, other than to tell Barack Obama to trust him. Why should Obama trust him? He isn’t exactly the best political promise keeper around. He didn’t even try to create a national consensus in Japan first nor did he try to propose serious alternatives. Instead you get the bad joke of the SDP haranguing the politicans in Guam to “do their fair share”.
If Japan threw out every American military installation tomorrow, that in itself wouldn’t bother me at all. But what happens next? He seems to have given it no thought. He really doesn’t seem to have given much of anything in government much thought.
So what does Japan do then? Keep an unconstitutional army? Change the Constitution? Rely on the goodwill of the Chinese?
As for being friendly with neighbors, I personally think the Chinese government is as bad as the South Africans under apartheid. No one will deal with them in the same way because the South African government was a soft target. It’s one of the few things Aso didn’t screw up. We do business together, and things work themselves out after that. The advantage is that the Chinese understand that approach too.
As for getting dissed by Obama at the nuclear summit, yeah, well, Obama’s an egomaniac who’s dangerous because he got a big Congressional majority to work with for two years. He’s seriously pissed off every other American ally, starting with the British, but the Japanese foreign correspondents don’t really seem to talk much about that. If they want to report that he disrespected Japan, OK, but part of that same story is that he disrespects everybody, including large parts of the American public. It ain’t just about Japan with him. Welcome to the club of people and nations he could give a flying f**k about.
And I have no idea why anyone would go to a nuclear disarmament summit to begin with and expect anything serious to happen. Nuclear weapons aren’t going to get uninvented. Toothpaste doesn’t go back in tubes. Some people even used to say Thank Christ for the Bomb. It pretty much stopped large-scale wars, when nothing else did.
Is it a wonderful ideal? Yeah, but wonderful ideals and 350 yen buys a small latte at the coffee shop.
As for the LDP, I don’t think many of them really like the American military presence either, but they would never be allowed to explore an alternative, or what the ramifications of the alternatives to be.
I’d bet the only people who really want the Americans to stay are the SDPJ and the Asahi editorialists. They get to talk about Article 9 all they like, knowing the only reason they get to run that riff about it is because of the American presence. Without the bases, the first thing that would happen is that the rest of the country would shut them out of the national defense dialogue, and they know it, too.
Aceface said
“The only disagreement I have is the use of the word “tackling.” “Stumbling over” is more like it.”
I don’t think so.Hatoyama didn’t just invent the whole problem.Multiple actors,the LDP,the Pentagon,less than well disciplined US marines,have created long before he took the office.
“He and other DPJ members ran all around Okinawa making promises for votes before the election, but once they won they had no idea what to do next, and still don’t, other than to tell Barack Obama to trust him.”
I don’t think that is his problem.Hatoyama and DPJ basically want Marines out of Okinawa and country.Something Washington do not want to here thus ignore.The whole negotiation stops here here since we here no alternative idea from Americans but “You go find solutions”.
And on “trust-me”thing.Previous Japanese PMs have been told to believe there are some unfound WMD in Iraq.Not we know such thing doesn’t exists and thus far we heared no explanation from Washington on this.I’d say Hatoyama is lesser evil even if he’d tricked Obama.
“If Japan threw out every American military installation tomorrow, that in itself wouldn’t bother me at all. But what happens next? He seems to have given it no thought. He really doesn’t seem to have given much of anything in government much thought.”
At least Hatoyama changed his mind on”alliance without garrison”.Ozawa mentioned Americans can keep base in Yokosuka for the 7th fleet,I’d say he sould add Kadena air base in Okinawa.
“It’s one of the few things Aso didn’t screw up. We do business together, and things work themselves out after that. The advantage is that the Chinese understand that approach too.”
You can also add Abe Shinzo on the list too.But had American press understood that? Aso has been crucified for something he didn’t even commit.You know there has been multiple accusation upon him by the same guy in Kyushu because his dad owned a coal mine and some allied POW was forced to work and they do not wish to honor the San Francisco treaty.
By no means I’m supporter of neither of these two PMs.But seeing America stubbed both ofthem from the back,naturally one has to come up with the idea of Plan B.We have to talk to Chinese.At least we have to show our nation and international community that Japan had tried and failed before shifting to Plan C.
” but the Japanese foreign correspondents don’t really seem to talk much about that. If they want to report that he disrespected Japan, OK, but part of that same story is that he disrespects everybody,”
Partially because we don’t really believe in the US would break up with Europeans(and Israelis).They may break up with Japan,Saudis and Pakistanis.But conflict between Americans and Brits are just tiny storm in the teacup.
“And I have no idea why anyone would go to a nuclear disarmament summit to begin with and expect anything serious to happen. Nuclear weapons aren’t going to get uninvented. ”
Can’t agree more.But like I said,this is Japan we are talking about.The only nation on earth where anti-nuclear-ism has evolved in to a national cult.
“As for the LDP, I don’t think many of them really like the American military presence either, but they would never be allowed to explore an alternative, or what the ramifications of the alternatives to be.”
Which is why they are not only opposition,but breaking into pieces.
“I’d bet the only people who really want the Americans to stay are the SDPJ and the Asahi editorialists. They get to talk about Article 9 all they like, knowing the only reason they get to run that riff about it is because of the American presence. ”
But then,you are also forgetting neither SDPJ nor Asahi invented the post war golden calf we know by the name of article 9.Just like anti-base sentiments in Okinawa,the riddle is the creation of American mind and we have to solve it.
Although we can take some constructive advice from Americans just like this one.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/18/okinawa-air-base-in-focus/print/