The chief priest draws the kanji character "Shin" for “new” at Kiyomizu temple, Kyoto
Every year the Standardized Kanji Test declares the
ideogram "kanji of the year." The official "kanji" for
2009 is "Shin", it means "new"...
The NEW thing in the archipelago is the new political
--not the economical, industrial, military, societal,
etc-- power shift. From a Liberal Democratic
Party-led government, Japan Inc. moved to a Trio,
some say a "spanish hotel" built coalition of 3
parties built by ex hard conservatives, liberals,
socialists, nationalists, pork barrel fanatics etc led
by the Democratic Party of Japan of Ozawa, Hatoyama,
Okada Triumvirate in September.
Well, you know what happened to Rome triumvirate don't
you? The fall of the Roman republic due to the
ambitions, egos, and jealousies. Even though, Rome
kept dictator led-regime.
In contemporary Japan the dictator (as his fellow
operators nicknamed him) is called Ozawa Ichiro and he
demonstrated his superb skills at putting in place
'politicking' populist policies, shifting long term
alliances, the US -Japan. On this, read here:
Since the end of the second world war, this is the
first time in the history of Japanese constitutional
politics that an opposition party succeeded in a
change of regime, winning a single-party majority in a
parliamentary election...
Now we are in the Prime Minister Hatoyama "social
experiments" and the populace wonders gravely while
looking back at Year 2009 ...
One Keio scholar, Professor Yasunori Sone, exhausted
as most of his commentators-observers fellows had this
2 pieces of advise to avoid the mood of the people
rising anger of seeing that The Manifesto promises
were not to be implemented. Quotes:
"I can think of three cases for modification. First
is a drastic change in social and economic conditions.
It is a matter of course for the government to add new
measures if the nation is met by a serious economic
crisis comparable in magnitude with last year's
bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers that
sent shockwaves across the world.
Second is the case in which the administration finds
out that its proposed policies are based on wrong data
or grounds after examining now-accessible government
documents. If that is the case, it could release a
revised version of the manifesto in time for the Upper
House election slated for next summer...
... As far as the DPJ's manifesto is concerned, since the
party promised to hand out money to the people under
its motto, "Putting people's lives first," it must not
completely abolish the child allowance program. It
must also refrain from raising the consumption tax
rate, which it did not spell out in the manifesto. If
the government needs to drastically change policies
that overstep the basic framework of the manifesto, it
should publish a new one and present it to the public
to seek popular will through a Lower House election."
The Op-Ed of Professor Yasunori Sone, here:
✍ Next year... experiments are?
