The most successful political party in the democratic world, Japan's LDP, lost power in a landslide election after having been in power more or less uninterrupted since the 1950s. After almost 2 decades with an economy in the doldrums it's amazing that it didn't happen sooner.
In fact since the end of the Cold War their original raison d'etre has disappeared. As with Italy's Christian Democrats they were initially established as the eternal party of government thanks to large piles of cash from the CIA during the post war era in order to act as a bulwark against Communism. Rigging elections was an important part of preserving democracy back then.
So here's a clip from a Japanese game show:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
American 'Full spectrum dominance' in the twenty first century, as advocated by the neoconservatives, is looking increasingly like an unattainable wet dream.
US hegemony over Latin America is already looking threadbare, and the tectonic plates could now be shifting in East Asia. First Thailand doesn't play ball over the Viktor Bout extradition request, and now the LDP is consigned to electoral oblivion in Japan. For the US, 2 unwelcome straws in the wind.
Yeah, kanichiwa, baby.
The DPJ isn't exactly the Respect Party. They won't be declaring war on the US just yet.
The thing thing is that a relative decline in US power probably makes it all the more important for Japan to have an ally to balance against the rise of China, so I doubt that they will make any significant changes to the alliance.
Post a Comment