(Not Abbey Road, But a Tokyo Bay Road...)On Inauguration of New Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Japan Mr. Yukio Hatoyama said that Prime Minister Elected Mr. Naoto Kan is 10 times or 1000 times smarter than he is.
However, it is said that mild P.M. Mr. Hatoyama got angry only once in the office of Prime Minister during his term of nine months when he found this April or so that one of his aid did not tell him the truth about a policy of the U.S. Government on the U.S. Marine Corps' bases in Okinawa, though the aid monopolized the issue at his hand.
An ex-elite-bureaucrat aid to the prime minister could not communicate well with American elite officials. P.M. Mr. Hatoyama, a well-educated celebrity, could not measure ability of his key aid.
Indeed, it is very sad to say that they should have been 10 or 1000 times smarter in dealing with the American military.
SECTION I: The End of Conservatives in Japan?
Japanese Prime Minister Elected Mr. Naoto Kan has, in his 30-year career in politics, neither belonged to, nor supported by the Liberal Democratic Party, the major conservative pro-American party since 1950's.
His assuming office of the premiership of Japan is a very drastic incident in terms of the Japanese political history since the end of WWII or at least since the end of the Vietnam War.
Traditional/conservative-minded or living voters in Japan consistently supported LDP candidates in national elections till August 30, 2009 when then opposition Democratic Party of Japan won 308 seats among total 480 Lower-House seats. The DPJ has many liberal politicians who might be rather regarded as a kind of terrorist supporters by the LDP and traditional establishment, though the 10-year old party has also many pure-conservative politicians. Mr. Naoto Kan is virtually categorized in the former, and Mr. Ichiro Ozawa and Mr. Yukio Hatoyama are virtually in the latter, according to conventional measures.
Therefore, veteran Lower-House lawmaker Mr. Kan is more symbolic as prime minister who indicates the end of conventional conservatives in the Japanese political circles.
It is so, since "Kan-san" is the first and probably last conventional liberal prime minister of Japan who got a real free hand without being tied down by the LDP or established conservatives (unlike the case of socialist premier Mr. Tomiichi Murayama in 1990's). In other word, Mr. Kan must have ever no linkage with U.S. CIA like Mr. Yukio Hatoyama or unlike any of former prime ministers from the LDP. In this context, the 30-8-2009 general election was revolutionary, no matter how humbly.
Conservative and traditional politicians in Japan must change their paradigm, since liberal Mr. Naoto Kan will be soon appointed to the prime minister by the Emperor according to the Constitution.
Note: "Kan" means the plant sedge. "Naoto" means a straight, quick, frank, or righteous man.
SECTION II: People & History or an Individual & History
Apparently people as a mass are flowing along the flow of history.
However, what occupies the mind of an individual has nothing to do with history in a ratio of 50 to 90%.
That is why people as individuals have to face something coming out of the blue like in the case of the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941, the Assassination of JFK in 1963, and the 9/11 Terror in 2001, while they were eating, drinking, singing, dancing, or making money.
Especially, there are nations far from one another, though people are communicating, trading, and travelling over borders and distances. Things and matters are developing as if independently in each country, but a trend can meet another from a different country through an international channel, leading to conflict of interest.
China progressed with a steep economic growth, owing to great investments and support from Japan and America. Then, at a certain point in time, China emerged as a major international player to the eyes of American and Europeans. Eventually, elite Americans have come to be preoccupied by China in their global view, since China has purchased more American Treasury bonds than Japan around 2009.
In this way, local and unique progress of Chinese economic growth has been suddenly transformed to a significant presence in the world, at least, to American/European elites. So, we may wonder how people and individuals actually think and understand situations, living in this kind of trend of history. Are they prepared enough always?
When observing this movement with a focus on a mass of people, it looks like they all understand the wider situation, since they look like living and behaving reasonably. But, for each individual, it has very limited meaning.
That is why individuals in each country fail in realizing the era and make wrong judgement on international conflict and other issues, sometimes suddenly facing or discovering a new, strange, or unthinkable situation.
The lack of a right sense in history among individuals can be thus very dangerous to the world and the era, since a mass of people look like understanding everything but each individual does not much care about a real state of the world.
In summary, as American individuals failed in fairly coping with the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941, the Assassination of JFK in 1963, and the 9/11 Terror in 2001, though as a mass of people they looked wise prior to each critical incident, they might be failing now, too, in terms of China and other emerging economies.
Of course, the BP failure in the Gulf of Mexico and the Israeli violence in the sea off Gaza would be put in some places in their world view and historical context by a mass of American people and individuals. If it was done very insufficiently, America might fail in future in handling matters related to those incidents at both the levels of a mass of people and individuals. And accumulation of such failures could lead to another tragedy of a large scale, global scale, or historic scale.
And, I hope that people, including a leader of a nation and an interviewer of any TV station, would discuss this sort of matter with the American President, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama.
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There are old Chinese living in Myanmar who fought the great war against the Empire of Japan as soldiers of the National Party in the region around borders between southern China and Myanmar through which American military aid and weapons were conveyed into various parts of China during WWII.
However, as the Chinese Communist Party tried to execute them after the Chinese Civil War, they could not return to their home in China while their leaders moved desperately to Taiwan.
They are now over 80 or 90 years old, still looking like heroes, though some have obtained nationality of Myanmar and their children and grandchildren live there.
Yet, it will be a kind of miracle if China should not suffer another civil war on its land in the 21st century, since there are still old soldiers around borders between southern China and Myanmar.
(http://www.superseventies.com/midijukebox/bandonrun.mid
Source: http://www.superseventies.com/sw_bandontherun.html
Paul McCartney played before the Obamas. What an ege, since he is a British man!)
Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
Mar 6:7 And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;