14 posts tagged “election”

Election day

Jul 12, 2009
1 comment

Today I went to vote. This is for the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Congress. This is a big deal because, although it in itself is for the local government, it is viewed as kind of a pre-battle before the national election, which could happen anytime. (Japanese Prime Minister can disband the Diet any time, and for some reason, every single one of them wants to use this power. There was only one time the Diet served its full term. It's almost seen as duty, not privilege, to do the disbanding to the best advantage of LDP [Liberal Democratic Party].)

Ever since I got old enough to cast my vote, I made sure I exercise this right every time I could. I strongly believe it's very important for everyone to do so if you are living under a democratic government system.

See, if there are 100 people who can vote, and 50 people actually cast their vote, and one candidate won by getting 30 votes, did s/he really get the "majority of the voting public"? After all, 70 out of 100 people didn't vote for her/him.

Besides, young Japanese people should really go and cast their vote; Demographically, young people are already a minority compared to over 60s population. On top of that, very few young people go to polling station, where elderly citizens are more likely to cast their vote. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that everything (from taxation, allocation of public welfare, etc.) goes favorable for the elders, and at the cost of the young (or the generations not yet born).

If you have been watching what's happening in Japanese politics, you'd know that LDP is losing support fast. Japan after WWII has practically been "one-party state" under supposedly democratic constitution (this system of LDP having all the power and political muscle, was actually helped by the U.S. to come into place. check out books like "Tokyo Underworld" or "Embracing Defeat" for details)- some call Japan "the most successful communist nation ever":-)

Current Prime Minister claims to exercise above-mentioned disbanding right, but he's losing political muscle to do that; they know they'd lose in the next election. About time.

Peaceful revolution

Nov 5, 2008
5 comments

Obama's victory speech was very, very powerful and inspiring. Especially because he spoke to the world, and reached out to the Americans who didn't vote for him. I'm usually very cynical when it comes to speeches from politicians no matter who or where that politician is from, but that speech was very inspiring. I can't remember the last time I felt any emotional support for America as a nation.

... Also, it's very refreshing to see an American leader who can speak without "Ah", "Hm", "Oh", and doesn't show the world you can take over the office by cheating and bending the rules, speaking Texas version of Engrish along the way:-P

(^o^)/ Bye Bush!

What's up with the Tuesday thing

Nov 3, 2008
6 comments

I'm getting the impression that in the U.S., every single election of some importance always takes place on Tuesday. Is there any particular reason behind this? Maybe some historical significance?
(see, in Japan election always takes place on Sunday. That way most people will be able to come. I would imagine setting the date on weekday will cause all kinds of inconvenience to a whole lot of people, but I keep seeing the election taking place on Tuesday so I'm guessing there has to be a very good reason this is so, and such reason is probably such common knowledge in the U.S. that they don't bother to explain how come...)

Correction

Sep 10, 2008
5 comments

On the comment section of my post about RepCon, I mentioned Sarah Palin believes in Creationism. Although I did hear this on CNN, there doesn't seem to be corroborating evidence to back it up- at least, I couldn't find anything concrete and reliable on the Internet. So I'd like to correct myself; Sarah Palin may or may not believe in Creationism.

... However, it does seem true that she wants the kids in Alaska be taught both "traditional" history and the history according to Creationism, just to give them "alternative view". This is basically the same thing as the Japanese schools starting to teach, aside from "traditional" history, more "old-fashioned" version where Japan the country has been created 2,600 years ago by the first Emperor who was the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, but anyway... :-P

Random thoughts on RepCon

Sep 4, 2008
6 comments

Watching the U.S. Republican National Convention on CNN, some random thoughts went through my head, such as-

*Sarah Palin looks just like how I would imagine Britney Spears would look like at that age.

*And her son's being shipped out to Iraq on September the fecking eleventh?? Can you say "blatant publicity stunt"? Are the Iraq war veterans and 9.11. victims and their families letting them get away with this?

*True, regarding the Iraq occupation, McCain seems to have better understanding; and if the U.S. pulls out troops from Iraq, at least some of them would have to be redeployed to Afghan sooner or later.

*The audience is strikingly dominated by the white- and the old.

*I know I'm seriously misguided here, but somehow any version of Star Spangled Banner other than the way Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock sounds weird to me (which, after all, is the only version that I know and have been listening to). No machine-gun sound at the end? Meh.

*From what I have seen in the last couple of occasions, the U.S. presidential election is probably becoming more about demography than about political debate. Being born into what kind of environment seems to be a big deciding factor- such as, your family goes to one of those fundamentalist mega-churches or your family lives in coastal states and so on. I mean, whoever gets picked as candidate, there don't seem to be big swing in support rate; seems to mean that, ultimately, people are already predisposed to either party no matter who's going to represent that party.

*At least, whoever's going to win won't suddenly abandon his office in a year, which is apparently the new trend in the Japanese politics... (> x <)

Watching DemoCon on CNN

Aug 30, 2008
4 comments

So I was watching the U.S. Democratic National Convention on CNN, it was more entertaining than I first thought. The whole thing's got more of the show-biz vibe than the Japanese politics!

You know, I have this theory on how the American people have been getting subconsciously ready for the prospect of an African American President; movies and dramas. Aside from The West Wing, most memorable Presidents in movies and dramas in recent years have been played by African American actors, don't you think? (I mean, have you watched 24? I thought President Palmer looked -and behaved- more presidential than his real-life counterpart)

And I'm surprised this guy McCain still has the same level of popularity as Obama. Interesting thing about the American politics is that it's personal- as opposed to organizational. The President as the person is the question, not what kind of team s/he can put together. For me, supporting McCain because Obama lacks experience in national security is like refusing a CEO because s/he doesn't have the accounting background and may not do well with keeping the company's books. Who cares as long as s/he can hire someone who's good for the job? Top dog doesn't have to know everything, s/he just needs to pick the right people to do the job. Top dog's real job is to lead, to point where the whole team's effort and hard work should be directed. Obama seems to have that idea.

I suspect that, at least some of the people who say they choose McCain for national security reasons, are saying it because it looks bad to admit they just want to see the white face in Oval Office. I may be wrong or biased, but it would be interesting to see Obama side putting up an ad that basically says "would you still choose McCain if he's black?"

I personally don't like McCain because he's sneering all the time and that, for me, is not inspiring leadership.

Michelle Obama for president!

Feb 12, 2008
5 comments

As I was sipping my afternoon coffee watching CNN in this "Break Room" in my office (procrastination is my motto of this month), Larry King Live was on and he was interviewing Michelle Obama. I came away thinking, she would make so much better President than her husband would! In fact, I got the impression that she's more intelligent, can communicate better and knows how to present her cases (I don't know anything about her background; I wonder if she's an attorney. She certainly would make a good one) than any of the official candidates. And I sense in her Koizumi-type charisma that just makes the others shut up and listen to what you have to say. I wish she would be running!

Takes forever

Jan 25, 2008
14 comments

CNN's starting to bore me; I do realize each country's political system has historical roots and everything to have become what it is, and I do respect that, but in my opinion this presidential election in the U.S. is taking too much time. This in the eyes of the American people must be the most important (therefore the most, how can I put it, examplary?) election in the "free world" as they call it, but it does not seem to be the most efficient and the most fair election on the entire planet. Not that Japanese election is all clean and everything though (it's anything but)...

Since it takes forever and each candidate has to do something to be better or to harm the others, there's plenty of time for things entirely irrelevant to politics come into focus (hair style, whether she ever smoked pot in college, etc). There seems to be this discrepancy between the system that probably goes way back, and the modern technology with which candidates can spread the word now. (Funny thing is, Japanese election system has the opposite problem; it's still not allowed to use the Internet to promote yourself during the election period, and blogs and mailing lists always come up as hot legal topic. Also, ballots are more than 99% paper and takes like all night to count them up)

So I'm curious; is there anyone in the U.S. saying that probably this system should be updated? I mean, come on- everyone on the planet now knows that, with all that time, trouble and money, when the race gets too close the winning ticket could be bought just by which guy happened to have had some fecking judge in his pocket (and could round up those pesky Africans to keep them from voting). Kind of hard to convince the other countries that the U.S. way is the ideal form of democracy, don't you think?

How really democratic?

Jul 30, 2007
9 comments

You know, 50% voting rate is just about normal in many of the so-called "civilized", democratic countries. That means if your party won the election by a small margin (let's say you've got about 51% of the vote), something like 74.5% of the voting population actually did not choose you to take the helm. Is this really the picture people would envision democracy?

I've read in somewhere that in Germany the voting is not the right but the obligation of the citizens. If you don't vote you have to pay the fine. This may put "voluntary" thing in question, but do you feel comfortable letting people who three out of four citizens didn't really choose be your leader/government?

First... Spouse??

Jul 23, 2007
11 comments

Well Hillary Clinton may or may not be the first female U.S. President, but apparently it's a matter of time before one will be elected. So I wonder- how would they be addressing to the husband of a female president? First Husband? First Gentleman? First Guy? First Dude [patent pending]? How such person should be defined?

Come to think of it, doesn't the term "First Lady" sound a bit condescending?