Premier’s Party Suffers Big Defeat in Japan
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed that he would not step down after his Liberal Democratic Party was routed today in elections.
Article here.
Apparently part two of my "they're just like us" foreign government tour.
You can see part one here.
You'd have to be armless with a degenerative nervous condition to not be able to draw the parallels here. Let's go through some anyway.
Formely popular head of government, check.
Party to which he belongs loses long held legislative majority, check.
Enacted over reaching programs to combat non-existent problems in schools, check.
Militaristic ambition, check.
Bucks time worn traditions regarding failure, check
Gutted national retirement fund, check.
Attempt to swindle people with electronic voting, check.
As an aside, even the Japanese, who make voting machines for other countries and have a history of adroitness with all things technological, have an aversion to using voting machines in national elections.
Pursuit of nationalist agenda, check.
Let's talk about patriotism and nationalism for a minute. Most people would think that they are synonyms, and those people would be wrong. A patriot, as you will note in the definitions linked, is defined by love and defense of his country and individual rights. A nationalist, as you will see in the definitions linked, is defined by a support of strong central government and promotion of the nation over the rest of the world's interests (it's also interesting to note that it is an obsolete usage of patriot.
I'm a patriot, not a nationalist. Nationalism smacks and reeks of facism (e.g. the National Socialist German Workers Party [Nazi]).
Who's ever heard of a fascist democracy?
2 comments:
He, Mwanangi!
I corrected the spelling of your name in my post about you over at the Francis L. Holland Blog.
That was supposed to be "Hey, Mwangangi!"
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