This remarkably prescient rip of the omnipresent Shepard Fairey Obama poster (and man, did Shepard Fairey become insufferably smug in every interview I saw of him after that took off - great poster though) I snagged from a blog that pessimistically suggested that Japan wouldn't vote for change. Oh ye of little faith.
I watched the rolling coverage of the Japanese election with Yuki last night, and it was a lot of fun. I mean, it was interesting for her and really fun for me because I'm just a geek for politics like this. I just love watching the seats tot up, and while my Japanese remains very far from understanding a whole election night special, I could easily keep up on the big things. In fact the more I watched the more it reminded me very much of the New Labour landslide in 1997 (man, I can still remember John Snow standing infront of an actual computer-generated landslide, covering John Major - or was that on the Friday Night Armistice?) with many big Jimin-to (the LDP, Aso's beaten party) politicians being defeated by smaller Minshu-to (DPJ, Hatoyama's winning party) politicians, who were then interviewed on TV and couldn't stop beaming. It was fun, and a big enough swing to raise my eyebrows and even to stoke a little hope for change in the fires of the ol' heart.
Even if, as is very possible, very little changes in a switch from a conservative/right wing coalition to a more centre-left government, it's still striking for me that so many Japanese people voted for this change. It's a sign of my expectations that, when I read Aso's quote about "the DPJ have no experience, they don't even know how to run the country!" I worried that he might actually sway a lot of voters. Japan (like England, like America) is sick in a number of ways, but it's still a country that can change for the better, and like Obama's election, this is at least the first step towards that. Of course in the UK I've got nothing to look forward to other than apathy and a conservative government being elected by default next year, but I can enjoy the election in Japan at least.
In other news - Junichiro Koizumi's son, Shinjiro? Pretty hot.
No wonder he got elected. And Japan needs to get rid of hereditary policies in politics as soon as possible because that shit is just pathetic.
Oh, and apparently Hatoyama is a freemason? Whatever, fine, let the freemason's run the world if they're going to provide free education. Everyone's always like "Freemasons! Illuminati! Boo! They'll take tax payer's money and use it to clone dinosaurs with Walt Disney's head and then shoot them at the moon!" but frankly, who knows? Maybe they're in charge of a vast world-wide conspiracy of good guys? Ever think of that?
P.S. - I don't really think Hatoyama is a freemason.
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