My opinion of this week(285):

Immature public opinion

About two weeks ago, there was a telephone call from Fuji TV station 
to make a questionnaire survey for their TV program of Report 2001. 
The series of questions were "Do you support Koizumi Cabinet?", "Do 
you have an interest for the election of the President of Democratic
Party?", "Which political parties do you support if there is an election
 now?", and so forth.  I answered to them very clearly.

The last question was "Do you have a blight outlook for the future of
this country?" My answer was "No, I cannot have one if the present
political situation lasts." The telephone caller asked what I meant
by that. I commented that I have some concern about the fact that
people of this country do not have capability to make more clear-cut
political judgment about what is right and wrong. Unless they could
have such capacity, there is no chance for improving politics of this
country.

The questionnaire was over probably without understanding of my 
comment by the questioner. There was a debate on the same kind of
topics at ML during early this week. Some one said that publics still
clearly support Koizumi Cabinet and expect some big outcome of reform
that Koizumi tried to accomplish as far as we see the present public 
opinions.

That's true, may be. But the reason for the public to support Koizumi
Cabinet is very strange. There are no other political parties and 
political leaders that can replace Liberal Democratic Party and 
Prime Minister Koizumi.

What are innocuous and safe attitude they are! Just about the same time, 
there was the gubernatorial election at Nagano Prefecture and Mr. Tanaka
was elected again as Governor of the prefecture with landslide support
from the inhabitants. He selected the way for the election of 
Governorship when he faced to non-confidence move presented by the
prefecture assembly.

People of Nagano Prefecture clearly supported Mr. Tanaka who advocated
transparency and fairness of administration of Nagano Prefecture 
against prefecture assembly that follow traditional influence peddling
type politics.  

I just wonder why the same kind of move does not happen at the national
level. Why do influence-peddling in politics continue to exist? Why are
there so many Diet members who work on behalf of special interests groups?
There were so many scandals under Koizumi administration.  Why are there
not more move or more public opinion to eliminate such evils?

I wrote about comprehensive process of democracy at last My opinion of 
this week. But it will never work as specified so far as public opinion
itself is in such immature stage.

Tadashi HAYASE
2002/9/7

My opinion of this week(286):

Building up physical strength 

I love to play tennis and have played tennis for many years. For an old
man like me, it's not any good sport any more, playing under very strong
sunshine especially in summer. I tried to avoid to play it under sunshine
as much as possible in this summer. 

There are many more good sports for aged people as a matter of fact. So
I decided to join a sport club where I can enjoy swimming and various
gym works recently when admission fee is half for campaign. 

I have utilized for only three or four times since I joined the club. All
facilities are always crowded with aged people even in weekdays. All of
them are doing gym works and swimming very eagerly. At an alumni meeting
of high school held in late august, many alumni talked how they were trying
to keep health and build up physical strength in daily life.

Yes, building up physical strength for aged people is one of very
important theme in this grayer society. The topic tends to center around
nursing care and welfare for bed-bound people. But to keep aged people 
healthy and vigor is more important theme than negative cares such as
nursing.

Both of our couple join the club together by paying \17,000 per month.
That's not small expenses frankly speaking. However, we believe that 
that's worth spending to keep our good health.

There must be many ways to build up physical strength without joining 
such private sport club. There are several public swimming pool and other
public sports facilities that are very inexpensive. But such sporting 
activities can be continued for we are paying for some amount of money.
 
Many of public sporting facilities are not so free to use restricted by
various rules. The city authorities should prepare and provide many more
such sporting facilities for aged people and citizen in general. That is
one other very important improvement of social infrastructure in this day.

2002/9/14
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(287):

What a coward diplomacy!
 
How can those Government officials watch the face of victims of families 
that suffered such outrageous murders? That was the outcome after 30 years
long needless suffering. Prime Minister Koizumi and officials of Foreign Minister
knew the fact before they start normalization talks. The news media reported
Koizumi protested it. But how and how much did he expressed his sadness and
anger against the terrorist? The normalization treaty document was already
there to be signed which had been prepared for the meeting.

More than 90% of public opinion demand the clarification of the outcome
of this abduction case before normalization talk with North Korea would
be resumed. That is quite right. But on the other hand, 60% of people
evaluated Koizumi's approach at this time. I don't agree with that at all.
Why is it? Why do all of people express more anger for such outrageous
act at first?

Horiuchi-san, one of our ML member sent his own message to ML after this
shocking news.

 "Why is Japan going to provide a human help to North Korea which abducted
so many people of Japan and might have killed those innocent people? Does 
human right of our people come under for the sake of humanity of  such a
terrorist country?  Do those government officials have a sense of shame? 
They have traded lives of those victims with indemnification they had 
demanded to Japan after the War. Koizumi diplomacy stands on such outrageous
fact."

My anger had been healed a little it by reading this article. But my anger
burned again by listening to the voice of people in TV news show. Many people
said they evaluated Koizumi's effort for normalization talks with the fact
that no other former Ministers could not do it in 20 years.

Is that true? Is that true that the meeting at this time have been started
by the initiative from Japanese side?  No, not at all. The meeting has been
materialized by strong approach from the side of North Korea. They had to
start doing this because their country is now in serious condition as many
mass media report.

They even admitted such abduction cases and terrorism saying that those were
crimes done by some special agents. Proverb says at any rate. "Hunger has 
no law.  Near is my shirt, but nearer is my skin." 

A representative of family group of abduction protested and questioned why
Prime Minister signed the document at the end of meeting. He should have
come back without signing of document and should have asked the voice of
people of our country.

I quite agree with him.

2002/9/21
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(288):

Disappointment about Democratic Party

After such a hot competition, Mr.Yukio Hatoyama was elected again as 
President of Democratic Party of Japan. But he is facing with 
difficulty to make party executive group. He decided to appoint 
Mr.Kansei Nakano who formerly belonged to Democratic Socialist 
Party as Party Secretary, but many groups of Democratic Party 
started complaining about it saying the appointment is a kind of
reward to Mr.Nakano for his support at Presidential election.

Many groups of the party, including those who originally supported
Mr. Hatoyama during election campaign, started criticizing Mr.Hatoyama.
They refused to corporate to send their men to executive group of 
the party for the reason that they don't agree with the appointment.

Why is this? Although it is a kind of reward, what is wrong about it?
It is quite natural for the President to appoint a man from whom he can
get the strongest support to manage the party. 

Mr.Hatoyama was elected to the President of the Party after a democratic
process. Once elected, he has the power and right to appoint any men
he believed appropriate and suitable for executives. Why do those party
members, especially of those so called young group not admit such quite
democratic process? 

Why does Mr.Noda who was another candidates for the Presidential election
refused to become a chairman of policy board of the party because of
that reason?  The position is very important to realize what he insisted
during Presidential election campaign. 

This kind of confusion is far from any democratic process. The party, I 
believe, is not worth calling Democratic Party at all. 

Unfortunately this is another big setback for the democracy of this country.

2002/9/28
Tadashi HAYASE