Conspiracies – Page 6 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Highlights from the Diet — Lower House Finance Committee, Feb 12-16 2007

Not even 3 weeks into the new Diet Session, and the Asahi has already dismissed the Diet debate as “disappointing.” I don’t know which debates they’re watching. Sure, the DPJ has elected to try and deflect attention away from the political fund scandal (since party president Ozawa has the same problem), but so far I’ve seen lots of interesting stuff:

Lower House Budget Comittee:

1. Kokumin Shinto president (and ousted LDP heavy) Shizuka Kamei made a flamboyant splash onto the scene with his first appearance asking questions in this committee in 6 years, this time as an opposition member. Though he “never in his wildest dreams thought” he would be questioning Shinzo Abe from the opposition, he went on to praise the PM as someone with good policies — if only he’d express them (here he is talking about the more hawkish attitudes Abe was famous for before he gained the premiership – strong rhetoric about territorial disputes etc). He pleaded with Abe to back away from Koizumi style winner take all politics (such as economic reforms that supposedly work for America’s national interest) and work to really make Japan better. But the most explosive of his comments came when he started questioning Abe on the appropriateness of the relationship between the LDP and its coalition partner, the Soka Gakkai-backed Komeito. Though he said he has nothing against “new religions,” even saying that both he and Abe have enjoyed the benefits of spiritual guidance, he accused the LDP of providing too much electoral support to the Komeito and passing an education bill that suits Soka Gakkai’s interests. After the Komeito demanded Kamei retract his assertion that the Komeito “supports the Iraq war,” Kamei stood by it and offered to engage in a public debate with the Komeito at Tokyo Dome. “They could even mobilize all the Soka Gakkai members.” I’m praying the Komeito takes him up on the offer.
(excerpts from the exchange here, video excerpt here)

2. The Socialist Democratic Party’s Nobuto Hosaka is closely pursuing the facts on a scandal involving improprieties over government-sponsored events (including faked town meetings), the management for most of which was contracted out to advertising giant Dentsu. At the Feb 14 meeting of the committee Hosaka questioned Supreme Court officials about the facts involving the recent incident in which people were paid to attend public forums on the Supreme Court’s new lay judge system (more info on the triangle of shadiness here). It turns out that the Supreme Court had very likely assigned Dentsu and others involved to begin promotion of the events before a contract had been signed between the government and Dentsu, the contractor charged with managing the events. How does Hosaka know this? After reviewing materials that he requested from the Supreme Court, he found that the contracts and estimates with Dentsu for all the events was dated the day before the kickoff even in Fukuoka. If there had been no agreement between Dentsu and the government before then, that would have given Dentsu less than 24 hours to pick regional newspapers to subcontract the management/promotion of the events, and then book venues/panelists, attract participants. But of course that’s not what happened. Promotional posters for the events were on bulletin boards long before that, the venues were booked ahead of time, and the attendance was healthy throughout (thanks to “gratitude payments”). Even more suspicious, the amounts charged in the invoices submitted by Dentsu to the government are identical to the amounts listed in the contracts and estimates.

All this despite the fact that (on paper at least) Dentsu was selected to manage the events after winning a “project competition,” which is a way for the government to add a form of competition to the awarding of no-bid contracts while avoiding the cumbersome government procurement process. Hosaka alleges that the dates on these contracts/estimates are fraudulent and created as an afterthough (a “sakanobori keiyaku” or “backdated contract”). This practice was typical of the fraudulent town meetings as well, Hosaka notes, and is in violation of the Public Account Law.

3. Prime Minister Abe isn’t a big fan of the New York Times. During a back and forth with the premier, DPJ member Arai quoted a recent NYT piece authored by Norimitsu Onishi that gave some sympathetic coverage of the recently bankrupted town of Yubari in Hokkaido prefecture. Arai was trying to argue that the national government needs to take more responsibility over the city’s bankruptcy (it is currently insisting that the town drastically restructure to pay off its bond obligations). Abe called the piece “insufficiently researched” because it neglected to note that the Yubari government hid its dire financial situation improperly and even gave city officials bigger bonuses in the year before the situation came to light. No press coverage of this exchange yet that I have seen.

4. Finance Minister Koji Omi got slammed by Sumio Mabuchi (DPJ) over a slightly scandalous situation: Omi’s daughter accompanied the minister at meetings that he attended as an observer to establish his pet project, the Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology. Omi explained that she was there to help interpret the meetings and that she received no payment for her attendance. However, the problem with this, according to Mabuchi, is that a) Part of her hotel expenses as well as fees for meals and receptions were paid for with public funds, and b) If he really needs a translator he should hire a professional.

Now, this might not sound like a big deal, but I found Omi’s reaction to be pretty interesting. First of all, his primary excuse for bringing his daughter was one of the classic linguistic copouts: he claimed that his “hearing” abilities weren’t up to snuff, and since the meetings were all conducted in English, he brought his capable daughter along to help. This is despite his reputation for having “perfect English” at least according to US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Second, Omi felt that Mabuchi was being “rude” for insinuating that Omi was being shady when he’s been working “with great ambition” to make this project happen for the good of the country. Working for the good of the country is one thing, using your status and public funds to take your daughter on a business trip to meet influential people is quite another. (Stories on this topic: Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, quotes from the exchange via TBS here).

Grand conspiracy

The BBC reports that the Japanese whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, has caught fire near Antarctica, possible at the hands of anti-whaling activists that were in pursuit of the ship. What they don’t mention is that this is the very same whaling ship used as a location in the Bjork art film Drawing Restraint 9. Coincidence? I think not. What are you trying to hide BBC and Bjork? Iceland’s reign of incomprehensible terror must be stopped!

Asahi explains the Dentsu>Government>Local newspaper triangle of shadiness

A very interesting article has appeared in the Japanese-language Asahi today introducing the results of its investigation into a scandal involving Sankei Shimbun and another newspaper paying people to attend government-sponsored forums to educate people about the Supreme Court’s new lay judge system. It turns out that the practice of “co-sponsoring” these forums with regional newspapers is widespread, as is the practice of bribing people to participate (11 events managed by 4 newspapers were tainted). I won’t translate it since I suspect it will appear in Asahi’s English version after the Monday press holiday, but here’s a brief summary:

Headline: A dependence on government agencies for ad revenue was behind the “attendee mobilization” issue at regional newspapers

In the past decade or so, local newspapers have seen their ad revenues from regular companies drop significantly as their readership loses out to the larger papers. Newspapers have seen their total share of ad revenue drop from 21% to 17.4%, and regional papers have been hit harder than the major national ones. So in 1999 advertising giant Dentsu, who has a significant stake in the success of local newspapers, organized a “National Regional Newspaper Liaison Council” (office conveniently located a block away from Dentsu headquarters). The council was established as a network to collectively seek out ad suppliers (though looking at their website you’d think they existed only to co-sponsor government forums). The administrative director, managing researcher, and other positions are staffed by senior Dentsu employees.

The arrangement goes like this: The Council or Dentsu receives a contract from a government agency to hold an event to promote “understanding” of a new policy among the general populace. They then farm out operations to the local papers, who manage and report on the event in exchange for placement of ads/official announcements from the government agency.

Cosponsoring these events with local newspapers do benefit the agencies trying to get the word out about their new policies to the outlying regions, but that is only if people actually attend them. A promotional document provided by Dentsu to the Supreme Court for its forums on the lay judge system boasted attendance of “200 people or more.” A person involved explained: “The newspapers apparently felt pressure to get people to attend or else their orders from the Council would be reduced.” An employee at the ad department of one of the newspapers involved went so far as to name names: “We felt nervoud since we were co-sponsoring this with the national government. We were told by Dentsu to fill the room. Of course, the Council and Dentsu deny that they ever put any such pressure on the newspapers.

For a PM as boring as Abe, even a doctor’s visit makes the news

Abe on the way home from getting his health checked. I can’t say for sure why they published this almost totally un-newsworthy photo, but it goes to show how doggedly the press in Japan is hounding the Prime Minister no matter where he goes. Why would he wave to the camera? My guess is in response to the reporters’ catcalling. The caption? “‘This is my regular checkup. There were no problems at all, so I can work at ease again.’ Will the embattled prime minister now be refreshed to mount an attack to reverse his fortunes?”

The constant media hounding is nothing new, but here’s one possible reason this otherwise unremarkable photo made the news: People miss Koizumi’s consummate newsworthiness. As the right-leaning policy monthly Shokun! (Hey You!) has pointed out, at least Koizumi had hobbies (even though they were lame ones like opera). Abe hasn’t been seen doing much besides his job, except for when he’s very obviously posing for the cameras (such as when he was seen holding hands with his wife or when he made a trip to buy dictionaries). So these bored reporters might have been desparate to capture the prime minister doing anything.

There have been reports comparing the Abe and Koizumi styles of leadership ever since Koizumi left office. TV commentator Terry Ito puts it bluntly: “Koizumi spoke to the people, Abe speaks to Nagatacho.” But ever since the K-man made a well-received campaign appearance during lower house by-elections in October, reports of rumors/hopes started bubbling up that Koizumi might try and take back the premiership. The above-mentioned Shokun! article outlines one wild scenario:

The Abe cabinet will hit a dead end over the nonstop scandals and dissolve the lower house. The DPJ, internally divided as it is, will win the general election as it rides this wave of dissatisfaction in a “marriage of convenience.” Part of the disjointed LDP will break off and join the DPJ. Ozawa will step down for health reasons and leave the DPJ leadership to either Yukio Hatoyama or Naoto Kan, forming a coalition government with the Socialist Democratic Party. It will, of course, immediately falter. People will then start calling for a “strong leader” amid the fluid political conditions. This is a prediction for 2, 3 years into the future, but it could well be that Junichiro Koizumi is quietly waiting for that day to come.

The “Koizumi comeback” storyline (always proffered by unnamed sources, of course) picked up momentum after Abe’s administration started to stumble in December. All the while, Koizumi himself has been indirectly quoted as saying he has no interest whatsoever in running the government again.

But the idea has picked up such steam by now that Koizumi’s longtime personal assistant Isao Iijima came out and flatly stated at an appearance in his native Nagano that there would be “100% no comeback” for Koizumi.

The coverage of Iijima’s comments may have been due to the fact that Iijima himself has become a part of the “Koizumi comeback” story, partly for his reputation as a shady manipulator of media coverage (he’s been called “Japan’s Karl Rove”; read a 2001 profile here). This report in January 15 edition of news weekly AERA, quotes unnamed political insiders and a passage critical of the Abe administration’s use of special advisors to explain that Iijima is disappointed with the Abe administration. The article goes on to speculate that Iijima harbors a “wild ambition” to put Koizumi back in power. Amid this coverage, Koizumi has been indirectly quoted as saying he isn’t interested.

Even though Iijima has denied that Koizumi is making a comeback, the very fact that Koizumi’s personal secretary is out making speeches makes me suspect something’s up. His comments were somewhat cryptic: “Koizumi has been keeping silent for the time being. I see that as the best support for Abe,” referring to the fact that Koizumi has largely managed to stay out of the press, at least directly, after leaving office. But this conspicuous absence only seems to make Japanese reporters’ hearts grow fonder.

Foreign Crime File – is all the fuss really necessary?

Today I want to talk about the “Foreign Crime Files” manga. It’s an offensive, disgusting book that tries (albeit poorly) to exploit Japanese people’s fears and prejudices. By now many of my readers will have heard about this since the Japan bloggers have duly reported it with furious anger. But my preliminary and very unscientific research seems to indicate that this book has not made much of a splash in Japan as of yet. It’s enough to make me worry that this outrage might actually be building more of a market for the book (and a platform for its fear-mongering) than it would have had otherwise.

The sole Amazon review (1 star): “Uses lots of discriminatory phrases, low level content. It seems as if the author has a major inferiority complex as a Japanese person. This will engender a bias against foreigners among ignorant Japanese people.” Also from Amazon: People who bought this book also bought “Completely Master the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1!” (a test of Japanese as a second language). Amazon rank: 1004 in books.

Japanese-language Technorati results: zero!

2ch presence: One very short thread on the “Books” board. Overview:

Thread starter: Did you know about GAIJIN HANZAI FILE, this horrible, discriminatory book?!
2channeler 1: It’s an ad!
TS: No, it’s not an ad, I just want to know why Japanese people allow this kind of thing?
2channeler 1: Well, I guess it’s more that we don’t really care about foreigners.
2channeler 2: My opinion is that people who overreact to this discrimination are pretty depressing. Just leave it alone. The fact that the foreign media has picked this up is just what I’m talking about. They understand that life and racial discrimination can’t be separated. A worldview that relates and compares issues to one’s own life is very Christian.

No mention in a news thread on the lower “foreign crime rate” reported by the National Police Agency.

Google results: The multitude of booksellers’ websites selling the book and foreign Japan bloggers’ reactions, plus one blogger/J-pop singer cocco (wiki), who explained: “It isn’t being talked about much by Japanese people yet, but one book (Foreigner Crime File) is enraging foreigners who live in Japan… I worry that this might turn into an international problem!”
According to cocco, there is a movement going on within mixi to boycott Family Mart over this book, one that debito has helped organize outside of mixi and that has in the end kept it off the shelves there as well as in other places.

It could be early to conclude that Japanese people just aren’t all that interested in this book, or perhaps they’ll just never have the chance to read it due to the success of Debito and others to get this book censored. But in this era of viral marketing and unscrupulous people, you have to wonder if all the coverage we foreign Japan bloggers are giving this awful book are giving it more attention than it ever really deserved. I feel like this book would have died a death in the sleazy porno section of the convenience stores if it weren’t for its almost made-for-the-Internet inflammatory illustrations.

“Child-bearing Machine” T-shirts

Fans of Japanese political kerfuffles can thank Kikko for letting us know how we can get T-shirts commemorating Health and Labor Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa’s clueless statement implying that women are “child-bearing machines.” No maternity sizes available yet, unfortunately.

You can get some background on this and Abe cabinet’s other “gaffe” scandals here, but basically the opposition parties went nuts over this misstatement, sitting out on Diet deliberations (a move that goes against the supposed principles of a Japan’s proud new truly parliamentary system) on a supplementary budget to carry over Japan for the rest of the fiscal year. They came back after this tactic of shrilly lambasting the LDP produced only mixed results in local elections, and then Acting President of the DPJ Naoto Kan made a strikingly similar flub: “Tokyo’s birth productivity is low”. So, as with other recent scandals, the DPJ comes off looking no better than the LDP.

Continue reading “Child-bearing Machine” T-shirts

Sankei gets slammed! over Supreme Court lay juror promotion scandal — why not Dentsu, too?

A scandal in which two newspapers (Sankei Shimbun and Chiba Nippo) paid temp workers and Sankei-affiliated deliverypersons to attend events promoting the new lay judge system to be introduced from 2009 has inspired this latest use of my favorite journalistic cliche:

Court slams payments to public forum attendees
Kyodo NewsTwo newspaper publishers acted inappropriately when they paid participants to take part in public forums intended to popularize the lay judge system, the Supreme Court said Monday.

The Osaka headquarters of the Sankei Shimbun and Chiba Nippo, a local newspaper in Chiba Prefecture, have acknowledged paying 3,000 yen to 5,000 yen to some participants at the events, which they cosponsored with the top court.

The court announced that it learned of the situation from a “journalistic institution” on Jan 26 and began investigations henceforth. I wonder which institution of fine journalism earned the privilege of ratting out its competitor? At least one blogger has noted that Asahi’s reporting reads “as if they were taking advantage of the situation“, but I won’t point any fingers myself.

Kibashiri Nikki reminds us that the last bit of fakery took place earlier this month, right after Sankei was extremely critical of the Abe administration for its handling of the faked town meeting scandal just last month.

But it is worth noting that Sankei and Chiba Nippo may not be the only ones who deserve to get slammed:

According to contract documents obtained by The Asahi Shimbun under the information disclosure system this month, the Supreme Court placed an order with advertising giant Dentsu Inc. to hold such forums at 50 locations across Japan from 2005 through 2006.

Dentsu said in its project proposal that the forums could be made known to readers of newspapers with a combined circulation of about 19 million.

So it paid local newspaper publishers to secure the sites for the forums and for other expenses. Each newspaper advertised the forums.

The newspapers are taking the blame for this, and if they were the ones making the payments that’s their responsibility. But isn’t it quite a coincidence that we’re seeing Dentsu involved once again in promoting government policy through so-called “public forums.” You may remember that Dentsu was the main contractor managing the scandalous “faked town meetings” a few months ago. In both cases Dentsu’s clients have been slammed for mobilizing “sakura” (slang for decoy participants) to make the forums look like more of a success. The general sequence of events is the same in both the town meeting scandals and this incident: Govt contracts to Dentsu > Dentsu places responsibility for the project to someone else (local government officials and the newspapers, respectively) > that someone else gets in trouble for poisoning the well. It must be nice for Dentsu to be able to keep its profits and its reputation of being the far-and-away top promotion company in Japan, such that even the government seems content to rely on them.

The Homeku blog sums up the situation well:

If you’re wondering why the newspaper company went that far to support the promotions, it’s because a feature story on the details of the meeting was printed the day after the forum, along with an advertisement for the Supreme Court’s lay judge system.

I think the real story is something like they got overeager in their desire for ad revenue. And anyway, we are talking about that newspaper company. They seem to have a weak sense of mission and ethics as an institution of journalism.

At last night’s press conference it was explained that both companies [Sankei and Chiba Nippo] bore the costs of paying the sakura. But that is inaccurate. These “Nationwide Forums on the Lay Judge System” were contracted out by the Supreme Court to Dentsu (Again?!) and Dentsu paid local newspapers the costs to manage them. Accordingly, the source of the money paid to the sakura was originally from the Supreme Court, in other words it was paid from tax revenues.

Another thing that bothers me is that there seems to be a problem with the Supreme Court spending money to promote the lay judge system. It seems like this deviates from the Supreme Court’s role.

The sequence of events in both the lay judge forums and the town meetings cases is that the government used tax revenue to have Dentsu promote the govt’s own policies to the public. It might be easy to understand if you consider that these scandals occur because the motives are impure.

Crazed 4chan users shut Debito down

The ongoing 2channel litigation just claimed a collateral victim: Debito’s website. Those who read his blog/newsletter will know that he also recently sued 2channel for libel, although he has yet to try collecting on his judgment.

Unfortunately for him, some otaku read the news stories the wrong way and though that it was Debito who was seeking to shut down 2channel. (It’s actually another Japanese guy who’s making the threats to seize the server and the domain name.)

Here’s what happened next, according to an e-mail Debito sent this morning:

From Monday morning Jan 15, the hate mail began trickling in. Then the death threats. Finally, according to my website domain admin today, debito.org has been zapped–i.e. people with large bandwiths have aimed internet guns and fired millions of page accesses onto my the debito.org server, overloading it and closing it down. Which means I am stuck without a site, or a blog, or email, until they get bored.

…The most ironic thing is that most of the hate mail and death threats are in English. Native English, for the most part. Claiming responsibility for all this is some place called “4chan” which is apparently the overseas version of 2-Channel, with the same attitude towards information, anonymity, and personal responsibility.

Here’s the thread that seems to have started it. (Be warned, though, that 4chan is pretty much the realization of the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.”)

At any rate, Debito’s site appears to be back up and running now.

Another Bush administration official who needs to pack his bags

Of all the asinine things that come out of Washington, this latest tirade by Charles “Cully” Stimson, the Defense Department’s point man on the Guantanamo detainees, is ridiculous. In an interview on Thursday, he went through a laundry list of large New York law firms which are representing the detainees… and then suggested that this was inherently wrong, and merited reprisals from big-money clients.

From the Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog:

Said Stimson: “I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

Trés daft. The right to counsel aside, and every American lawyer’s [aspirational] obligation to do some pro bono work aside, Stimson had just pointed out that almost every big firm is involved on the defense side in the detainee cases. So where are these corporate CEOs supposed to send their legal work? India?

As if this wasn’t enough, he then went on to suggest that foul play was afoot:

“Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.”

Despite being a GMU law graduate and Navy JAG, Stimson must have missed the defamation section of his Torts class. I hope that someone actually drops a major law firm on these grounds, so the firm can sue the living daylights out of Stimson.

Anyway, there are some good reactions coming out already: Senator Leahy came out against Stimson and the Defense Department stated that Stimson’s comments were not representative of the Department.

Abe to quit in May??

Hot off of Kikko’s Blog　(via Livedoor News but not a direct translation, just a summary of the report with my own commentary):

Rumors are being reported that Prime Minister Abe, who within weeks after taking office had already started mentioning goals for a second term, might be forced to step down in May, after an assumed poor showing in April local elections. A Livedoor News article reports that “voices within the LDP” are calling for his resignation before the Upper House electios in July. He and his team have become a lightning rod for scandals, some of which we’ve detailed (faked town meetings, faltering on tax reforms, scandals among his policy team etc).

The new prime minister could take office after the end of the regular Diet session, allowing Abe to save face. This would follow the same pattern as even less popular PM Yoshiro Mori in 2001.

The most likely successor to Abe is Foreign Minister Taro Aso, an LDP more senior and even more right-wing than Abe, who earned more rank and file LDP member support than expected in his run against Abe in September. He has hardly stopped campaigning since, coming out with major foreign policy objectives and announcing the formation of his own intraparty faction just last week. The likely rival to Aso would be Yasuo Fukuda, whose candidacy in the last election sputtered for its low prospects of victory and health concerns. A source quoted in the article suggested that Koizumi could even make a comeback. Oh, I can only pray that happens…