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| February 1, 2011 |
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| Kan Government Sacrifices People |
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The 177th Diet’s Ordinary Session has begun. Prime Minister Kan uses phrases like ‘a third chance to open the nation to the rest of the world’ and ‘a society with the least unhappiness’. But his ideas constitute blatant violation of the constitutional right to survive in peace. The government unilaterally compels people to bear burdens and endure hardship. It is the crucial moment for us to wage serious struggles against the government to defend the constitutional rights.
LET’S WAGE STRUGGLES AGAINST KAN GOVERNMENT TO DEFEND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!
In his policy speech Premier Kan declared to impose burdens on people:
(1) To participate in the TPP (=Trans-Pacific Partnership) scheme
(2) To revise taxation in combination of the public services with the consumption tax rate and
(3) To reinforce the Japan-US Alliance
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has openly breached the Manifesto’s pledges made during the 2009 elections of the Lower House. One of them is an assertion of political change, ‘from concrete to people, people, people’, which emphasizes priority to people’s life in lieu of promotion of public construction works. The Premier Kan’s recent speech represents a policy to advocate interests of a small group of transnational corporations at the cost of people.
Premier, disgracing Mr. Ozawa Ichiro, the former’s DPJ’s colleague, and criticizing him as ‘an old-type politician who arranges political interests’, has boldly nominated, as a minister, Mr. Yosano Kaoru from the Sunshine Party of Japan (=Tachiagare–Nippon) who used to be Premier’s arch enemy. The leader has restructured his cabinet to prepare for raising the consumption tax rate. All these developments prove the DPJ’s intention to do everything in order to stay in power.
The Mainichi Newspaper dated January 16 publishes a commentary and raises a question in the column. It says that ‘reshuffling the cabinet, the DPJ government has chosen a path to make a negative distribution of wealth from a positive one, redefining the role of politicians. A fundamental change is going on in the political culture’, and then it asks ‘whether the Kan government will be able to overcome this cultural challenge’.
The financial circle and the conservatives of Japan have lost capacity to govern, making concessions to people in the domestic context under the circumstances of harsh global competitions in which the emerging economies have gained greater power, including China.
The DPJ government implements policies to reduce corporate tax in combination with a surge of consumption tax, abolish tariffs at the expense of agriculture and decrease pensions. It has stopped providing subsidies to municipalities, including Nago City, Okinawa, while it keeps and consolidates budgets for the US military stationed in the country, allowing over 23 trillions Yen of national defense budget for coming five years. That expresses the government’s priority to conveniences of a few transnational corporations rather than benefits of people.
Constitution – On the Brink of Destruction
Constitution has Articles Nine and 25 with the preamble that provides ‘government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people’ and that ‘we recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want’.
The Kan government has dared to show an intention to destroy the constitutional framework. That does not simply mean the party has become a successor of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The DPJ will break up or split the party in the same way as ex-premier Koizumi Jun-ichiro did the LDP. A big political reorganization has already begun in order that the DPJ regime may carry out agenda to sustain interests of the ruling financial and conservative groups which desperately cling to a growth strategy and financial reconstruction.
Voters who relied on the Democratic Party are discouraged by the betrayal, extremely distrustful in the politics and parties in general.
Neo-liberalism attacks ideologically, forcing people to compete and take responsibility of their own. It undermines the existing human relations, while it remains generous to emerging right wingers. A good example is Osaka Governor Hashimoto Toru, Representative of a political organization, the Ishin-no-Kai (=Restoration Association), who claims conservatism of local governments.
The situation today is serious and dangerous. The government’s policy of negative distribution brings many contradictions in people’s daily life and workplaces. Naturally, people fight for a decent livelihood and job. Our task is to unite people’s struggles to a unified movement with a firm determination to defend Constitution, helping each other.
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