So now what are they going to actually DO about it?

[cstaylor]

Civil-service reform lacks teeth

A questionnaire survey of preselected monitors nationwide conducted by the National Personnel Authority in February 2002 revealed that the most popular image of high-ranking bureaucratic officials (selected by 80 percent of the respondents) was that they considered themselves to be highly privileged and were neglectful of the views of the average citizen

And here's the recommendation:

...curbing the number of special public corporations, where retiring ministry officials land cozy jobs (amakundari), and eliminating the elite-track system of personnel management

This policy has discouraged open competition and turned the privileged "career" officials into an elitist group. Such privileges naturally discourage their perception of themselves as public servants and compel them to place their ministry's interests ahead of those of the nation as a whole.

Earth to Japanese: this is the nature of government. The only way to fight this is at the ballot box... force your elected officials to do something or throw them out in the next election.

[Steve Bildermann]

[kamome]

I, too, think Japan could use a good old-fashioned revolution but when was the last time that ever happened in Japan? Riots and political revolutionaries? Maybe the Meiji Restoration is the most recent example of those things occurring. The Japanese are just too willing to be herded around and accept what they're told.

[cstaylor]

I, too, think Japan could use a good old-fashioned revolution but when was the last time that ever happened in Japan? Riots and political revolutionaries? Maybe the Meiji Restoration is the most recent example of those things occurring. The Japanese are just too willing to be herded around and accept what they're told.

If you mean protests, you only have to go back to the Vietnam war. There were several big protests in Japan over America's use of bases in Japan during that conflict.

If you mean political revolutionaries, you can take it back ot the mid 20's when socialist revolutionaries attempted to assassinate then-Prince Regent Hirohito.

Rioting Japanese? No thanks... what do you think would happen? Regular people have no access to firearms, but the right-wing in this country (thanks to their close ties with the gangsters) have enough weapons to cause some serious havoc... and who do you think their first targets would be?

[kamome]

CS, yeah you're probably right about the right-wing. But I was talking about a good French-style anti-government protest or maybe 1960's American activism. You give an isolated assassination attempt and a protest against an outside war as examples. Do you know of any true groundswell of public protest against Japanese government policy? I sure don't