Looking at Politics from Across the Ocean

This blog's intent is to relay information that I gather in Japan, but I occasionally have to weigh in on what's happening at home, because I'm still American and I still care.  Reading news articles keeps me refreshed, but reading the musings of any given Joe the Commenter keeps me cynical about how intelligently our populace can approach the new administration.

I have a wish list.  On the top of that list sits the hope that those blinded by their pre-election ideologies can peer into politics with a little more clarity.  Internet posts with the terms "Messiah" or "Marxist" in relation to Obama should probably be filtered.  His fledgling presidency is still very fresh, and while his move of going to Congress to confront a bi-partisan approach to his plans may stink to some as posturing, it is the earnest responses of all involved that stands at the forefront of my mind.  Obama wants civil dealings but expects no radical overturns in voting.  Senate Republicans appreciate and are impressed by his maneuver but are unlikely to budge.  That sounds fairly ideal as far as these kinds of decisions are concerned.

Next, I sincerely hope that people of any race, creed, or, moreover, political leaning, can recognize with a modicum of perspective the state that our country is in.  I doubt there are many out there who can even conceive of eight hundred and twenty-five billion dollars beyond knowing that it is a lot of money.  What we do know, however, is that on the personal level, some Americans want a tax cut, and some Americans might want another tax incentive, but there are Americans turning out in the tens of thousands that want little more than to have their jobs back.  Instead of zooming out and becoming enamored with the buzz words, the pork, and the trillions, let's zoom in and take a hard look at our neighbors, friends, and cousins who got canned, need desperately to sell their houses and can't.

In the spirit of international perspective, it's not so different in Japan.  I can find newspapers in the teacher's office every day keeping a hawk's eye on the American economy's trends.  And they have every reason to be concerned.  For me, an American citizen who is paid in yen and transfers money home to pay off student loans, the timing is just right to capitalize on currency exchange.  But the ailing economy spells disaster for the industrial sector in Japan, because they need to export to countries where the profits reaped are shrinking and the buyers are reluctant.  And, in an unsurprising parallel, the direct result of this is a drop in production and job loss.

My final hope is that people re-consider the expectations they invest in politicians and that the politicians follow suit.  We all know that Governor Blagojevich had methods of keeping himself financially stocked, but others involved in high office are presumably in the upper echelon of our society.  It is not unreasonable to expect that a good number of them have cause for investing confidence in plans that will secure the well-being of them and their ilk.  I would be much more at ease if I could truly believe that all politicians had only the interest of the country as a whole in their agendas.

With that in mind, I find that if we look more at the personal reality of what is at stake in our country, we may be more apt to grasp the implications of various policies.  I firmly think that what is good for certain parts of the country will be good for all of the country.  The dumping of hundreds of thousands of retail jobs is a bad signal of class gaps, and I regretfully feel that Obama's calls for some amount of sacrifice will be necessary.  For those who live comfortably and have more money than they truly need, I doubt anyone will deny that your money is your own and has been earned.  But a little mindfulness for Joe the Was Doing Fine and Is Suddenly Homeless or Joe the Future Generations can help us work together towards the future of our country.  

I have no intent to be an ideologue.  I will not endorse socialism, primarily because I felt it was injected into modern jargon by the McCain campaign for fearmongering about anything perceived to fiscally injure a certain demographic, but also because the definition of the system does not seem a propos to 2009 America.  But do I believe that certain parts of America need more help than others?  Yes.  Do I believe that helping them may be an essential part of rebuilding our country?  Yes.  Do I believe that this implicitly involves taking money directly from one person's hands and placing it into another's?  Of course not.  

So let's not simplify the terms like that.  We hear the words "recession" and "crisis" tossed around, and if Obama's inauguration speech didn't alert us to it, the fact remains: those words are a reality.  There is no simple solution.  The current administration has a lot of wounds to nurture on our reputation in the international community.  Wars that we started, civil wars, epidemics, and all demand our attention.  Equally if not more urgent, still, are our domestic issues.  And living here keeps me confident that mending our domestic ills will aid in our position on the world stage as well.  

When it comes down to it, neither I nor anyone else can pinpoint an objective solution.  Whether we support or oppose a bill, no individual has more foresight than those in office.  And for those who oppose the current administration, fine.  That's your right.  Yet recognize that we, the people, voted for it.  In the midst of current crises, we are now called upon to work diligently, to make sacrifices, to help uphold the foundation of what makes America great, and it may be easy to lose our way in these efforts.  So let's carry out our duties, and should the administration's abstract definition of what those are be insufficient, let's carry out another duty, to hold the elected government's feet to the fire until they inform us on how we, individual Americans, can improve the lives of our peers, individual Americans.

So This Took Forever

Hi, everyone.

I still don't know how many actually read this, but given the comments (written and spoken) that I've received, I need to be more diligent.  So I apologize that it's been over a month...For those who don't know, I went home to America for two weeks for Christmas and New Year's, which was a refreshing vacation for a number of reasons.  Before I left, things in Japan were very festive.  Allow me to explain.  Winter in Japan brings a strange mix of international celebration.  Even out here in relatively remote areas, Christmas decorations abounded.  My local gym set up a large blow-up Santa Claus inside a chimney by the reception desk, and Kagoshima city was well-decorated with bright trees in different shopping centers and other lights, wreaths, and such scattered around.  And strangest of all, or most expected of all, depending on how you look at it, lots of the decorations included holiday messages in English.  All of this gave me a general feeling of being at home, and it was comforting but also a little confusing because of the degree to which it felt familiar.  Everyone around me became gradually more lively and talkative as December got underway, and I soon realized the reason: in terms of national importance, New Year's in Japan is analogous to an American Christmas.  Before the day, there are parties, literally "forget the year" parties, and there are also "new year" parties.  But on New Year's day, there are many special events.  Many people visit shrines and temples, eat soba and other traditional New Year's meals, draw what I translate as lottery fortunes (random fortunes), young people receive money, stores have "luck bags" that resemble grab bags in America but might actually contain something you want, and other things.  It is a major holiday for family.  Christmas Eve in Japan is typically a day for lovers, and Christmas day is a day for perhaps a party and some cake, but it is a day for school and work nonetheless.  There was an Open Mic for JETs in Kagoshima prefecture, and I have been itching to keep working on standup because I have a little flare of passion for performing and I love doing comedy.  So I did a bit, and I learned my lesson on venue choice.  It was kind of a throwback to Lafayette Open Mic days: the audience is small, and most of them are expecting art in a more recognizable form like poetry or acoustic guitar.  Mix that with the fact that half the audience doesn't understand English, and it is a very unwelcome feeling.  The upside to the event was that I really got to test myself.  I knew it was kind of a mistake after the first 30 seconds, but I stayed up for several minutes, got my jokes out, pushed through for some decent laughs, and got some helpful comments afterwards telling me that I handled it well and had good stage presence and poise.  Nonetheless, everyone was drunk and lost their attention spans, so my only other option was to get angry and give up.  Since I've been back, there has not been much action, quite literally.  I want to calculate the amount of work I've done (in the physics sense of the term) because I have avoided movement whenever possible.  I drive a moped.  It is relatively warm for late January, but 45 degress is still cold on a moped.  Many kids share the exact same woe.  Students come to school by a variety of means, usually school bus, moped, or bicycle.  And there are students who probably travel about 20 minutes or so in each direction on the moped, every day, at 7 in the morning.  It must be miserable.  Students who take the bus do so because every other mode of transportation is implausible.  Some students probably wake up at 5 so that they can then ride the bus for close to an hour.  Remember, these kids apply to high school, so they aren't always in the neighborhood.  On top of this, insulation is, to my knowledge, non-existent in Japanese homes.  I wonder if it has to do with climate, because the country is surely modern enough to be capable of equipping homes with it.  No lie, I often wake up in the morning and go outside to discover that the inside of my apartment is actually colder than outside.  It's a motivation killer, so my more adventurous sightseeing will be postponed for a while.  Still, there are some good nearby places to visit, so I'll try to do it FOR YOU...and me.  At school, I have been working relatively hard and my Japanese is coming along pretty nicely.  In class, when it is necessary, I am able to explain things in Japanese pretty smoothly and without thinking about it first.  I won't even touch the word fluency, though; my vocabulary and kanji reading are not where they should be.  As for pictures, I will post some and explanations of them soon.  I unloaded all of my files onto the external hard drive I received for Christmas in order to keep my laptop happy and I didn't bring the drive to work.  I think I have some pictures of Japanese beef and a couple other things.  My house will be clean this weekend, so look forward to some pictures of how I live in my hallway, err, apartment.  Bye!