Bimbo Goes to Washington by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers
(2010-08-09 at 15:45:30 )

Bimbo Goes to Washington by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers

"People are stupid." ~ Charles Barkley

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast…" ~ Alexander Pope

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I
am not sure about the former." ~ Albert Einstein

Have you ever wondered if you are stupid? I have.

I think if you asked the average person, "What percent of the people are
stupid?" they would most likely answer 70-90 percent. Most people think
that most other people are mostly stupid. I think that is mostly correct.

When it comes to stupid humanity, I guess I must be one of the stupidest.
I reckon that I am stupid because I am not interested in the things that
seem to interest most people: Television, professional sports and
political elections.

I have no television in my home and, most recently, I missed out on all
the excitement of the World Cup; though I did get a chance to view some
chat boards where some very intelligent people were debating - I believe
you young people today call it "flaming each other" - about whether or
not soccer should be called soccer or football; or whether or not it is
a true "mans sport".

How incredibly happy and content these people must be. I do wish I had
the time and flexibility in my life to be concerned with such important
matters. But I do not. I have to try to do mundane things like try to
make enough money to eat and pay for a roof over my head.

Besides television programs and professional sports games (manly or
otherwise), I also greatly missed out on our last political election
here in Japan where, in a recent article, I regretfully lambasted and
mocked a former actress and pop singer named Junko Mihara who, to my
great surprise, actually won her race and is now a fully fledged member
of the ruling class.

The only thing that I did get right in those confused scribblings about
now-Councilor Mihara was when I wrote that "she is just as qualified, if
not more, than 99.9 percent of those clowns we have out there." Dear
reader would already know that most of the idiot politicians we today
have are just the spawn of other politicians so all we have to do is to
look at North Korea (or the Bush family) to see how political inbreeding
usually leads to political birth defects.

Yes. A teenybopper pop star and actress in Japan is just as qualified as
any politician. I stick by those remarks. This woman made her career at
the very difficult business of show business. Now that shes paid her
dues by allowing us to buy her records, CDs and rent her DVDs, the
people, in turn, have given her the right to rule over us.

It was the will of the people to voluntarily give up this right.

I often disparage my own country and, according to my wife, criticize
Japan far too often. I do. I like to complain, especially about
stupidity.

The part that really amazes me about Junko Mihara winning her election
here in Japan is that it seems to me that it mirrors American politics,
society and American stupidity in general. Verily, American stupidity
has a difficult time trumping Japanese stupidity.

There is an old saying in Japan, "When America sneezes, Japan catches
cold." You had former actors elected to high public office: Ronald
Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name but two. Now, in Japan, we
have Junko Mihara. I look forward to the day when Madonna or Eminem
grace us by taking up the torch towards political office and becoming
leading American politicians.

The other thing about Junko Mihara winning that interests me is how she
won. In pre-election polls, it seemed that she did not have the chance of
a snow cone in hell of winning. This is interesting because a few other
celebrity stars and a couple of famous Tokyo Giants baseball players
did not win. But Junko did. And now she is part of the upper echelon and
elite; free air travel, free bullet train rides, free transportation, a
different health care and taxation system than the rest of us dogs.

But, yes, under the free will of the people, the people voted her in.
People voluntarily, in a sense, gave her the keys to their house and
secret 4-digit-code to their bank accounts.

How could a person like Junko Mihara have won an election? How could the
average person even care about this enough to vote? (Unless almost
everyone who voted works for the government in one way or another.) Ah!
That is the interesting part. That is the part where this whole charade
really looks like a reflection of American society and politics. You see,
Junko Mihara ran with the LDP party; what I like to call the old-old
guys ticket. Those are the guys who messed things up so badly over these
last decades that the public was in an uproar. The people had had enough!
Japan was heading in the wrong direction. The people wanted change and
so a nationwide vote was called and, the scoundrels that they are, the
old-old guys got trounced and booted from office.

Never again would those conniving dastardly fools of the old-old guys
party lord over the Japanese islands. The people wanted change. The
people got change. Forever. They elected the new-old guys, the Socialists.

That was 10 months ago.

The new-old guys who won that election came in and promptly started
reneging on election promises (sound familiar?) and running the
government like they were carrying heavy furniture and stumbling down a
darkened stairway. The last straw was when the new-old guys said that to
help balance the budget (instead of cutting spending) that they were
going to double sales tax to 10 percent!


(Hint: Running on a campaign platform where you expect people to get
excited about your election by telling them that you are going to raise
their taxes is probably a bad idea. Read my lips: Say, "No new taxes" -
until the election is over.)

Junko Mihara ran on the old-old guys ticket. The old-old guys are
against whatever the new-old guys want to do - so they were against
raising sales taxes, and presto! Junko Mihara wins her election. Well,
of course she won. She was running against some moron who was telling
people in public that he was going to raise their taxes. My dirty
sneakers could have beaten that idiot in an election.

Future political wannabes should keep that in mind that when thinking
about running for political office to wait to run against someone stupid
enough to have a promise of "raising taxes" as part of their platform.
They say, "Raise taxes!" You say whatever is the opposite and you will
win.

And you know what is going to happen in Japan in another one or two years
time? The old-old guys are going to screw things up just as bad as they
did before and the people - who have memory spans of about 1.5 seconds –
the same as a pigeon - will get upset and vote in someone like the new-
old guys again.

Now, this story must be really sounding familiar to you Americans who do
have some memory capacity. I remember, not too long ago, that idiot
George Bush having a 90 percent-some approval rating. Then he and his
cronies mucked things up so completely that the people got sick and
tired of it. The people wanted change. They got change.

"Go Obama!" One of my dim American friends, and former Bush supporter,
said to me just after the election.

"How old are you?" I said, "Do you not even remember a few years ago? We
go through this political election nonsense every few years; they all
promise to change things, but nothing ever changes. Bush was going to
bring a different way to Washington. Before him was Clinton; he promised
"Change" too. Do you not remember? Carter, Reagan, Bush I? Now Obama.
When will you ever learn?"

"Give Obama a chance!" My friend insisted. I sighed.

It reminds me of what Albert Einstein said, "Insanity: doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Yes. Insanity. Now, in Japan, with the elections just held and the new-
old guys getting trounced by the old-old guys we have our change too.
Just like you do in America.

Sadly, perhaps Charles Barkley is right.

Note: No offense to the good: Chris Christie, Ron Paul and Peter Schiff.

July 16, 2010

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan
in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/
marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision.
He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern
Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in
2005.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.