Trump change

I had never been ashamed to be a white American male. Until today, that is.

I believe it was Frank Zappa who once described Americans as being “socially retarded” and even if it wasn’t him who said that, the shocking results of the presidential election have proved someone right. Once again, my country has found a way to let me down. From our seemingly endless involvements in pointless military conflicts and the slaughter of unarmed people of color at the hands of the police on our city streets, to our anti-intellectualism when it comes to matters like climate change and evolution and our refusal to provide adequate education and health care to all of our citizens, it seems that every time we as a people take the proverbial two steps forward, we take at least a step-and-a-half backward. I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes”, shocked that we had finally done it, though if Heston were alive, he would probably be happy with the election results.

Obviously, I’m not. I’m not one to throw Hitler comparisons at anyone whose views I disagree with, but Donald Trump is a demagogue, and potentially the closest public figure we've ever had to the Nazi dictator. I’ll leave the analysis to the paid pundits as to why Hillary Clinton lost an election that she should’ve won easily, when facing an opponent who is shockingly misogynistic, racist, xenophobic and just plain ignorant, not to mention notoriously thin-skinned (not a good trait for an aspiring and now future head of government/state). But it’s stupefying to realize that millions of Americans found Trump to be an acceptable leader. I’ve been away from the country for much of the past quarter century now, plus I’m from the west coast, so it’s hard to understand what is going through the minds of my compatriots living in the Midwest and the South. But if I had to guess, I would say they are largely white people living in overwhelmingly white suburbs and towns, who haven’t traveled much outside of the U.S. (maybe even not out of their states), and who are told by the TV news every evening that the rest of the country (not to mention the world at large) is a scary place populated by scary people who look and speak differently than they do. I can’t think of any other reason why people who are otherwise decent human beings would want someone like Donald Trump as their leader. Do they really believe a multi-millionaire property developer is going to magically restore all those lost manufacturing jobs and drive the darker-skinned people away?

So what’s going to happen to the United States of America? I don’t know. I don't think that the U.S. in January 2017 is going to go down the same path that Germany embarked on in January 1933. But at the same time, I’m certainly not proud of the American democratic process at this moment, and can only pray that our vaunted system of checks and balances will actually work so that we will have the opportunity to undo in four years’ time the damage that was inflicted starting today.

This election result hurts for many reasons, but especially because it validates the racist creeps like my cousin’s husband ("R.H.") who once referred to my Taiwanese-born spouse as a “mail-order bride” whom I purchased with my father’s money in order for her to provide me with a child. And speaking of that child, my daughter is disappointed because she was looking forward to a woman finally becoming president, especially because her other country of nationality had no problem with choosing a female leader earlier this year. But for Amber’s sake I hope there is a silver lining in all this, that namely a woman will eventually become president; that people like R.H. will die out like the dinosaurs that they are; and that people like my daughter will continue to lead the demographic assault on American society to the point that someday the country will be theirs and they will be calling the shots. 

Though my paternal grandmother was Canadian, I’m not going to join the chorus of whiners clamoring about their supposed emigration. I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave the United States to the likes of R.H. The future belongs to Amber and those like her, and unlike my young distant relatives in the U.K., we will get a chance to take our country back and make America finally live up to its promise and potential. 

Van Jones summed it up best on CNN: "A whitelash against a changing America"

But time only moves forward, and tonight we were able to forget about the election and see a basketball game at the Siemens Arena, courtesy of free tickets provided through Amber's school. The contest pitted local heroes BC Lietuvos rytas in a EuroCup matchup against Spain's Montakit Fuenlabrada. For at least forty minutes this evening I was able to back a winner as Rytas dominated the contest, winning 101-84:

We arrived just in time for the announcements of the starting lineups

Rytas' enthusiastic cheering section

Plenty of entertainment during timeouts

A shooting contest. The contestant on the left concentrated on making layups, while the man on the right attempted three-point shots; the latter guy ended up outscoring his opponet and winning a watch for his efforts

The action on the floor (Rytas in red)

"Are you sure you want me to take your photo like this?" "Yes"

Rytas' mascot works the stands

It was a challenge walking on the slippery ice between our car and the arena. Speaking of slippery slopes...never mind

The Liberal Democratic Kuomintang Party, or the LKDMPT

It's easy to look at Japan's Liberal Democratic Party 自由民主党 and Taiwan's Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) 中國國民黨, and be tempted to put them together in the same basket. After all, both have ruled their countries for lengthy periods - in the LDP's case, from 1955 until yesterday's historic election (with the exception of a nine-month break from 1993-1994), while the KMT reigned over Taiwan from 1949 (or 1945, depending on how you want to calculate it) until 2000, and then again from last year's presidential election. And it's true that both are riddled with corruption, and have strong ties with gangster elements (as well as the 右翼 in the LDP's case). But in actuality the political, cultural and historical circumstances are very different between Japan and Taiwan, and it's somewhat unfair to the LDP to have itself compared with the likes of the KMT.

The LDP was born of a merger between two conservative parties in the mid-1950's, the Liberals 自由党 and the Democrats 日本民主党. As such, it has never had an all-encompassing goal or ideology, unlike the Kuomintang, with its initial desire to "retake the (Chinese) mainland" and its present effort to return Taiwan to the Chinese fold and thwart Taiwanese independence drives. Rather, the LDP has always been a collection of factions held together by the prospect of power. In fact, in the old days of Japan's multi-member electoral districts, party members competed against themselves more often than they did against candidates from opposition parties. Unlike the KMT, the LDP has never considered itself a part of the fabric of the state - the Japanese nation/state has existed long before there were Liberal Democrats, quite the opposite from the Republic of China 中華民國, which owes its continuing existence to the KMT (and vice versa).

The biggest difference between the two parties, however, is how they managed to stay in power for so long. For the KMT, this meant the imposition of martial law until 1987. Political opponents were imprisoned, tortured and executed in great numbers during the years of the White Terror. After Taiwan's democratization, the KMT was able to remain in control thanks to its deep penetration into local political structures (unlike in Japan, where politics at the local level is organized quite differently). The Democratic Progressive Party 民主進步黨 was only able to win the presidency in 2000 thanks to a split in the Blue camp, and barely won the 2004 race. The KMT refused to accept its new status at the opposition party, and attempted to destabilize the DPP government through impeachment attempts, legislative stonewalling, violent street demonstrations and backroom negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party 中国共产党, finally regaining the presidency in 2008 (and is now in the process of using any and all means at its disposal, constitutional and otherwise, to ensure it remains in power in the future, but that's another story).

It is true that the LDP benefited in the past from an electoral system that gave a disproportionate share of votes to rural districts (a traditional bastion of support for the Liberal Democrats), not to mention an ineffective opposition (meaning for a long time, the Socialists 日本社会党, who seemed to be content being the permanent Opposition). The main reason, however, for the LDP's long ride in the saddle was quite simply that it delivered the goods, economically speaking, from the end of the Korean War to the bursting of the bubble economy バブル経済 at the start of the 1990's. Japanese voters always had the opportunity to remove the Liberal Democrats from power, but chose not to do so, as long as incomes were rising and affluence was increasing. It was only when the economy began to stagnate that they turned against the LDP. The LDP was out of power for a nine-month period in the early Nineties, and had only been able to stay in control since then by forming coalitions (including with the Socialists at one point!), with the 2005 election being an anomaly due to Junichirō Koizumi's 小泉純一郎 personal popularity. When the end came, staring with the loss of the upper house 参議院 of the Diet 国会 in 2007, and followed by yesterday's annihilation at the polls, the LDP bowed out more or less gracefully, as any mature political party should. Say what you will about the Liberal Democrats, for all their faults, they have generally played by the electoral rules and followed the democratic process.

It's often forgotten that Japan had the only democratic political system in place in East and Southeast Asia from the end of the Second World War until the late 1980's. For all its faults and abuses of power, one shouldn't overlook the contribution made by the Liberal Democrats to Japan's postwar political development and yesterday's possible birth of a true two-party system. It's unfortunate that there are few, if any, lessons to be learned, or conclusions to be drawn, from what happened to the LDP on Sunday in regards to the current state of politics in Taiwan.

What are the odds? 一か八かかけてみている

This is the sight that greeted me when I returned to my parked scooter after a morning walk in Sintian - a sleeping dog. He/She/It was very friendly, and tried to hop on as I was leaving. Alas, our apartment is too small for a dog, and I don't think our cat Happy would be too...er, happy if I brought a canine home.

After several years of wrangling, the Legislative Yuan 立法院 has gotten around to approving the legalization of gambling, and thus the construction of casinos, on the Penghu Islands 澎湖縣, as reported by the BBC. What effect this decision will have on the islands and it residents won't be known until after casinos are up and running. For the islanders, it is a chance (they hope) to improve the local economy, which has been suffering for many years now from the decline of the local fishing industry, despite the growth of tourism during the same period. Young people have been fleeing Penghu for Taiwan proper in search of jobs (including a friend of my wife who first moved to Taichung 台中 to find work, and who now lives in Tainan 台南), and island officials hope gambling can stop the flow. Unfortunately, the effects on the local environment cannot be ascertained at this point, either. I have never visited Penghu, but from all accounts, the islands are quite beautiful. How much of that natural beauty will be lost to bulldozers and concrete, in the name of "saving" the local economy?

Another question is who will come to gamble, once the casinos have been built? Taiwanese, of course, but the main targets appear to be Chinese. It is no coincidence that when the DPP 民主進歩黨 was in power, approval for legalized gambling lagged in the legislature, but now that the KMT 中國國民黨 is back calling the shots, things appear to be moving forward quickly. The Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 administration is pinning it hopes for economic recovery and growth on tying Taiwan closer to the Chinese market, but the strategy is a risky one. As the BBC article notes:

"...the nearby gambling centre of Macau 澳門 faces problems of being too dependent on Chinese gamblers. China recently placed restrictions on its citizens visiting Macau, for fear of capital flight."

For the KMT, China is the answer to all of Taiwan's problems, despite reality suggesting otherwise. During the presidential election campaign, Ma promised to open up Taiwan to allow up to 3000 Chinese tourists a day to come here. The promised bonanza of tourists and the NT dollars they were going to generate has failed to materialize, however. For one thing, the Chinese government is selective about who gets to visit Taiwan, among other restrictions. But I think a more important reason can be found by asking a simple question: why would a Chinese tourist want to visit Taiwan? Curiosity factor aside, what is there to see on this island that can't be seen in China itself? And considering the relatively high cost of visiting Taiwan from the mainland, the average Chinese tourist would probably find more value for their money, not to mention a more "exotic" atmosphere, by traveling to a country that doesn't share a similar culture.

While the Chinese are not showing up on Taiwan's shores in the promised numbers, visitors from Japan and South Korea are continuing to arrive here on holidays. These are people who are, in general, more affluent than the average Chinese, and who are not restricted or vetted by their governments - they are free to visit Taiwan whenever, how often and for how long as they like. For Japanese tourists, especially, Taiwan is a low-cost, high-interest destination that isn't a long distance from home. But the Ma administration is seemingly ignoring, or at least downplaying, the significance of these comparatively well-heeled visitors, and is choosing instead to place most (if not all) of its eggs in the Chinese basket.

In this Coral of Dreams story, if they (the KMT) build them (the casinos), will they (the Chinese hordes) come?

Trying days

Taiwan has been obsessing about it for a while, but the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ editorial staff has only now gotten around to commenting on the arrest of Chen Shui-bian  陳水扁. You mean there were other news stories happening around the world all this time? Hard to imagine, isn't it? In "An ex-president heads for trial", the paper explains:

"Taiwan's former president, Mr. Chen Shui-bian, was indicted on corruption charges last week. This is a shocking development in the career of a man who campaigned on a pledge to clean up Taiwan's politics. In the supercharged atmosphere of Taiwan politics, all sides will be tempted to intervene in or influence the legal process. That cannot occur. This trial must be transparent and free from any taint of politics. Taiwan's future may depend on it."

If the future of this island is riding on this case, then what lies ahead for Taiwan are some very dark days. From the moment Chen was arrested, and through his lengthy, pre-indictment detainment (can people really be held that long without charge here?), this affair has been mired in Taiwan's political muck. It's hard to see Chen's upcoming trial suddenly rising above all that.

I get the impression the JT's writers already know what will transpire in the end, for the editorial's conclusion sounds like a desperate plea:

"The case has inflamed Taiwan's already caustic politics. Mr. Chen's supporters have taken to the streets to proclaim his innocence. After his election, Mr. Ma (Ying-jeou) 馬英九 said he wanted to reach out to the 42 percent of Taiwanese who did not vote for him. That will be impossible if Mr. Chen's trial is seen as a political tool. The judiciary must not become a device for political retribution or revenge, or Taiwan's democracy could be undermined. Much rides on the trial of Mr. Chen: It must be flawless."

Ma's idea of reaching out to those who voted against him appears to be to prosecute only opposition party politicians for alleged corruption, and by politicizing the judiciary (threats of impeachment have been made against the judge who had the temerity to actually let Chen out on bail before his trial, as if members of Taiwan's independence movement were actually entitled to civil liberties). Chen, along with members of his family, will no doubt be found guilty, and he will receive the maximum punishment. Those eight years from 2000 to 2008 when the KMT 中國國民黨 was inexplicably out of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei (T'aipei) 台北 is a mistake that cannot be allowed to happen again.