Give postal privatization the boot!

On September 11--two weeks from Monday--nationwide elections will be held in Japan. These elections are arguably among the most important in Japanese history, as they could displace Junichiro Koizumi's reigning Liberal Democratic Party, a party which (aside from nine months in 1993) has not been in the minority since the end of the US occupation. The postal service is currently in the public sector and serves as a sort of national investment bank. Valued at over $3 trillion, it the largest bank in the world, and likewise Japan holds the largest stockpile of foreign reserves of any nation. Last month, Koizumi tried to force through a privatization bill that would in effect place the postal service in the hands of private corporations, much the same as Bush's attempted privatization of social security. Not only would this allow for the outsourcing of taxpayers' money (remember Argentina?), but it would privelege a few elite LDP unions and multinationals with Koizumi ties. After the bill was defeated in the legislature, Koizumi purged his party of all opposition, forcing all anti-privatization LDP members to form a new coalition for the upcoming election. The LDP has made a calculated effort to run pro-Koizumi politicians against the center-right opposition in every (yes, every) prefectural race on September 11. The historic gravity of this election is that it greatly diminishes the monolithic powerhouse of the LDP, creating a vacuum in which the Democratic Party of Japan (the center-left party) have a chance in the race. Koizumi's call for early elections, however, would leave open the possibility of a far right LDP (purged of all opposition) winning the elections. Imagine a US Republican Party purged of its McCains, Hagels, and Warners! I am not arguing by any means that the DPJ are the would-be saviors of this trend towards extreme neoliberalism, but I am wary of very drastic changes that have occured in Japan during Koizumi's stint as President. Consider: the Self Defense Forces deployed internationally (Iraq) for the first time in post-WWII history, an illegal (under the infamous Article 9) army larger than that of Britain, the fifth largest navy in the world, the twelfth largest airforce (larger than Israel's), consistent visits to the Yasukuni Shrine honoring 13 recognized war criminals, four prefectural sanctions of revisionist history textbooks that all but ignore pre-war Japanese imperialism, and now a massive statewide postal privatization bill. For a country with single-payer health care and whose poorest fifth hold the greatest share of the GDP in the world, Japan--the Japanese people--must be wary of this attempt to rob them of their wages for the profit of LDP's inside elite and US-based multinationals. As the banner above (translated, of course) reads, "Give postal privatization and Koizumi the boot!"