It seems like I am forever playing catchup with my sources of entertainment. Half a decade after The West Wing finished airing, I finally took the time to finish all 156 episodes. Seeing as each episode is 42 minutes long, this is on hindsight an incredible waste of my short mortal life, but goddammit it is the best waste of life ever produced for American TV.

Politics for most people is a battle of words and ideas. Political discourse for the average person is conducted in pretty much the same way most hypothetical physics questions are answered: in a vacuum frictionless room containing a perfect sphere. While convincing arguments can be made on paper and discussion boards, the real problem with politics is that it involves humans who are irrational, illogical and whose shit is generally all retarded.

Politics, as it applies to real-world governing, must therefore necessarily go beyond merely finding out and trying to convince people of the best solutions to society’s problems, but also compromising and making the most of any situation in a debate populated by people who will never see eye-to-eye with you, perhaps even rightfully so.

The West Wing, a serial drama depicting the fictional presidency of bleeding-heart liberal Josiah Bartlet (portrayed by Martin Sheen, who is also the voice of the Illusive Man in Mass Effect), highlights the human side of politics and in doing so paints a picture of democracy that feels closer to the truth than the caricatures spewing talking points on cable news.

Whether you find The West Wing to be an uplifting feel-good story of people trying to do good in an imperfect world or a depressing look into the way backroom political deals that affect the lives of billions are made for the most trivial of reasons depends on how much (or little) you already know about American politics. If you went in like wide-eyed Bambi, happily oblivious to the money politics and unscrupulous maneuvering taking place behind the scenes, you might enjoy the show’s implications less than a more seasoned cynic who got to see the softer side of the story.

My recently rekindled Magic addiction has left me thinking about the idea of the “metagame”, which I think is an appropriate description for the kind of politics portrayed in The West Wing. At the basic level, the game is a debate of ideas: does single-payer work better than private health insurance companies? But the metagame is the larger picture: knowing the opinions of all the other players in the playing field and the facts of the situation, how do you then go about winning each particular game? That’s a level of strategy that most online political debate will never consider.

While ultimately not all rainbows and sunshine, The West Wing presents a compelling case for the audience to be conservatively optimistic in the democratic process. Of course, the real hardened cynic would note that this is exactly what the media would have you believe with its thinly-veiled propaganda film.

Although the series has a clear liberal leaning in that it depicts a Democratic White House and most of the main characters generally fall on the left side of spectrum when it comes to hot-button issues such as the separation of church and state, education reform and gun control, the series does not serve as an advocate for any particular issue. It generally tries to humanize both sides of the debate while highlighting failures and imperfections in the system wherever they crop up, such as how the corn industry in the US wields disproportional influence on the formulation of public policy (such as corn-derived ethanol being pushed as “clean” energy) due to the importance of the Iowa caucuses in determining presidential nominees.

In fact, the show can sometimes be too mind-bogglingly apolitical for a story that is supposed to be set in the White House. For example, throughout the series, President Bartlet does not make a single policy speech on-screen. Major speeches, such as the State of the Union, are always cut off right after he steps up to the podium. The sole exception to this is a presidential debate that takes place in the last season where the two candidates actually speak substantially on real political issues such as education and healthcare reforms. I suppose this is because backlash was no longer a concern for the producers in the show’s final season and they felt it was a good opportunity to help raise the level of political awareness.

The West Wing has a knack of surprising you with fresh insights by attaching abstract ideas — often ones you disagree with — to the passionate voices of flawed but lovable characters as they go about trying to run a country. It will occasionally challenge your preconceived notions by lending voice to other ideas.

One particularly memorable example of this is when the black Democratic mayor of Washington D.C. met with President Bartlet to discuss a rider passed by the Republican Congress to create an experimental program allowing some parents in D.C. to have the option to receive school vouchers to pay for private schools. The rider was attached to the spending bill for D.C.’s budget and President Bartlet reassured the mayor that he was going to veto the bill because school vouchers take funding away from public schools. But the mayor surprised the president by requesting that he signed the bill because public schools in D.C. were not improving and the mayor felt that he owed it to the children of his district to at least try out the Republicans’ idea.

You will grow fond of these characters and feel like you are watching them every step of the way as they develop as individuals over the course of an eight-year presidency and do their best to make the country better, or at least not collapse under its own weight.

The West Wing is an highly intelligent show and I highly recommend it to everyone with an interest in politics. Of course, given that I am five years late to the game, this is probably a meaningless recommendation.

This is somewhat of a spoiler, but I find it interesting how closely the fictional election depicted in the series’ final season parallels the 2008 elections: The young minority Democrat beaming with naive enthusiasm and the old moderate Republican with a reputation for being a maverick in his own party. The writers must be amazed by their own prescience.

Also, the eighth episode of season five titled “Shutdown” depicts a federal government shutdown after the Republican Congress fails to agree with the President on the budget bill. This is obviously intended to echo the shutdown that happened during the Clinton administration, but it is also very relevant to the on-going stand-off between the Obama administration and the Republican House of Representatives over the national debt ceiling and the possibility of an impending government shutdown. The players may be different, but the name of the game is still “more tax cuts”.

“They want more tax cuts? Screw it.“

“I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes”

WikiLeaks may turn out to be the real-life Laughing Man. Whether as a hero or villain, it has already secured a spot in history with the release of US embassy cables.

The release of a quarter of a million confidential to secret diplomatic cables will be remembered as another milestone heralding the rise of non-state actors as a major influence on the development of the global order. But is it still too soon for the digital rebel to triumph over the physical establishment?

The leaked cables themselves are so far largely over-hyped, both by its defenders and detractors. The “secret” classification sounds very sensitive but, as anyone who has ever worked in the government would know, it is actually a relatively low security classification. The leaked documents are unlikely to reveal any information that foreign intelligence services do not already know and should come as a surprise only to people who spend all their free time listening to Justin Bieber, assuming they read the news at all to even learn of WikiLeaks.

On the other hand, neither does the leak strengthen the foundation of democracy in any way. Like Tea Partiers who tend to confuse tax cuts with a sound fiscal policy, WikiLeak supporters often mistake anarchy for liberty.

A Force of Anarchy

A completely transparent government is a non-functioning one. Even the most obtuse should see this obvious fact. No supporter of democracy would argue that the Secret Service should publish its security details and shift schedules, or that the Pentagon should publish all its self assessments of its defence vulnerabilities. This is unless you believe that a non-functioning government is the best kind, which makes you an anarchist.

The act of whistle-blowing is an act of desperation that should only follow a systematic failure to address corruption and wrong-doings. It betrays the original duties entrusted to the individual and is the final option when all else has failed. It is the equivalent of sawing off a wounded leg to save the rest of the person — it’s not the first option you should be considering.

What WikiLeaks is doing now — the naive idea that all information should be known to everyone — is thoughtless overkill. So far, I fail to see the systematic corruptions that warrant the cables to be leaked. Where is the smoking gun? (Or the weapons of mass destruction in the parlance of our time.)

Information wants you to stop personifying it

Imagine you are charged with the handling of millions of classified papers. Among them, you stumble across one that details an illegal act perpetuated by agents of the government. You have a moral duty to expose this act. Do you 1) release this single paper, or 2) release all the millions of papers? If you answer the former, you are a whistle-blower. If you answer the latter, you are an anarchist.

This is not to say that I am condemning anarchy as a moderating force of international affairs. After all, the Laughing Man, despite the amount of collateral damage he and his copycats caused, did serve some purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Given that governments everywhere prefer secrecy even when it is not warranted, the rise of an international force of anarchy could possibly serve as a counter-balance.

But on the other hand, it might merely strengthen the case for totalitarian rule. After all, China’s secret files are unlikely to find their way to WikiLeaks any time soon, given that treason is swiftly met with a firing squad. From the US Government’s perspective, it is hard to argue why a leak of secret documents should compel it to become more transparent.

Physical Vulnerabilities

The Internet is still in its infancy. We are far from achieving the full potential of a global information network. For one thing, we don’t have cyberbrains yet.

In this latest episode, WikiLeaks, along with its Anonymous supporters, is holding its ground against the thousand-pound gorilla that is the US Government only because the US remains committed, to varying degrees depending on the particular person in charge, to the idea of democracy and rule by law. (China on the other hand…)

Even so, the US has managed to exert probably extralegal influence on Amazon, PayPal, everyDNS and, according to the conspiracy-minded, the Swedish government to isolate WikiLeaks.

These are the physical weak points of today’s aspiring digital rebels: server infrastructures and human beings. A less scrupulous opponent than the US could have done far more effective damage to those two vulnerable spots.

The effectiveness of digital anarchy in the coming future will depend on the development of technology to overcome these limitations. A cyberbrain may be a good start.

Maybe we can use Kinects to overlay spinning smileys over our faces in real time.

Rooster Coming Home To Roost

As I watch US Senators react like Chicken Little to WikiLeaks, I can’t help but wonder what their reactions would have been if the leaked documents had been Iranian or North Korean.

Would they have condemned WikiLeaks for compromising the national security of sovereign nations? Or would Julian Assange have been presented with a Congressional Gold Medal?

In its almost clichéd pursue of freedoms in foreign lands, the US plays a very dangerous game where it constantly risks getting left behind by its own rhetoric, whether in terms of human rights, environmental protection or economic reform. Unrealistic rhetoric discredits both the content of the message and the substance of the actions, however necessary and well-considered they may be in each case.

But looking at the Tea Party movement, perhaps the train has already left the station. Vapid political jingoism has taken on a life of its own and rational policy-making will have to play second fiddle.

Unreleased Cables

Given that WikiLeaks has so far released only hundreds out of hundreds of thousands of purported cables, it may be too soon to draw a conclusion regarding the amount of good/harm done by this leak.

But looking at the past modus operandi of WikiLeaks and considering the fact that the cables were not released in chronological order but rather have apparently been hand-picked for their gossip-worthiness, I am leaning towards the conclusion that the remaining cables do not expose any massive wrong-doings the way the Pentagon Papers did.

WikiLeaks have had months to go through the cables. If any US Government conspiracy existed in the leaked cables, then WikiLeaks would certainly have highlighted it by now, given its stated goal as a whistle-blowing site.

It’s hard to believe that, in face of significant public dissent, WikiLeaks is for some inexplicable reason holding on to the most sensational and pertinent materials instead of using them to justify its actions.

I may yet be proven wrong. Perhaps WikiLeaks has simply not gone through all the documents yet (which would make it uncharacteristically sloppy). Maybe the next Pentagon Papers are just around the corner.

But when it’s all out in the open and we find out that politician gossips and personal musings are all that we are going to get from this whole fiasco, then WikiLeaks would have done no more than the Daily Mail in keeping governments honest.

Of course, that is not to say the Daily Mail is not good entertainment.

Conclusions

The leaked embassy cables make for interesting gossip and are symbolic of growing individualistic forces at work in the modern international order, but ultimately do not seem to have achieved much and are over hyped by the eager mainstream media.

WikiLeaks, or its descendants/copycats, is capable of much more destructive anarchy as technology improves and more aspects of society are digitized. But for now, it remains at least partially vulnerable to traditional political pressure and its effects, and its access to the people, can still be mitigated by government intervention.

National governments, traditional wielders of political power, are capable of much more direct and sinister attacks against WikiLeaks and its future iterations should they feel the situation is desperate enough. So far, it apparently is not.

As for me, I am still waiting for the Laughing Man.

(Sauce)

I was just given YouTube links to what may possibly be the most incredible videos I have ever seen. I realize that this is a claim that I often make, but this time it’s different. Really.

Videos are embedded after the break.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

The short OVAs were made based on a manga called ムダヅモ無き改革 (Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku), the details of which can be better explained by Wikipedia. The gist is that it’s a comedy where caricatures of world leaders resolve political disputes by playing Japanese-style mahjong. It also happens to star Junichiro Koizumi, the former Prime Minister of Japan, as a bad ass son of a bitch who wins every game with his “Rising Sun” move, which is basically a rebranded 十三么 (Thirteen Terminal) or 国士無双 hand. The parody works because it is so incredibly over the top that you really have no choice but to laugh.

It’s interesting how Japanese anime and manga (well manga in particular due to the lower barrier of entry) have a unique way of intentionally stepping on political land mines without batting an eyelid. For example, I really just can’t imagine any other country in the world produce a mainstream title like Hetalia: Axis Power. It’s just unthinkable, except maybe as a fan-fiction on 4chan.

Perhaps this no-sacred-cow attitude towards political parody is a backlash against the highly rigid and conformist social order, or perhaps people in Japan simply do not find politics to be something that has to be taken seriously. Whatever the reason is, I think it’s an awesome subculture. There’s just something about our obsession with political correctness that makes me uncomfortable at times. I guess this is why I actually find shows like South Park and Harold and Kumar can be rather meaningful beyond the toilet humour or George Bush on a Segway.

From a Chinese perspective, I can easily see how such parodies could be construed by outsiders as nationalistic propaganda, and I understand why. But really, it’s all a matter of perception. The nature of the show’s presentation is really no different from, say, Team America. People are easily offended and I don’t think that creators should try too hard to appease them, ala Nice boat.

To conclude, the Internet is an awesome place.

P.S. Anime Yulia Tymoshenko collecting protection money is adorable.

Sometimes diving around in the polluted ocean of Digg nets you a rare surviving coral or two. The frequency of this rare occurrence is inversely proportional to Digg’s user base. And so the dance between culture and counter-culture continues on for eternity.

But anyway, someone recently posted a picture from a photo album of female Israeli military conscripts by Israeli photographer Rachel Papo. Little things on the net like this really help to expand one’s global outlook. This reminds me of an interesting experience I once had in Osaka.

I visited Osaka and Kyoto last December with my Japanese language classmates. We stayed at J-Hoppers Osaka, a budget hotel for cheapskates, hippies and students.

On our last night there, we stayed up late to play cards in the common room. After my companions went upstairs to rest, I struck up a conversation with the only other person left in the room. He was reading an old copy of Weekly Young Jump he found on the coffee table and he couldn’t understand a word of it. I translated the chapter for him, which turned out to be a recent chapter of Gantz. (Something about a girl who has a crush on a classmate who looks just like Kei who is supposed to be dead. My Gantz knowledge stopped with the anime…)

He was rather grateful for my translation and we ended up chatting. Apparently, he was a Jewish-Australian traveling alone in Osaka to meet up with some friends, his final vacation before he enlists in the Israeli Defense Force in a few weeks’ time. As he was not an Israeli citizen, he was not actually obliged to serve. He volunteered for military service so as to become an Israeli citizen (via the Law of Return), because only citizens can travel in and out of the country without restrictions and he wished to visit his relatives in Israel more frequently.

Image shameless stolen from Rachel Papo’s gallery

It is hard for people like myself who grew up in peacefully boring places like Singapore to comprehend just how much emotional turmoils such a decision entails, but nevertheless I felt something in me ineffably changed that night. At the time of that conversation, close to Christmas 2008, a fragile six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was coming to an end. In fact, it was not another two weeks before conflict resumed with Israel launching Operation Cast Lead. Not to mention that it had been just over one year ago when Israel had fought and won (militarily but not politically) the 2006 Lebanon War against Hezbollah.

This guy who grew up in Australia was volunteering to serve in the IDF in Israel, a country that’s pretty much fighting a low-intensity war 365 days a year and was in fact fighting Hamas militants at the time of his enlistment. He was not gungho about it, and in fact he came across as a thoughtful individual with his own hopes and aspirations that were put on hold for this undertaking. If I were in his shoes, I’d be contented with just an Australian citizenship. I don’t know if that makes me more practical or less human.

As much as I hate the ethnic tensions, nationalism and violence that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I can’t help but feel that there is something admirable in his decision. There is a sense of honour in there that has nothing to do with mongered fear, vengeance or hatred. I certainly find it difficult to imagine many people doing the same thing for Singapore if the shit ever hits the fan.

It’s quite sad that I forgot to ask the guy for his contact information. I gave him my name card, but he never did drop me an email. My friends and I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo the next day and I never saw him again after that night. Hopefully he is doing fine in the IDF.

On a side note, Singapore should extend its national service to girls too. D;

Whether it is a dream come true or a nightmare one year in the making, Taro Aso is now officially the prime minister of Japan. A self-professed otaku who is a fan of Rozen Maiden, Rozen Aso, as he is affectionately known as, is a right-wing LDP politician with a history of offending various groups of people with his forthright comments. On one hand, this is probably not good news for those concerned about Japan’s fragile relations with its somewhat hostile neighbours, but on the other hand, he might just fill his cabinet with loli wind-up dolls! (Okay probably not.)

Ever since Fukuda resigned with his infamous “I am not like you bastards!” farewell, Rozen Aso has been the leading favourite to take over as head honcho. In anticipation of this, otaku-related stocks have reached sky-high level and will probably continue rising tomorrow when the markets open.

In any case, things should get interesting.

[ Source: AFP ]

I have some things that I want to talk about and I have no other platform to say it. Therefore I shall be spending this blog post on a topic that holds next to zero relevance to what you are probably here for. If you are here just for the cynical Gundam humour or the pretty cosplay pictures, then feel free to ignore this entry because you will not find anything missed. But if you found that my previous rants offer you something new and worthy, then please read on.

Hope for a better world

It is not often that one senses history being written. History is only such because it is the past, and often the greatest achievements made in humanity’s past were acknowledged only in their distant future. Perhaps the figures of our previous generations were simply larger in death than in life, and perhaps a degree of mysticism gets caught in the passing down of their stories, but somehow one gets the feeling that there are too few public leaders who can inspire and unite like those from before our time.

But today I felt something, a feeling which one only gets to experience a few times in his entire lifetime. I felt that I was watching history being made in a single moment. Though our collective mundane routines gradually build up over time to give birth to what will be one day called heritage, the awe-inspiring sensational of history being made can only come from great deeds and great people of colossal impact. I have only felt this once before in my lfe thus far, and that was the night* I stood in front of my television as I watched the live CNN broadcast of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. * I live in GMT+8

And today it was Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia.

Now before you groan, I acknowledge that the fact that because tech-savvy Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats and that political popularity on the internet tends to create a mindless legion of fans that turns off moderate/neutral parties with its incessant praise for the candidate (just take a look at the number of Obama articles showing up on the Digg front page), the pro-Obama message is getting somewhat old and diluted.

But I honestly believe that Barack Obama has done much to deserve it and I will try my best not to let this article degenerate into another groupthink exercise.

Of course, I am in no way suggesting that Obama’s speech will have as much historical impact on the world as the 9/11 attack. In fact, while I do believe that he has a very good chance of becoming the next president, I am under no delusion and I know very well that his speech will ultimately amount to nothing but a footnote in history if he fails to clinch the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

All I am saying is that his speech invoked within me a sense of hope for change, that perhaps this may just be deem as the starting point of a revolution in the history textbooks of generations down.

A deficit of empathy and a surplus of apathy

While the main theme of Obama’s speech from Tuesday dealt with racism in America and its pervasive influence on a society that does its best to pretend it doesn’t exist, the underlying message is one that can be found in his book The Audacity of Hope: It is a criticism against the senseless polarization of ideological groups and a lack of common ground between opposing world views.

Partly, the media and its corporate agendas are to be blamed for this. It is often simpler and more profitable for news network to filter issues down to their core slogans and define entire public personalities with a few lines of soundbite.

But the real reason why people are so susceptible to such over-simplifications is due to ignorance and apathy. Apathy is not fixable as far as I see it, for there will always be people who do not feel compelled to know beyond their immediate surroundings. On the other hand, I feel that ignorance is curable and the way to do it is to make information so easily obtainable and experiences so widely accessible that apathy will not be enough to keep a person ignorant.

This issue has been at the back of my mind for a while, and occasionally something comes along to remind me of it, the most recent example being Tibet.

Tibet

While most Westerners, after decades of Hollywood activism, are convinced that the Chinese government is an evil monolith and Tibetans are being repressed on a daily basis, most ordinary Chinese people are equally convinced that Tibet rightfully belongs to China and the central government is spending a huge amount of their tax money in bringing modernity and wealth to the remote region.

The language barrier prevents the two group of exchanging ideas meaningfully and you end up with two ideological groups who engage in massive groupthink within their own ranks. There is zero effort made to understand the other side, because the other side is simply “wrong” or “evil”.

The truth is somewhere in between. While Tibetan grievances with regards to the preservation of their culture should be addressed by the central government, pro-Tibet actvists should also reconsider their unquestioning support of the acts of violence being committed by the rioters in Lhasa.

I find it baffling how Western commentators refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoings on the Tibetan side while not missing a single chance to slam China. As pictures of destroyed shops owned by Han Chinese streamed out of Lhasa, I did not see a single English comment condemning these acts of violence against innocent civilians. Instead, the all the self-righteous indignation was being directed at China for sending in troops to suppress what was essentially anarchy with angry mobs.

The fact is that Free Tibet activists look like hypocrites when they ignore the elephant in the room and overlook any misdoings by the rioters. This prevents ordinary Chinese from paying any serious attention of their message. At the same time, ordinary Chinese do not seem to comprehend just how negatively their nation’s actions are being perceived by foreign spectators.

The same two-way bigotry and ignorance are corrupting Sino-Japanese relationship, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Serbian-Kosovar issue, the whaling confrontations between Australia and Japan, and even US politics.

Yes we can

The message Obama brings is one of change, but not many people understand just what kind of change he is talking about. Most politicians promise change in one form or another but ultimately fail to deliver, and because of that many feel that Obama’s campaign lacks substance. I disagree.

The change he talks about is very specific: he wants to create a less polarizing government. He recognizes the stupidity of how politicians rather stick to party lines than weigh the pros and cons when handling issues, and he has made reconciliation, both domestic and foreign, a core part of his message.

Can he really accomplish that even as president? That’s hard to say, but the fact is that he is one of the few politicians who has even identified it as a problem. There is a natural tendency for people who feel they are in the right to simply dismiss or even smother the opposition’s message, but ultimately that fails to address the real issue.

Cuba is a very extreme example of this, almost to the point of being comical. If US seriously intends to bring democratic change to the government, then lifting the sanctions would be the best way to do it. But the current president seems to treat this issue as a matter of personal pride, and refuses to “give in” as long as Cuba does not get down on its knees and beg for forgiveness.

The ideological differences that were the cause of this divide have long ceased to matter: Communism is beyond dead. The standoff today is nothing more than the result of chauvinistic pride. The fact that Obama has said that he is willing to engage in unconditional dialogues with Cuba is a huge plus in my book.

A better world tomorrow

Now while I am unmistakably pro-Obama (and which non-American isn’t?), and this post was indeed sparked off by the speech he made, the purpose of my post is not to convince you to vote for him (if you are American).

I strongly believe that the next generation of people will be more and more like Obama, as technology overrides geographical divides and people grow to be more accepting of differences. The WW2 and Cold War generations may be stucked in perceiving the world through a “them vs. us” mentality, but perhaps one day that will not have to be the case.

Empathy is derived through shared experiences. Since the dawn of time, this has always referred to geographical location, race, religion, culture and language. It is difficult to empathize with the unknown, and it is all to easy to fear and hate it. At the time of WW2, coming into regular contact with foreigners was a rarity and most people saw the world beyond their own as whatever their government propaganda had depicted it as.

This is still very much true in many parts of the world today, but at least it’s improving. Internet has made it possible for the ordinary person to at least have some idea as to what the other side feels. If virtual reality were to reach the level seen in Matrix someday, then perhaps we will finally be able to empathize with a person on the other side of the globe just as we empathize for the friends physically next to us.

Primitive tribes consolidated into towns, cities and ultimately nations because improvements in technology and bureaucracy allowed people to empathize and understand each other over a greater geographical area. As such, I see nationalism as an issue that has to be resolved through technology.

Then again, maybe I am being too optimistic about technology as usual because I love it so much. Perhaps a mature global information network will not result in more world-savvy individuals like Obama, but rather polarize people in different ways than before. Still, at the very least, I don’t see anti-Apple radicals bombing Cupertino.

Either way, I think we can all do with a lot less ignorance and a bit more empathy. It makes me cringe when people dismiss entire nations or races due to an uninformed self-righteous opinion, but at the same time I wish people paid more attentions to the social background and disenfranchisement that produce such distorted world views in the first place.

P.S. I just watched Evangelion 1.0… It’s the same show as before! What a money-milker. >_<

Rozen Maiden + Taro Aso = Rozen Aso

The most likely candidate is Taro Aso (麻生太郎), AKA Rozen Aso, the secretary general of LDP and foreign minister in Abe’s cabinet. Mr. Aso is probably the most well-known politician among the 2ch and Akiba crowd because of his nickname which he got after he was once seen reading a volume of Rozen Maiden at an airport book store. He professes to be a dedicated manga fan and his favourite works include Golgo 13, Nodame Cantible and Kochikame. He gave a speech at Akihabara during the 2006 elections campaign and drew a large crowd (YouTube video). In his speech, he addressed the otaku population directly and spoke on manga-related topics and the soft power of Japanese pop culture.

LDP will be carrying out internal voting on the 19th. If Rozen Aso does take over, he does not need to call for a general election until 2009. However, it is likely that he will be forced by the opposition to call for one within the next few months, and it will be hard to say if LDP’s current reputation can carry the embattled ruling party through.

Still, the first step towards possible otaku world domination?

[ Sources: Wikipedia | IHT | 日テレNEWS24 ]

EDIT: According to this new-akiba article linked by don777, anime and game related stocks rose sharply today, in particularly Broccoli‘s share value has reached “ridiculous levels”.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of teenagers at a political rally and encouraged them to tell their friends to participate in the political process. (via Kotaku)

“I want you to tell them, ‘It’s time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing GameBoy,'” Obama said. “We’ve got work to do.”

GameBoy? LOL. Sure, it’s only a game console and this doesn’t make him any less of a candidate than the next guy (or gal), but little things like this really show us the kind of generation gap that exists between a generation that grew up with the Internet and feels more than comfortable being part of it and a generation that is just learning to deal with it and thinks of it as nothing more than an improved telephone network with Google.

Ah, yes. It’s rant time. ひさしぶり～

For my generation, it has been an accepted truth since forever that politicians high up the ladder just don’t understand technology. Technology to them is a scary and unpredictable wild card that has to be controlled and legislated or all hell will break loose. They all know how to Google for dirt on their political opponents and set up lunch appointments using their BlackBerry, but as far as they are concern, the Internet runs on voodoo magic and faerie dust.

Ruri for President!

In a way, this has always been true for every generation. The younger generation adapts to advancements in technology and science faster but the government has always been full of old suits. But the Internet is different the car, radio, plane, microwave oven or even television. While every new invention in the last century or two builds upon its predecessor to create something faster, better or more efficient, the Internet is almost completely new and self-advancing. A car is just a faster horse carriage. A plane allows us to delivery goods faster than ships. The television comes from the radio. They require a change in mindset for the people and the government, but on a very manageable scale. Roads need to be wider, more variety of goods can now be exported, new forms of entertainment can be produced.

But the Internet is all that and more. It is also growing a lot faster and changing a lot more than anyone had anticipated just a decade ago.

Just ten years ago, you needed to be somebody to be heard. You had to make a name for yourself before someone even gave you the chance to be published or to go on TV. And then you worried about what to say. Today, anyone with a message can post it and if it resonates with enough people, it will be heard. This kind of democratic force is hard to understand for the baby-boomer generation. To them, Internet discussion is nothing more than teenage chatrooms and trivial entertainment. That is until one of them gets brought down by blogs. As more and more people get connected, the power that a well-targeted website can have over the political process will become enormous.

Motoko for President!

Of course, I’m not deluding myself; we are still a long way off from that. Right now, we are at a transitional phase between the old and the new, and this is where it gets really frustrating for a lot of people and confusing for the others.

Take file-sharing and DRM issues for example. The politicians, the judges, the CEOs and the self-proclaimed legal experts: an overwhelming majority of them are old and male. There is nothing ambiguous about digital copyrights in their minds: file-sharing is bootlegging which is like fake Chinese products which is really stealing money. And naturally, they take steps to legislate and suppress file-sharing. But what they don’t realize is that file-sharing is a very different thing from traditional piracy which is mostly profit-oriented and organized. File-sharing is completely unrestricted and the tools are available to anyone and everyone. It’s an inherent part of the Internet that will never go away. It’s impossible to stamp out file-sharing without destroying the freedom and democratic forces at work that make the Internet what it is today. File-sharing is a Pandora’s Box that cannot be unopened and trying only makes you look like a huge joke.

Tama-nee for President!

Instead of trying to legislate the Internet into oblivion, maybe it’s time for the people and the legislature to re-examine the relevance of our concepts of creator rights and the centuries-old system that fails to account for present-day realities.

Instead of whining about how digital piracy has destroyed company profits and trying to sue the world back to its 1990s status quo, maybe it’s time for the entertainment industry to open its eyes, rethink its revenue model and reinvent itself to stay relevant in the new paradigm.

But of course that is all wishful thinking. The reality is that the people who matter in the grand scheme today did not grow up with the Internet. I doubt Mr. Bush even knows how to load songs into his own iPod without his personal aide doing it for him. People fear what they do not understand and decisions made on irrational fear are often bad ones. Just take a look at Jack Thompson. Now, I’m not blaming them or looking down on them; it’s just a sad, sad reality that cannot be helped. Politicians may hire tech consultants to keep themselves “updated” on the latest web crazes but it’s a completely different thing to learn about something than to know about something.

Yuki for Vice President (under Haruhi)!

Judges and politicians are, in theory, selected from smart and capable people who can make sound moral decisions. But even if assuming that was true, can they make the correct decision about things like DRM and net neutrality if they aren’t even sure what those things mean? Maybe. But it can be a lot better.

Some cynics might say that this phenomenon will always be true, that the government and the influential will always be nothing but greying heads who lag behind technology. I agree to a small extent, but I personally think that the current difference is a lot more pronounced because the birth and growth of the Internet was too sudden for its level of impact on society. I think when the day comes when a new generation of leaders born after the Internet takes over, we will have a much less polarized society and a much smaller gap between our generation and the next. Because somehow, I just don’t think that it’s very likely for those of us who grew up with the Internet with all its limitless information at our fingertips to one day stop keeping up with its progress. At least I personally don’t intend to ever stop reading Slashdot (and its eventual successors) until I get Alzheimer’s or drop dead.

Perhaps I’m just being overly optimistic and perhaps political technophobia will continue well into our own generation when neutral interconnects are perfected and full virtual reality takes over the keyboard and LCD, making our generation look as outdated and irrelevant to the next as Hillary Clinton is to us today. (Damn it, I want a cyberbrain.)

Whatever the case is, I will bet that within 10 years, digital copyright laws will have to be radically revamped. I will bet 100 USD which, at the current rate of inflation and US currency devaluation, should be just enough for a can of Pepsi by then. :P

It’s a wonder how I drifted so far off-topic to come up with this rant just from reading a single line mentioning GameBoys in Obama’s speech. The unpredictable power of association that drives our logical mind.