The Diet PG-13

Congress is a showcase of democracy in every country. It isn’t in Japan anymore. The leading parties were delighted, saying that new security bills were passed in the House of Councillors early Saturday morning. But, it was a unilateral recognition with incomplete procedure in the Diet. Rule of law was ignored by lawmakers who were supposed to be obeying to laws. Kids should not learn anything from them.

The most ugly scene in the passage was taking votes on new security bills in Special Committee in the House of Councillors on Thursday. One condition of taking votes in a committee is to hold central and regional hearings and report the conclusions to the committee. Chairman Yoshitada Konoike, elected from Liberal Democratic Party, pushed the discussion forward without reporting about what kind of opinions he had heard from the witnesses.

When he tried to go straight to taking votes on the bills, the opposite parties submitted a move of discredit against Konoike. After dismissing the move with majority of LDP and Komeito, Konoike started taking votes on the bills without having final discussion over the bills, which were mandated for finalizing the discussion.

During he required standing of lawmakers who support the bills, about twenty LDP lawmakers, who were not committee members, surrounded Konoike to protect him from protest of the opposite members. Although he did not see how many members stood up for the vote, Konoike declares that the bills were passed with majority of aye. Lawmakers instantly became a mob, hitting, kicking or screaming each other, reminding the audience of wrestling of monkeys for a banana.

In the plenary session next day, the opposites began to ignore the rules. Although a move to limit one speech on new security bills within fifteen minutes was passed by majority of the leading parties, a lawmaker with Democratic Party of Japan, Tetsuro Fukuyama, kept on delivering his opposite opinion from the podium further beyond his own time. “Shut you guy’s mouths up” or “Listen to me with silence” was what he reiterated in his emotional speech to denounce unilateral procedure by LDP.

This monkey business has nothing good for child education. For kids who had been taught by their teacher to listen carefully to other’s opinion or obey to school laws, the final scene for passing new security bills in the Diet must look like violent fight by rogue bosses in the class. One would hope the children to learn nothing from these barbarians in the Diet.