Justice minister undone by cheap paper fan
Well, that's too bad. I get the need for strong election laws governing the ways in which candidates can sway voters. For example, buying them booze and trucking a bunch of drunks to the polls all over town while letting them vote under a multitude of assumed names is probably considered wrong in some places. Or simply offering bucks for ballots. We tend to frown upon political parties who do such things to win elections.
On the other hand, it's perfectly okay for an auto, insurance, oil or defense company to buy candidates outright even if those companies are wholly owned by people or groups who aren't even citizens of the nation where the elected serve. There are any number of loopholes to make it seem that's not what's happening. These are essentially changing the definition to fit the needs of the people with the money and the people with the ability to get laws passed to do so for a share of that money. In some cases it's not necessary to buy the elected official as it is to do his or her work for her by writing the laws that person will sponsor in parliament or house or senate or diet. Politicians love when other people do their jobs for them, and this arrangement makes it easier for the people at the top to take a big dump on the people below with a minimum of effort.
However it works out, someone benefits and it's rarely you or me. In this case, some nice person attempted to provide fans in a country where summers are sweltering. All kinds of businesses provide fun and helpful fans around the train stations. If a movie studio does it to advertise the latest Pokémon extravaganza, people are happy. And slightly less sweaty. That way they're better able to cope with the heat, just like reality television starring bearded mutants helps Americans cope when the local rep proposes a law allowing oil companies to drill for crude in Grandma's brains. They just wave their colorful advertising fans around the way people back home are increasingly finding ways to talk around the derrick sprouting from Grandma's wig. Business as usual.
That's why I think this resignation is a bit much considering the crime. If she'd colluded with Sony and Mitsubishi to change a labor law so that 10-year-olds had to start working 80-hour work weeks with in exchange for their elementary school educations, that would be completely okay. Give away something useful like a fan and it's "So long, job!"
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