No Green Party at the Japanese Parliament means a lot

[Daniel]

Why would Japan need a Green Party? I think that most japanese do not have the leftist/soft sensitivities about preserving nature for nature's sake ( in fact I think that most asian don't have them ). Actually I tend to agree with this stance. What is important is people, and not some tree or a plant, and I find the japanese view very liberating.

[Maciamo]

Why would Japan need a Green Party? I think that most japanese do not have the leftist/soft sensitivities about preserving nature for nature's sake ( in fact I think that most asian don't have them ). Actually I tend to agree with this stance. What is important is people, and not some tree or a plant, and I find the japanese view very liberating.

As I said in my article, the real purpose of a Green Party is not to protect a tree or just nature for its own sake. Its purpose is to protect humans from their own abuse on nature, such as pollution.

Japan has a history of very bad cases where hundreds of people have been poisoned by chemical wastes and suffer terrible side-effects for decades. There has been many more cases of cancers caused by incinerators, of people radiated because of poor security measures in nuclear plant (in Tochigi, near Tokyo, 4 years ago, for example).

Another purpose is to check better food for possible toxins (dioxin...) or virus (BSE, avian flu, SARS...), as the ruling LDP in Japan is more like the Bush administration in that they don't really care about people's health as long as the economy works.

If you can't understand such basic issues, then you still have a long way to mature.

The point of my article is not that Japan should have a green party, because as long as other parties care about public health we don't need them. The point is the attitude of the average Japanese voter toward health and environmental issues. They just don't care, which is why there couldn't possibly be an active green party if they are not worried about themselves in the first place.

[Hiroshi66]

Techincally, Japan DOES have a green party - known as Midori no kaigi - basically Enviormental Green Political Assembely. It is ecologist-leftist, as a green party should be. But as Maciamo-san pointed out, the MNK does have no power. In this recent Sangiin election, they had a goal of 1 seat, but did not even get that.

[Maciamo]

Techincally, Japan DOES have a green party - known as Midori no kaigi - basically Enviormental Green Political Assembely.

As I said in my second sentence, there is a green party, but it has no seats at the parliament. My title said the same : "No green party at the Parliament means a lot".