From NHK’s heartfelt program to Neil Young’s music and Japan’s markets, these past few days reveal 20 years of decline.

A collection of essays written from August 22 to 26, 2010. The author expresses his admiration for a documentary program titled “Mission” over conventional comedy shows, lamenting the decline of Japanese media. He points out the foolishness of people influenced by celebrities and the media’s guilt behind the superficial “politics and money” issue. The piece keenly analyzes how the rise of the internet is revealing hidden truths about the economy and politics, leaving traditional media and government behind.

These Past Few Days Reveal the Last Twenty Years
August 22–26, 2010

“Bringing Back a Swimming Beach to Tokyo Bay” — The Four Fathers on NHK BS Hi Were Wonderful
I was watching a program called Mission on NHK BS Hi.
When the theme “the sea comes from the forest” appeared, the “master” introduced was exactly who I thought—a man from Kesennuma. And indeed, it was him.
That old man was wonderful. Better than any shallow comedy show, he made me laugh with genuine joy. A treasure trove of laughter. I felt truly refreshed.

What Today’s Television Brings Cannot Be Brushed Off as Comedy
August 23, 2010
While shopping at Hankyu Ings for Wacoal’s CW-X (high-performance sports undergarments), I suddenly heard a woman behind me exclaim, “That’s the same one Ryō-san wears.”
Three women around their fifties were speaking—fifty-year-olds addressing an 18-year-old golfer with the honorific -san.

I had seen similar things before. In a hotel bar, a middle-aged couple nearby spoke of another young golfer, saying, “His attitude is terrible, his character is bad. Everyone around me says so.”

What does this reveal? In the first case, it struck me how these women had lived lives without ever fully using their minds, unable to express themselves or realize even a fragment of their potential diversity. Thus, they call an 18-year-old golfer -san.
As for the second case, the frightening thing is that so many people allow their thinking to move in such a direction.

Television—your time for self-examination has come. You must decentralize to the regions. The uniform programs, the shallow talk shows with the same useless celebrities—if you were true journalism, you would end them now.
Your crimes have reached an irredeemable level. Politics, chosen at the same shallow level, is no different. Judgments based on appearances, shaped by TV—this is no different in essence from Germany 60 years ago, from Auschwitz.

A Conversation
August 24, 2010
“You’re smoking more cigarettes. You’ll become like a decadent literary figure—attempted double suicides, doomed romances, A Burning House…” I muttered to a close friend.
He replied, “I was at a dead end. That was the only way. That’s how I settled things.”

♪Long May You Run♪
August 25, 2010
In Philadelphia, where Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington gave the performances of a lifetime, I had not realized that the ending theme was a song by Neil Young.
The whole film seemed built from that song and the arias sung by Maria Callas.

After going to bed early, I woke and turned on WOWOW to watch a legendary live concert—it was Neil Young.
He sang ♪Philadelphia♪.

John Lennon once said, “Right now, my favorites are Neil Young and Elton John. Neil Young’s songs can be recognized from a mile away.”
So many jewels among his songs. One of my favorites, ♪Long May You Run♪, he was singing now.
I offer it to you all tonight, in place of a goodnight.

These Past Few Days Show Us the Last Twenty Years
August 26, 2010
What the markets have shown us these past few days is this: for twenty years the Bank of Japan and the government have repeated the same responses again and again.

What differs from twenty years ago is that back then, media elites and their companion scholars and commentators lived lives untouched by recession—earning over ten million yen a year, smoking and sipping coffee in dilettantish comfort.

Today, however, with the explosive growth of the internet, and the masses participating in markets through it, the people know far more about capitalism’s trends and realities than before. The monopoly on knowledge is long gone. The ignorance of politicians and the media is now glaring.

This is why people are leaving the established media and political parties in droves. Retribution itself. The past twenty years have shown us how deeply they degraded Japan’s national strength.

There are no gods in the markets. Whether a nation prospers or declines depends on its leaders, its elites, and the media. And now, this is being broadcast nationwide.

By watching the markets these past few days, and the responses of the government and authorities, we can see everything clearly.
That the media, with most of its employees earning over ten million yen annually by age thirty, has clouded vision is only natural. This is one of the worst conditions for human beings—especially in the economic arena. Inevitably, they sink into dilettantism.

That such media, and such commentators living in comfort, have guided government and the Bank of Japan, leading them to repeat responses like those of these past few days, is likewise inevitable.