From a casual conversation at a rest stop in Arashiyama, the hidden structure behind Japan’s rising electricity costs is revealed. This essay exposes the ideological alignment with the Asahi Shimbun and the political actions of Naoto Kan, Mizuho Fukushima, and Masayoshi Son that weakened national power and burdened ordinary households.

They are nothing more than people who possess the ideology of the Asahi Shimbun and merely act as mouthpieces for that ideology.
January 31, 2016.

I was at a rest area in Arashiyama, at a place I like. This is a conversation I overheard among the people who were there that day. One person had come by bicycle from Shijō–Kawaramachi, taking an hour and a half. Another had taken roughly the same amount of time. First, the conversation began with how long it had taken each of them to get there—almost as if they were boasting to one another that they had come all that way.

“When the electricity bill goes over 10,000 yen, it really hits hard…”
I thought to myself, “Go tell that to Masayoshi Son…”

The lowest politicians in history—indeed, it is presumptuous even to call them politicians—but it is no exaggeration to say that all of the opposition parties, with the Democratic Party at their head, fall into this category. That is their true nature. For they are nothing more than people who possess the ideology of the Asahi Shimbun and merely act as mouthpieces for that ideology.

Accordingly, what they have done is to oppress Japan, weaken Japan’s national power, and continue to undermine Japan’s international credibility, all the while repeatedly brandishing superficial moralism.

A man who symbolized how contemptible they were was Naoto Kan. What he did after being elevated to the position of prime minister by the Asahi was nothing but the ultimate act of evil: driven by an abnormal obsession with clinging to power, he made the passage of policies in the Diet that would diminish Japan’s national strength the condition for his own resignation.

At that time, the one who advised Naoto Kan to push forward the immediate and total shutdown of nuclear power plants—a policy beneath even kindergarten-level thinking—was Mizuho Fukushima, a truly intolerable person whose life, in reality, has consisted of continuing activities as a traitor to Japan.

Perhaps believing that mobile phones alone would eventually reach their limit, he sought a new source of revenue for his company by acquiring a majority stake in a major natural energy power generation company and bringing it under his control. He imposed strict gag orders on all those involved so that nothing would leak outside. Meanwhile, Masayoshi Son himself went to Fukushima carrying a Geiger counter to search for radiation leaks.

Not only did he lend his power to prolong Naoto Kan’s grip on office, but he also succeeded in forcing the government to purchase electricity generated by solar power at the world’s highest prices—twice the global market price at that time. He was, in every sense, a political merchant.

In other words, it was Mizuho Fukushima and Masayoshi Son who created the surge in electricity prices for households all across Japan. Needless to say, neither of them feels the slightest pain from it. Both are extremely high-income earners.