Review: Michael Moore's "Capitalism - A Love Story"

I'll begin by admitting I'm a fairly big Michael Moore fan.

His trademark baseball cap, faded jacket and blue jeans, and
rumpled Everyman persona make him unique among
Hollywood producers.

Ever since I first saw Roger and Me twenty years ago, I've enjoyed
watching Moore's use of of kitsch and video clips, street theater
and interviews to create trenchant social commentary.

Roger and Me accurately predicted the demise of General Motors
through arrogance, neglect, and the relentless pursuit of
Soviet-level build quality.

Bowling for Columbine portrayed the "weaponization" of
disagreements and disputes . Fahrenheit 9/11 showed how
misinformation, arrogance and ignorance get a country
into unplanned and unnecessary wars.

And if you saw Sicko and didn't come away convinced
about the need for Universal Health Care, you haven't
been paying attention.

So, in that spirit, I took myself yesterday to the local Movieplex,
got my Supersize Coke and buttered popcorn, and settled in
to be both entertained and ideologically motivated.

Was I? Yes and No. Yes - I was entertained. But no, I wasn't
convinced any more than I was before that certain aspects
of Capitalism have gotten out of hand.

The film opens with security-camera footage of actual bank
robberies (set to a hip-hop version of Louie Louie) , and then
cuts to a scene of twelve Sheriff's deputies in rural North
Carolina, breaking down a door to serve a huddled and
frightened rural family with an eviction notice.

Hmm... I guess while some people rob banks, some banks
rob people. But the connection between the two isn't really
made clear.

Scenes from a grade-school educational film of ancient
Rome are there to illustrate the decadence of our Moneyed
Classes. Juxtaposed with clips of current pop culture, I
suppose these are the modern "bread and circuses" meant to
pacify the populace.

But the film picks up from there. Scenes of the industrial
devastation of Moore's hometown of Flint are spliced
together with some of Moore's childhood home movies.
Good old stolid, reliable Dad supporting the wife and kids
on his good job at the GM plant. Nicely kept little home.
Well-scrubbed, neatly dressed kids attending Catholic
school. Completely familiar to anyone who grew up
in Middle America in the 50's or the 60's.

But then, things changed. The Powers That Be decided
that a contented, unexploited workforce was Bad For
The Bottom Line. And so dour but wise Jimmy Carter
was replaced with a "Corporate Spokesmodel" as
President - Ronald Reagan.

Here Moore gets his facts wrong. The open
subversion of the government by financial interests
didn't begin until the Clinton administration. And
Reagan sent the "financial innovators" of his era -
Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky - to prison.

But then there are moments when Moore gets it
spectacularly right. "Dead Peasants Insurance" -
(yes, that's what it's called by the industry) shows
modern capitalism at its creepy and atavistic worst,
insuring the lives of ordinary workers for huge sums
without their knowledge or consent. The practice
only ceased when workers started outliving the
actuarial tables - not when states started outlawing
the practice.

"Influence Peddling" depicts how Angelo Mozilo, the
CEO of America's largest subprime lender, Countrywide
Mortgage, bought influence and favors with low-interest
or no-interest loans to the powerful, including Sen. Chris Dodd
(D-Ct.), and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) .

The former loan officer in charge of the operation
detailed page after page of Senators, Congressmen,
Administration officials and lobbyists who were
"Friends of Angelo" and received his largesse.

And Angelo Mozilo himself? Think Vito Corleone
with a bad toupee, dental caps and a too-deep tan.

"Juvenile Justice" showed a corrupt Pennsylvania
juvenile judge sending youths brought to court for
offenses such as truancy, school misbehavior, and
traffic violations to a juvenile detention facility run
by private investors.

The judge received a kickback for every young inmate
committed - and was under pressure from the prison
company to commit more and more young people
to the facility. Eventually, the judge went too far -
imprisoning a young woman whose "offense" was
publishing an unflattering website about her high
school principal. Moore doesn't mention it, but
that case brought in the ACLU, and the judge,
the prison company officials, and two county
supervisors eventually wound up in federal prison.

A follow-up on one former inmate, a young man who
aspired to be a pilot, segues into a devastating segment
on airline compensation. Hero pilot Sully Sullenberger
testifies before Congress that because of low wages, both safety
and industry integrity are compromised. A commuter
airline first officer details getting food stamps and housing
assistance for his family. Another waited tables to make
ends meet.

And the cockpit crew involved in a fatal crash in
Buffalo, NY earned less than a first-year manager at
Burger King - combined.

That's not an accusation - that's an indictment that
should cost an airline the loss of its operating certificate.
And as I have family connections to the airline industry,
I know that if Moore said anything, he understated the
problem.

But there are uplifting moments in the movie as well.
A foreclosure-impacted Miami neighborhood faces down
the "repo man" - with the aid of the police. The sheriff of
Wayne County (Detroit) goes public announcing he will
serve no more foreclosures until he is satisfied that those to
be evicted have been availed every legal right possible.
And the gallant workers of Republic Window and Door
in Chicago barricaded themselves inside the plant rather than
forfeit their back pay when Bank of America shut the company
down on no notice.

Chicago rallied around the Republic workers as if they were
the Cubs. Neighbors and friends brought food and clothing.
Donations poured in. The Archbishop of Chicago came in and
celebrated Mass for the strikers. Even the Thinking Nationalist
- hard-bitten and cynical - had to blink back a tear at that one.

And for once, the workers won. Under pressure, Bank of
America caved - to the tune of $6,000 a head. And Moore
deftly followed that up with footage from a 1935 strike at a
Chevrolet plant in Detroit, where FDR sends in the Army -
to arrest the cops and strikebreakers hired by GM.

And the best moment in the film? Footage of FDR from 1944
proclaiming a "Second Bill of Rights" for the American worker.
The right to a decent job at a livable wage. The right to housing.
The right to organize. The right to Health Care and higher education.

It was intended to be a reward for those who did the
fighting and the dying from Normandy to Iwo Jima in
the Nation's most desperate struggle. And had he lived
a few more years, we might have had it.

At this moment, Michael Moore has us in the palms of
his hands - ready to go off and fight to replace a corrupt
and rotten system. But here he lets us down.

He doesn't prescribe what he would would replace "Capitalism"
with - only mumbling a few words about "democracy".

But "Democracy" isn't a system of economic organization - it's
a form of government. Like monarchy, oligarchy, or autocracy.

And what we have today, if Moore is right, isn't Capitalism.
Capitalism concedes that while capital may be unevenly
distributed, everybody at least has some. And, if people
spend or invest their capital wisely in a system of free
markets, all of society benefits.

But when 1% of the population owns 99% of the capital,
and 99% of the population must grovel to that 1% for
its daily existence, that's neither capitalism nor
democracy.

That's Feudalism.

And the last time I looked, I didn't see anything
resembling an American titled nobility.

Except perhaps the Lords and Ladies of Wall Street.
Or the Congress. Or the clueless, bailed-out occupants
of corporate corner offices who make up the
"Plutonomy" (in Citibank's artless phrase), that
controls our economic destiny.

Now, I'm not a doctrinaire socialist. But neither am I
an apologist for a shameless institutional kleptocracy
that has looted the people, brazenly bought off the
government, and brought the country to the brink
of ruin.

So now, Thinking Nationalist readers, it's up to you.
Flawed though it may be, this is an important film
portraying a deciding moment in our history.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Better yet, break out a few bucks and take your
neighbors, family and friends. And then go home and
discuss it, over a traditional American potluck dinner.

And see what you can do to turn things around.

Before we become the next Argentina, Mexico, or
the Phillipines.

The People's Republic of China: Sixty Years of Progress and Achievement

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong stood in Beijing's Tienanmen
Square and declared:

" After centuries of foreign domination and humiliation,
the Chinese people have stood up."

With those words, the People's Republic of China was
founded.

Sixty years later, the People's Republic is not just still standing,
but has risen to heights undreamed of by even the most rabid of
Mao's followers.

And for the Chinese people, it was a day of justly-earned celebration.

In a spectacle never before seen in China, 100,000 troops
marched through Tienanmen Square, publicly displaying
the nation's military might as never before. The military
displays were followed by thousands more coreographed
and costumed participants reminiscent of the Beijing Olympics
opening ceremonies just a year ago. Naturally, the festivities
concluded in the evening with traditional Chinese fireworks.

And the entire event was broadcast live around the nation and
around the world by Chinese television. And congratulations
poured in from everywhere . Several nations issued
commemorative postage stamps. Chinese communities
around the world celebrated with flags, fireworks, and even
dragon dances. Even the Empire State Building was lit up
for the occasion in red and gold.

Truly a remarkable day for a remarkable people.

But no one knows better than the Chinese people what
struggles they had to overcome to get there.

After coming to power, the Chinese Communist Party
began to try to wrest China from its age-old poverty
and backwardness. The first effort, The Great Leap
Forward, resulted in famines that killed tens of millions.

The next convulsion, The Cultural Revolution, threatened
to tear the country apart. After the loss of almost a hundred
million lives, it ended only when the People's Liberation Army
threatened to put an end to Party rule.

But the leader of that would-be coup, Deng Xiaoping, is The Man
who Turned China Around.

Declining all official position (except the most powerful position,
Head of The Central Military Commission), he declared:

"I don't care if a cat is black or white. I don't care if a cat
is a Capitalist Cat or a Socialist Cat. What I want is a cat
that catches mice."

With that China took off - and it hasn't stopped since.

Opening its doors to foreign education and foreign
investment, today China is the world's factory and foundry.

Instead of sending its most promising students to Moscow
to study Marxism and Leninism, it started sending its brightest
students West - to study science, technology, engineering and
economics.

Carefully studying the economic history of the West, China
replaced utopian communism with state-directed mercantilist
capitalism - using currency controls,tariffs, taxes and subsidies
to vault itself past "free market" Western economies.

In the process, China has also become the world's largest
Creditor nation. And early in 2010, it will pass Japan as
the world's second largest economy. And, if present
trends continue, by 2020 China will attain the economic
position it has always coveted - Number One.

None of this, though, has come without a price. "Political
Freedom" as we in the West understand it, is unknown.
But, there are compensations and accomplishments
of which the Chinese are justly proud.

In two generations, over a half-billion people have been
lifted out of the abject poverty that they had known since
antiquity. That has never before happened in history anywhere.
Another three hundred million people - mostly in the cities -
now comprise a Chinese Middle Class, with owned homes,
modern appliances, TV and internet, working in the sorts of
jobs that didn't exist even twenty years ago. There are over a
million millionaires - and even in the worldwide downturn,
that number continues to grow.

Along the way, there have been missteps - but China has
used these as learning experiences. National Day celebrations
twenty years ago were marred by the "democracy"
demonstrations, which were quickly suppressed by tanks
and troops. But, instead of embarking on endless new rounds
of repression, China used this experience to begin a decade-long
anti-corruption drive against its often corrupt and inefficient
local officials.

The local bosses now know they have to deliver for their
people - or there will be consequences. And in a remarkable
development, the National Government now encourages
the local press to speak out against corruption and
incompetence when discovered.

You can't question the Party's right to rule - but you
can question how well they do it.

And this shows up in the opinions of the people.
Even with the recession, fully two-thirds of China's people
are optimistic about the future - higher than any
Western country. Western-educated Chinese youth now
see more opportunity at home than in the US or Europe.
And the Chinese diaspora supports The Motherland as
never before.

There may be problems in the future - but for right now,
"The East is Red"

William Safire: 1929-2009

William Safire, 79, the Pulitzer Prize -winning Op-Ed columnist for
The New York Times, died Sunday in Rockville, MD of pancreatic cancer.

For more than three decades, Mr. Safire was the Dean of
the New York Times Op-Ed page, skewering both liberal and
conservative targets alike with his rapier wit and excruciatingly
sharp pen.

In addition to his political column, he also wrote a twice-monthly
column for the New York Times Magazine "On Language" , which
made grammar, syntax and spelling both understandable and
informative.

While he retired from active column-writing in 2005, his
"On Language" series continued until just last month, attracting
a worldwide following of writers whom Mr. Safire called his
" Lexicographic Irregulars".

But this latter-day Samuel Johnson combined his wit with
a solid dose of well-grounded principle and a journalist's
skepticism of the " Platitudinous Pronouncements of the
Powerful".

And in his columns, no self-satisfied political figure -
liberal or conservative - was safe.

Born William Safir in Brooklyn, (the "e" was added later to
guide pronunciation), he attended Syracuse University for
two years but dropped out to work as a publicist and writer for
Tex McRary, the dean of New York publicists in the 1950's.
Drafted into the Army shortly thereafter, he worked for Armed
Forces radio and stayed in Europe briefly after discharge to work
for NBC Radio.

Returning to the United States, he worked again for McRary,
producing the "Tex and Jinx" show on NBC which featured McRary
and his wife, Jinx Falkenburg. Rising to become a Vice President
of McRary's public relations firm in 1958, he orchestrated the
"Typical American Home" exhibit constructed by a McRary client
at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow.

Then-Vice President Richard Nixon opened the show in July 1959,
and Mr. Safire managed to corral both Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Krushchev in the kitchen exhibit, provoking the famous
"kitchen debate" over the relative merits of communism and capitalism.

An AP photographer, blocked by the crowd, threw
Safire his camera, whereupon he snapped the famous
"kitchen debate" photograph used in the 1960 Presidential Campaign.

It also brought the young Bill Safire to Nixon's attention.

After working in the 1960 Nixon campaign, Mr. Safire opened
his own PR firm but continued to do political work, most notably
for Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay.
But after the 1964 Presidential campaign, he became
re-acquainted with Nixon, by then a New York lawyer who also
penned a weekly newspaper column.

Asked by Nixon to work with longtime aide Patrick Buchanan,
he began the speechwriting effort that would help bring Nixon
the 1968 Republican nomination and victory in the general
election. Moving over to the White House speechwriting shop
after the inauguration, he quickly became the "go-to" guy for
the quick riposte or snappy put-down for the Administration's
liberal press critics.

Assigned to sharpen Vice President Spiro Agnew's role
as "attack dog" for the 1970 mid-term elections, he wrote
Agnew's memorable "Nattering Nabobs of Negativism" speech,
which enraged "The Chattering Classes" (yet another Safirism).

Hired away after the 1972 elections by New York Times publisher
Arthur Sulzberger, the intent was to set "a hawk among the doves".

But, aware of the growing Watergate scandal, his new
colleagues were slow to accept him. They need not have feared.

Once the full extent of Nixon's involvement in the scandal
became known, Mr. Safire's conservative voice was among
those that persuaded the country that Nixon had to go.

Safire's Watergate experience was to stand him in good
stead three years later when, through a combination of
well-crafted opinion and solid investigative reporting, he
brought about the resignation of Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter's
ethically-challenged banker pal turned Budget Director.

This effort won Safire the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Though his columns were often painfully sharp, he was never
mean. He was as quick to skewer complacent conservatives as
he was self-righteous liberals. And he called it as he saw it.

During the 1993 battle over Hillarycare, he called Hillary
Clinton a "liar" in print when her public pronouncements on
health care contradicted leaked White House documents in
his possession.

This prompted President Clinton to say that if he weren't
President, his fist would find a resting place on the bridge of
Mr. Safire's nose.

To which Bill Safire replied, "well, at least he didn't split
an infinitive."

Sharp, witty, and always contemporary, he and others
such as Robert Novak and William Buckley were among
the last of the old-school principled conservative columnists,
bringing both elegance and erudition to an often- derided
portion of the opinion spectrum.

He will be missed.

Too Big to Fail? Too Large to Exist.

A year after the fall of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the
current Economic Crisis, we are still at square one with respect
to reforming the "Too Big To Fail" banks.

Thanks to forced mergers and acquisitions
( Bank of America /Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo/ Wachovia,
and JP Morgan Chase/ Washington Mutual) the degree
of concentration of the nation's largest banks is
greater than before the crisis.

Neil Barofsky, the TARP administrator, has said that
due to concentration, " we may be in a far more
dangerous situation today than we were a year ago."

And Mark Zandi , the Chief Economist of Moody's , the
securities rating firm, says "There is an oligopoly of
banks - and the oligopoly has tightened".

And Thomas Hoening, the President of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Kansas City, has said:

" If we hesitate to make needed changes, we will
perpetuate an oligarchy of financial interests that will fail
to serve the best interests of business, the consumer, and
the U.S. economy .."

Oligopoly? Think monopoly control exercised by a few.
And Oligarchy? Think of a political monopoly exercised
by a few.

And when the oligopolists are also the oligarchs, that's
a recipe for disaster.

But all the signs are there. The Oligopolists have already
returned to business as usual - running the Casino as
if nothing happened, and getting ready to pay record
bonuses.

And with Oligarchic control of the political and regulatory
system, they have nothing to fear from new regulation.

No restrictions on pay. No restrictions on leverage.
And unlimited access to the discount window or
another bailout if things go wrong. And neither
the Obama Administration nor any other
government is willing to take them on.

The recent G-20 summit notwithstanding -
the oligarchs have almost nothing to fear.

After all, they own almost all of these governments.

But the people may have the last laugh. Because the
next time there's a Lehman Brothers situation, there
should be NO bailout.

Let them fail. Pay off the depositors and let the rest go.

In my opinion, only another disaster will force reform.

The lesson of Lehman Brothers has not been learned.

95 and Counting

This is becoming so common it hardly raises eyebrows any longer.

On Friday, the FDIC closed the 95th local bank to fail in the current economic crisis.

According to Saturday's New York Times:

Atlanta-based Georgian Bank was closed by regulators on Friday, marking the 95th U.S. bank failure of the year as the credit crunch continues claiming victims.

Georgian Bank had $2 billion in assets and $2 billion in deposits as of July 24, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Columbia, S.C.-based First Citizens Bank and Trust Company Inc. has agreed to assume the failed bank's deposits, the FDIC said in a statement.

The FDIC estimated that the cost of the bank's failure to the federal deposit insurance fund will be $892 million.

Georgian Bank was also the second-largest local bank in the
Metro Atlanta area and the 26th local bank to fail in the
State of Georgia since January.

The trend is ominous. And equally disturbing is the reason
for all of these failures. The banks are largely failing because of
their exposure to Commercial Real Estate.

Commercial Real Estate? Wait a minute. Did these guys lose
their minds and start investing in New York office buildings
and California shopping malls?

Not quite. It's a little bit closer to home than that.

The failed local banks made loans to the little guy - the local
developer of a strip center, or the the local builder of a small
condominium project.

And when "the economy" caught the little guys, the bank went
down with them.

And we can expect more of this. The FDIC's insurance fund - the
funds it relies on to seize, conserve, and sell off failed banks - is
down to $10.2 billion, its lowest level since 1982. And should the
present trend continue, the FDIC will require another $70 billion
by 2013.

It should be noted, though, that these figures do not
include the loan-loss reserves - $26.3 billion - set aside
to pay off depositors.

But this is troubling. Once the failed-bank count passes 100, we
will have experienced the largest number of failed local
institutions since the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980's.
And there appears to be no end in sight.

In my opinion, the problem is not "Small Enough to Fail" but
"Too Small to Succeed".

These institutions can't "securitize" their loans - sell them off to
an investor. They don't have access to the Fed's discount window.
They didn't get TARP funds. There's no Troubled Asset Lending
Facility for their portfolio.

And that's a big reason for the credit crunch on Main Street.
While The "Too Big to Fail" institutions are back to business
as usual - running The Wall Street Casino, speculating for their
own account, paying big bonuses to traders and arbitrageurs -
their Main Street colleagues are not.

With a large "overhang" of problem loans - they can't make
new ones.

That means no credit for even the most credit-worthy local
merchant or consumer. And when you consider that Main Street
small business creates 80% of America's jobs, it's easy to see how
a problem with local banking can create a problem with
employment as well.

It's a problem that the Administration will have to address
sooner rather than later.

Stay tuned for developments.

Committing Politics: Barack Obama and David Paterson.

A chill wind blew through the Governor's Mansion in Albany NY this week.

In what some observers view as a unprecedented move, President
Barack Obama has taken the very unusual step of asking Governor
David Paterson of New York,an African-American Democrat, to step aside
from the upcoming 2010 New York Governor's race.

From today's New York Times:

" The move against a sitting Democratic governor represents
an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the
President, given that Gov. Paterson is one of only two sitting
African-American governors in the nation.

" But President Obama' s team and other party leaders
have grown increasingly worried that the governor's
unpopularitycould drag down Democratic members of
Congress, as well as the Democratic-controlled legislature,
in next fall's elections "

It's also a very poorly-kept secret in both Albany and
Washington that current New York Attorney General
Andrew Cuomo is both ambitious and eager to parlay his
very high-profile prosecutorial campaign against
the Banksters into higher office.

It's also a fact that Mr. Cuomo is far better connected in
Washington than Governor Paterson. And Gov. Paterson's
relative lack of charisma and reputation for indecisiveness
doesn't help his cause either.

The almost comedic flap over Secretary of Sate Hilary Clinton's
New York Senate seat pretty much sealed Paterson's fate.

But Obama's intervention in state politics is unprecedented?

Oh, please.

First of all, a sitting President of either party is that Party's
de facto political chief. And selecting and evaluating candidates
for nationally significant elected office is one of a President's
most important political duties.

And the governorships of key states like New York and California
certainly qualify in that regard.

And if in the political opinion of the President and
his advisers, an incumbent has to go to make way for a
more attractive candidate, the unpleasant task of "firing" that
elected official falls to the President.

And it seems that that is exactly what has happened.

Now, in the normal course of things, if the "fired" elected
official is not being dismissed for scandal or wrongdoing,
another, less politically sensitive job will be quietly
arranged. No doubt such an offer is being prepared for
Paterson. If so, Paterson's "resistance" to stepping aside
is only pro forma - he'll no doubt take an Administration job,
say Assistant HUD Secretary, if offered.

Because the alternative would be politically unthinkable.

Without significant White House and national party backing,
Paterson would be a dead duck in a Gubernatorial race
against the Republican front-runner, Rudy Guiliani.

Major-state gubernatorial and Senate races are hugely expensive ;
and one of Paterson's admittedly major shortcomings is his lack of
skill at fund-raising.

Attorney General Cuomo, the son of former New York Governor
Mario Cuomo, is on the other hand well-connected nationally,
a prodigious fund-raiser , and charismatic and telegenic as well.

He's also taking a lot of heat off the Administration by going after
the banksters. Should he score a major conviction or guilty plea
before the election, he'll be a shoo-in for the Governor's mansion -
and he'll also earn the Administration's gratitude for doing something
they were reluctant to do in the first place.

Against all this, Paterson should realize he doesn't stand a chance.

I predict that after some ritual resistance, he'll
announce he won't run for Governor in 2010, endorse Cuomo,
and be rewarded for his loyalty with a job in Washington after
the election.

That's how politics is played at the highest levels.

And there's nothing wrong with this. Changing circumstances
sometimes mean a personnel change is necessary - in politics
as well as other areas of life.

And in this case, having the decision taken at the highest level
is entirely proper. Political management is an essential part
of a President's job - maybe the most essential part.

And Obama has played this one well.

The Power behind The Throne - the DPJ and Ichiro Ozawa

On August 30, the Asian political world was rocked by the unexpected landslide
electoral victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Many observers worldwide were concerned about the DPJ's ability to
either form a cabinet or govern - it lacked ties to the all-powerful bureaucracy,
it had few connections to Japan's corporate and financial elites, and its
ranks were swollen with political newcomers.

Of its 308 deputies in the Lower House of the Diet, fully-two-thirds had
never held electoral office before. In many nations, this would be a recipe
for continuing instability. But not in Japan.

Instead, the DPJ has rolled out a credible, experienced cabinet in
double-quick time - to 71% public approval, according to Asahi Shimbun.
Moreover, the cabinet appears to have the right blend of experienced hands and
eager newcomers.

The credit for this auspicious start can be given to the DPJ's
Secretary-General - Japan's legendary "Shadow Shogun",
Ichiro Ozawa.

In American terms, Ozawa could best be described as Richard Nixon,
Lyndon Johnson, and Dick Cheney all rolled into one.

A 42- year veteran of Japanese electoral politics, Mr. Ozawa first
gained notoriety as the "enforcer" for LDP Prime Minister
Kakeui Tanaka in the late 60' and early 70's.

A devoted student of Niccolo Machiavelli - about whom he wrote a book -
he quickly realized that real power could most effectively be wielded
behind the scenes in Japan's unique one-party government. With a
passion for intrigue and a talent for both cultivating friends and
punishing enemies, Ozawa quickly rose in the LDP ranks.

But, as Machiavelli points out, when you make powerful friends,
you also make powerful enemies. And many senior LDP grandees
resented having to go hat in hand to the much-younger Mr. Ozawa
for this favor or that.

But Ozawa wasn't worried. Realizing that while it is pleasant to
be loved, it is more useful to be feared, he quietly increased
his power and influence while remaining out of the limelight.

But it all came to a head in the early 1990's, when the
leaders of the LDP decided to rid themselves of Ozawa
once and for all. The bursting of Japan's economic "bubble"
and continuing government paralysis meant that a scapegoat
had to be found - and the LDP decided to set Ozawa up as
the fall guy.

But they underestimated him. In a dramatic display of factional
discipline, Ozawa promptly led his followers out of the LDP altogether
to the tiny New Freedom Party, causing the LDP to fall from power
for the first time since 1955. But Ozawa's triumph was short-lived.

Without contacts and broad-based public support, The New Freedom
Party quickly folded. And sweeping back to power, The LDP promptly
rewrote the electoral rules to prevent such challenges again.

But Ozawa was unfazed,. In 1996, operating in the shadows
as usual, he helped get the fledgling DPJ off the ground. And, staying
behind the scenes, he declined formal office in the DPJ except for
short stints as general secretary during the campaigns of 2005 and 2008,
when the DPJ gained control of the Diet's Upper House.

But on August 30, Ozawa's sixteen-year campaign finally bore the results
he had been waiting for. A broadly-based DPJ swept to power, reflecting
public disgust with the LDP's "pork and influence-peddling as usual"
policies.

And Ozawa is firmly in command of the show this time. As DPJ
Secretary-General, he is in charge of raising and disbursing funds,
vetting cadidates for office, and along with Prime Minister Hatoyama,
making the final decisions on policy.

Plus, his experience is invaluable in mentoring a new generation of elected
officials. Ozawa will make sure that the new DPJ deputies get all the right
connections and meet all the right people. And with 140 personally-loyal
DPJ deputies in the Lower House (almost all of whom he personally groomed
and selected), he commands the largest political following of his career.

But the biggest reason for Ichiro Ozawa's success and endurance in power
isn't his belief in Machiavelli - it's his belief that elections should matter.
It's his belief that political parties need to present clear, well-defined policy
choices to an electorate. And, it's also his belief that new blood and new ideas
are essential for both political and national progress.

If Japan goes on to develop an enduring two-party system of government,
which to The Thinking Nationalist is the hallmark of political maturity,
it will owe a huge debt to the "Shadow Shogun".