Japan Elections

Interesting to note Hatoyama's pedigree is pretty entrenched in japanese politics.

And here I thought American cable news intros were far too overdramatic. Japan just takes the 'drama' ball and runs with that shit.

I like the terminator music and the 3-D background.

i don't even know who's running, but I'm afraid something bad will happen to me if I don't watch that election.

So, the Liberal Democratic Party is the right-wing party and the Democratic Party of Japan is the left-of-center party?

That's like Johnny Fuckmyass being 110% hetero and Eric Cock, who only has a slightly less gay name is a flaming queen.

Well to be fair, Left/Right doesnt really work there by US standards. I mean, a bit like in some countries in europe, the values that are coded "left" or "right" by US standards dont transfer on their respective counterparts overseas. From what I have seen, these japanese parties are pro-government and contra-government, roughly speaking, though I dont think the actual goals of the contra-government party are that rightwing. Either way, really love that election trailer thingy Reminds me of the funny reels they had at the Election Night show with Stewart and Colbert. Just that this time, its not a spoof

Can't speak for Japan, but in a european context the word "liberal" is most commonly used in economics; liberal policies are policies that intend to stimulate a free market and downplay government intervention (this is where the overlap with american libertarianism comes in, though the liberals - actually most times the term used is "neo liberal", for historical reasons that I'm too ignorant of to expound on much - wouldn't really give a fuck about gun control or legalizing weed or whatever.)

So basically "liberal" is a cuss word leftists use to accuse their opponents of being in the pockets of big business.

EDIT: That being said I think the actual values we're talking about translate fine, you just say "leftist" instead of "liberal" and "right-wing" instead of "conservative". I mean, there is the fact that most european countries tend much further to the left than the US (the democrats would be seen as a center-right party in most countries here), and words like "socialist" having less of a stigma attached (the Socialist Party is currently in power here in Portugal, with the main opposition being the Social Democrat Party - of course discerning leftists know that they're both actually evil neo-liberals )