'Outnumbered by puppets': Depopulated village in Japan crafts dolls for sense of life
Ichinono has fewer than 60 residents, so they stitched together their own population of puppets to keep them company.
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Vote for a party that wants to make the country attractive for young people to bear children? Nah, let's sew puppets to replace them instead 🤡
We don't know whom these people are voting for, but there is a (n at least to me) surprising amount of support for candidates left of the LDP in rural areas. The part of rural Japan I live in elected a rep from the Japanese Communist Party (which, despite their name, are more like democratic socialists; not sure why they refuse to change the name).
Old, rural, and in a country where >50% of the people vote for one party (which is actually multiple)? I think it's quite safe to assume who they voted for - or that they didn't vote at all with voter participation between 50-70% in various elections.
The LDP is huge and some people joint it even though not all views align (I assume there is some sort of loyalty/policy requirement, but I don't know) to try to better their chances. So, based on my limited understanding, it's one party but positions can vary to some degree.
Voter turnout can be pretty shit, for sure.
My area had two candidates run in the elections yesterday, but I don't know which parties.
A lot of rural areas actually have decent benefits and subsidies for families and kids and they are broadly supported by most parties. One problem is people feel like there are no jobs or opportunities outside of agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing. They're not necessarily wrong. Remote work is helping, but the anxiety of being recalled due of a new policy is there. I certainly live with that fear.
There are also worried about higher education for the kids and finding future partners (at least in the super rural areas in the latter case). Unlike Tokyo, for example, getting kids into public daycare and kindergarten is quite easy in the countryside so some do move in and later out for their kids.
It's a complex situation and I don't know that any party or group has a really good handle on it.
Democratic socialists or social democrats? (Yes, there is a huge difference), because demsocs are just a type of communist (whereas socdems are capitalists / liberals)
Per Wikipedia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Communist_Party#Ideology_and_policies :
[. . .] it is, however, politically moderate and advocates a peaceful transition to communism.[69] Marxism–Leninism, which former party chairman Tetsuzo Fuwa had worked for years to make acceptable to the electorate, was abandoned in favor of scientific socialism in 1976.[70][71] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the JCP became a more traditional democratic socialist party after modifying its policies in the 1990s.[57] This analysis is supported by the Japanese political scientist Kōji Nakakita [ja], who is often cited as a specialist on the JCP.[72] The JCP follows a Marxist ideology,[73][5] stating that the theory of Marx and Engels is the foundation of their program.[74] The party sits on the left[75] to far-left[80] of the left–right political spectrum.
I suppose the real answer is to read the material in Japanese and look at their policy decisions, but I for one don't have time for it (nor can I vote here in Japan anyway).
