Aso Taro (surname first), Japan's finance minister and deputy minister sure doesn't like old people, even though he is 72-years-old himself.
Aso (pronounced pretty close to "asshole") said this past Monday, January 21, 2013, that if he has his way, he, himself, would refuse end-of-life care because he would 'feel bad' knowing that he was being a leech on the government's back.
"I don't need that kind of care," says Abe, mentioning that he has written instructions for his family to not provide him with any life-prolonging medical treatment.
That's noble, but why deprive others of something good just because he's rich enough not to need the help?
Showing complete disregard for the fact that Japan is an aging nation - and thus possesses millions of senior citizen voters, Aso used the term 'tube people' to refer to the elderly who can't feed themselves and must rely on nutrition fed to them via a tube in a healthcare facility.
According to data from Japan's Health and Welfare Ministry, Aso says he is "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life. (¥10 million = ~Cdn/US $112,000).
Aso is with the Liberal Democratic Party which was elected into power weeks ago.
Again… Japan… you helped put people like this into power. People with no compassion or common decency.
I understand Aso's point - too much money spent unwisely - but cutting social services is not the way. Especially when you want to build up a war machine army but having Japan's constitution changed to allow it to build up a military again (since the end of WWII, Japan has not been allowed to have its own military - just a special defense force for humanitarian services).
But really, you Aso… you just called the senior citizens… the ones who helped build Japan into a dominant world power… a drain on Japan's finances.
What a heartless bastard.
Here's the best part: Aso says Japan's aged should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.
"Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that (treatment) was all being paid for by the government," says Abe during a national council meeting on social security reforms. "The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die."
Do you get the feeling Aso is going to start visiting hospitals to personally place his Napoleonic foot on the breathing tubes of the elderly?
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| Aso hates you sick, old people and wants you to help save Japan money by dying now. Now, dammit! |
How about young people with cancer - any type of cancer - even the curable ones - just so Japan can save a few bucks of government money?
Or, perhaps death camps! Got a sick kid? Let's kill him!
In a wheelchair? How could you ever be a contributing member of society? You can't! Not in a wheelchair!
Riiii-iiight.
Let me mention three letters: F-D-R. Former U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He may have died months before the end of WWII, but he was the commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces that helped kick Japan's ass (along with the rest of the Allies, of course!).
The photo at the very top - that's FDR's chair (photo found at the US National Park Service website.
Seriously, though… where does it stop, Aso?
Now… while Aso's comments were directed to the aged in Japan, about 1/4 of Japan's population of 128 million is in the senior citizen bracket. And… the last time I checked, the Liberal Democratic Party (it sounds like an oxymoron) hasn't revoked the voting privileges of that population segment yet.
And, with fewer children on the way, Japan's population is expected to get older and older, with feeble grasp of 40 per cent of the population within the next 50 years. Of course, Abe, thanks to his deal with dark forces will be 122-years-old.
Liberal Democratic Party leader and current Japanese king prime minister Abe Shinzo (surname first) must be a bit concerned. Abe was Japan's prime minister for about one-year in 2007, but was forced to resign thanks to his chosen cabinet ministers screwing up.
As for Aso, the old man who looks pretty good for his age, I must admit, but he did try to soften his comments a bit a few hours later: "I said what I personally believe, not what the end-of-life medical care system should be. It is important that you be able spend the final days of your life peacefully."
Important yes, but just know that Aso hates you.
"I see people aged 67 or 68 at class reunions who dodder around and are constantly going to the doctor," he said back in 2008 when HE was prime minister. "Why should I have to pay for people who just eat and drink and make no effort? I walk every day and do other things, but I'm paying more in taxes."
What? The rich have to pay taxes? Man… you screwed up, Japan. The rich don't pay taxes - not if you are doing it 'correctly' - nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Here's a brief list of Aso's previous comments:
- 2008, as prime minister: called 'doddering' pensioners tax burdens who should take better care of their health.
- tube people.
- sick should hurry up and die.
- Japanese doctors lack common sense.
- made a joke about Alzheimer patients.
- poor men are unfit for marriage.
- wants Japan to be a successful country where the 'richest Jews would want to live'.
- called the opposition party Nazi-like.
- thought Japan's rule in Taiwan was cool.
- as foreign minister said that because U.S. diplomats had blonde hair and blue eyes they would never be trusted in Middle East peace talks.
Can't buy me love, but it does help with the quality of life. Aso is one of the richest politicians in Japan.
Some of that fortune came about from a coal mine business his family ran during World War II when it forced 100s of Allied POWs (prisoner-of-war) to work. Wasn't that against the Geneva Convention?
Of course, Aso doesn't talk about the war in that way, because Japan never hurt anyone and no one can prove otherwise because all witnesses were killed. I'm making that part up, but seriously, he doesn't talk about any wrong-doings of Japan during the war.
Later, that business became Aso Cement, and he himself was company president between 1973 - 1979.
Aso's political lineage, despite his shoot-off-the-mouth and fend-off-questions-later approach, is solid. He grandfather was Yoshida Shigeru, a former post-WWII prime minister.
I've never said this before, but I hope Aso gets a taste of his own medicine (or doesn't get any medicine), and hope he gets some very painful and slow-moving, incurable illness. Painful being the operative (but not operative) word.
And yet… Japan… is this what you had in mind when you elected the Liberal Democratic Party into office? Again? It didn't work before, why would it work now?
I'm glad I was in Japan 20 years ago and not now. The place is beginning to scare me.
Cheers
Andrew Joseph
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