The cops over here around the Russian embassy are having a conniption fit trying to pull the retractable barrier across the road in time to keep the trucks from passing directly in front and yet allow regular traffic through.

A few months ago I saw the same procession in Roppongi and there were a lot of plain clothes cops armed with video cameras walking down the road shooting video of who was behind the wheel. Keeping tabs, I guess.

What's interesting to me about the trucks is that whenever I've been with Japanese people they've acted as if there's nothing there. As if they have "truck-cancelling technology" in their heads. When I've asked what the trucks are, or what's being shouted from them, I've expected some politically-committed, PC-type denunciation. Instead I've heard vagueness and bafflement. When I ask for direct translations, the language doesn't seem inflammatory, but instead boring and technical.

But if Japan is apolitical -- even "post-political" -- I wonder whether the trucks represent a troll-like attempt to make people debate political issues and take a stance? If so, it seems to me they're destined to fail. It seems to me the country least likely to develop a spirit of "I think this and you think that, and now let's debate!"

Instead I've heard vagueness and bafflement.

This is certainly true. Some of the meaning is lost in the audio distortion, but the rest is rant and archaic language that just goes over everyone's head.

But the meaning is secondary. The idea is literally a violent discomfort through noise pollution. Amplitude > Content.

Then the question becomes: who is allowed to "break the peace" of normally peaceful Japanese society? I think it matters that it is essentially those looking to contain demographic dialogue, not partake in it. What do the soundtracks mean as an social institution, not a social aberration?

Japan is apolitical -- even "post-political"

"Post" automatically means "good" in your lexicon, right?

I think that if you're willing to see the political trucks as a "noise" breaking the peace -- in other words, as more texture than text -- then I think you should consider that a lot of what passes in the West for "political discourse" is also just noise and texture. The noise of talk radio, for instance. I think our political chatter and commentary achieves far less than we think it does. We, too, may be "post-political". Is that good? Well, is a post-blog good? It depends what you post on it.

I don't think any kind of typical noise&texture/"political discourse" in the West could have intruded my playing with my host sibs in the front yard on our quiet street to the same degree of one of those trucks. At least talk radio has an off button.

Compare this to police repression of the JCP (wire-tapping, denial of protection, etc), and it's pretty obvious where official sympathies lie. I've seen the sort of tiny left/liberal marches Marxy describes surrounded and hounded by police, with prison-style buses idling nearby for intimidation. Of course, they could fit the whole damn march in one bus, but they'll bring out 4 or 5 of them, just to show those Reds who's boss.

Here's a good US-centric comparison to help everyone get their bearings: uyoku = the KKK, pre-SCLC/SNCC days. That is to say, violence and intimidation, implicitly endorsed by the state, that serves to squelch criticism of the conservative/reactionary regime.

Thank goodness for brave souls like Itami Juzo (RIP) and Oe Kenzaburo:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1406058,00.html

A brave, decent man if there ever was one. More power to him, his family, and his fellow dissidents. May we yet break free of the "post-political." Here's looking forward to a Japan where we won't see the following: A group of mild-mannered, middle-aged Japanese go to an izakaya, and when one of them starts making mild criticisms of the Emperor system, the others look nervously over their shoulders and entreat him to keep his voice down.

Continuing with the KKK comparison, maybe what the right-wingers should concentrate on after textbooks is coming up with some polemic movie that the likes of Ishihara can endorse as being "like history written in lightning."

I think that if you're willing to see the political trucks as a "noise" breaking the peace -- in other words, as more texture than text -- then I think you should consider that a lot of what passes in the West for "political discourse" is also just noise and texture.

As Brown succintly puts it, you can turn a radio or TV off. These trucks give you no choice but to bear the brunt of their attack.

Also, conservative talk radio in America is about hearing comforting messages that tell you exactly what you already know. Soundtrucks have no purpose other than intimidation and fearmongering.

I know it's more fun to think there is a political explanation for nearly everything, but I suspect there is nothing specifically interesting about the Japanese ability to block out or ignore the existence of the noisy right wing trucks.

The Japanese can make themselves unbothered by all sorts of noisy trucks. Be they the Uyoku, or the ishi yaki imo truck, the kerosene delivery truck, the we'll recycle your newspaper and give you toilet paper truck, the please vote for so and so because we are vaguelly attractive young women who shout his name and beg you to truck, the sao-ya laundry hanging bar salespeople, the music playing garbage truck, the hi no yojin be careful with your fire people (ok, that last one was on foot and from the samurai days but...).

These trucks, and more, are so ubiquitous that they ignored much as one living near an airport blocks out the sounds the jets.

There were a few headed your way yesterday around Kamiyacho. One curious sight, though...

A camouflage H2 with both American & Japanese flags, tons of speakers on it (disengaged at the time), and old Japanese men driving it. It was apparently from Yokosuka.

"hi no yojin be careful with your fire people"

Those guys still come around our neighborhood, clapping wood blocks together (and drinking sake).

Those guys still come around our neighborhood, clapping wood blocks together (and drinking sake).

Awesome! I don't get them in my neck of the hood.

What is the idea with the van that sells the laundry hanging rod? Is it that it would be too unwieldy of an object to pick up at the depato?

Slim mentioned: "the we'll recycle your newspaper and give you toilet paper truck"

That's one truck I'm OK with, personally. What a cool idea! Though of course, real punks skip the middleman.

What gets me is the eyeglasses truck. I mean, is that really an impulse purchase? "Let's see, there was something I'd been meaning to buy- Oh right, eyeglasses!"

I kinda wanna be a hi no yojin when I get old.

You can please all of the people, all of the time.

You can please all of the people, all of the time.

but only if you know how. Remember, society as a whole is both stupid and informed.