While scanning the Wall Street Journal editorial page just a few days ago I noticed a smallish article advocating the postal service's privatization. I didn't read it: a noble cause, it seemed too far-fetched, what with the day's otherwise reasonable progressive ideas facing spears and poison arrows.
Yet on the other side of the world, in a country more closely wedded to a central state than ours, reform is just what the executive is calling for:
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged his fellow Liberal Democratic Party executives Monday to work hard to get the opponent-dominated ruling party to support privatizing Japan Post with the aim of legislating the policy by June 19."I asked them to have vigorous discussions so it can be enacted during the current Diet session as I have no plans to extend the session," Koizumi told reporters after an executive meeting of the party, which he heads.
Koizumi faces as uncertain a public as President Bush, skewed New York Times polls aside. Yet as surveys regularly show, whether Americans or Japanese can decide on a preferable solution, they want change — and here's to the leaders willing to risk for that need.