The main threat against Japan? Its own leader

On July 21, 2013, Shinzo Abe's LDP will probably win the House of Councillors elections, and the controversial Prime Minister move closer to his dreams of revising the Constitution, discarding the peaceful nature of Post-War Japan, and restoring the belligerent nature of Imperial Japan. The publication of the annual white paper "Defense of Japan" is the perfect occasion to mobilize the base ahead of the elections.

Abe has made no secret of his intentions to modify the fundamental Article 9 of the Constitution, which clearly defines Japan as a peaceful nation ("Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes"*), and prior to that, to change the Article 96, which makes it difficult to change the Constitution itself. Right now, you first need the two thirds of each of the two Houses to vote the change, then a popular vote to ratify the text**.

In order to optimize his victory in elections that vast moderate majority don't perceive as vital for the future of Japan, Abe needs a strong mobilization from his ultra-nationalist base. That's one of the reasons why his government has recently been reviving tensions with Japan's neighbors around Dokdo, Senkaku, or Kuril islands. And should uproar and anger explode across the region, they would once more be used to trick the peaceful people of Japan into believing that this anti-democratic government is actually protecting the interests of a people surrounded by hot-tempered barbarians.

Very significantly, the "Defense of Japan 2013" annual white paper issued on July 9 by the Ministry of Defense justifies the first increase in Japan's defense budget in 11 years by depicting East Asia as a region on the brink of war, where everybody's beefing up their military capacities, and where diplomacy is not even mentioned as an option: North Korea's nuclear threats got more serious than ever, "China’s activities in the sea/air area surrounding Japan involve its intrusion into Japan’s territorial waters, its violation of Japan's airspace and even dangerous actions that could cause a contingency situation", "Russia continues to intensify its military activities", and even Southeast Asian countries are forced to modernize their military forces.

Of course, the Abe Government has been pouring oil on every possible fire to make diplomacy as irrelevant as possible, and the document hints at more than just increases in Defense spendings: towards a structural revision of the National Defense Program Guidelines and the Basic Policy for National Defense, and potentially a redefinition of key concepts such as "military power", "self defense", "right for belligerency" or, why not, "control over the military by democratic political authority".

The new National Defense Program Guidelines expected by the end of the year - in other words after the elections - are expected to include the capacity, for Self Defense Forces - provided the name sticks -, "of striking military targets in enemy countries" (see "White paper echoes Abe's plans to strengthen Japan’s defense" - Asahi Shimbun 20130710).

What we'd like to hear is Shinzo Abe state loud and clear, here and now, ubi et orbi, and with all the specifics, his precise vision and his ultimate goals, how he would rewrite the Constitution, in which terms he would redefine the nation, what would be allowed and not allowed for its defense. But unlike Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, Shinzo Abe always wisely / cowardly comes short of fully speaking his mind out. And if he never leaves any room for misinterpretations, he knows how to use symbols and circular references when he's venturing into the most outrageous territories, as he recently proved during his sick tribute to the infamous Unit 731 (see "Can't top that? Shinzo Abe posing as Shiro Ishii, the Josef Mengele of Imperial Japan").

So will the right for peace triumph over the right for belligerency? With an opposition unwilling to risk infuriating the ultra-conservative minority that corrupts and controls Japan's whole political system, the population remains overwhelmingly unaware of the dangers. But one thing is sure: belligerence being defined as an aggressive or warlike disposition or behavior, Shinzo Abe himself is more than ready for action.

And in this most defining moment, the main question remains***: will the great people of Japan wake up at last, and say no to Shinzo Abe, or will it let him continue saying and doing whatever he fancies, and let the whole nation follow him along this suicidal path?

blogules 2013

Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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* Note that the repudiation of pacifism happens to be the first article in the definition of fascism, as written by Benito Mussolini himself in 1932: "Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death". Note also that the last element of Mussolini's definition of fascism refers to imperialism, another key ingredient in today's Imperial Japan nostalgia: "For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence". (source: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.asp - long time no recycling for this definition - see "Red Blogule to neo-fascists - LET'S FACE IT THEY'RE FASCISTS" - 2004/05/27)

** see previous episodes, and on Seoul Village: "ABE forced to back down a bit. For the moment. Next PR stunt: KIM Jong-un"

*** see "Dear Japan, Say No To Fascism"

The Sand Curtain, Two Years Later (or is it 20?)

Islamists being among the fiercest enemies of democracy, you certainly can't defeat them with a permanent denial of democracy, particularly when they've claimed some level of legitimacy in elections. So if no true supporter of democracy can be fully satisfied by Egypt's sudden demorsification, one can hope lessons from Algeria have been learned.

Regional and global terrorism feed upon this kind of shell games and actually, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb celebrates the merger of the islamist movement that was prevented from winning the 1991 elections in Algeria* with a global franchise whose main theorician and now main leader happens to come from Egypt. And people like Ayman al-Zawahiri loves to have enemies like Hosni Mubarak or Adbelaziz Bouteflika (not to mention the Saudi ruling family, Bibi Netanyahu or, even better, George W. Bush**).

So today, as Abdelaziz Bouteflika reaches the end of his rope, Mohamed Morsi the end of his luck, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan the end of his imposture***, the moment has come to make very clear the point that was at the core of the Egyptian revolution, before the Muslim Brotherhood hijacked it: "we reject as false the choice between dictatorship and fundamentalism"****.

And again, this should not become a debate about religion, but about politics. And again, secularism is the only way of securing both democracy and freedom of religion. One of the best illustrations is the ban of Burqa in France - a case I discussed with Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawi back in June 2009*****.

Egypt cannot secure its democracy until it states clearly the separation of State and religion (of course the same could be said about any country, be it Iran or Israel). And ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood will have to chose between democracy and illegality.

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* from Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) and Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) to Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC) to Al Qaeda au Maghreb Islamique (AQMI)

** see "Universal Declaration of Independence from Fundamentalism":

Like fascism, fundamentalism feeds from the failures of democracy, from the intolerable gaps between peoples kept in poverty and underdevelopment on one hand, and rich corrupt regimes on the other. "Ideally", people must be fed up with their rulers, and not believe anymore in the rules supposed to hold the society altogether. An ailing dictatorship will provide a perfect background, but the fundamentalists' best moments come when self-proclaimed model democracies give the worst examples to the world. (...) For fundamentalists from all religions, George W. Bush turned out to be the best person at the best place at the best moment. His strategy should look like a total failure to whoever considers the Iraq quagmire, the Palestinian fiasco, or the worldwide surge in terror. But to the contrary, Bush's strategy proved a complete success. Because George W. Bush didn't act as a President of The United States of America in the interest of his country. And George W. Bush didn't even act as a Republican in the interest of his party. George W. Bush acted as a fundamentalist in the interest of fundamentalism".

*** see "Turquie : la révolution silencieuse" (20070723 on my French blogules):

Turkey: the Silent Revolution Coupled with the rise of extreme right nationalism (14% for the MHP) and the strenghtening of Kurdish nationalism (again over 20 lawmakers for the DTP), Recep Tayyip Erdogan's triumph (the AKP claimerd over half of the votes) only leaves twenty something percent of the vote to the main republican party. And when one sees this CHP cling to a caricature of edulcorated kemalism, one can wonder if Turkey has not turned its back for good on its ideal of secular democracy. As expected, the pressures from Western Christian fundamentalists on Turkey only beefed up islamists and nationalists, marginalizing the true heralds of a model democracy.  Erdogan won because of his economic results and because of the irrelevance of his opponents. And if he remains hindered by an aging military clique, his islamist revolution is well under way, and time is on his side (like demographics). Turkey is asserting itself as a new model combining economic modernity and religious archaism where woman is progressively sidelined, where the Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (BAV) can freely spread its creationist theses, and where change is implemented from the bottom up through socio-religious pressure more efficiently than through a law that will eventually be altered - if not the letter of the law, at least the acts. Turkey's candidacy for EU membership is now taking the turn that all the enemies of democracy wanted: a forum - La candidature à l'Europe prend désormais toute la saveur qu'attendaient d'elle les ennemis de la démocratie : un forum - amplifier for all the hatred and fears they've been knowledgeably feeding for years. European voters must reject this parody of a debate, punish those who deliberately pour oil on the fire, and refuse the 'clash of civilizations' imposture. Let's send to our Turkish friends a message of exemplary nature by rejecting as anti-democratic the return of religion in the political debate. Starting with the debate about the integration of Turkey in Europe.

**** see "Sand curtain" (2011/02)

"(...) Of course, nature abhors a vacuum, and fundamentalists would love to step in to fill the ideology void. At this defining moment, most people on the street seem to reject as false the choice between dictatorship and fundamentalism, but most people on the street prefer order to chaos, and uncertainty shouldn't last too long. Israel nervously watches as Jordanian and Egyptian regimes falter under popular pressure. Muslim friends who could turn enemies, with the benediction of Iran, whose own corrupt regime postponed its ineluctable fall by a few years by crushing popular uprisings at home. Unfortunately, these days, Israeli leaders seem to position themselves as a corrupt regime with some ideology. Not a dictatorship, mind you, but not a bunch of nice guys either. Barack Obama is a nice guy. Unfortunately, these days, the US leader doesn't seem to be in charge of foreign policy, so huge is the gap between what he says and what the US do. And the poor lad doesn't have one Gorbachev to call if he wants that sand curtain torn down... So what's ahead ? Probably trouble and uncertainties, but somehow this transitional period has started after WWII and independence wars, and we're closer to the end than from the beginning. Something new will emerge and eventually, something positive. Societies freed from political and religious deviances. Hopefully, the time has come for a true Muslim renaissance. Right now, most dictators across the globe must have gotten some kind of message. But even supposedly strong democracies should be thinking twice when they applaud successful local uprisings or self-determination processes like in South Sudan : what is a nation in this globalized world, what will be holding its members together in this networked millenium ? More than ever, each individual will reach for the universal (as a human being), and the personal (identity)."

***** following the post "France, secularism and burqa : a political issue, not a religious one" (200906)

Moving pictures

I've uploaded a couple of short vids on my YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/stephanemot). Actually, I rather downloaded them from my memory because they keep haunting me. It might happen from time to time since I take thousands of pictures every year - awful shots, I know, but these slideshows only last a few seconds.

• I shot these black and white - and rather dark, I reckon - pictures during the noughties in Seoul. Some of them already appeared in my dragedies:

• More colors in this recent series, but not much joy either - my last tribute to a Seoul neighborhood about to be destroyed (see "In memoriam Samdong Samgeori, Gyonam-dong" on Seoul Village):

ADDENDUM: while I was on a roll, I uploaded them on Vimeo as well (new page: vimeo.com/stephanemot).

blogules 2013
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Dear Japan, Say No To Fascism

Dear Japan,

I wish you the best in your effort to regain positive dynamics, but I beg you, please don't let your government carry out its main agenda: the suicidal revival of your great country's darkest moments.

Don't get fooled by Abenomics: they're only Weapons of Mass Distraction. Your Prime Minister has been very clear about his priorities:

• Shinzo Abe is an outspoken revisionist and negationist who pledged to rewrite Japan's peace constitution, and to obliterate all records of Imperial Japan's war crimes.
• Shinzo Abe, who headed the Japaneses Society for History Textbook Reform, denies all universally recognized atrocities, from the Nankin massacre to sexual slavery (midly dubbed "comfort women"), and now even dares questioning the use of "invasion" to qualify that doomed regime's expansionism.
• Shinzo Abe insists on visiting Yasukuni Shrine, a place Emperor Hirohito himself refused to visit ever since it was made public that the remains of war criminals had been moved there, the place where Japanese die-hard fascists chose to invite all European extreme-right leaders in an infamous field trip.
• Shinzo Abe, who represents Japan and speaks in its name, refuses to consider war criminals as criminals, imperialists as imperialists, and Japan as a peaceful country. And if you think this man is not a fascist, what more do you need? The return of the "kill all, loot all, destroy all" policy? His portrait between that of Adolf and Benito?

PM Fumimaro Konoe between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. These images will only belong to the past when Japan sets the record clear about the Imperial regime that disgraced it decades ago.
PS: I didn't reach the Godwin point, Abe did. Imagine a German Chancelor saying what he said: they'd be impeached and face justice for such an ignominy.

The worst enemies are always the ones from within and right now, Shinzo Abe and the ultra-nationalist bureaucracy that corrupted Japan's entire political system are the worst enemies of Japan. They deliberately fuel mutual hatred across the region because they need other hatemongers to reach power to secure their own future. For the moment, they're not only alienating Korea, Japan, and America, but bringing friends of Japan closer together to denounce their imposture. You think they are irrelevant and that's true, but they are dangerous, and they want to reshape Japan into a nation where people like them are relevant. You think politics have nothing to do with you but it has to do with everything you do, and in order to survive as a democracy, you simply must reclaim it, and keep people like them away from politics.

If you love your country, act as true Japanese citizens, speak up, say no to Abeignomics, and reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism.


blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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Add this page to your favorites

See all posts related to Japan,and particularly:
- "We reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism - for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network"
- "Japan politics? No to Comfort women, yes to Political whoring"
- "Ad Nauseam: about Dark Tourism, the Blind Spots of Memory, and Free Thrashing Agreements"
- "Tokyo Sakura With Patriot Missiles (A Still Life)"
- "One Thousand Wednesdays" (also on my blogules blog in English "1,000th week of shame for Japan" and in French "Japon: regarde-toi, le monde te regarde" "also on Rue89"A Séoul, les « femmes de réconfort » de l'armée japonaise réclament justice"
- "L'extreme-droite Japonaise invite Le Pen... et les projecteurs" (also on Rue89 "La visite de Le Pen au Japon, coup de com pour l'extrême droite nippone")
- "Revisionist schoolbooks : change has not come to Japan"
- "A Common History" (NB: a too brief glimmer of hope)
- "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong"
- ...

Iron Lady (Ashes To Ashes, Rust To Rust), Meet Hugo Chavez

For people like me who grew up during the 1970s-1980s, Margaret Thatcher was an outstanding marker in politics: preceded and succeded by nobodies at home, she saw the USSR shift from Leonid Brezhnev to Michail Gorbachev, the USA shift from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan (nevermind 41), the Germanies of Helmut Schmidt and Erich Honecker shift to Helmut Kohl's reunited Germany, France shift from Valery Giscard d'Estaing to Francois Mitterrand, the Vatican shift from Paul VI to John Paul II, South Korea shift from PARK Chung-hee to ROH Tae-woo, and North Korea shift from KIM Il-sung to KIM Il-sung. She even outruled by a few months her old friend Augusto Pinochet.

CNN's weird choice of a background picture to announce the passing of Margaret Thatcher: with the now infamous Jimmy Saville. Thaville and Satcher? Note that it could have been even worse for the Iron Lady: a picture of her with Ronald Reagan.

Margaret Thatcher embodied at the same time the United Kingdom and its very negation, always the present or the past, never the future. In many ways, she was a caricatural leader, sharing traits with statesmen she didn't share many ideas with.

So who resembles most Margaret Thatcher as a leader? Certainly not Angela Merkel or Julia Gillard, who've done little more than winning against Gerhard Schroeder and Kevin Rudd, and then benefiting from their reforms.

I'd rather look in the supposedly opposite direction. Why not Hugo Chavez? Both he and Thatcher revived a nation by stubbornly replacing obsolete ideologies with obsolete ideologies.

blogules 2013
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Invasion of Iraq: The Bush Legacy in 3 Impostures

It's been 10 years since the invasion of Iraq, and I won't repeat my usual rant. In case you missed the previous episodes, here are 3 messages you should remember:
 

***

1) The invasion of Iraq was meant to spread fundamentalism worldwide, not democracy in Iraq:

Always keep this in mind: "George W. Bush didn't act as a President of The United States of America in the interest of his country. And George W. Bush didn't even act as a Republican in the interest of his party. George W. Bush acted as a fundamentalist in the interest of fundamentalism."

I wrote the "Universal Declaration of Independence from Fundamentalism" to expose the imposture of fundamentalism (a totalitarian, political program advertised as a universal, religious program), the way it undermines both democracy and religion, and the ways to defuse the sick ping pong between supposedly opposed extremists.

As I posted for the 5th anniversay of this masquerade ("Iraq - 5 years of success for fundamentalists"), the invasion of Iraq was a triumph: as expected, it boosted fundamentalism and terror worldwide. "Mission accomplished".

And we should consider ourselves lucky these lunatics didn't go all the way (see "Iran : who wants war and why").


***

2) Oil was the means of corruption, not the aim of the game, and the undermining of US democracy was not just collateral damage:

To make it short: theocons set the agenda with the help of neocons (what better duet than Bush-Cheney to achieve this?), and sold the war to paleocons*.

In other words: the aim of the game was to undermine democracy (the theocon - fascist purpose), and the official cause an intervention to free a country from its dictator (typical neocon stuff), but in order to launch the war, the blessing from the oil and defense lobbies was needed (enter the paleocons).

The only thing missing was an alibi for immediate action. A clear and immediate danger. The outrageous lies and forged cases about WMDs or Saddam-al Qaeda ties did the trick.

Of course, there was always the risk of nosy reporters doing their jobs, of citizens exercising their rights to transparency.

The Patriot Act became effective more than one year before the invasion. The trickier part was the media, and the Bush Administration offered a deal to US majors: don't get at us until after the 2004 elections** and we'll help you consolidate your power. At the head of the FCC, the son of Colin Powell did his best to alter competition laws, and was instrumental in the concentration that followed at a critical moment in the history of traditional press, broadcasting, and internet. Michael Powell went as far as organizing a phony forum to settle the case just weeks ahead of the invasion. He later joined the RAND Corporation.

In general, the Bush administration more or less successfully tried to undermine the separation of powers at the root of democracy:
. executive? too far (right) reaching, and totally unaccountable.
. legislative? corrupt, and producing anti-democratic laws
. judicial? promoting torture and the negation of all rights
. media? at best embedded, at worst accomplice
. netizens? brainwashed by pervasive propaganda, monitored by a dystopian state
. ....
. and, of course, the theocons' priority: destroying secularism, the pilar of democracy. Again, mixing religion with politics, education, science... is the best way to attack democracy and religion at the same time (see "France, secularism and burqa : a political issue, not a religious one")

Yes, a lot of money was at stake. For the religious lobbies that pushed against the separation of church and state as well as for the military and oil lobbies. And the mass plundering of Iraqi resources is only one side of a scheme that turned record surplusses into record deficits (among other vital rescue missions: saving private Halliburton... a charity movement that continued in another Gulf, following Kathrina - see "Red blogule to Halliburton and the 40 thieves").

But the corruption reached much deeper, to the very fundamentals of democracy.
 

***

3) The Arab Spring owes nothing to the Iraq War, to the contrary:

 
George W. Bush and his fan club try to sell us the Arab Spring as the consequence of his invasion of Iraq, a "liberation war" that "spread democracy across the region", but this imposture is totally unacceptable.
 
First, Bush's crusade contributed to silencing moderates, and strengthening radical islamists as the only political force capable of taking power.
 
Second, his illegal invasion for anti-democratic purposes cannot be compared to self determination movements aiming at genuine freedom and democracy. The only nation Bush ever tried to build was a theocracy: he may be an inspiration for islamists, certainly not for actual freedom fighters.
 
Third, the Bush administration did serve as an example in the region, but not in the arab world (see "Israel accepted as true the choice between its security and its ideals").


 
***
Justice has yet to be done, and I guess the last words of Tomas Young (in "The Last Letter") are worth remembering:
"A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran": "I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.".

And as always, we should expose and denounce the impostures, and blow the whistle each time a government tries to alter the separation of powers or to play with the fundamentals of democracy.


blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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* ... and if the "anticons" were not yet in the picture, they're not a model for democracy either: "the Tea Party is not just an alternative to the Republican or the Democratic parties, but the very negation of the republic, the very negation of democracy" (see "Grand Old Parting - enter the anticons")
** Heck, even until the 2008 elections for most of them (see "The Silence of the Lambs (War in Iraq and US networks)"). How dare collaborators give lessons after such a disgrace (see "What Fareed Zakaria got wrong")?

Still The Worst President Ever

Ten years ago, George W. Bush would launch the invasion of Iraq, his most successful decision as the Fundamentalist in Chief (see "Universal Declaration of Independence from Fundamentalism").

How is he doing nowadays? W. just visited Seoul for a couple of hours, the time to bring good luck to some important real estate project (and a nice check to his fat wallet). Exactly the kind of peacekeepers and bubblemakers the peninsula needs right now: following more Beijing-condoned sanctions from the UNSC, Pyongyang all but declared a nuclear war to the US.

But who knows, Bush The Second may be palling around with Kim The Third: his unofficial envoy* Dong Moon JOO attended KIM Jong-il's funerals. Note that "Douglas" JOO reunited with the Washington Times ahead of the trip, but never left the Unification Church, the cult founded by the late MOON Sun-myung, a very good friend of daddy George H. W. Bush.

Ever the masochist, I decided to check Dubya's official website, or rather that of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. It had been a long time since my last visit.

No mention of the lucrative trip, of course, but I found this gem on the homepage: Dubya riding a bike with friends (including a US flag bearer - you always need one of those when you climb high mountains), with this caption: "The Bush Center's Most Memorable Moments of 2012".

I couldn't resist and added a speech ballon: "Uh... say again: Lance said WHAT?"



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* according to The Daily Beast ("The Bush Administration’s Secret Link to North Korea" - 20120207)

HGTP (Hypergraphia Transfer Protocol) Turns 10: 03/03/03 - 13/03/03

March 3rd, 2003 - March 3rd, 2013.

I eventually opened my personal portal on the web exactly 10 years ago and today, I'd like to apologize to the millions of victims of this tragedy: the visitors from all over the world who lost at best their precious time, at worst their sanity in what is now a multi-site, multi-platform monster. Since I cannot predict the future (even if, I'm afraid, you shouldn't expect containment until I stop living - which includes writing, my most embarrassing bodily function), here's a quick summary of what happened over this doomed decade.


0) In the beginning was the word:


naughty homepage v1.0
(stephanemot.com during
the "geocities" years)

From the beginning, I embraced the web as the perfect extension of my poor brain, as something as absurd, unreliable, vain, and fragile as life itself. But it was not until 2003 that I decided to get my own address.

The concept was simple:
- No avatar, no pseudo: I commit to all the ill-written and nonsensical stuff I spill over the web. After all, they're just words, and my name happens to mean "word" in French.
- It's at the same time public and personal, but not intimate. I'm not pushing my own opinions, they simply have to come out of my system. Pure junk writing, no literature.
- It's egotic, not narcissic. Yes that's a game of mirrors, but as in some kind of a Borghesian experiment. And in this mess / maze, I can find pricelessly inane stuff that I would otherwise lose for good. Plus I need to fuel my own ecosystem, to plug it to both reality and virtuality. If I often build inept synaptic connections that slow the whole system down, I always learn something about my own impostures and dysfunctions.


I) Homepaging (Home, Sweet and Sour Home):

In 2003, I'd been journeying for 10 years into strategy and innovation. I had a lot of fun conceiving and managing online and interactive services and apps, or forecasting disruptions in highly evolutive ecosystems, but at home, the last thing I wanted was to create my own start-up (I'd already survived four of those), or to think about technology or solutions... particularly since I knew that major disruptions would come sooner than later, that the next Googles would change everything, that new concepts, platforms, devices, usages would emerge.

All I needed was a place to drop the 'junk writing' I excreted. Neither a flush toilet nor a vault: I wanted to easily access and browse it. Ultimately, I wanted my content to be in my own "cloud", as I drew it back then on my silly slides: a cartoon-like cloud accessible seamlessly from any connected device - no matter where I logged in, I wouldn't have to care about input or output formats, on which server I was.

I knew we were far from that. I'd already toyed with mini mobile sites (eg WAP and i-mode), and I wanted to stick to the web, and to its most rudimentary forms at that. I've loved Wikis from the start, and content management systems were already legion (I also missed Wordpress by a few months), but I didn't want to be smart anyway.

Opting for Geocities was not very smart. It wasn't the least user-friendly web hosting solution, but back in 2003, Yahoo! were already officially has-beens. Yet I've been "faithfool" to Y! for my personal email service since 1996 (still now!), and I knew that the transfer would be easy.

Because for starters, I really wanted the basics for my personal-content / self-editing purposes. No frills, no forum, no interactivity: simple web pages that I could easily transfer to a smarter platform when the time came.

My initial menu was very simple, even if I expected innovations for each dimension:
- Home (basic: landing page for stephanemot.com, with a few simple dynamic animations like newsfeeds - potential: media),
- Beings (basic: ego, friends and neighbors, authors I like - potential: networking/communities),
- Things (basic: books, soccer/footlog, photos, innovations/mot-bile... - potential: endless verticals, videos),
- Places (basic: Paris, NYC, Seoul, Uqbar, world, travels, maps, random... - potential: mobility, location based services),
- blogules (basic: all posts on one page - potential: dedicated blogging platform)
- About, Links, Stats, Guestbook pages
- NB: I also created a "boutique" page (Little Shop of Errors). Not to generate revenues, but to cover all bases, and to follow/anticipate innovations for key 'enablers', particularly through Amazon, a player with an unsatiable appetite.

Of course I was not satisfied with the result, but at long last I had my own room with a roof.

I forgot to mention the fact that the site was in English and in French, which made it twice as big and boring. If the main menu never changed, the monster grew to about a hundred pages, each one an ergonomic mess filled with useless junk.


II) Blogging (Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Disinformation):

From the start, I knew that I should have used 'special purpose vehicles', most notably a blogging platform for my blogules, but I didn't want to manage several sites in parallel. I didn't expect to produce that much junk that quickly.

You've got to thank George W. Bush for that.

Saying that I got obsessed with the 2004 US Elections is an understatement. Only a portion of my 2003-2004 junk posted on various fora and media landed on the two interminable pages devoted to blogules (one in French, the other in English), but I postponed until after November 2, 2004 the switch to Blogger. Not the best platform back then, and I didn't feel comfortable growing a Google-dependence, but I expected Big G to lead on the way to convergence.

I haven't invested much time on my homepage ever since. When Geocities folded, I'd already had dispatched the bulk of the content to specific sites*, so I only transferred a tiny portion of the monster. To Google Pages. Again, not the best platform. Again, more Google-dependence.

Anyway. Today, stephanemot.com is basically a non-existent hub, an empty shell with little content and traffic. Nothing like its heyday madness, when Geocities had to regularly shut my site down because flocks of visitors coming for different 'verticals' were all converging to the same spot.

So we're in December 2004: John F. Kerry is not measuring the drapes at the White House, and I've just moved 3 of my blogs to Blogger: blogules (in English), blogules V.F. (in French), and mot-bile (innovation - in English). I still don't know today how I managed not only to feed and maintain the three of them, but also to need even more sites to sort more junk.

I spun off my soccer blog on France Football in October 2005 (in French - platform: Blogspirit). footlog quickly became a hit, and CNET France noticed this weird guy who blogged on soccer in French and on innovation in English: would you do a blog for us ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup? I did, for free, and it was fun. But I'm glad it's over:  I've got enough trouble maintaining the whole shebang as it is, and I regularly turn down similar offers. I did accept a stunt for a French radio, to give it a try, but writing remains more fun. Among the different citizen journalism platforms I tried, I feel most comfortable with Rue89. I don't do columns, even if various papers have published my stuff or mentioned my work (eg Newsweek, IHT, Le Figaro, LA Times, Asian Times, Korea JoongAng Daily, Korea Herald...). I've been editor in chief in a previous life, but I'm not a journalist: I'm into Weapons of Mass Disinformation, see?

Nowadays, I seldom post on footlog, which in its own heyday ranked among France's top 7 sports blogs. I still force myself to post now and then on mot-bile, because that's a way of keeping an eye on sectors and players I enjoy decrypting. And if my blogules remain hot during election cycles in France and in the US, I've been much more busy with yet another blog.

I started SeoulVillage in February 2007, 6 years ago. More than a spin off of my blogules about Korea, I initially had in mind a proto-literary project about this shape-shifter of a city. I cowarded out, opted for English, and started yet another blog by yet another Foreigner in Asia. I'm happy to count many Korean culture lovers, researchers, journalists, or urbanists among frequent flyers, but I owe this city I love something more intimate. Hopefully, I shall complete this year my first collection of fictions about Seoul, in English.

Because I have the gall to define myself as an author, remember? Not much has been published to support the claim, but I've got another set of useless websites to maintain because of that**. More empty shells, I reckon: my excuse for a literature got lost in an void that, literally, can't even be described as interstellar.


III) Social Networking (Hypergraphia meet Multiple Personality Disorder):

Even if my Facebook or Twitter pages are not part of my personal portal, I have to mention here the difficulty of coping with various selves in social networking times.
 
I mostly write as myself and as SeoulVillage, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. To name the main sites:

• as Stephane Mot, the junk writer: 1 zombie website (stephanemot.com), but relatively active Facebook (facebook.com/stephanemot) and Twitter (@stephanemot) accounts.
• as Stephane Mot, the failed author: 2 book websites (dragedies.com, laliguedesoublies.com), 2 Facebook pages (one for the author, one for his dragedies), 1 Twitter account (@dragedies)
• as Stephane Mot, the start-up veteran: 1 blog (mot-bile)
• as Seoul Village: 1 blog (seoulvillage.com), 1 Facebook page (facebook.com/seoulvillage), 1 Twitter account (@theseoulvillage)
• as blogules: 2 blogs (blogules.com, blogules en Francais), 2  Facebook pages (EN: blogules - facebook.com/pages/Blogules/263494297051758 / FR: blogule - facebook.com/blogule), 1 Twitter account (@blogules)
• as footlog: 1 blog (footlog.blogs.francefootball.com), 1 Twitter account (@footlogbis)
• as Kim Mudangnim: 1 website (kimmudangnim.com), 1 Facebook page (facebook.com/pages/KIM-Mudangnim/246625385375575), 1 Twitter account (@kimmudangnim).
  NB: I don't want to be a drag, but I had to mention this female character I created a couple of years ago (the story was published in Every Second Sunday - see "SWW 2010 Anthology"). No, Kim Mudangnim is not my female self (I'm not that sick), but I know she'll be back sooner or later. Until then, she needed someone to open virtual doors for her. 

I'm not suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, but from Hypergraphia. Of course, these 4 websites, 5 blogs, 7 Facebook pages, and 6 Twitter accounts are only part of my online presence. Of course, I also write an awful lot of junk offline. Of course, I don't like 99.999% of what I write (starting with the parts I can't even understand when I try to read them afterwards). Of course, there are rewarding as well as embarrassing moments.

Sorry, but I can't fix my writing. Writing is my fix.

blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)

* in 2007, I spun off a few pages that were not meant for a blogging platform, but nonetheless ended up on Blogger, like Little Shop of Errors (boutique - in French), Citizen Came (visitors stats - in English). I also backed-up the 2003-2004 blogules archives (in English and in French), as well as my soccer pages (footlog archives).
** see dragedies and La Ligue des Oublies (nevermind Kim Mudangnim).

Smile, you're on Candid Democracy

Elba Esther Gordillo
Head of National Education Workers' Union
Mexico (1989-2013)
Faces justice for embezzling $ 156 M

Silvio Berlusconi
Prime Minister
Italy (1994-95, 2001-06, 2008-11...)
Faces justice for tax evasion, corruption, bribery, abuse of power, soliciting minors for sex, Zlatanic cleansing of AC Milan...

Nip, tuck, corrupt...

Smile, you're on Candid Democracy


blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)

Won by cheating, lied to America and the World

Both won by cheating, both lied to America and the World:

George W. Bush - Commander in Thief (2001-2008)

Lance Armstrong - Yellow Jersey Tour de France (1999-2005), Orange Jersey Tour d'Alcatraz (2013-2023)

Gone Stars we won't miss.

blogules 2012
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)