Fukuology Blog: a Cynics Guide to the Japan Catastrophe

[flamingdem]

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/04/69-months-and-btw-nice-hole-you-got.html

--------SNIP

Things that have been obvious for quite some time are now being admitted.

Here is a real howler Gov't to decide whether evacuees can return home after 6-9 months. I refuse to quote a bit of that fantasy. "...the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage...". Tell me about it.

ex-SKF has some thoughts about the "plan". This is a good one:

I'm reading the 7-page handout (in Japanese) that TEPCO distributed for the press conference that details out the specific tasks to achieve the goals (that they call "Steps 1 and 2"). So far I haven't find anything that is different from what TEPCO has been doing for the past month.

And so is this:

So what else will TEPCO and the national government be dribbling out, over the next 9 months? They will extend and pretend as long as necessary until the weary citizens and residents of Japan simply don't care any more, as they will let their children play in the contaminated school yards and eat contaminated vegetables and fish to support the farmers and fishermen, and tell themselves everything will be just fine.

Would they really do that? Depressing even to contemplate.

[Tunkamerica]

1. terrible name unless they were trying for fuck-you-ology. in that case it's perfect.

[SpoonFed]

7. close...

I really think it's the nuke industry's Fuck-You-All-ogy.

[SpoonFed]

Yes

The second to last paragraph of your post is correct. This is basically how they will deal with this as is evidenced by the last month. This is exactly how my friend in Japan describes the situation and the denials from the govt and industry. He has unique insight since he's lived there for 7+ years, married a Japanese woman, holds three degrees in the humanities and most importantly is not a weeabo that defends Japan's actions and society from someone blinded by romantic ideas about Japan. That makes him uncommon but realistic and pragmatic. He and other expats, one former navy, all have had exit plans for when things turn worse. There is a lot of shit that isn't being talked about.

[snagglepuss]

4. When you refer to people blinded by romantic ideas about Japan are you

referring to people in Japan or outsiders?


Welcome to DU :hi:

[SpoonFed]

2. Yes

The second to last paragraph of your post is correct. This is basically how they will deal with this as is evidenced by the last month. This is exactly how my friend in Japan describes the situation and the denials from the govt and industry. He has unique insight since he's lived there for 7+ years, married a Japanese woman, holds three degrees in the humanities and most importantly is not a weeabo that defends Japan's actions and society from someone blinded by romantic ideas about Japan. That makes him uncommon but realistic and pragmatic. He and other expats, one former navy, all have had exit plans for when things turn worse. There is a lot of shit that isn't being talked about.

[flamingdem]

5. I'd like to know more about the word on the street there

I'm sure the political fallout is an aspect of this and on the tinfoil side some are saying the facility was involved with weapons development or research.

Is it along these lines do you think or something very different? I'm sure if you live there the messaging is very complex and contradictory.

[SpoonFed]

6. I've been poking at him...

to stop by the DU and give an outsider's educated view of what's going on but he has yet to show up. The most disturbing thing he's mentioned is that no one is talking about the farmers that are offing themselves in the affected areas. There are apparently some sane Agro-food buyers in Japan refusing to buy food from in and around the blatently contaminated areas. The depths of the social complexity and damage these reactors are doing will never truly be documented and understood.

The second most disturbing thing is that the Japanese have not been stopping people from going into the contaminated areas and retrieving their belongings, etc, --- other than posting signs. Despite the false belief that the Japanese are some how more law abiding than the rest of is, it simply isn't true.

(Look into the Japan nation-wide pensions scandal: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/13/1000s-of-japans-centenarians-died-decades-ago-average-life-expectancy-worse-than-we-thought/)

Scary to think that it's better to live in Soviet Russia so that the military can institute martial law to control and recover from massive nuclear disasters, compared to an impotent Japanese government that has been late to the starting gate.

[kristopher]

3. My thought on "the plan" was that it was a Clinton initiative

The nuclear industry needs to get this out of the public mind, to that end they want the public experience some sort of closure. It doesn't matter to the nuclear exporting nations whether that closure is a genuine reflection of events, just so long as the public at large can move their attention back to Dancing with the Stars and Trumps hair.

After France's top fission sales team of Areva and Sarkozy get Kan's govt to divert media from ongoing crisis Kan started to receive a great deal of criticism for practicing western style management. Now Hillary comes to help them roll-out this nonplan "Plan To End the Crisis" that tells no one anything except "OK, move on now. Nothing to see here".

I used to think O was using nuclear to wrangle support from the Rs for renewable initiatives. Now I tend to think he is just as closely tied to corporate power as all the other US leaders in the past 30 years.