The Fok News DKOS Group publishes a diary summary of Keith's opinion blog Fok News.
Keith's commentary begins with homework.
WikiLeaks Report- Japan was warned bout nuclear plant safety...
An unnamed official from the International Atomic Energy Agency is quoted in a 2008 cable from the American embassy in Tokyo as saying that a strong earthquake would pose a "serious problem" for Japan's nuclear power stations. The official added that the country's nuclear safety guidelines were dangerously out of date, as they had only been "revised three times in the last 35 years."
Following that warning, Japan's government pledged to raise security at all of its nuclear facilities, reports The Daily Telegraph, which published the cable. But questions are now being asked about whether authorities really took the nuclear watchdog's worries seriously.
The overall picture that emerges from the cables is of a government afraid of interfering with the powerful nuclear industry, which supplies about one-third of Japan's electricity. In his discussion with U.S. diplomats, Kono suggested that Japan's culture of deference to authority and corporate power prevented officials from changing the country's soft-touch regulation. He argued that industry ministers were "trapped" as they "inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge."
Keith responds to the report with strong words: "Naturally, the leaders of the world are – or wish to start – prosecuting WikiLeaks, and not the Japanese Government"
Keith raises the question of how Obama could have used the example of Japan's safe nuclear program to justify expanding our own nuclear development when secret cables from our own embassy indicate otherwise..
And our government, in our name, continues both to seek ways to prosecute WikiLeaks, and to stick by the President’s ludicrous 2009 suggestion that we accelerate our national Nuclear Power program. The uncensored real oversight, and the truth about Japan’s irresponsibility, are both buried because the illusion of Japan as a successful safe nuclear nation is necessary to President Obama’s pitch, and President Obama’s pitch is necessary to some labyrinthine political calculation, and to the bottom lines of sundry international corporations.
The news from Japan is increasingly grim but the people of Japan are not being evacuated.
We could say that the worsening news from Japan is coming by drips, except that the latest information from our own Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggests that there’s nothing to drip; that the water in the cooling system for Dai-Ichi Reactor 4 has evaporated and NHK broadcasts, late night our time, were filled with images of helicopters trying to douse the facility with seawater, as if it were a forest fire.
Most ominously are reports that read like the worst days of the dark, sick humor of the Bush Administration, when Americans were told to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect their homes from radiation (and memorably one poor soul in Connecticut put it up on the wrong side of his windows). Why, truly, do you think people around Fukushima are being told to stay in their homes and offices? Because going outside somehow significantly reduces the chances they will be exposed to radiation? Because they’re safer indoors in the event the worst-case scenario develops and the thing spews out a kind of nuclear holocaust? Or is it because it’ll be easier to keep track of the victims of a best-case scenario if they stay where they are and don’t try to flee the area, and thus no effort will be required to see where they go and if they have taken radiation with them?
Keith quotes Gregory Jazcko, head of the NRA that the crisis may soon reach the point where "This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. It’s very difficult for me to contemplate that, but it may have reached that point."
Keith concludes,
As you think of Japan, and you think of the aging nuclear plants in this country, and their nearness to our major metropolitan areas, remember that there are 180 human beings – our brothers and sisters – working around this Doomsday Machine that their government was warned about at least three years ago, about which it did nothing!
180 men and women, the same as any Americans, and very possibly the forerunners of any Americans, who are facing this reality: “This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives.”
We can learn from Japan, or we can learn from our own gulf, what can happen when a weak government is captured by powerful energy industry. It's time to stand up to big corporations that pollute and defile our Mother Earth.... and put her many children at risk.
A diary just ahead of this one on the list is a companion piece.
Nuke Roulette Disaster Predicted in 2004 by Scientist
When the radioactive dust settles we need to grill those who make and oversee our nuclear policy with under oath questioning about the capture of Washington by energy companies. We have a global pattern of predicted disasters where our planet's welfare is gambled away for gold.