Japan: Doctors without Borders working with psychologists in wake of tragedy

AD, you know I appreciate you like a duck with a hot-foot appreciates a pond. I always vote up the topics you start (that I find) even if don't agree with all or part of your take on it...because I know you don't just throw up crap journalism to support an opinion of yours.

But I hope you understand that we will probably passionately disagree on this issue, and that is just how it is going to be. I hope we can still be posting comrades despite our frazzled differences of opinions on this issue.

I think I understand why you, and other residents/citizens of Japan, would be sensitive to criticism of the way Fukushima is being handled. The finer points of politics must seem pretty damned frivolous when there are still so many of Japan's people living in shelters, and others who are closer to a pure-existence level than I ever hope to be.

But, goddamit AD---Japan is not the only country on this earth, and I'll say it because it is what I see---the avarice and greed of at least one of Japan's corporations--TEPCO-- (AND one American corporation--GE, but to a lesser extent--) may be a tipping occurrence that shifts the planet into a spiral into collapse of whole ecosystems.

America is certainly not innocent when it comes to high-handedly being anything-BUT-transparent in the face of an ecological disaster (BP), and we will probably not know for decades, perhaps centuries, the results of the BP-fallatiating way our government allowed that disaster to be handled.

However, the risks and potential planet damage appears to be ever-so-much-more with the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima, and I have no doubt the TEPCO-felatiating way that Japan has allowed TEPCO to handle the disaster has probably worsened the outcome at least as much as the U.S.'s handling of BP probably worsened the outcome.

Therefore, Japan and TEPCO's lack of anything close to transparency about an ecological disaster that has the potential to do so much harm, is just that much more arrogant, odious, dangerous, and perhaps fatal than U.S.'s arrogant, odious and dangerous lack of transparency about the BP disaster was.

This is what I don't get about your reaction, and the reaction of SOME others who are living in Japan...

How can you be so blindly loyal--to the point of angrily turning against others who are criticizing the clusterfuck in Fukushima--to Japan and TEPCO?

It's the equivalent of rightwingers in the U.S. blindly standing up for Bush/Cheney's Iraq/Afghanistan clusterfuck, including the lies that got us into it and the $TRILLIONS of our country's resources wasted on the Bush/Cheney Altar of Avarice and Greed.

My direct-lineage ancestors include a founding father and two Presidents of the United States. I was raised on politics and political volunteering/activism. I don't think I can explain how much I love our country. For my family, it is a very personal thing, because, in our minds, our ancestors and our country are intertwined.

But, at least in my own immediate family, we have NEVER been one to not stand up and say something is wrong when it is wrong, even if it is our own country, even if it is a president we voted and volunteered for.

If you truly love your country, then to remain silent, or to remain supportive, in the face of something like what is happening in Fukushima---IMO, you aren't doing what is best for your country (or MY country, or the world).

I (and, IMO, most people) certainly don't lump together the Japan citizenry with TEPCO and Japan's government. I like to believe that the vast majority of Japan's citizens were not part of the Japan's governmental and corporate structure that supported TEPCO's plant design (the specifications of which were contracted out to GE, which, sonofabitch, MADE the designs for the plant, knowing they had major and perhaps fatal deficiencies.

I don't think most of us outside of Japan blame Japan's citizens--who played no role in the governmental and corporate structure that set up Fukushima for sustaining critical damage from natural disasters--for the horrifying lack of transparency about what is going on in Fukushima.

But if Japan's citizenry aids and abets the lack of transparency and coverup of the conditions that led to what may be a planetary ecological disaster thanks to the avarice and greed of at least part of Japan's governmental and corporate structure....then Japan's citizenry will carry part of the blame for that lack of transparency and coverup.

It is quite possible for me to say "I love the United States of America, and, holy toledo, did we every fuck up the BP oil disaster, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., etc, etc., or what?

Over and out.

No, it isn't rude to question, but to question in a demeaning tone is. And from what I have read in threads on this topic I'm not the only you do it to. On edit: I do understand how you feel, but try to understand many others care as well. And yes, I did mean the American media, and FYI Doctors Without Borders travels all over the world and does wonderful work. I am sure the people of Japan will appreciate any help they can give them.