Two noteworthy events have headlined the recent news:
1. Negotiators representing
some 168 nations (of the 192 nations represented at the UN) got together
and crafted a
nuclear weapons ban treaty, the first time in over 70 years there has been
a successful effort to avert nuclear war—this at a time when international
tensions have never been higher. Formally known as the Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, it was adopted July 6, 2017 at the final
session of the conference. Big Brother’s presence was predictably absent.
2. The two houses of the Japanese Diet, where a two-thirds
majority of PM Abe’s conservative party rules, enacted a conspiracy law, with
the very
real potential of criminalizing protest, according to the Tokyo Bar Association
and the UN rapporteur for human rights.
The first event appears to have international implications
(although without the participation of the Nuclear Nine), the second appears to
apply only to a small island nation, but that perception misses recognizing the
global dimensions of the recent Japanese phenomenon and how the two might be
related. About the new law, Koichi
Nakano, professor of political science at Tokyo’s Sophia University said: [It] shows both [PM Abe’s] arrogance and his weakness….We’re seeing the
personalization of power, and it’s not all that different from what we see in the Trump
administration.”
First some comic relief (Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado comes to mind): originally
criminalizing over 650 acts, after some negotiation, the Diet knocked down the number
of offenses to a mere 277. The bill was rushed through the Diet with only some
16 hours allocated for debate. Why? A phenomenon called “look at the birdie,”
namely the dreary ploy in vogue by all political criminals to distract: Japanese
PM Abe faces two scandal probes. And the law was snuck in in advance
of Tokyo municipal elections to be held in July.
Officially, the Japanese government needs to pass the bill
in order for Japan to become signatory to the UN convention against Transnational
Organized Crime, adopted by UN member states in 2000, which targets human
trafficking, narcotics trading and money laundering, Which
is why the new law criminalizes:
- Sit-in protests against the construction of apartment buildings (Berkeley, take note!)
- Racing motorboats without a license
- Mushroom gathering in protected forests
Although ostensibly the new law purports to target terrorism
and to avert terrorist attack, it may be useful to note that last year crime
statistics for Japan listed one
fatal shooting, and that the last terrorist act occurred in 1995 with the sarin
gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo, a shadowy Japanese cult, in the Tokyo
subway.
But the unofficial government rationale is that the government of Japan needs to be safe from protest.
But the unofficial government rationale is that the government of Japan needs to be safe from protest.
To “Serve and Protect:”
Do the cops need more power?
World over, fear is universal and profitable. Fear afflicts
global populations as political figures sabre rattle for fun and profit: they
are the living, real time mouth pieces for the international weapons trade
(someones are getting awfully, awfully rich on a steady diet of M & Ms:
maimings, mayhem, and murder). Fear-mongering pervades the government-managed
media as it happily amplifies the message of the living, real time mouth pieces.
Fear is useful. Surveillance legislation, sugar-pilled by
intriguing acronyms (P.A.T.R.I.O.T., for example) crops up, not just in Japan,
or the Unied States but as a global phenomenon. Effectively managed, fear works
to persuade the world’s populations to go along with sacrificing their freedom
and privacy. Maybe not entirely willingly (39% of Japan’s population approves
of the new Conspiracy Bill vs. 41% opposed).
Qui Bono
In the case of the Japanese conspiracy legislation, besides
affording PM Abe a comfortable smoke screen obscuring his own misdemeanors, the
act is now in place to dissent especially now that PM Abe
•wants to
restart Japan’s nuclear reactors in one of
the world’s most seismically active
regions,
•plans to
host the Olympic games slated for 2020—in areas some of them still heavily contaminated by nuclear
fallout, notably in Miyagi and Shizuoka Prefectures.
•intends to
convince some 154,000 souls originally evacuated from areas contaminated by Fukushima’s nuclear fallout
that the area is now, magically and
suddenly perfectly safe for them to
return there. And to insure their willingness
to return, the Japanese government is terminating their living subsidies.
(The above link will lead readers to a propaganda video describing how Japan has now overcome nuclear contamination and made Fukushima's coastline "safe" for displaced persons who are now being forced to return to their contaminated villages.)
At the same time, the law criminalizes any possible
conspiracy such as
collusion by Japanese entities with foreign Olympic teams or
other entities, which might express a certain reluctance about scheduling athletes
to compete in contaminated areas,
inhaling nuclear particulates as they run, jump, and row.
Twin Janus Face
Dr. John
Gofman, the anti-nuclear world’s late messenger, wrote that if we espouse
nuclear energy we agree that someone will have to die. (He did not include
athletes.) He was referring to injury and death associated among others, with
the people living in the area close to nuclear plants, and to worker injuries
inevitable in a criminally risky industry (vide the recent tunnel collapses at Hanford (nuclear) Generation
Station, and the injury of dozens of workers at the recent WIPP nuclear waste
storage facility in Carlsbad, not to mention the death-by-cancer statistics of
Navajo (Diné) miners working the uranium seams in New Mexico). Nuclear
infrastructure will also have to be
maintained under conditions of secrecy.
But the rationale for nuclear plants is to develop weapons
grade plutonium for atomic bombs, without which they cease being profitable. John
Gofman was referring as well to the magnitude of death statistics from
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the little recognized Port Chicago (now renamed
Concord Weapons Depot) disaster of 1944 which pulverized four loading area
blocks and incinerated all the black seamen loading ordnance there.
 |
| Port Chicago multiple-block explosion - 1944 |
Obedience Behind
closed doors
The connections between secrecy on the one hand, and
conformity on the other are fairly obvious. Japan needs to insure both, especially
now that, as a matter of course, the
world seems to have accepted Abe’s brash offer to hold the Olympics both in
Tokyo (areas of which were contaminated by fallout of hot particles) and some
of the games nearer to the disaster’s epicenter, in a PR stunt related to
whitewashing the dire and permanent consequences of the Fukushima catastrophe.
With the passage of the States Secrets Act in 2015, and now
the Conspiracy Act of 2017, Japan has tied a Gordian knot, guaranteeing both.
Sign
the Petition agreeing that Trump cannot act unilaterally with respect to
North Korea
A Few Roses Amidst This Week’s Thorns
Aside from the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons, adopted July 6, 2017 at the final session of the conference,
In response to Trump’s abdicating the commander-in-chiefdom
to the Pentagon, the House
Appropriations Committee approved an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee to revoke
the congressional war authorization of 6 years ago.
In the face of illegal and expanded Israeli settlements on
Palestinian territory, UK
Court ruling allows council’s pension plan to boycott Israel.
Guantanamo’s child prisoner, its most abused detainee, Omar
Khadr, may his soul be blessed, and 15 at the time of his detention, to receive
an apology and at least $10 million from the government—of the US? in a
pig’s eye.: Canada.
As of this week, 44
states have either partially or completely rejected compliance with
Trumpocracy’s voter fraud commission headed by Kris Kobach.
Directly in the path of the proposed pipeline. Nuns of the order of the Adorers
of the Blood of Christ build chapel to thwart Pennsylvania Adorers of the
Blood of Corporations pipeline.
In India’s Madhya Pradesh 1.5
volunteers plant 66 million trees in just 12 hours.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day (and that is sometimes good news):Trump nominated Dr. Jerome M. Adams, the health commissioner for Indiana and a strong advocate of needle exchanges to avoid the spread of disease, to be the surgeon general of the United States.
Trump is expected to tap Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald as the new director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to two administration sources. She was the face of the Deal administration’s effort to combat the spread of the Zika and Ebola viruses, and helped reduce wait times for a program that provides life-saving medications to thousands of uninsured Georgians with HIV or AIDS.
Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, a Pine
Ridge Reservation project, is developing
a regenerative community over 34
acres, building homes, creating jobs, and producing its own energy, clean
water, and food.
U.S.
court throws out Feds’ policy limiting prosecution of killers of endangered
wildlife.
Regulators
in the state of Mississippi end a coal plant project, converting it into a
gas plant and refusing to pass the all the $7.5 billion construction costs
along to consumers.
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