League of Anti-Nuclear Voters | The place for voters who fight nukes and elect politicians who do the same

Some Parents Fleeing Tokyo

Moving South To Avoid Radiation

Apparently, there's a growing trend in Japan for anxious people- especially parents- to move as far south as they can get, hoping to escape the radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Government standards for “safe” radiation exposure are based solely on external sources of radiation, but fail to consider internal sources such as drinking contaminated tap water. As a result, there's really no way for anyone to know whether or not Tokyo and other cities closer to Fukushima are actually safe in the long term.

In an attempt to get as far as possible from the scene of the disaster in order to minimize exposure to radiation through tap water and other sources, people have been moving as far south as Okinawa, where there are not enough jobs for all the newcomers. In some cases, husbands have stayed behind in Tokyo to work while wives and children have gone down to Okinawa to live. It is unclear how many people have been leaving Tokyo and moving south, but the trend is significant enough to have been covered in the Japan Times, the primary English-language newspaper in Japan.

Because the dangers of radiation are not easy to quantify, there may never be a way to say for certain whether or not moving south will make any difference. Cancer cases may increase in Tokyo and other cities in the coming years, or they may not, and cancer rates may be effected by many factors other than radiation exposure. Still, the fact that people are fleeing Tokyo represents a huge vote of no-confidence in the government's handling of the crisis.

New Earthquake In Japan

6.8

Why would people who live in an earthquake zone choose to rely on nuclear power? This common sense question should have been asked a long time ago, but the fact that it needs to be asked again now only serves to illustrate the sheer determination of nuclear industry cheerleaders to defy reality.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is still in a crisis situation. The area around it is still evacuated. And Japan just got hit by another earthquake, a 6.8, enough to make Tokyo intensely nervous.

Many of the points raised in defense of nuclear power are arguably true. If you can ignore or set aside the issue of what to do with all that radioactive waste, it's cleaner on a day to day to basis than a lot of the other options. But the consequences of an error are catastrophically more severe, making the whole thing a sort of Pascal's Wager in reverse.

In the original version of Pascal's Wager, the potential risks of not accepting Church doctrine and the potential rewards of accepting it, are held to be infinite, while the potential rewards of an atheist position are supposed to be almost nil (the only thing you would get for being right would be finding out you were right when you died, but since you'd be dead you wouldn't care), therefore one should theoretically “play it safe” and convert. In the Nuclear Wager, the potential reward of accepting nuclear power is correspondingly low, while the potential risk is so high as to make even a small risk unacceptable.

Why Keep This Promise?

Out Of All The Ones He Could Have Kept...

Nuclear regulators tell us that American nuclear plants are potentially just as vulnerable as Fukushima, and that whatever lessons there are to be learned from Fukushima have yet to be applied here. You might think this would stop us from pushing ahead with new nuclear power plants, but then you wouldn't be fully grasping the extent of the Obama administration's commitment to the nuclear industry.

President Obama promised us a number of things when he was trying to get us to hire him for his current job, but no one's completely truthful in a job interview. It's a little bit odd, though, that out of all the things he promised- closing Guantanamo, rolling back unconstitutional restrictions on our civil liberties- the only one he seems to have felt obligated to actually keep was the promise to build new nuclear plants.

On the other hand, it makes sense. He seems like a decent guy on a personal level, but he is a politician when it comes right down to it. To any politician, a promise made to an industry or a lobbyist is worth its weight in gold. A promise to the people of the United States is as light and transient as a summer breeze.

If we don't want to see our nation devastated by a nuclear accident like the one at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, we need to stop this rush to build new nuclear facilities. President Obama, you obviously don't feel obligated to take your own words all that literally. Rethink what you said about nuclear power- the situation has changed.

War With Iran?

Maybe They're Building Nukes... Maybe They're Not

So, Iran has a nuclear program and we don't want them to have it, because we can't be sure they aren't trying to build a nuclear missile. I'm going to break ranks on this one with a lot of my friends and fellow activists, who would oppose a military strike on anyone for any circumstances whatsoever.

The fact is that the primary reason for any government to exist at all is to protect its people from hostile attack by other nations or groups. Physical defense of its citizens is the most primal duty of any government. It's the reason some band of humans wandering through the Stone Age world first made some guy the war chief. Every other function of government developed after that.

So if Iran- a country not exactly known for its rational leadership- presents a serious threat, our government is not only within its rights to use force to protect us, it's obligated to do so. But I still don't support a war with Iran.

Why is that? Because our government is a sham, a pseudo-democracy designed to obscure the real sources of its power and the real masters it answers to. The reality in America is corporate rule, and that means any decision the government makes is not really going to be about protecting you and I, it's going to be about protecting and furthering corporate interests.

Is Iran really building a nuclear weapon? I don't know- and neither do you. Because our only reason for thinking they are is that the government says so. The same government that told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, a lie that cost us thousands of lives and unthinkably vast amounts of money, while lining the pockets of a few people at a few big companies.

Whatever this government says, I take it with a grain of salt. And so should you. Legitimate governments protect their people, and that includes using military force when necessary. But this is no longer a legitimate government.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone

And China Syndrome

This map shows a diagram of the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. If this doesn't fill the proponents of nuclear power with some sobering thoughts, I can't imagine what would. Nuclear power might be cleaner than some other forms of energy in terms of carbon emissions, but when it goes wrong it goes really wrong. What you get is a ghost town, like the ghost town around Chernobyl.

And possibly much worse than that. In the so-called “China syndrome,” highly radioactive material can actually melt through the containment vessel, the floor underneath it, and into the earth- no one knows how far. While the Wikipedia article on china syndrome describes it as “fictional,” the clean-up crew at Fukushima has had to keep pumping more water in because it's draining away somewhere. They can't see where it's draining because they can't get in there, but it can only either be the basement- in which case the core melted at least that far- or into the ground, in which case the china syndrome is clearly not just fictional.

Modern society uses unbelievably vast amounts of power, a situation that just can't be sustained forever. In our hunger for that power, we are willing to do any number of reckless things- but using nuclear power may be among the most reckless. Since moderating our power usage does not seem to be among our capabilities, seeking alternative forms that are less destructive and dangerous is the only responsible option we have.

Unhappy To Be Right

More Trouble At San Onofre

The thing about being a political blogger is that you just naturally tend to rant a little, since the whole procedure doesn't really have anything to do with “objective journalism” in the first place. You're certainly obligated to do your best to get your facts right, but you aren't at all obligated to pretend you're neutral. You can feel free to interpret the story any way you personally see fit- that's the nature of an opinion piece.

That's why it's so depressing to be proved right, when you would have been happier to be proved wrong. When your suspicion and paranoia turn out to be sadly on-target, it's not really an “I told you so” moment. It's more like “Oh no, not again.”

In a recent blog, I commented on the problems at the San Onofre nuclear facility and my lack of trust in official pronouncements from any representative of the nuclear industry. Industry pronouncements about the scale, severity and even the duration of nuclear accidents have been conspicuous for their lack of accuracy ever since the earliest days of the nuclear industry.

So when San Onofre announced a minor incident that “might have” resulted in an insignificant leak of a totally non-dangerous amount of radiation, I didn't exactly give them the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, it's starting to look like my suspicions were justified. They're still trying to find the source of the leak, and the scale of the accident now seems to have been more serious than what was initially reported.

What a surprise. I wish I could say that without sarcasm, but I just can't. For the nuclear industry, this is business as usual.

New Reactors Approved

Lessons Of Fukushima Disregarded

Thanks to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, America will soon start building more nuclear reactors, despite the obvious wake-up call of Fukushima Daiichi. In fact, when Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko tried to attach new safety conditions to the regulatory approval in an attempt to avoid a disaster like Fukushima from happening on American soil, he was voted down by his fellow regulators.

That's assuming that “regulators” is really the right word, which is not so clear. Since when has the Nuclear Regulatory Condition ever done anything other than to give the industry what it wanted, when it wanted it? Like a lot of other regulatory agencies, you could make the case that it's really just the rubberstamping arm of the industry itself, existing only to give a veneer of legitimacy to a process whose outcome has always been predetermined.

And so it goes on, and on- a corporation wants something, and a corporation gets it, regardless of the effect on the environment, the economy, the general state of the world, or any other factor. And even the thin protection such regulatory agencies provide for us is under constant attack, by people who see the slightest intrusion on corporate prerogatives to be an intolerable oppression.

I realize that there are arguments in favor of nuclear power, but I think those arguments lost a lot of force after what happened at Fukushima. An entire region has become a wasteland, and the disaster there still isn't under control. Why isn't this a factor in our collective decision-making?

San Onofre

What Should We Believe?

So, the San Onofre nuclear plant in San Diego, California had to be shut down due to a “minor incident' in which “barely measurable” amounts of radiation might just possibly have been leaked. That's the story they're putting out, and if the nuclear industry or its regulators had a history of making honest statements, there would truly be little cause for concern.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. The history of nuclear energy is one of lies, omissions and under-reporting of accidents. That means there are two possibilities in this incident. One is that this report, unlike so many previous reports, is honest and accurate. The other is that they already know that radiation was leaked, and that it wasn't as small an amount as they would like us to believe.

We'll probably never know either way, but there's a larger question. Why do we continue to pretend that this industry can be trusted, while the Fukushima nuclear meltdown continues? Why do we continue to tolerate an industry that has never made a priority of telling the truth? Why do we keep building more nuclear plants, when the consequences of a major accident are as dire as what is happening right now in Japan?

Supporters of nuclear power point out that accidents are relatively rare compared to other forms of energy. They point out that nuclear power is inexpensive by comparison with some of our other options. They point out that nuclear energy does not contribute to global warming. These things are true, but they miss the point. When an industry determined to protect its profits has to deal with facts that could reduce those profits, it generally chooses to ignore those facts. With most other forms of energy, that's bad enough- but with nuclear energy, it can be catastrophic.

Anti-Nuclear Panda Bear

The Wonder of Japan

Japan is possibly the most unique culture on the planet, if such a thing can be quantified. So it's only natural that Occupy Tokyo should be the most unique Occupation. Just have a look at the huge, cutesy Hello Kittyish panda bear mask on this Japanese Occupier. I am pretty sure you wouldn't see that on Wall Street.

The core message of Occupy Tokyo is the same as that of all the other Occupations- the huge disparity between the wealth and power of the one percent and the ninety-nine. The application of that message is different because of the terrible nuclear disaster at Fukushima, the result of corporate incompetence and malfeasance along with regulatory corruption.

That's the reason for the anti-nuclear signs you can see in these other pictures from Occupy Tokyo. When the safety of nuclear power depends on corporate honesty, there is no safety in nuclear power. Corporations have no conscience, because they are not human beings in the first place.

The protesters at Occupy Tokyo understand that. Real human beings everywhere understand that. Why don't politicians and supreme court justices? The answer to that question is not that there has been some bizarre failure of common sense. The answer is in self-interest.

When it benefits a lawmaker or a bureaucrat to believe the self-serving lies of the nuclear industry or any other industry rather than the troublesome facts, you can expect them to disregard the facts and embrace the lies. The wasteland that was once Fukushima is only the most dramatic recent example of the consequences.

Anti-Nuclear Protest In Japan

Protesters Disrupt Rubber-Stamp Meeting

Occupy Tokyo or some other allied branch of the Japanese anti-nuclear movement just managed to delay a meeting to rubber-stamp the insane plan to re-start some of the nuclear reactors while the Fukushima meltdown is still in process. This meeting was supposed to be between government officials and a so-called watchdog group, but in reality it was only intended to provide a gloss of legitimacy over a decision that had already been predetermined.

The Japanese anti-nuclear movement wasn't going to take that lying down, and they demonstrated their firm resolve by interrupting the intended meeting, disrupting it and successfully delaying it. They weren't able to stop it in the end, but they did everything they could.

That's the whole essence of direct action- you don't go to the government and ask it to solve your problems, because the government has no interest in doing so. Their interest is solely in protecting the status quo, and if you acknowledge their authority to adjudicate your concerns, you give up whatever power you might have possessed in that equation. Direct action is another way. You set out to fix your problems yourself, without asking anybody for anything. You demonstrate that your voice cannot be ignored, that you must be heard. If you can win a place at the negotiating table by such means, you'll be able to sit down to discuss the issues as an equal, not a supplicant. I don't know which one you would rather be, but I know which one I would.

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