Before I go off on my latest, I want to remind you that there are real people in need. If you are outside of Japan, the best way you can help is by donating. There are a sizable number of credible online charities, and I suggest that you do your due diligence and give something. This is a human tragedy. Don’t just watch it on TV.
Now to what I was saying.
I don’t think any of the politicians and bureaucrats expected the North Pacific Ocean to up and slam into a mid-sized city and dozens and dozens of fishing villages. Especially not with mag 9 and a tsunami wave the size of a four story building.
But when you look at the recent crap of Japanese politics, if some avoidable disasters happen among the unavoidable ones this month, do think the gall will be topped among those who spent the last 5, 10 or 20 years playing political games with Japan’s future?
I of course am thinking about Ozawa right now. But additionally, that whole sad cast of characters in the LDP, and the religious cult party that seems to have no answers, and the screw-around minor parties like the socialists and communists.
These people have produced next to nothing in the way of solutions. Now, there is a real crisis at hand. How much of their b.s. could have been put to something other than obstructing and grandstanding, or b*tching and moaning.
Some people are already blaming Kan Naoto for problems. But that’s a little silly. He’s been ineffective, but he’s only been on the job for nine months. And right now, he has his hands full. It’s a lead-or-get-out-of-the-way moment. I don’t think he has any choice but to lead.
Everyone knows that one of those nuclear plants is going to go. The only question is how bad will it be? It is already past Three Mile Island, the crisis Pennsylvania had in 1979. Is it going to be a Chernobyl?
Chernobyl, they say, was the catalyst for wholesale reform in the Soviet Union. Once the everyday people realized that the communist system valued their lives at zero and was going to have them face any sort of horror (they don’t widely show the pictures of the deformed people from around Chernobyl), the regime of that day had lost any credibility it had left.
Beware the Ides of March. I think that the people of Japan have had it, and they aren’t going to put up with b.s. anymore. There’s probably a significant old regime of con artist “leaders” who need to get out the way.
Hoofin 