Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Fukushima Dai'ichi - The Greater Truth Or The Big Lie?

As one with a deep and considered faith that former prime minister Kan Naoto led this blessed land through its darkest days of the postwar era with a proper mix of grit, effort and screaming at idiots and liars, Thurday promises to be a very important day:

THE NATIONAL DIET OF JAPAN FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION COMMISSION

TO RELEASE REPORT ON FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT


On July 5, Chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa of The National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) will deliver its final report to Mr. Takahiro Yokomichi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Kenji Hirata, President of the House of Councillors

The long-awaited report comes at the end of a six-month investigation into the nuclear accident of March 11, 2011

The Commission, the first of its kind in the history of Japan’s constitutional government, received its mandate from the National Diet to investigate the causes of the accident, the causes of the subsequent damage and the effectiveness of the emergency response.

The Commission was also charged with investigating Japan’s nuclear policies and regulations and to offer recommendations to prevent a similar occurrence.

The Commission held over 900 hours of hearings and interviews with over 1100 people. It was able to use the powers of the legislative body to obtain necessary documents and evidence

The Commission acted on behalf of the Japanese people—independent from any elected member of either House of the Diet, from the restrictions of the government bureaucracy, and from the financial influence of the nuclear power lobby

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

July 5, 2012

Date and Time: July 5, 2012, Thursday, 11:00 start

Venue:

Conference Hall (1F) in the House of Councillors Members Office Building
Address: 2-1-1, Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

-11:00-11:10am

Final Commission Meeting confirming the Report (to be broadcasted online with simultaneous English interpretation

Conference Hall (1st floor) House of Councillors Members’ Office Bldg

Open to the public and the press. Attendees must preregister—registration information is available online

-19:00
Press Conference (to be broadcasted online with simultaneous English interpretation

A presentation by the Chairman and all Members of the Commission will be followed by a Q&A session

Conference Hall (1st floor) House of Councillors Members’ Office Bldg

Open to the press only. Attendees must preregister—registration information is available online.

* An English edition of the Executive Summary will be available in a print version and on the website; an English translation of the entire report will be available for downloading at a later date. Past hearings (including those of former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and current METI minister Yukio Edano) and commission meetings can also be viewed in English on our website.
(Source)

A lot of folks, namely the Liberal Democratic Party, the nuclear village and the mass media outlets that reprinted, uncritically, the slanders of their sources inside Tokyo Electric Power and the national bureaucracy, have a lot riding on the report's railroading Kan, the then Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio, other members of the Kan Cabinet and the Democratic Party of Japan's political appointees in government. The committee's lead investigator, corporate mischief maker Nomura Shuya, gave a mendacious and manipulative presentation of what might be the commission's findings on June 9 -- a performance that earned Nomura a veiled rebuke from Dr. Kurokawa in the written review of the meeting.

Dr. Kurokawa will be presenting the findings of his commission in a presumably less fraught environment at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) on Monday, July 9, from from 16:40 to 18:10. Registration for this presentation closes on Friday, July 6. (Link - J)

It is possible that the news media entertainment complex of this blessed land will present the finding of the Comission in a comprehensive, fair and self-critical manner.

Possible, but not likely.

2 comments:

Balefire said...

Very, very unlikely, I'd day.

I share your opinion of Kan, and, it seems, of the media.

One can always hope.

Anonymous said...

"As it turns out, the brain is a decent scientist but an absolutely *outstanding* lawyer." Leonard Mlodinow, Subliminal, p201Neuroscience suggests that from a committee of lawyers you can pretty much guarantee that only Big Lies will be forthcoming. Were there any cognitive psychologists on the Kurokawa Commission? I will go and investigate that for my own interest but I have an inkling of the answer.