3/11 Tsunami and nuclear incident counter-official views

Does anyone in Japan have any familiarity with any (I hate to use this term but) conspiracy theories surrounding the incident? What is circulating in Japan besides the official account?

Albatrosspro said:

Does anyone in Japan have any familiarity with any (I hate to use this term but) conspiracy theories surrounding the incident? What is circulating in Japan besides the official account?

Click to expand...

We don't have 3/11 Truthers who think it was an inside job, if that's what you're getting at.

Albatrosspro said:

Does anyone in Japan have any familiarity with any (I hate to use this term but) conspiracy theories surrounding the incident? What is circulating in Japan besides the official account?

Click to expand...

What exactly is the official account though?

For example, I am not sure if the official account is that the nuclear disaster was part of the natural disaster or not, but it was obviously a man-made disaster. Saying otherwise would be like having your house collapse because of structural damage caused by rain. And all this time rain has been trickling through holes in the roof that were there since the house was constructed.

Tepco selectively ignored data on historical tsunami heights and built protective barriers too low. Back up diesel generators were placed underground in facilities that were close to sea level and not water-tight. Tsunami hit Japan's east coast. This is known. Tepco cut corners. But no one is going to jail.

Also there are issues such as cancers and other health problems. Since nothing can be tied directly to the nuclear disaster, those blaming the disaster may well be labeled conspiracy theorists. But you cannot directly tie all those sick Russian kids to Chernobyl either. Radioactive particles and heavy metals don't come with license plates and dash cams. You can't prove which one caused a cancer or other health problem. Detecting them in living patients can be difficult or impossible. Same with proving exactly where they came from. Was it the meldown? Or was is some unscrupulous contractor who did not dispose of the stuff properly before the disaster?

And the way some people go on about conspiracy theories pretty much means EVERYTHING is a conspiracy theory. There are ways to deny and obfuscate pretty much anything. A little study of the history of religion will show that the religious are masters of the technique of denying the obvious.

Mark of Zorro said:

And the way some people go on about conspiracy theories pretty much means EVERYTHING is a conspiracy theory. There are ways to deny and obfuscate pretty much anything. A little study of the history of religion will show that the religious are masters of the technique of denying the obvious.

Click to expand...

Interesting... based on your phrasing I'm not sure if you are critical of those who are called conspiracy theorists or those supposedly doing the conspiring. I guess both would call the other deniers and obfuscaters.

As a side-note, the term conspiracy theory in the US really took off in the postwar news cycle, especially after the JFK assassination. Before that, the word conspiracy really had a different meaning... but I digress. I only ask the question because some commentators whom I trust and believe to be right on some other topics, give causes for the disaster that are well outside any of the points you raised above. There is no point mentioning them now, since I haven't looked very far into this and it would just count as hearsay.

Maybe a more general question is this: do you guys know if there is a large so-called alternative media community in Japan? In the US, the number of mostly independent reporters and researchers, particularly online, has been growing quickly and many now have audiences larger than cable news shows. I know that some countries in Western Europe and Russia, not to say China, have loud dissenting voices that clash very much with the perspective you get somewhere like CNN (not implying that all these are reliable). I am curious how things lie over there.

Albatrosspro said:

do you guys know if there is a large so-called alternative media community in Japan?

Click to expand...

Yes, it is called "2-chan", and it is full of loud, dissenting, clashing voices.

Majestic said:

Yes, it is called "2-chan", and it is full of loud, dissenting, clashing voices.

Click to expand...

Lol, okay. I had something in mind a little more researched and professional. But that is a fair example

I see that a mod moved my post to a new thread with "conspiracy" in the title. I do not object to this and I can only imagine that someone with lots of experience on this forum would know how best to organize things. I just wanted to apologize if I caused any discomfort by my question; it's difficult for someone so far away to know about the internal state of Japanese news and information, and really the only way I knew to find out was to ask. Thanks guys.

Albatrosspro said:

I do not object to this

Click to expand...

I do. Its a biased and heavy handed move.

Albatrosspro said:

Interesting... based on your phrasing I'm not sure if you are critical of those who are called conspiracy theorists or those supposedly doing the conspiring.

Click to expand...

Neither side is devoid of evil or insanity. Pretending its only one side is an ignorant attitude that really gets under my skin. Same with attributing one a few evil or nutty people's opinions to the entire side of an argument.

I do not believe that all accounts that go against the official account are true. How could they be? But I would have to be a complete fool to think the government is even 60 percent honest with us.

Obviously, the truth is going to be somewhere in the middle, jealously guarded by a handful of insiders, and figured out only by a handful of intelligent, knowledgeable and dedicated outside observers. Everybody else, for one reason or another, is going to spout a bunch of garbage.

For one such person who is an intelligent, knowledgeable and dedicated observer, there was a commenter on Japan Today named Zichi, but he has not posted for months. If you want some very probable information that contradicts the official story, I suggest researching his posting history. If Zichi has a fault, its his age. Its been showing for a while. Still I trust him more than others, especially one named Heda Madness, madness being a good word to use in her user name. She is out to bamboozle us all and she is very good at it.

And I will tell you clear: If I had my way, a lot of government and TEPCO officials would have been in jail serving life sentences by now, in special prisons built near the ruined plants, their assets funneled into foundations that relocate people out of contaminated areas.

For those who doubt the official story, that is not proof they are conspiracy theorists. Its proof they have a lick of sense and a semi-functioning memory.

Mark of Zorro said:

Neither side is devoid of evil or insanity. Pretending its only one side is an ignorant attitude that really gets under my skin. Same with attributing one a few evil or nutty people's opinions to the entire side of an argument.

Click to expand...

That is true. In my opinion the whole idea of "sides" in politics has become a big distraction to keep people off the trail... but that's another story.

I will look for some of those posts you mentioned. I just spilled water all over my laptop this morning so I'm still in crisis management mode.

Also, just to give a quick example of the kind of alternative media positions that you really don't see in the US mainstream: the territorial disputes between China and Japan (and a few other Asian nations for that matter). In the US news, everything you see and read will pit this as an internal Asian conflict that affects the US only in a secondary sense. Of course, this is ridiculous. Few Americans have any idea of the history of post-WWII developments or the Japanese Constitution, or what the US has in Okinawa (and Germany, and Turkey, and Ukraine...) These military tensions are as much US vs. China as Japan vs. China, and so a whole different set of motivations are in play. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but it's something Japan-related so I thought maybe it would illustrate the misleading if not inaccurate nature of mainstream media accounts.

I didn't move it, but if you want a different title I can do that. (I guess whoever moved it just looked at the first post).

IWJ is one news source you can look at (some parts in English). There is some student activism around some of these issues (a dorm at Kyoto University got raided a little while back).

nekojita said:

I didn't move it, but if you want a different title I can do that.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for stepping up to the plate Nekojita.

I suggest: 3/11 Tsunami and Nuclear Incident Counter-official Views?

But its up to the OP. I am not really sure if its the tsunami and tsunami clean up aspects he is concerned with, the nuclear incident aspects, or both. In fact, all I am clear about is that he is interested in news running counter to government reports and claims.

That title is fine. I'm interested in all of the above. (More knowledge is better.)