Typhoon 15 / Faxai

It would seem that finally there are a few editors that have allowed their reporters to write for publication some words that are less than kind about how some government types that I thought were supposed to be working for the people have been handling this business of Mother Nature blowing strong breaths of air over her lands. But lands where the upstart human animal decided to build something called a home.

Let us see what we have from those media people:


And I wish to do my own style of quoting here, so that we don't need that "Click to expand" thingy to get key thoughts out in the open.

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At a news conference on Tuesday, Suga said that a cross-ministerial disaster response task force comprising working-level officials held five meetings after Typhoon Faxai's landfall, stressing that there was no flaw in the Abe administration's response.

Still, questions remain over the government's reaction to the disaster. The typhoon made landfall near the city of Chiba shortly before 5 a.m. on Sept. 9. The cross-ministerial task force didn't hold its first meeting until 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 10, about 33 hours after the storm made landfall.

In comparison, when Typhoon Krosa, the 10th named storm this year, crossed the Chugoku region in western Honshu in August, the government held two meetings of relevant ministers before and after the typhoon landed.

This time, however, the government has yet to hold such a meeting.

As Abe reshuffled his Cabinet on Sept. 11, the government was preoccupied with relevant events on the day, such as an attestation ceremony for ministers of the new Cabinet and their inaugural news conferences.

The working-level task force held its second meeting on Typhoon Faxai last Thursday, a day after the Cabinet shake-up and two days after the first meeting.

Relevant ministers, including disaster management minister Ryota Takeda, visited typhoon-hit areas in Chiba on Thursday, three days after the typhoon hit.
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I don't think it is such a big surprise that Mr. Suga would state to the world that those high class government bosses did everything that the Japanese citizen should have expected them to do. No surprise there at all.

But are the Japanese people going to meekly answer:

"Okay. You are super cool government bosses and we still trust you 100%."?
 
But are the Japanese people going to meekly answer:

"Okay. You are super cool government bosses and we still trust you 100%."?
Japanese people tend to very low levels of trust toward politicians according to surveys. It's more a case of them not noticing a problem, or noticing a problem and not believing its their role to speak out or that it would be more trouble than it was worth to speak out.

I don't think there is the naive trust in what the government says that you are suggesting.
 
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Or noticing a problem, but not really feeling that "speaking out" (to who, exactly?) would have any tangible effect in actually convincing people in positions of power to answer to the average Tarou and make necessary changes/improvements to the system at the expense of the rich and powerful elites who run it.

I would argue that this phenomenon of political distrust and apathy isn't entirely limited to Japan (though of course, there are larger groups of people more vocally opposed to government in Western countries with a longer and deeper-seated tradition of political demonstration.
 
That brings forth some interesting thinking when one considers the mechanisms of (for) political demonstrations within the average civil populations of nations/cultures.

In fact, as I look at that sentence I just wrote I realize I am not even sure how to properly express that. I'd welcome any help in that direction.

But I am wondering, jt_, if you would be inclined to start a thread on that topic you have given cause for consideration? It wouldn't be proper for me to do it.

I remember many years ago when we had a very serious demonstration of disapproval of the first garbage dumping area in Hinode Town in NishiTama-gun and that went so far as to build a kind of residence on the land they wanted to use and we occupied that residence for a fair number of months and even had some court approval for a bit.

Eventually we lost, but it was a very interesting display of unity in a rather small community and against some mighty big players. One reason we lost, though, was because the media was stating we were all a bunch of rich folks just trying to protect property value because most of us did live in this rather unusual housing area that probably could be viewed as upscale. But until the media folks started on that bit of campaigning against us and for the politicians that were on the side of the deal to use that land we hadn't realized we were viewed as being upscale. It was a tad bit of an eye-opener.

I suppose I might even be able to find some media bits-and-pieces about that on the Net. It was quite a few years ago, though. As I type this I really am not sure how many years ago, but maybe 25 plus years ago.

I think that might have been the only organized bit of protest I've been involved in in Japan.

EDIT: I couldn't resist checking and I find the year was roughly 1993 or 1994 or both, and here is one small piece of somebody writing about that gomi place we had trouble with, and lost:

 
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