Social Scientific Intervention in Libya

The Harvard University political scientist Stephen M. Walt laments the fact that in the heated debates over the latest American led war and attempts at “regime change” in Libya nobody has bothered to consult what “social science” has to tell us about the probable results of such interventions. Predictably he cites zillions of empirical studies aided as he points out by ever more "sophisticated research design" to conclude that “these various scholarly studies suggest that the probability that our intervention will yield a stable democracy is low, and that our decision to intervene has increased the likelihood of civil war.” In making this claim, he neatly demonstrates the real limits of certain varieties of social science. Where one might ask, did he obtain his presumably rock solid empirical data to to claim that the real intention of this intervention is indeed to facilitate a “stable democracy” in Libya? Even while intending to be skeptical of the dominant worldview orchestrated by the official pronouncements, he falls for it, with the proverbial hook, line and sinker.

The non-debate over whether or not armed intervention will or will not magically create instant democracy continues to resurface with uncanny predictability. Such simulated debates ensure that nobody gets the "picture" by shifting attention, possibly unintentionally, to the "frame". Such steering away of any discussion of the picture to the frame, if successful, constitutes a very effective way of exercising power - an insight from the great Canadian/American sociologist Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis: The Organization of Human Experience, 1974.

C. Wright Mills on the facts of power and the ways of powerful

"The view that all is blind drift is largely a fatalist projection of one's own feeling of impotence…The view that all of history is due to the conspiracy of an easily located set of villains, or of heroes, is also a hurried projection from the difficult effort to understand how shifts in the structure of society open opportunities to various elites and how various elites take advantage or fail to take advantage of them. To accept either view--of all history as conspiracy or of all history as drift--is to relax the effort to understand the facts of power and the ways of the powerful“ C. Wright Mills

Japan's Nuclear Boy

The Japanese nuclear boy

Tokyo Governor Ishihara, the tsunami and "Divine Punishment"

For many years, the Governor of Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro has been railing against the Koreans and Chinese in Japan. Criticisms of his rants have been muted. Indeed when he recently announced that he may not run for a fourth term, most Tokyo residents were disappointed and urged him to reconsider. Now, one of the most egoistic Japanese politician claims that the devastating tsunami was divine retribution meted out to the Japanese people for apparently being too “egoistic”.

He said the tsunami was needed “to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time.”
“I think [the disaster] is tembatsu (divine punishment), although I feel sorry for disaster victims,” he said.

Not to be outdone, the Rev. David Yonggi Cho, the Korean senior pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church – the world’s largest church – pointed out that recent Japanese quake and tsunami arew without a doubt, “God’s warning” – apparently because, in his view, “the Japanese people shun God in terms of their faith and follow idol worship, atheism, and materialism, it makes me wonder if this was not God’s warning to them.”

Needless to add, Glenn Beck could hardly be expected to stay out of this muscular one-upmanship! He (surprise, surprise!) claimed that the earthquake could be a "message from God". Posing as the intellectual he craves to be, he injected the mandatory nuance by pointing out: "I'm not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes," but added: "I'm not not saying that either."

Yes, there is indeed the danger of propagating manipulative yet unadulterated crap while criticizing it, yet…

The politician and the pastor were blasted by their fellow citizens. Presumably Glenn Beck was cheered on by his supporters drunk on tea. Quite unexpectedly, possibly for the first time in history, Tokyo Governor Ishihara, offered his "deep" apologies for his comments. He has of course never apologized for his verging-on- -the-racist rants against the Chinese, Koreans and other “foreigners”. They don't have a vote.

"Secular" commentators were not faring any better. According to the CNBC host Larry Kudlow:

"The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that," Kudlow said, quickly adding: "The human toll is a tragedy; we know that. But these markets, all these markets - stocks, commodities, oil, gold - there is no major breakout or breakdown."

Naturally, he later apologized on Twitter: "I did not mean to say human toll in Japan less important than economic toll. Talking about markets. I flubbed the line. Sincere apology."

Nuclear Radiation detected in Tokyo and Saitama

Earlier today, there were reports of radiation spreading to Yokosuka city, south of Tokyo. Now there are reports of radiation in Tokyo and Saitama too. According to the Governor of Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro : "I received a report this morning that there was an important change of data," Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said at a news conference. "I heard that it will not immediately cause health problems." He did not elaborate on whether he had heard anything or received any reports about long term health problems…radiation in Tokyo

Capitalizing on Nuclear Disaster in Japan

The radioactive dust will take a while to settle in Japan. While most people are still struggling to come to terms with the tragic disaster that continues to unfold global investors have begun eyeing and buying up stocks of Japanese companies that have declined in value.

"We're looking to spend more in Japan," Alex Motola, co-manager of the Thornburg International Growth Fund, said on Tuesday. "You can't easily set aside the human element in a tragedy like this but as an investor you've got to find the best place for your capital...Motola said he's buying beaten-up shares of some Japanese technology companies with strong sales outside of Japan. He declined to name them" here

Fukushima, Nuclear Catastrophe and the Precautionary Principle

The "precautionary principle" or the better safe than sorry approach cannot obviously be applied to all technological innovations - the divining of the relative costs and benefits of any technology cannot never be an unambiguous affair. Then there is always the issue of costs and benefits for whom?

However, when it comes to nuclear energy, nothing is better than the better be safe than sorry maxim. But just because the problems with some technologies are transparently self-evident, will not in and of itself put a damper on the absurd talk of nuclear reactors being the alleged solution, via something called "clean energy", for global warming. Over the past few years or so, the nuclear energy industry has been been using the climate change issue to peddle its deadly wares. While the proverbial "wake-up calls" might put many to sleep, the unfolding tragedy at the Fukushima reactors exemplify the inherent risks of nuclear energy. The tragic effects of the quake and the tsunami are now compounded by the radiation spewing from the reactors.

Meanwhile, as AP reports, radiation has been detected as far Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. American service personnel posted at the bases in Yokosuka and Atsuki have been advised to stay indoors for the time being:

"WASHINGTON – More U.S. military crews were exposed to radiation Tuesday as the Pentagon ramped up relief flights over a Japan reeling from an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.

The Defense Department said the Navy started giving anti-radiation pills to some of those exposed, and Americans on two military bases south of Tokyo were advised to stay indoors as much as possible. Meanwhile, U.S. aviation and energy officials also worked with Japanese counterparts on the nuclear developments.

With more aid for victims on the way, the U.S. Navy said it was redirecting three ships to work in the Sea of Japan on the country's west coast rather than risk the hazards of radiation and the debris field in the waters off the east coast.

Sensitive air monitoring equipment on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington detected low levels of radioactivity from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant as the carrier sat pier-side at Yokosuka, Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. 7th Fleet, said Tuesday.

While he said there was no danger to the public, the commander recommended military personnel and their families at Yokosuka and Naval Air Facility Atsugi limit their outdoor activities and seal ventilation systems at their homes as much as possible."

Yokosuka

Nuclear Nightmares in Japan and Beyond

In the wake of the partial (so far as we know) meltdown at three nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, there is talk in the media, of a resurgence of alleged “debate” over nuclear energy. Predictably, slick supporters of the nuclear industry have already started pointing out that Japan represents an unusual case – one of the most intense quakes in world history and tsunamis. Some such supporters are even attempting to turn this growing tragedy into an advantage by claiming that despite the intensity of the quakes and tsunamis, the very fact that there is no immediate total meltdown yet, should be taken as confirmation of the overall safety of nuclear reactors in general. They also point out that the Fukushima reactors are over forty years old - presumably the the designs of the new reactors render them destruction proof.

However, the fact remains that even under conditions of “normal” operations, nuclear reactors represent unmitigated risk. Indeed, as long as the issue of the safe disposal of nuclear waste is resolved – and it is hard to see how this issue could ever be addressed – any nuclear reactor, whether functioning normally or malfunctioning, is literally a proverbial dead end. Conventional wisdom would have it that in Japan there is a consensus among the citizens over the “value” of nuclear reactors. Not so. There are many grass-roots organizations that have over the years contested – without much success of course – the proliferation of nuclear reactors in Japan. One of the more prominent anti-nuclear organizations is the Citizens Nuclear Information Centre (http://www.cnic.jp/english/) based in Tokyo. Just last January, five activists went on a hunger strike to protest the building of a new nuclear reactor – the Kaminoseki Power Plant in Yamguchi prefecture http://www.panorientnews.com/en/news.php?k=716 There are more than 55 active nuclear power plants in Japan and many more facilities that help in the processing of nuclear material for the plants. It is one of those ironies of history that after the two atomic bombs that devastated Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the country is yet again affected by the same technology.

Meanwhile, according to some of the live blogs/tweets on the BBC website (14th March, 2011):

• 2001: A senior nuclear industry executive has told the New York Times that Japanese nuclear power industry managers are "basically in a full-scale panic". The executive is not involved in managing the response to the reactors' difficulties but has many contacts in Japan. "They're in total disarray, they don't know what to do," the executive added.

1844: Mikan in Tokyo writes: "There is a growing sense that the Japanese government is not telling us the true story. On one end, there is the Japanese media that plays down the nuclear drama and focuses on human drama, and at the other, the foreign media is up-playing the nuclear disaster. In my company I heard at least half the essential staff is being sent to Hong Kong, Singapore or even Sydney. I am preparing to leave Tokyo and/or Japan. So are many of my friends. There is a sense of deserting Tokyo as soon as possible.

• 2022: A Russian diplomatic source has told the Interfax news agency that Moscow is "awaiting trustworthy information regarding the situation at Japanese nuclear power plants" from the authorities in Tokyo. The source said Russian officials had not ruled out that the Japanese were playing down the possible threat for fear of causing panic among members of the public. Moscow planned to send seismologists to Japan to assess the situation on the ground so it could be "a thousand times more sure that everything is safe", the source added.

The "Big One" - An Earthquake of magnitude 9 hits Japan

As everyone who has been following the news will know, the quake that hit Japan recently, was the strongest one since the advent of seismic measurements in the country. It is also apparently the fifth strongest quake in history. In popular coverage of the quake and the tsunami, the label “natural disaster” is frequently applied. This label, while not entirely false, does not entirely capture the many social dimensions of such catastrophes. If an earthquake of such a magnitude had hit a crowded city in India, the casualty toll would have been unimaginable. The relatively milder quake in Haiti last year claimed about a quarter million victims immediately and many more in its wake. It was the same tragic story when quakes hit China, Iran and Pakistan over the past few years. The fact that Japan is a “developed” society with a state that has the power to enforce building regulations designed to withstand strong quakes, has made a tremendous difference. Most commentators have pointed out the amazing resilience of buildings despite the incredible intensity of this particular quake. It is also a testament to the importance of long term state initiated and orchestrated planning that advocates of the so-called “free market” rail against. In societies with tremendous social inequalities that translate into substandard housing if at all, and hardly any building regulations, the results are not surprisingly disastrous. Depending on the social structure and the distribution of resources, the same “natural” quake can have very different consequences. Japan of course, also has a long history of quakes and as historian Gregory Clancey points out in his insightful book _Earthquake Nation_ (2006), seismology is Japan’s major contribution to the world of science. Regular quake drills in schools, countless emergency shelters all over the country and tremors pretty much every week, have ensured that most Japanese cannot ever shake off quake awareness. Psychologically, most Japanese have been prepared for the “big one”.