Lists three fatal early mistakes at Fukushima (a six-hour work stoppage for a site visit, rejecting U.S. aid, and delayed seawater injection) and argues that the media who “selected” and sustained such leadership bear responsibility. Critiques the use of foreign voices and postwar white paper rhetoric to frame the debate, asserting that Japan’s “weak politics” were manufactured by those very opinion makers.

A blog post from March 27, 2011. The author severely blames the media for the failures of then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s response to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear accident. The author argues that while the media criticizes “political weakness,” they are the ones who created the current weak political situation by attacking strong politicians like Kakuei Tanaka and Ichiro Ozawa. The post accuses the media elite of being ultimately responsible for the immense damage inflicted upon the Japanese people.

It is none other than you who chose the prime minister who inflicted unbelievable damage on Fukushima.
2011-03-27
(Honorifics omitted in the text.)

They are always like this, aren’t they?
When they were relentlessly bashing Ichirō Ozawa, as if to drive the final nail, they even brought in “theory of justice” by Saidegger as a preface. I doubt Saidegger ever imagined his argument would be used to bash Ozawa.

And now, again, exactly the same three-step syllogism.
JPMorgan Chase’s Japan unit—Jamie Dimon (55), the CEO who flew in from the U.S. headquarters—said that what the world reappraised through the markets were Japanese companies and the people working there who had overcome repeated ordeals such as a rapid yen surge. On the other hand, what the world worries about is the weakness of politics.
At a panel held on the 18th in Washington by the Brookings Institution, Richard Bush, director of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, pointed out that this disaster struck amid numerous challenges—aging demographics, population decline, ballooning government debt. He warned that “Japan’s danger lies in politicians eventually returning to ‘business as usual.’”
They use these two Americans, and then finish by quoting Shigeto Tsuru and others: “The rulers’ fearful habit of shutting their eyes to unwelcome realities and bending facts toward the direction they desire has brought immeasurable harm upon the people.”
All the while lacking the intellect to notice that these very words point at themselves.

You surely do not claim ignorance of the fact that for more than twenty years, you have effectively been the ones governing.
These words are about you. In particular, you are the ones who created the current situation—by committing foolish missteps at the outset (no doubt you thought it would be your miraculous comeback on center stage):

1. Because of a “site visit,” TEPCO could do nothing for six hours;
2. In the early hours of the 12th, you blithely rejected via hotline the offer of assistance that had arrived from the United States;
3. Even after the explosion at Unit 1 on the afternoon of the 12th, you took more than half a day—until 7:55 p.m.—to decide on seawater injection.
   By committing these fatal errors in succession, you not only terrified a nation already enduring the catastrophe of one of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in history—you also chose the prime minister who dealt the “Beautiful Land,” Fukushima, an almost unimaginable blow. There is no one else responsible but you.

Meanwhile, you say “what the world fears is the weakness of politics.” You surely know that politicians like Kakuei Tanaka and Ichirō Ozawa were the real thing—leaders who could protect the nation; Tanaka, with a single lightning draw, concluded the Japan–China Treaty of Peace and Friendship and saved Japan.
Yet you devoted yourselves to burying strong politicians by abetting anti-democratic abuses of power—and it is none other than you who manufactured this “weakness of politics.”

Ninety-five percent of the people—who work their entire lives and make do with an annual income of five million yen—live for the happiness of a family of four, exchanging it for not having to think about such things.

The current state of the Fukushima plant, the twenty years of deflation—these too are products of today’s “childish cabinet” (one calls a person a child when they cannot accept those who disagree).
As a perfect counterexample, look at today’s Asahi book review: University of Tokyo professor of American politics Fumiaki Kubo reviews Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Read it and the point will be obvious at a glance. The Ozawa you kept attacking is, needless to say, an adult statesman.

Do you not realize that these more than twenty years are the outcome of your politics?
Those who earn over ten million yen a year, the elite whose old age is secure—this is, in reality, perhaps one percent of the populace—and it is you.
All responsibility lies with you.