After TIME’s stinging critique, Israel’s field clinic opens while a TEPCO nationalization rumor rattles markets. The author condemns the government’s failure to suspend trading or buy the bottom, calls out scapegoating TEPCO as “indecent,” argues that leadership change is part of the reconstruction timetable, and demands accountability from media figures who enabled the current leadership.A blog post from March 29, 2011. The author speculates that the government’s response was influenced by Time magazine’s criticism of being “worse than a developing country.” The author critically examines the move to nationalize TEPCO, arguing that it is a political ploy to shift blame. The author harshly criticizes the government and the media for their incompetence, stating that if the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been closed and the government had bought stocks at their lowest point, a massive amount of funds for reconstruction could have been raised in a short time. The author condemns then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Diet testimony as “sophistry” and calls for the media figures who supported him to step down.

Perhaps TIME’s Rebuke—“Worse Than a Developing Country”—Finally Had an Effect…
2011-03-29
(Honorifics omitted)

A reader tipped me off to a blog, and I quoted it in full in Civilization’s Turntable—maybe that helped, even a little. Israel’s medical team has begun seeing patients in the disaster zone. Bureaucrats can act when they must; they were talented to begin with. It’s only because politicians lean on them for everything that they end up looking like villains. A cabinet that understands nothing unless scolded should be replaced swiftly. That, too, must be on the reconstruction timeline.

Before heading back to the office I glanced at market headlines—“TEPCO nationalization?!” Anyone who watches the market closely must have thought, “What?!” Even Akutagawa paused to think: would employees really welcome this? Then I sat with it. If this were the start of what I proposed at the very beginning of Turntable—have the nation buy shares of Japan’s flagship companies—it wouldn’t be bad. But no, I can’t believe this government would think that way. If they had that level of sense, then when the exchange re-opened without a pause—just as I predicted—we wouldn’t have had the massive panic and “Japan sell-off.” As I’ve already written, in just two days roughly ¥54 trillion in market cap evaporated—about 66% of Korea’s GDP.

Had they executed my proposal at that moment—had they acted in the spirit of “we will save our country ourselves” and bought aggressively at the bottom—Japan would have made ¥25 trillion in a single week. Even if you sold only half, you’d book ¥12 trillion. The reconstruction fund would have been raised in a week. This is the difference that brains—and seeing the “civilization turntable”—make. Instead, they do nothing of the sort and, at a time like this, collude with miserably low-grade editorialists to push a vulgar little “tax hike.”

If they had the same confidence and conviction in Japan’s real strength that I do, they’d know we could have earned ¥25 trillion in a week. But this is the tragedy of a government that thinks only about squeezing the public and never about making money with its own head. A government that couldn’t even suspend trading, and couldn’t step in to buy the bottom, is not going to share my perspective.

So this smells like their specialty—offering up a scapegoat, shifting responsibility: “TEPCO is at fault, not the government.” That’s the right reading of this administration’s “indecency.” Make TEPCO the villain and hold a “self-criticism session”—the worst side of the old radical student sects on full display. If not, then why not say clearly to TEPCO and all its employees—whose market cap has shed a cool ¥2 trillion since the accident and whose stock keeps getting sold—“TEPCO is a crucial national enterprise. The government will not let it fail. If necessary, we will buy and support it. Do your work with confidence, and with your resolve, bring these reactors under control for the nation.”

That is the obvious message to deliver. What on earth is going on? I got home and checked the evening papers: nothing in the Asahi, but the Nikkei ran the Chief Cabinet Secretary’s line, “We’re not considering it.” Well, of course. If they’d held a press conference to deliver the message above, that would be another matter. But a rumor tossed out of nowhere—what possible merit does that have? The way such stories pop up, without ownership, is so typical of this government.

No, this isn’t the start of my proposal. It’s a nasty round of TEPCO-bashing—“it’s TEPCO’s fault, not ours”—the sort of kindergarten-level information operation they favor. Honestly. Instead of mouthing off, put every last resource into suppressing the reactors—now.

This man is now announcing, with utter clarity, that the pundits who backed him should leave the stage.
Rather than “anti-democratic,” this was outright abuse of power—of the government of the day and those who abetted it, stripped of restraint and reason. Even when persecution began against a singular figure—the man who traveled from Hokkaidō to Okinawa, listened to people everywhere, mobilized their voices, and lifted the DPJ into a governing force—party members and lawmakers who knew his true stature urged him to stand in the leadership election.

Why? Because the opponent was—let’s be frank—someone we could fairly call a fool: the kind of person who, with a whim that doesn’t even merit the term “autocracy,” suddenly blurted out “raise the consumption tax to 10%,” producing the crushing Upper House defeat. Meanwhile, the man they backed was the polar opposite: a genuine people’s statesman, with unmatched judgment and power—everyone knew it. They naturally rallied behind him. Persecuted, slandered as a corrupt villain, he hesitated to run, but decided to stand.

At that time, in the pages of the Yomiuri Shimbun, another “great man” declared he was “aghast,” and went on about this figure’s supposed “money politics”—no doubt something whispered by Tachibana and company. As I’ve written before, I never rated this “great man” that highly. Somehow he had come to sit as a grandee—indeed to play the role of a grandee in politics. I only discovered that when I dug through the record. But now the verdict is in. By the hand of the very politician these pundits supported—the self-styled “civic” leader—their disqualification from public debate has been proven and demonstrated.

They must never again mislead the people and harm the nation. Let that be seared into them. They should spend the rest of their lives reflecting, praying that this man’s Fukushima—the one he allowed to reach this pass—does not inflict any more damage and fear on Japan and the world.

As for Kakumaru, Chūkaku-ha, and the rest: until this man admits his responsibility—that he led us to this point—you, with the “self-criticisms” you favor, should be the ones to hold him to account. For a man whom some say has made a career of fleeing while others suffer, that might be the most fitting end.

The plain, unmistakable evidence is printed in this morning’s Asahi. Most readers are busy with life; you probably skimmed only the headline and the blurb, and let the crucial part slip by—seen, but not perceived. In the next chapter, read it slowly, closely. Mystery lovers among you will especially appreciate it. You will be able to verify just how great a liar this man is, how easily he wields sophistry, how he twists every fact to protect himself—no matter the cost.