Japan's Double Bind

Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.

"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation.

Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.
~ from Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors by Dahr Jamail ~

Anytime their is a serious national calamity, government finds itself in a double bind. I'm certain many leaders believe they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Even worse, I think they are right!

If they choose to be upfront and transparent about the situation, they run the risk of setting off public hysteria and panic. When citizens become blinded by fear and desperation, many of them will decide to take the law into their own hands and a) go after the people or companies they believe are responsible and/or b) riot and loot.

Another problem with the government choosing to be candid is that it can expose government corruption/collusion and corporate malfeasance. Since leaders want to stay in office, they definitely don't want the public to turn on them. They also don't want to expose their corporate backers to potential lawsuits. Both of these outcomes are considered non-starters.

Because of the issues above, most governments choose a different strategy -- obfuscation. Regardless of how serious or dangerous the circumstances are, government and corporate leaders try to convince the public that things aren't as bad as they look.

This strategy almost always backfires, however. Sooner or later, the truth starts to dribble out and people come to distrust anything government or corporate leaders say or do. Once this process happens, there is an even chance the government and/or corporate leaders will be forced to step down.

In my opinion, the best way to avoid the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation is to be candid and transparent from the start. Telling it like it truly is from the outset is the best way I know of to avert many of the human-caused and exacerbated problems we frequently face.

For example, if Japanese government and corporate leaders had been honest from the get-go, then maybe Japan wouldn't have opted for nuclear energy at all or, at least, they wouldn't have built a reactor in a tsunami zone or skimped on safety through the years.