A Glowing Democracy

Trey Smith

While I spend a good deal of space on this blog critiquing the shortcomings of my own country, I should point out that the United States is not the only nation in which money rules over the voices of the people. It happens frequently in Europe as well as Australia. I would be remiss in not pointing out that the Japanese people suffer from this plight as well.

The Japanese government has defied the will of its people. In the face of stiff opposition, it has resumed its reliance on nuclear power, ending a two-month period when the country had rid itself of that source.

The Japanese public hasn’t been too happy.

“News reports said that about 1,000 protesters marched on Sunday in central Tokyo, two days after tens of thousands of chanting anti-nuclear demonstrators filled streets in front of the prime minister’s residence,” states The New York Times.

And these demonstrators do not reflect just a minority opinion.

“Seventy-one percent of respondents to a Mainichi newspaper poll published on June 4 objected to a speedy restart” of Japan’s reactors, says a Bloomberg News piece. “In a separate poll released June 5 by the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Japanese said the country should reduce its reliance on atomic energy and 52 percent feared they or their families may have been exposed to radiation.”

But the government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda chose to rush in regardless. That even experts are cautioning otherwise seems to have had little effect.
~ from Japanese Government Refuses to Listen to Its People by Amitabh Pal ~

Wherever you go in this modern world -- it was just as true in antiquity -- money and its resultant power talks! It talks just as loudly in democratic nations as it does in communist and fascist ones. It is unsurprising that this would be so in the latter two because they don't pretend to give a shit what the people need or say. It is far more troubling in a so-called democracy for this very reason: what the majority thinks is SUPPOSED to matter.

But time and again we see that it doesn't! If you have overwhelming majorities on one side and great wealth on the other, we all know who tends to win the day. It doesn't matter if wealth desires to pursue a strategy, policy or program that is potentially injurious to the majority or the planet. When they put their feet squarely down on this side or that, government tends to follow like a puppy on a leash.

Chew on that thought as you watch the fireworks display.