From: Bill Totten Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 1:27 AM
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] A silver lining to the Fukushima disaster? By Philip White The Japan Times (March 30 2011) The most remarkable thing about the response so far to the genpatsu shinsai (nuclear-earthquake disaster) that has engulfed Japan is that there are still people who think nuclear power has a future. Should this be attributed more to the dependence of modern industrialized societies on massive inputs of energy, or to a collective lack of imagination? We do not yet know how this unfolding catastrophe will end, but we can be sure that if most of the radioactivity in the Fukushima Number One nuclear power plant remains on site, then the true believers will claim that this is as bad as it gets and that the risk is worth taking. The environmental damage of localized contamination and releases to sea will be discounted and long-term health impacts from exposure to low levels of radiation will be denied. Even those workers who suffer from acute radiation sickness will not find their way into the most commonly quoted statistics, unless they die promptly. The truth is that even in the best-case scenario the environmental and human consequences of this disaster will be enormous. The potential impact of a worst-case scenario is beyond most peoples comprehension. To give an indication of the amount of radioactive material involved, the total capacity of the three reactors that were operating at the time of the earthquake was double that of the Chernobyl Number Four reactors that exploded 25 years ago in the Ukraine. To this you have to add the radioactivity in the spent fuel pools of all six units and of the shared spent fuel pool. All of this is at risk and, due to the long-term heat-generating properties of the fuel, the situation will not be stabilized any time soon. Even if the radioactivity does not travel far, the release of just a fraction would have incalculable consequences for human beings and the environment. Besides the true believers, there are also those who regard nuclear energy as a necessary evil. They dont particularly like it, but they see no alternative. But is it true that there is no alternative? For those who cant see beyond the current centralized, supply-driven electrical power systems and who assume an eternally increasing demand for energy, then perhaps it is difficult to imagine how modern societies could survive without nuclear power. But if you allow the possibility of decentralized systems that reward the efficient provision of energy services, rather than the supply of raw energy, then hitherto unimagined options open up. After last years oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and now the Fukushima Number One genpatsu shinsai, people must realize that business as usual is not an option. To claim that nuclear energy has a future represents a colossal failure of our collective imagination a failure to imagine the risks involved and a failure to imagine how we could do things differently. If future generations are to say that there was a silver lining to the cloud of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it will be because human beings now looked beyond their recent history and chose to build a society that was not subject to catastrophic risks of human making. _____ Philip White is the international liaison officer of the Tokyo-based Citizens Nuclear Information Center. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20110330a2.html?utm_source=feedburner <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20110330a2.html?utm_source=feedburner& utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+japantimes_news+%28The+Japan+Times+Head line+News+-+News+%26+Business%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo> &utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+japantimes_news+%28The+Japan+Times+Hea dline+News+-+News+%26+Business%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_fatal_addiction_20110329/ Truthdig Radio Hits the Airwaves The Internet can't contain us. We're taking our patented mix of journalistic integrity and fearless commentary to the airwaves. Truthdig Radio can be heard every Wednesday at 2:00 PM in Los Angeles on 90.7 KPFK. If you can't listen live, look for the podcast and transcript of each week's show Wednesday night on Truthdig.com. Obamas Fatal Addiction By Robert Scheer Truthdig: March 30, 2011 If it had been revealed that Jeffrey Immelt once hired an undocumented nanny, or defaulted on his mortgage, he would be forced to resign as head of President Barack Obamas Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. But the fact that General Electric, where Immelt is CEO, didnt pay taxes on its $14.5 billion profit last yearand indeed is asking for a $3.2 billion tax rebatehas not produced a word of criticism from the president, who in January praised Immelt as a business leader who understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy. What it takes, evidently, is shifting profit and jobs abroad: As of last year only 134,000 of GEs total workforce of 304,000 was based in the U.S. and according to the New York Times for the past three years 72% of the companys profit was sheltered abroad. Thanks to changes in the tax law engineered when another avowedly pro-business Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president, U.S. multinational financial companies can avoid taxes on their international scams. And financial scams are what GE excelled in for decades, when GE Capital, its financial unit, which specialized in credit card, consumer loan and housing mortgage debt, accounted for most of GEs profits. Thats right, GE, along with General Motors with its toxic GMAC financial unit, came to look more like an investment bank than a traditional industrial manufacturing giant that once propelled this economy and ultimately it ran into the same sort of difficulties as the Wall Street hustlers. As The New York Times David Kocieniewski, who broke the GE profit story, put it: Because its lending division, GE Capital, has provided more than half of the companys profit in some recent years, many Wall Street analysts view G.E. not as a manufacturer but as an unregulated lender that also makes dishwashers and M.R.I. machines. Maximizing corporate profits at the taxpayers expense is what top CEOs are good at, and after all it was Immelt who presided over GE when it got so heavily into the subprime mortgage business that it needed a government bailout to avoid bankruptcy. This was before Obama made him a trusted adviser. Back at the end of 2008, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. government had agreed to insure an additional $139 billion in GE Capitals debt holdings, the second such intervention within a month, adding, The companys exposure to the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s has cut its market value by more than half this year. A Washington Post exposé titled How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue documented the power of Immelts lobbying operation in Washington. GE was not initially deemed eligible for the debt guarantee program offered to failing banks, but regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the scenes appeals from GE. And it worked; as the Post reported, The governments actions have been `powerful and helpful to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged. For the next two years, GE would still report enormous profits without paying taxes, adding insult to the injury that financial shenanigans had inflicted on ordinary taxpayers who bailed the company out. On Feb. 6, 2009, Immelt sent a contrite annual letter to GE shareholders, admitting, Our Companys reputation was tarnished because we werent the safe and reliable growth company that is our aspiration. While conceding his own culpability in GEs downturn, Immelt predicted a rosy future: I accept responsibility for this. But, I think the environment presents an opportunity of a lifetime. Not, obviously, for the 50 million Americans who have either lost their homes or are deeply underwater in a housing market that is still in steep decline thanks to the lending practices of companies like GE Capital. Nope, the good times are in the offing only for corporations that know how to make the U.S. government a partner in their scams. As Immelt stated blatantly: The global economy, and capitalism, will be `reset in several important ways. The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner. Thats the essential blueprint for Obamas restructuring of the economy, as the president put it in selecting Immelt to replace Paul Volcker as head of his outside team of economic advisers. Volcker had become increasingly critical of the corporate high rollers. Obama, although noting the suffering of ordinary Americans, clearly believes that such populism is now beside the point. As the president put it in announcing Immelts appointment on Jan. 20, 2011: The past two years was about moving our economy back from the brink. Our job now is putting our economy into overdrive. But overdrive, with CEOs like Immelt shifting the gears, is what brought us so close to the brink. Once again Obama seems fatally addicted to the notion that the heavy hitters who got us into this mess are the very folks to be trusted to get us out of it. What he seems incapable of grasping is that while they are personally very good at avoiding the precipice, the rest of us are hardly passengers in their limos. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/