Thursday, July 26, 2012

It's Friday Again, BUT There Won't Be a Protest at PM Official Residence in Tokyo This Week


because the organizers of the weekly event say they are focusing on the Sunday's big event of encircling the National Diet Building to protest against nuclear power.

According to the organizers (or I should say those who have been particularly vocal on Twitter), their "single issue" (pronounced 'shinguru ishuu' in katakana English, I doubt the majority of Japanese would be able to spell the phrase in English) movement has succeeded in attracting this many people to the protest every Friday, and if anyone has any problem with their stance or policy (no union flags, no talk about radiation contamination, etc.), they say rather disparagingly, "Feel free to organize a protest yourself, if you think you can".

So they think they "organized" it.

I do not know if anyone is showing up at the Prime Minister's Official Residence to protest. Looking at Yasumi Iwakami's IWJ website, a group is protesting against the appointment of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the PM Official Residence at 5:30PM, and another group is protesting against the Ooi restart in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Annex Building (where NISA is located) at 6:30PM. It looks the organizers are giving press conference at 6PM.

The protest in front of KEPCO's headquarters in Osaka City is on, as usual:

Date: Friday, July 27, 2012
Time: 6 to 8PM
Place: KEPCO Headquarters, 3-6-16 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka City, Osaka


I'm not very enthusiastic any more in promoting this Friday protest at the PM Official Residence by these particular organizers ("Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes"), but nonetheless I still feel it is important to keep the "voices" (or noise, or sound, whatever it is to the prime minister) heard.

I just caught a tweet by one of the vocal organizers, effectively saying "It is true that one of us works for an event coordinating company. So what?"

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Arrogant fools their egos got the better of them, clearly they were infiltrated by government agents somewhere along the line.... Friday protests just a bloody sham..

arclight said...

great post

"..I'm not very enthusiastic any more in promoting this Friday protest at the PM Official Residence by these particular organizers ("Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes"), but nonetheless I still feel it is important to keep the "voices" (or noise, or sound, whatever it is to the prime minister) heard. .."

great sentiment..

theres room for all types of protest.. even from the Japanese Buddhist society who recently made a joint statement with other japanese based religions,,

yes there is room for all to protest in any way that suits them..

this is just one protest amongst many..

thank you for supporting it admin, even with reservation..

sakaito hantai!

and heres another form of protest..

"In Containment" part 5/5.. documentingian on you tube
a powerful look at life in the contaminated areas
(ps and there is an issue of contamination imho.....)

peace

Anonymous said...

What's the opposite of Kaizen?

These Friday demonstrations were WORKING! They were bringing new people to the anti-nuclear movement. They had the pro-nukers in fear. And they were getting press mention. They even helped sparked concurrent 6PM friday protests ALL OVER JAPAN!

Absoultely and positively stupid to stop holding them now. One of the worst strategic blunders yet.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Kaiaku 改悪 (make it worse)

Anonymous said...

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Worst form of hubris seen by the organizers. What was the goal? To gather people or to stop the resumption of plant operations? If the second, then they are far from achieving their goal. KEPCO is starting to talk about resumption of more plants "Next is..." and there are two plants in Kanto that TEPCO wants to restart, and are even conditions of the (ahem, government) financing that saved it from bankruptcy. Thinking that the protests are anywhere near achieving their goal is a joke. Yes, they were making progress, but nowhere near stopping the restarts. I would love to see the same "tens of thousands" of people come out to the other protests in the same area tonight and make some "noise" for Noda to listen to.

Anonymous said...

Someone payed them to slow the protests down. Fact is, a bunch of oldsters singing "kumbaya" is nowhere near enough to make change. If they wish to be heard, the people need to use other methods to make more significant "noise.". The time for peace signs is long past. Rise up, or remain ignored.

Anonymous said...

So what? Let me tell you so what. Whoever goes out there to "protest" is immediately transformed into news - he or she becomes part of the media narrative, to be manipulated at will.

Real protesters break windows - or at the very least chain themselves to gates. Or something. Chanting on street corners is what BEGGARS do.

Anonymous said...

@ anon at 5:11:
Would you care to provide an example where breaking windows has ever accomplished anything - apart from keeping away peaceful protesters and providing an excuse to the government to label the protesters fringe lunatics or worse?
*mscharisma*

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