#Radioactive Japan Under Abe's LDP: Consumer Affairs Agency to (Re-)Educate Consumers to Eradicate Baseless Rumor Damages to Producers

It's the agency that LDP's Masako Mori now heads. Remember she is the one who wants to pass a law that will force retailers to sell Fukushima produce prominently in the storefront.

Now, her agency will launch a program to educate consumers so that agricultural producers in contaminated areas, particularly Fukushima (Ms. Mori is from Fukushima Prefecture to begin with) will not suffer from damages from "baseless rumors" that their produce may contain radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Also remember this same agency (under ex-TV announcer minister Renho) was the one who excoriated the consumers in Tokyo Metropolitan areas right after the March 11 disaster who bought food and water in panic as radioactive fallout from Fukushima was descending on them. The same agency, with the help of Japanese consumer "advocates", scolded the Japanese consumer in July 2011 for making a big deal out of radioactive beef, some of which tested, after it was eaten, with radioactive cesium in excess of 4,000 Bq/kg.

In Japan, consumers exist for the sake of producers. (Or I could say consumers are the tools for decontamination, if I may be so cynical.)

From Jiji Tsushin (1/8/2012):

原発事故で風評被害対策チーム＝消費者の意識調査へ－消費者庁

Consumer Affairs Agency to set up a team to deal with damages caused by baseless rumors after the nuclear accident, and study the consumer psychology

東京電力福島第１原発事故による食品の風評被害防止に向け、消費者庁は８日、庁内に新設した対策チームの初会合を開き、消費者の意識など実態調査を行うことを決めた。

In order to prevent damages on food [producers] from baseless rumors after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, Consumer Affairs Agency held the first meeting of a new team set up in the agency on January 8, and decided that the team would conduct a survey of consumer psychology.

発足したのは「食品と放射能に関する消費者理解増進チーム」で、課長クラスを中心に１４人で構成。週１回ペースで会合を開く予定という。

The new team is called "the team to promote the understanding by the consumers of food and radiation". There are 14 managers in the team, who will meet once a week.

The name of the team makes it clear that it is not about "understanding" but about "repeating the same safety mantra over and over and over again until the consumer gets so weary and gives up". Much like those town hall meetings over disaster debris burning, which was literally about "obtaining understanding" but in reality about "telling the residents what the municipal government is going to do anyway, and calling it understanding".

The sheer number of deranged news out of Japan today has been such that makes my head spin. In addition to the Japan's (literally) senseless Olympics message and this news, there is also depraved uttering by the boy-wonder mayor of Osaka City affirming the right of public school teachers to strike students for educational purposes. I just saw a headline from January 1, 2013 Sankei Shinbun that the Abe administration is planning for a war with China over possible Chinese aggression over Senkaku Islands, Miyako and Ishigaki Islands (both part of Okinawa Prefecture).

Kyle Bass is right. This has to end in a major war, all over the world. Someone should hit the reset button.

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