MEDIA ROOTS- Every time I read an article about TEPCO, the Japanese government and their handling of the Fukushima nuclear plant, the situation appears progressively more bleak. For months, Japanese officials refused to admit that any meltdowns were occurring. Finally, they admitted that all three reactors incurred full meltdowns in the immediate wake of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

The levels of radiation have also been substantially downplayed by corporate news outlets and government officials worldwide, putting millions at risk of radiation poisoning. The lack of accurate coverage might be due to the fact that General Electric (GE), the company that built the failed reactors, also owns 23 (near identical) sister reactors in the United States. GE also owns NBC news, which could explain why there is such little discussion in the corporate media about the extraordinarily dangerous risks involved with nuclear energy.

Disturbingly, the operator of the TEPCO plant has admitted to deliberately falsifying safety records to prevent the inspection of faulty components within the reactors at the Daiichi facility for the last decade. Just nine days before the devastating meltdown, the Nuclear Industrial Safety Industry warned TEPCO of its continued failure to inspect the critical pieces of equipment, and urged immediate repairs. Moreover, new testimony and evidence reveals that the plant’s reactors were so faulty that a meltdown was imminent regardless of whether or not the earthquake and tsunami hit.

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RT– Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March.

­The allegations raise concerns that the facility was doomed even before the earthquake triggered the disaster. Problems with deteriorating pipes at the plant had been reported for years. The cooling system failed to stop reactors going into meltdown after it was hit by the 40-metre-high waves. The plant has been leaking radioactive material ever since, despite efforts to clean it up.

Robert Jacobs of the Hiroshima Peace Institute says that the evidence calls into question Japan’s nuclear safety.

“There’s certainly a great deal of evidence that appears to suggest that the first reactor, reactor number one, was melting down by the time the tsunami hit,” he told RT. “So, if that’s the case that the reactor was melting down as a result of the earthquake, and not as a result of the tsunami, a nine-point earthquake is something that has the potential to happen throughout Japan, and that would put the reliability and the design safety of all of these reactors in question,” he said. 

Reports of decreasing levels of radiation at the facility, Dr. Jacobs went on to explain, are no reason for optimism. It is more likely to mean that the radioactive material is moving away, making its way through the building structures:

“When you have a fragile structure that’s already suffered a great deal of damage and when you have continual aftershocks at the level of six-point, or there’s been some even higher, what we have now is we have the radioactive core that has melted down into the basement, into the bottom of the containment vessel of these reactors, and if the radiation level is going down, where it’s been monitored inside the buildings, and if the water pressure is going down, and the temperature is going down, it’s not that the radiation is just suddenly going away, it means that the radioactive material, the melted core, is simply moving further away from where it’s been measured,” he explained.

Watch the video:

Read the full article about Fukushima in Meltdown Before Tsunami Hit.

© 2011 RT

Photo by Flickr user 3StepsCrew

MEDIA ROOTS– In addition to throwing our country’s finances (and morals) away on the bombing of other countries, the Pentagon is also spending millions buying up all US satellite imagery in Afghanistan to make sure the stark reality of war is shielded from the western world. In America, the human cost of US bombing campaigns is never shown on corporate media outlets. When civilian casualties are reported on, they are relayed as cold statistics of the lowest estimates– no names, no faces, no stories of who these people were.

America’s wars are fought from a distance with robots, and people have never been more disconnected with what their country is sponsoring abroad. If people saw the dead bodies littering the streets of Afghanistan, they might feel more empathy and connection to the individuals who are casualties of US occuptaions. Eradicating the “us” and “them” mentality would completely undermine the logic of these endless wars– the last thing the establisment wants.

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The GUARDIAN reports from 2001:

The images, which are taken from Ikonos, an advanced civilian satellite launched in 1999, are better than the spy satellite pictures available to the military during most of the cold war.

The extraordinary detail of the images already taken by the satellite includes a line of terrorist trainees marching between training camps at Jalalabad. At the same resolution, it would be possible to see bodies lying on the ground after last week’s bombing attacks.

Under American law, the US defence department has legal power to exercise “shutter control” over civilian satellites launched from the US in order to prevent enemies using the images while America is at war. But no order for shutter control was given, even after the bombing raids began 10 days ago.

The decision to shut down access to satellite images was taken last Thursday, after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing of training camps near Darunta, north-west of Jalalabad. Instead of invoking its legal powers, the Pentagon bought exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures of Afghanistan off Space Imaging, the company which runs the satellite. The agreement was made retrospectively to the start of the bombing raids.

Continue reading more of US Buys Up All Satellite War Images.

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Photo by flickr user Ms Blue Sky

MEDIA ROOTS- The term “conspiracy theory” has been hijacked by the establishment propaganda machine in order to marginalize anyone in the mainstream political discourse who simply questions the official government or media narrative about an event. This ad hominem attack tool is extremely effective at shutting down serious debates about crucial topics, like whether or not the US government was criminally complicity in the attacks of 9/11. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and former editor for the Wall Street Journal, writes for Global Research about the Orwellian redefinition of the term and its prevalent use to blanketly demonize 9/11 truth seekers.

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GLOBAL RESEARCH– While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy.  Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.  

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”  

In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.

The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters.  These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media  who brand the experts as “conspiracy theorists.”  

This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.  

Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy.  The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16  US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.

In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning,  air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft,  and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.

The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.

The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.

Anyone who believes an architect, structural engineer, or demolition expert who says that the videos show that the buildings are blowing up, not falling down, anyone who believes a Ph.D. physicist who says that the official explanation is inconsistent with known laws of physics, anyone who believes expert pilots who testify that non-pilots or poorly-qualified pilots cannot fly airplanes in such maneuvers, anyone who believes the 100 or more first responders who testify that they not only heard explosions in the towers but personally experienced explosions, anyone who believes University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Niels Harrit who reports finding unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the WTC towers, anyone who is convinced by experts instead of by propaganda is dismissed as a kook.  

In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness.  Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.

Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics.  In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them.  Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.

Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.

As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the Republican wars in the Middle East.  After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.  To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state.  These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the  “war on terror” and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.

If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a “war on terror” and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.  

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Written by Paul Craig Roberts

© 2011 Global Research

Photo by flickr user Cliff1066

RELATED: Check out a special 2 1/2 hour Media Roots Radio broadcast breaking apart the 9/11 coincidence theory, or read 9/11: Do We Know the Truth?

PR WATCH– On October 23, 2009, Harrison “Harry” Kothari celebrated his second birthday by blowing out candles on a cake decorated with a giant airplane. At age two, Harry could ride a tricycle, stack blocks, and say words like “mama,” “airplane,” and “thank you.” A month earlier, surgeons at a Houston hospital had removed a benign cyst from Harrison’s head without problems. In follow-up visits, nurses drained cerebrospinal fluid to test for infection, and following normal protocol, wiped the area around the drain with what they assumed were sterile alcohol wipes. On December 1, Harry was dead, his tiny brain swollen by a Bacillus cereus infection apparently caused by contaminated alcohol wipes.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the wipes were produced by the Hartland, Wisconsin corporation Triad Group and its manufacturing subsidiary, H&P. Employees had long complained of hygiene and safety problems; one former quality control inspector told the newspaper that “we were told to keep things running at all costs,” and after one employee cut her finger when packing alcohol wipe packets, the wipes were nonetheless shipped with blood inside and outside the box. And for years, the Food and Drug Administration FDA) –- the regulatory agency tasked with protecting public health — had noted sanitation and manufacturing problems at the plant, but did not take serious action until it was too late.

Harry’s family has sued Triad for killing their baby boy with its negligence. Triad states its products met FDA regulations. Under a bill promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Regulatory Compliance Congruity with Liability Act, Triad’s “regulatory compliance” might be enough to absolve Triad from any and all responsibility to Harry’s family.

The Regulatory Compliance Congruity with Liability Act is part of a set of “tort reform” bills from ALEC that limit corporate responsibility at the expense of average Americans. ALEC, the corporate-funded national organization that lets Big Business hand state legislators “model bills” to introduce in their state, has been pushing “tort reform” since about 1986, with the support of Big Tobacco, the insurance industry, and other major corporations.

Read more about ALEC and “Tort Reform”

© 2011 Center for Media & Democracy

Photo by Flickr user 

GUARDIAN– Worried about the influence of money in American politics, the huge cash payouts that the US supreme court waved through by its Citizens United decision – the decision that lifted most limits on election campaign spending? Corporations are having their way with American elections just as they’ve already had their way with our media.

But at least we have the courts, right?

Wrong. The third branch of government’s in trouble, too. In fact, access to justice – like access to elected office, let alone a pundit’s perch – is becoming a perk just for the rich and powerful.

Take the young woman now testifying in court in Texas. Jamie Leigh Jones claims she was drugged and gang-raped while working for military contractor KBR in Iraq (at the time, a division of Halliburton). Jones, now 26, was on her fourth day in post in Baghdad in 2005 when she says she was assaulted by seven contractors and held captive, under armed guard by two KBR police, in a shipping container.

When the criminal courts failed to act, her lawyers filed a civil suit, only to be met with Halliburton’s response that all her claims were to be decided in arbitration – because she’d signed away her rights to bring the company to court when she signed her employment contract. As Leigh testified before Congress, in October 2009, “I had signed away my right to a jury trial at the age of 20 and without the advice of counsel.” It was a matter of sign or resign. “I had no idea that the clause was part of the contract, what the clause actually meant,” testified Jones.

You’ve probably done the very same thing without even knowing it. When it comes to consumer claims, mandatory arbitration is the new normal. According to research by Public Citizen and others, corporations are inserting “forced arbitration” clauses into the fine print of contracts for work, for cell phone service, for credit cards, even nursing home contracts, requiring clients to give up their right to sue if they are harmed. Arbitration is a no-judge, no-jury, no-appeal world, where arbitrators are (often by contract) selected by the company and all decisions are private – and final. 

They don’t pay fair wages; they don’t pay their fare share of taxes. They evade liability. What gives? Says Saladoff: “When corporations harm, there should be some way to hold them accountable.”

Read more about How Corporations Award Themselves Legal Immunity

Written by Laura Flanders

© 2011 Guardian

Photo by Flickr user tommyajohansson