Jim Grisanzio

A few images from Zenkoji recently. I always feel peaceful in this place.

I used to think this stuff curbed creativity but I’ve come to see it’s simply common courtesy.

I’ve often wondered what the train conductors carry around in those suitcases. Track maps? Secret codes?

Riding Japanese trains is generally a pretty quiet experience. Most people have manners. But in case they forget from time to time, all the trains have these handy dandy “manner mode” and “off” signs to remind everyone. So, basically, shut up. Imagine giving these signs to American politicians to take around on their various propaganda campaigns? Should quiet the country right down, eh? Yeah, probably not.

“Kazuko Ono, a professor at Kyoto College of Medical Science, said there is no need to worry about radiation exposure for people outside the areas designated for evacuation by the government.” — Radiation fears prompt some to relocate from even Tokyo area, Mainichi Daily News. So, just believe your government? Sounds like a foolish position to take but one on which all governments depend.

Some flexible pavement from an unsettled earth underneath. It’s good to bend.

“Before 3/11, we were totally unprepared.” Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Fukushima.

A quiet and lazy night on the streets of Tokyo tonight …

Things in Japan can get pretty close …

Don’t eat refined sugar. It’s poison. Instead, drink it raw right out of the cane.

Life after the car. Well, you may as well use the garage and front lawn, right? No sense wasting space.

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President Obama quietly signed the National Defense Authorization Act today, which makes it perfectly legal for his government and future administrations to detain American citizens indefinitely without due process. He said he had “misgivings” about several provisions in the bill and that he would work hard to ensure that the rights of Americans would be protected as his regime goes after suspected terrorists. I find that characterization disturbing given that it was the Obama administration that wanted indefinite detention for American citizens in the bill in the first place (here, here, here). Yet, this is the Obama spin. And the media is helping promote his position, so the message will resonate clearly among most Americans who are sleeping or who are simply suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome.

So, the battlefield for the never-ending war now includes the United States of America. One wonders who is fighting who at this point, though. Regardless, I suppose this latest move was inevitable, along with the multi decade destruction of American civil liberties from previous Democratic and Republican administrations. Actually, now that indefinite detention without due process is the law of the land, along with the current president who asserts the right to kill American citizens without due process (which Obama has done at least 3 times via drone attacks), I’m not sure what remains of the term “civil rights” in the United States anyway.

It’s clear the foundational documents of the country and the very liberties on which the nation stands are all very much at risk. If Americans can’t see the trend at this point then there is no hope. And aside from Ron Paul and a few others there was pretty much zero outrage about the crafting of the bill in the first place, and the mainstream media is (as usual) taking a pass as well. It really is a profoundly depressing start to 2012 in America — a country whose political class seems determined to recreate the dark circumstances of 1920s/30s Japan and Germany (see Noam Chomsky, Karel Van Wolferen, and Herbert Bix for more on that last point). Is this the HOPE and CHANGE Americans voted for in 2008?

Gary Null published an excellent three part update to his forthcoming two hour documentary on homeless veterans living in makeshift camps in the woods in Florida. The “Stand Down” concept explored in these three videos is fascinating because you see people of modest means and other vets helping the homeless vets. They have to help each other because they get harassed, they get arrested, they get shunned, and their camps and personal belongings get destroyed. What these guys do not get is the badly needed services from the U.S. government — the very institution that sends them to war, orders them to fight and risk injury and death, and glamorizes them in propaganda campaigns to sell more wars. When I listen to their stories, which are horrifying, I can not help but question everything about the myth that is modern America. It would be nice if at least one candidate would inject these guys directly into the presidential campaign currently underway. Surely this is an issue. Right?

• American Veterans: Forgotten and Discarded: Stand Down 1
• American Veterans: Forgotten and Discarded: Stand Down 2
• American Veterans: Forgotten and Discarded: Stand Down 3
• Previous content track the series (currently 10 videos)

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Images: Okinawa Peace Memorial, December 2011

Japan is cutting new currency deals with India and China. Interesting. More than symbolic? The Asians teaming up? What about the US?