Alicia Bay Laurel and Takuji - "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at Hiroshima Nagarekawa Church, which stands on what was ground zero

Our friends, Alicia Bay Laurel and Takuji, performing "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" in Hiroshima 08/08/2015. Author/artist/vocalist/songwriter Alicia Bay Laurel and jazz multi-instrumentalist Takuji perform John Lennon's anti-war classics "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at a peace concert that was part of the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 8, 2015, at Hiroshima Nagarekawa Church, which stands on what was ground zero in Hiroshima.

Keibo Oiwa addresses the psychological roots of world crisis in Nuclear Zen

In Berlin-based filmmaker Michael Saup's short documentary, Nuclear Zen, anthropologist, environmental activist (and contributor to Kyoto Journal) Keibo Oiwa, shares his holistic take on creating a life-sustaining Japan and world. His views echo those of many eco-activists, especially Sacred Stone, Okinawan and other indigenous water, rainforest, earth protectors:

Thank you is a recognition of the reality. We are living here. We are using [nuclear [and fossil]] electricity...We created the social system -- media, education, politics -- on top of the same system. We have to admit it. Yes, this is where we are. And we have to embrace it, whether it's ugly or not. This is us. And only after that, we can say what we want to do. But the problem is, many people refuse to recognize this reality.

Albert Einstein said you cannot solve the problem within the same mindset that created the problem in the first place. But that is exactly what we've been doing. As environmental activist, I've been fighting, in the movements against environmental destruction, pollution, climate change, nuclear power. And all these problems are too serious. We cannot solve any of these problems easily. Many people say it's too late. But I think it's very important that all these problems have the same root, not just environmental issues, but psychological problems.

What do we do with the very unhappy society we've created. you know, education, family situation, families are collapsing. We pit all the children against each other; they're supposed to be be competing and fighting against each other, forever. I think the roots are all entangled and maybe the same one. So what we have to do, is recognize the root. This is a great opportunity. This crisis is an opportunity...to understand this mindset, not just a society, but ourselves, our mindset...

The musician Ryuichi Sakamoto...said, "We are risking our lives, not only human lives, for the sake of what? Just electricity?"

But this is a mindset we have been captured in...

For what? Is it worth risking our lives, our future, our children's future?

The objective of this system is to make more, consume more, discard more. It's eternal growth: mass production, mass consumption, mass discarding. When you look around, this whole system is made up of excess. So I think excess is the nature of the present time. More. Bigger. Faster...This is a religion of efficiency.

...After March 11, we realized how hollow our democracy had become. Democracy had become a treasure box we were carrying but then after March 11, we opened it, after many years. It was empty. We have to rebuild democracy from scratch.

When you look at politics, at media, the situation seems so pessimistic. But at the same time, I witness so many good signs and I can see very clearly that what's happening in Japan all over the place has a strong resonance with what's happening outside of Japan; In Europe, in Africa, Latin America, everywhere, similar things are happening. They're coming out of the mindset that my generation is still trying to cling to. Young people are saying, 'Just forget it. They are not attracted anymore. They're not deceived. More and more, I can feel good things are happening...

The rest of the story we have to create...

10,000 sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" — Japan's Beloved Anthem of Peace

This is a video of the Osaka "Number Nine Chorus"—10,000 singers who perform "Ode to Joy" (originally named "Ode to Freedom") every December. The soloists and orchestra are professionals; however the rest are singers from the community.

The Japanese love of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, began during the First World War, when German prisoners of war performed the Ninth Symphony for the first time in Japan in 1918.

The Japanese nickname for the uplifting movement — "Daiku" ("Number 9") — alludes to Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause which outlaws war as a means of conflict resolution.  Beethoven's  lyrics are from a poem celebrating human unity by Frederick Schiller.  The 19th-century century German philosopher was preoccupied by the quest for freedom and human rights. Like many of his era (which spanned the American Revolution), he championed political ideals based not on coercion and tyrannical brute force, but instead by reason, goodwill, dialogue, and democratic process.

Worldwide, "Ode to Joy" has long been considered a peace anthem, a song of resistance to not just war, but also state repression. Chilean democracy demonstrators sang the song during PInochet's dictatorship. Chinese protesters sang it during the march on Tiananmen Square. This year, the music and lyrics are even more meaningful to the Japanese and Okinawan supporters of democracy and Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause.

...Brother love binds man to man

Ever singing march we onward

Victors in the midst of strife

Joyful music lifts us onward

In the triumph song of life...

Human rights attorney Scott Horton tells us that Beethoven was drawn to Schiller's writings because the composer longed for liberty, however omitted the "deeper, more political charge" of the final stanzas of "Ode to Joy" to veil his challenge to the repressive Hapsburg regime from which he received patronage.

...the work is radical and blatantly political in its orientation...It imagines a world whose nations live in peace with one another, embracing the dignity of their species as a fundamental principle, and democracy as the central chord of their organization. Its long appeal to Beethoven lay in just this intensely subversive, revolutionary core. To start with, as Leonard Bernstein reminded his audiences, the poem was originally an “Ode to Freedom” and the word “Joy” (Freude instead of Freiheit, added to the third pillar, Freundschaft [Friendship] came as a substitute for the more overtly political theme...

Beethoven reckoned, of course, that his audience knew the whole text, just as he knew it, by heart. He was by then a crotchety old man, Beethoven, but he knew the power of a dream, and he inspired millions with it, to the chagrin of his Hapsburg sponsors.

Schiller’s words are perfectly fused with Beethoven’s music. It may indeed be the most successful marriage in the whole shared space of poetry and music. It is a message of striking universality which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. It is well measured in fact to certain turningpoints in the human experience.

Some of the lines from Schiller's poem omitted from "Ode to Joy":

...Persist with courage, millions!

Stand firm for a better world!

...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...

(-JD, originally posted Dec. 25, 2014, reposted because the themes are even more important for Japan, Okinawa, and the entire world given heightened popular activism for freedom, liberty, human rights, democracy, and peace, in the face of growing global state authoritarianism and militarized repression of nonviolent citizen movements.) 

10,000 sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" — Japan's Beloved Anthem of Peace

This is a video of the Osaka "Number Nine Chorus" of 10,000 singers who perform "Ode to Joy" every December. The soloists and orchestra are professionals; however the rest are singers from the community.

The Japanese love of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, began during the First World War, when German prisoners of war performed the Ninth Symphony for the first time in Japan in 1918.

In Europe, exactly one hundred years ago, German, French, and British soldiers engaged in a spontaneous holiday ceasefire, emerging from the trenches to exchange food, drink, and even play soccer, sharing a brief moment of humanity during the brutality of war.

The Japanese nickname for the uplifting movement — "Daiku" ("Number 9") — alludes to Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause which outlaws war as a means of conflict resolution.  Beethoven's  lyrics are from a poem celebrating human unity by Frederick Schiller.  The 19th-century century German philosopher was preoccupied by the quest for freedom and human rights. Like many of his era (which spanned the American Revolution), he championed political ideals based not on coercion and tyrannical brute force, but instead by reason, goodwill, dialogue, and democratic process.

Worldwide, "Ode to Joy" has long been considered a peace anthem, a song of resistance to not just war, but also state repression. Chilean democracy demonstrators sang the song during PInochet's dictatorship. Chinese protesters sang it during the march on Tiananmen Square. This year, the music and lyrics are even more meaningful to the Japanese and Okinawan supporters of democracy and Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause.

...Brother love binds man to man

Ever singing march we onward

Victors in the midst of strife

Joyful music lifts us onward

In the triumph song of life...

Human rights attorney Scott Horton tells us that Beethoven was drawn to Schiller's writings because the composer longed for liberty, however omitted the "deeper, more political charge" of the final stanzas of "Ode to Joy" to veil his challenge to the repressive Hapsburg regime from which he received patronage.

...the work is radical and blatantly political in its orientation–it envisions a world without monarchs at a time when the distant colonies of North America alone offered the alternative. It imagines a world whose nations live in peace with one another, embracing the dignity of their species as a fundamental principle, and democracy as the central chord of their organization. Its long appeal to Beethoven lay in just this intensely subversive, revolutionary core. To start with, as Leonard Bernstein reminded his audiences, the poem was originally an “Ode to Freedom” and the word “Joy” (Freude instead of Freiheit, added to the third pillar, Freundschaft [Friendship] came as a substitute for the more overtly political theme...

Beethoven reckoned, of course, that his audience knew the whole text, just as he knew it, by heart. He was by then a crotchety old man, Beethoven, but he knew the power of a dream, and he inspired millions with it, to the chagrin of his Hapsburg sponsors.

Schiller’s words are perfectly fused with Beethoven’s music. It may indeed be the most successful marriage in the whole shared space of poetry and music. It is a message of striking universality which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. It is well measured in fact to certain turningpoints in the human experience.

Some of the lines from Schiller's poem omitted from "Ode to Joy":

...Persist with courage, millions!

Stand firm for a better world!
...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...

-JD

Deep Kyoto: "Three years ago today" recounts an encounter with Japanese grace & generosity when stranded in a rural train station on 3/11/11

In "Three years ago today,"  Michael Lambe of Deep Kyoto, writes about being stranded during a sight-seeing trip in Wakayama, a rural region south of Kyoto, three years ago, when trains stopped running on  3/11.

Lambe, part of the KJ community, captures Japan's diverse facets and complex textures — missed by those who would paint Japan in flat negative or romantic stereotypes. The long-time resident of Japan recounts his contradictory experiences, with sensitivity and understanding.  Lambe acknowledges the discomfort that accompanies awareness of the few in Japan who support whale and dolphin killings; and the few more in Japan who would wish to reinstitute WWII-style authoritarianism and militarism that resulted in so much death and destruction in the  Asia-Pacific, including within Japan itself.

At the same time, Lambe pays tribute to the natural and cultural beauty of the archipelago, and the spontaneous kindness, generosity, and grace of many Japanese people.

His eloquent thoughts resonate with all who know and love Japan.  It was difficult to excerpt this beautiful essay/blog; every word and image contributes to the meaning of the whole:

On this day of remembrance, I would like to share with you some simple memories of March 11th that have taken me three years to properly digest. I was far removed from the disaster then, but of course the events of the day made a big impression on me...

Finally the railway company gave up on our stranded train, and buses were hired to carry us to Osaka. It was now evening and I will always remember what I saw from the window as our bus pulled away. The railway staff, who had never stopped apologizing, lined up outside the station, doffed their caps and bowed, and continued to bow to us until we were out of sight. And we in turn bowed to them. I suppose this is not an unusual gesture in this country. But something about that simple, gentle civility touched me then and continues to touch me now. There are those who would have you believe that Japan is best represented by its nationalist politicians, or its bureaucrats, or by whaling and dolphin hunting communities in some coastal areas. These are aspects of Japan that should not be ignored, but they are also a tiny part of the main. It is people like those who helped us that day, the cheerful local shopkeepers, the bento lunch box makers and the railway workers, always doing their best, looking out for those in need, taking responsibility for a situation as it arises – they make up the backbone of Japan. People like that raised funds for Tohoku. They were the ones who volunteered. They keep this country ticking. Simple, working, well-mannered people concerned for their fellows. They doff their caps, and I love them for it.

IMA 3-Year Anniversary @ Tokyo this Sunday: Celebrating awakening, resilience, compassion, community as we transition to a Post-3/11 World

Right: Poster for Jeffrey's Jousan's "Tohoku Laughing"; Right: Dean Newcombe and Justin Berti of IMA. 

Photo: IMA (Intrepid Model Adventures) 3 year Anniversary Party!

Until 3/11, nuclear plants supplied one third of Japan's energy; they're all offline now. However, they're poised for restarts in March. Instead of systemizing the radical energy conservation efforts instituted right after the Fukushima meltdowns and aggressively supporting a shift to renewable energy, the Japanese government and energy companies have turned to global-warming fossil fuels: oil, coal, LNG (liquified natural gas) to make up for the loss. Because of this increase in imported energy (compounded by a monetary policy aimed at devaluing the yen), Japan posted a record trade deficit in 2013, an economically unsustainable situation used to justify the planned return to nuclear power. 

However, the proposed restarts won't be met with complacence. Heightened awareness and social energy in post-3/11 Japan has given rise to deepening collaboration between old and new Nuclear-Free activists, Japanese people and expats, across interrelated issues (organic, local, slow, low-consumption, fossil-free, renewable energy, fair trade), and across borders.

This month a lot of this amazing energy is visible above radar. Canadian environmentalist Severn Cullis-Suzuki (daughter of David Suzuki) is traveling throughout Japan, screening Occupy Love, Velcrow Ripper's third film in his "Fierce Love" trilogy about nonviolent grassroots environmental and social change movements.

And one of the founders of Beautiful Energy, Dean Newcombe, has been spotlighted in a nice feature by Liane Wakabayashi at JT. The Japan-based Scottish model, founder of Intrepid Model Adventures, shared his story about how he was spurred to personal action after witnessing the plight of 3/11 survivors.

Knew Dean Newcombe and his colleagues are dynamic, but didn't realize the breadth, depth, interconnections of their activities. It's a little hard to keep up: volunteering and raising funds for reconstruction in Tohoku; bringing hot meals to and supporting nuclear evacuees from Futaba; supporting fair trade; raising funds for typhoon reconstruction in the Phillipines; instituting a scholarship fund for an orphanage in Bali; supporting Hafu David Yano's NGO which is building a school in Ghana; initiating Beautiful Energy's Nuclear Free/Renewable Energy advocacy every Friday in Tokyo; and screening socially significant films.

The charismatic leader and networker  explained how serendipity, combined with intentional support of authenticity, snowballed his initiative in Tohoku into many directions :

“One of the surprises that perhaps I didn’t expect,” says Newcombe, “is that the volunteers that worked with me in Tohoku would step forward to suggest Tohoku-related support projects that we could do in Tokyo.”

“I want them to apply skills they were born with to make right what they believe is wrong. Deep down we all see what is wrong and unjust in this world. It’s just our choice whether we do something about it!”

This Sunday, IMA and related groups are celebrating their three-year anniversary all day at the Pink Cow in Tokyo.

2pm – A documentary film "Tohoku Laughing" (笑う東北) by Jeffrey Jousan (30 minutes)

(Photo: IMA (Intrepid Model Adventures) 3 year Anniversary Party!)

Events include the screening of Tohoku Laughing" (笑う東北), a 30-minute documentary by Jeffrey Jousan:

Filmed in September 2012 in Miharu, Fukushima, Ishinomaki, Kitakamigawa, Oiwake Hot Spring and Minami Sanriku

It took about 2 years after the Tsunami but people in Tohoku that we met started saying that they could finally laugh again,as if they had entered a new stage in dealing with their horrific experiences. Everyone's process of dealing with these events continues and will continue for some time.

This is a little film to share the healing and life affirming power of laughter, from the awesome people of Tohoku. Please come to Tohoku and laugh!

This post sounds like a valentine, because it is, to all at Beautiful Energy, Hot Meals for the People of Fukushima (双葉町交流プロジェクト( and IMA, MTM, et al., with appreciation for their efforts (born out of compassion), creating ripple effects, bringing people together in unexpected ways to help actualize the best in each other and a peaceful, affirmative, life-sustaining world.

(Photo: Beautiful Energy)

To the Japanese Fisherman of Taji from Yoko Ono

TO THE JAPANESE FISHERMAN OF TAIJI
FROM YOKO ONO, 20 JANUARY 2014.

Dear Japanese Fishermen of Taiji,

I understand how you must feel about the one-sided-ness of the West to be angry at your traditional capture and slaughter of Dolphins. But that tradition was made only when the world, and Japanese Fishermen did not know what it meant to do harm to the Dolphins. I'm sure you have heard so many speeches in which all of these things have been discussed. So I will not bore you with it.

But I think you should think of this situation from the point-of-view of the big picture. Japan has gone through such hard times lately. And we need the sympathy and help of the rest of the world. It will give an excuse for big countries and their children in China, India and Russia to speak ill of Japan when we should be communicating our strong love for peace, not violence.

I am sure that it is not easy, but please consider the safety of the future of Japan, surrounded by many powerful countries which are always looking for the chance to weaken the power of our country. The future of Japan and its safety depends on many situations, but what you do with Dolphins now can create a very bad relationship with the whole world.

The way you are insisting on a big celebration of killing so many Dolphins and kidnapping some of them to sell to the zoos and restaurants at this very politically sensitive time, will make the children of the world hate the Japanese.

For many, many years and decades we have worked hard to receive true understanding of the Japanese from the world. And, because of our effort, Japan is now respected as a country of good power and ingenuity. This did not happen without our efforts of many decades.

But what we enjoy now, can be destroyed literally in one day. I beg of you to consider our precarious situation after the nuclear disaster (which could very well effect the rest of the world, as well).

Please use political tact and cancel the festival which will be considered by the rest of the world as a sign of Japanese arrogance, ignorance, and love for an act of violence.

Thank you.

Yoko Ono
20 January 2014

---

Postscript: Dolphin hunting and selling dolphins to aquariums around the world are not Japanese traditions. The large-scale hunts at Taiji only began in 1969.  Smaller scale kills are an"invented tradition" dating back to the Meiji (1868-1912) period, when the Japanese government sought to replace the Japanese archipelago's diverse regional and local cultures with a standardized state-directed national culture. Large-scale whale hunts also began during the postwar period, introduced to Japan by the US Occupation.  Traditional Japanese cuisine is characterized by no or sparing use of meat of mammals. 

Background on Taiji dolphin kills as an"invented tradition" at this 2009 post "Taiji (killing dolphins is not a Japanese tradition) and Beyond: Saving Dolphins and Whales throughout our Planet." Background on the even more recent large-scale kills at "Taiji Dolphin Drives Started in 1969, and Are Not a Part of Japanese Tradition" by Candice Calloway Whiting (published at Seattlepi.com).

Related post: "Blackfish explores the capture and treatment of killer whales in marine entertainment parks; (Japan: 4 captive Orcas); ocean sanctuaries as a way forward...," TTT, Oct. 26, 2013)

Blackfish explores the capture and treatment of killer whales in marine entertainment parks; (Japan: 4 captive Orcas); ocean sanctuaries as a way forward...

Blackfish, a new documentary film by Gabriela Cowrperthwaite explores the inhumane capture and treatment of killer whales by marine entertainment parks. 

Because of a huge response to initial broadcasts, CNN is airing encores of this program: Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT and on Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT/

The documentary takes the viewer on an emotional roller coaster ride starting with breathtaking footage of orcas swimming in the wild then shifting to the cruel capture of orca babies. In their natural habitat, these magnificent sea mammals swim 100 miles a day. In captivity, they are barely able to move around, damage their teeth on metal railings, and act out aggressively towards each other...

Interviewee John Crowe cried as he describes the legacy of orca capture for entertainment purposes, spotlighting the notorious Penn Cove captures in 1970 by scientists in Washington state.  Mothers and mature family members refused to leave the babies behind in the nets; several adult whales died.  The scientists then cut the whales open, filled their bodies with rocks, sinking them, to destroy of evidence of what they had done.  Orcas' brains are much more developed emotionally and socially than those of humans; they live in social groups called pods; males never leave their mothers, so separating members from their pods is an act of emotional and social violence.

Blackfish explains how killer whales become deformed (their tails bend in a weird way); their teeth and health are compromised, and why their life span is reduced (from that of human lifespan equivalent to 25-30 years) in captivity. 

Sadly, Japan has followed the US model of marine entertainment parks; eight of the 48 orcas held captive worldwide are in two Japanese sites: Kamogawa SeaWorld  (4 orcas) and Port of Nagoya Aquarium (4 orcas).  In the past, an animal park purchased orcas from the Taiji dolphin/whale kills, but none of these survived. 

Live orcas and other small cetaceans have also been offered for sale in Japan. Certain collectors working with the Japanese have defended the capturing of cetaceans there for the same reasons as for Iceland - that the animals are being killed anyway and that local respect for live whales and dolphins may well result. But California marine mammal veterinarian and dolphin collector Jay C. Sweeney, filmed in Japan overseeing dolphin captures, seemed uncomfortable working around the Japanese fishermen and tried to deny he worked with them.

The workers were fishermen who practice "oikomiryo", the drive fishery that has killed thousands of small whales and dolphins over the years at Taiji and Iki Island. Environmental groups have questioned the integrity of marine parks buying cetaceans from a country that engages in the killing of small whales and dolphins along its coast and continues to fight the world-wide moratorium against whaling. For at least some species, the captures of small whales and dolphins in Japan have been accomplished in a much more casual fashion, with mortalities during and soon after capture. Of course, the dolphins, pilot whales and false killer whales (another species in the same family as orcas) captured alive and sent to Japanese marine parks or exported world-wide, would have been sent to the fish market for slaughter.

The number of orca captures in Japan stands at thirteen, and no marine park outside of Japan has purchased orcas there. And Kamogawa Sea World, the main longstanding marine park to exhibit orcas in Japan, has usually turned to North America or Iceland for their orcas, although it would be cheaper to buy locally, and easier, without import permits or long-distance transport. Recently even Shirahama World Safari, which had bought four orcas from Taiji fishermen, two of which died within two months of capture, decided to buy Icelandic orcas in the spring of 1990 - despite the cost of flying the whales 7,500 miles (1@,000 km) to Japan. The better marine parks do not want to be associated with the Japanese captures, partly because of the inexperience of the captors with live animals, but perhaps also, because of the international stigma attached to the slaughters in the annual drive fishery.

In 2011, Nami, a female killer whale died from ulcerative colitis at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. She was the last surviving orca captured in Japanese waters (Taiji). The Orca Project describes her life:

In October of 1985, Nami (also known as Nami-chan) was barely 3 years old when she was captured off the coast of Taiji, Japan along with Goro, a younger male orca, and both were sent to the Taiji Whale Museum. One month after their capture, Goro was sold to Nanki Adventure World in Japan where he spent 19 years in captivity until his death from pneumonia on January 21, 2005.

Nami remained at the Taiji Whale Museum for 24 years in an enclosed sea pen at the seaside marine park until June 19 of last year when she was sent by barge on a 23-hour journey to the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium to become a part of a breeding program in conjunction with Kamogawa SeaWorld.

The only other orca to reside at the Port of Nagoya, a female named Ku, arrived on a breeding loan from the Taiji Whale Museum in October, 2003. She died nearly 5 years later on September 19, 2008 from heart failure. She never bore a calf via artificial insemination (AI) during her time at Nagoya.

Nami was to take over where her former tank-mate Ku had left off. It is unknown if the planned attempts at AI began prior to Nami’s death. Unfortunately, her life was cut short and her death shows the lengths marine parks are willing to go to in their attempt to keep the marine mammal entertainment industry alive and profitable…

Cowrperthwaite, who had regularly taken her children to Sea World (and was not an animal activist) prior to starting this film, and other captive marine mammal advocates say there's a win-win in this sad situation: marine entertainment parks should open oceanside sanctuaries Because of health conditions resulting from captivity, orcas (and others) cannot be set free.  However, oceanside sanctuaries would let them live the remainder of their lives in more humane, more natural conditions; marine parks could still sell tickets and make profits; people would feel uplifted from witnessing kind treatment of wild animals; the world would be a better place.

This would also be a way out for Taiji. The cove could be transformed into a sanctuary and happy educational tourist venue.  The Japanese government could subsidize this endeavor the way it subsidizes whale and dolphin kills. This would be a lot more profitable on every level, from image, to revenues, to karma.

Such would also be sanctuaries for humans: places of respite and healing from the innumerable forms of everyday violence that we are all subjected to and sometimes complicit with...In such sanctuaries, we could foster the imaginings of a kinder future for all life...

- JD

Alone in the Zone: Naoto Matsumura, caretaker of hundreds of animals in evacuated Tomioka, Fukushima

Alone in the Zone (原発20キロ圏内に生きる男)
via filmmakers Jeffrey Jousan and Ivan Kovac for VICE Japan 

Naoto Matsumura and his elder parents lived on a rice farm in Tomioka, a coastal town in Fukushima prefecture, known for having one of the longest cherry blossom tunnels in Japan.

After hearing the hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, eight miles away from their home, the Matsumuras  attempted to evacuate. However, they were turned away from a relative in Iwaki, a coastal town in southern Fukushima prefecture.  She feared they had been radioactively contaminated.  Afterwards, they were turned away from a shelter because it was full.

So they returned to their home, where his parents stayed until his mother became ill in April 2011. She then moved  to her daughter's home in Shizuoka where there was no room for the Matsumura's animals.  Therefore, Naoto Matsumura decided to stay—to take care of them.

He told filmmakers Jeffrey Jousan and Ivan Kovac that he gradually took on the task of caring for cattle, pigs, cats, dogs, and an ostrich (the sole survivor of a flock of 30 birds) throughout Tomioka, all left behind by owners who were initially told the evacuation would be temporary and short-term: 

Our dogs didn’t get fed for the first few days. When I did eventually feed them, the neighbors’ dogs started going crazy. I went over to check on them and found that they were all still tied up.

Everyone in town left thinking they would be back home in a week or so, I guess. From then on, I fed all the cats and dogs every day. They couldn’t stand the wait, so they’d all gather around barking up a storm as soon as they heard my truck. Everywhere I went there was always barking. Like, ‘we’re thirsty’ or, ‘we don’t have any food.’ So I just kept making the rounds.

Over a thousand cattle and hundreds of thousands of caged chickens died from starvation in Tomioka. Then on May 12, 2011, the Kan administration ordered the euthanasia of surviving cattle. But a bright spot for animal survivors was that Japanese authorities have allowed Matsumura to remain to care for animals since the return of the town's other 15,000 residents is unlikely.

(Left) A dog that survived trapped inside a cattle barn for a year and a half after 3/11 by eating the dead flesh of the starved cattle was rescued by Matsumura in the summer of 2012.  Naoto named the dog Kiseki (“Miracle”) because his hair eventually grew back. (Right) Kiseki, approximately two months after being rescued.

(Photo: Jeffrey Jousan and Ivan Kovac, VICE Japan )

Matsumura now spends six to seven hours a day feeding animals with supplies donated by support groups, before going to bed at around 7 p.m. He uses a solar panel to power his computer and cell phone and a kerosene heater and charcoal heated kosatsu (quilt-covered table) to keep warm during cold months. 

In the film, he describes Tomioka's idyllic past: 

Tomioka may be a small town, but it’s rich in nature. You’ve got the rivers, the ocean, and the mountains nearby. You can swim in the ocean, fish in the rivers, and go pick wild vegetables in the mountains. Except now we can't do any of that.

Filmmakers Jeffrey Jousan and Ivan Kovac share their motivation for making this film:

This is more than just the story of one man standing up to the government. Naoto Matsumura makes up the best inside each of us. We send him our emotional support and want the world to remember the sacrifice he is making for the animals and for his beliefs. In an age of social media, one man's story can easily be lost.

It is our goal that this doesn't happen to Naoto Matsumura. We hope you will feel the same way and join us to in showing our appreciation to this unique and courageous man. Naoto-San deserves much more than his 15 minutes of fame.

---

Background on Naoto Matsumura

警戒区域に生きる ～松村直登の闘い～　(Living in the Evacuation Zone ~ Naoto Matsumura's Struggle ~)  (Website of Naoto Matsumura's NPO)

Naoto Matsumura, Guardian of Fukushima's Animals  (Facebook page dedicated to Naoto Matsumura)

"The Most Radioactive Man on Earth Has the Kindest Heart (Julia Whitty, Mother Jones, March 12, 2013)

"Lone farmer in no-go zone sticks to defiant existence" (Kyodo via JT, April 6, 2012) 

"Living Alone in the Fukushima Evacuation Zone"  (Tomo Kosuga, Vice, March, 2012) 

"Japan tsunami anniversary: The man and his menagerie left behind in Fukushima" (The Telegraph, Julian Ryall, March 4, 2012) 

"Naoto Matsumura, Japanese Rice Farmer, Refuses To Leave Fukushima Nuclear Zone: (Eric Talmadge, AP via HuffPost, Aug. 31, 2011) 

---

Updates on Animals in Fukushima:

Animal Friends Niigata on FB

More Background on Animals in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone:

"Keigo Sakamoto cares for 500 animals inside the Fukushima Exclusion Zone" (TTT post, Oct. 8, 2013) 

"PROMETHEUS TRAP/ The disaster and animals: Woman repeatedly rescued pets in the Fukushima off-limits zone" (Article 8 of an investigative series by Misuzu Tsukue, Asahi, May 8, 2013)

"The Lost Pets of Fukushima: Photos" (Discovery.com, Dec. 12, 2012)

"Fukushima pets in no-go zone face harsh winter" (photo slide show of animal rescue, featuring United Kennel Club Japan (UKC Japan)) (Reuters, Jan. 31, 2012)

"Activist Hiroshi Hoshi defies fallout to pluck animals from Fukushima dead zone" (Rick Wallace, The Australian, June 27, 2011)

"Thousands of Animals Left to Die Around Fukushima" (Discovery.com, June 9, 2011)

"Welfare groups race to rescue Japan's abandoned animals" (Mark Tutton, CNN, March 17, 2011)

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Towns evacuated around Fukushima on April 11th, 2011. (Image: Wikipedia)

Keigo Sakamoto cares for 500 animals inside the Fukushima Exclusion Zone

In September 2013, Keigo Sakamoto,  holds his dog, Atom. A farmer in Naraha, a town of previously 8,000 in Futaba district, Sakomoto refused to leave his home inside the exclusion zone.  He remained to care for  500 animals that owners were forced to leave behind when ordered to evacuate their homes and farms.  

(Photo: Damir Sakoji/Reuters)

On March 11, 2011, the Japanese government began what was believed to be a temporary evacuation of residents who lived in the area surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.  On March 12, and again, on March 15, the evacuation was expanded in size after several hydrogen explosions at the plant's reactors.  The evacuation zone, altered several times since 3/12, now includes eleven towns and extends up to 45 km from the nuclear meltdowns.

Hundreds of thousands of these evacuees were forced to leave behind many thousands of animals.

Initially the severity of the nuclear disaster was downplayed, leading residents to believe that their evacuation would be short-term and temporary. Thinking they could come back and get them soon afterwards, many evacuees left pets and farm animals with enough food and water for a few days.

Others did not want to leave beloved pets behind, even for a few days, and tried to bring their pets with them, but temporary shelters in Fukushima prefecture did not provide for pets until a "Pet Village" was open three months later,  in June, 2011. Faced without any other options, many refugees kept their pets inside their cars parked outside of temporary shelters; some even chose to stay inside their cars with their pets. (Niigata Prefecture, which accepted 10,000 nuclear refugees, had established a system to care for pets from the start.)

Animals left behind included dogs tied in backyards, cats in locked homes, and farm animals confined in barns and pens, without the opportunity to escape to forage for food and water.

Animal welfare groups scrambling  to feed and save animals throughout Tohoku's earthquake and tsunami-hit area also tended to and rescued animals within the overlapping nuclear exclusion zone for the first few weeks of the evacuation. However, their animal rescues were impeded when Tokyo enacted a strict “Do Not Enter” policy on April 22, 2011.

Animal Friends Niigata, HEART Tokushima, the Japan Cat Network (based in Shiga Prefecture, near Kyoto), and Animal Rescue Kansai (ArkBark) were some of the animal welfare groups that joined to form Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support (JEARS) to support shelters caring for animals  affected by both the natural and nuclear disasters.(JEARS suspended its Facebook page in February of this year, directing animal supporters to member groups that are still actively caring for Fukushima rescue animals.)

Yoko Mieko, who lost four of her twelve cats during the disaster started a campaign for the rescue and care of animals left behind.  She regularly went into the exclusion zone to feed and rescue animals. On June 30, 2011, the cram school teacher issued a video plea, "Cry from Fukushima: Help animals around the nuclear plant" on YouTube.

Some individuals and animal welfare groups sneaked into the zone to attempt to feed and save animals. 1,500 dogs and cats were rescued the first six months.

Nine months later, when the severity of the nuclear meltdowns became undeniable, and  the public realized that the temporary evacuation order would not be lifted  as they were initially led to believe, the Japanese government gave into pleas from rescue groups asking that they be allowed to save any surviving animals from freezing to death during the winter. 16 humane groups were permitted to enter the zone from Dec. 7 to Dec. 27, 2011 where they were able to rescue some animals among the thousands they found starving, ill, and dead.

The United Kennel Club Japan (UKC Japan), was one of the groups that helped in this highly publicized rescue of hundreds of animals. UKC Japan is now caring for many of these animals at its shelter in Tokyo.

After some disturbing film footage of the rescue was aired on television, the Japanese government decided to refuse animal rescuers further entry into the zone, going so far as arresting Hiroshi and Leo Hoshi on Jan. 28, 2012, for not heeding the no-entry order.  The Hoshi family, at their own expense, had rescued over 200 animals.  The Hachiko Animal Federation is sponsoring a petition asking for their release, with the plea to Chief Prosecutor Toru Sakai, that such a release on humanitarian grounds would be just in that there was no criminal intent; the Hoshis were simply unable to witness suffering animals and do nothing.

The compassionate and heroic work of Keigo Sakamoto (and that of others who also stayed to care for animals left behind; residents who regularly visit their former homes to care for animals; Japanese and international animal welfare groups; and countless individuals in Japan and around the world supporting the humane treatment of natural and nuclear disaster animal victims) are some of the jagged silver lining stories of post-3/11 Japan.

On June 8, 2011, Keigo Sakamoto holds two of his dogs in the front yard of his house. Sakamoto lost his livelihood as an egg farmer, but was allowed to remain in the exclusion zone to care for animals.  

(Photo: AP Photographer David Guttenfelder on assignment for National Geographic Magazine)

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Updates:

Animal Friends Niigata on FB

Some Background: 

"Alone in the Zone: Naoto Matsumura, caretaker of hundreds of animals in evacuated Tomioka, Fukushima" (TTT, Oct. 10, 2013)

"PROMETHEUS TRAP/ The disaster and animals: Woman repeatedly rescued pets in the Fukushima off-limits zone" (Article 8 of an investigative series by Misuzu Tsukue, Asahi, May 8, 2013)

"PROMETHEUS TRAP/ The disaster and animals: Pets forgotten in the mass evacuation" (Article 3 of an investigative series by Misuzu Tsukue, Asahi, April 26, 2013)

"The Lost Pets of Fukushima: Photos" (Discovery.com, Dec. 12, 2012)

"Yasusuke Ota: The Abandoned Animals of Fukushima"
(Aesthetica Magazine, Oct. 3, 2012)

"Fukushima's rebel farmers refuse to abandon livestock: Small band of renegades make regular trips to nuclear evacuation zone to feed cattle, in defiance of government orders" (Justin McCurry, The Guardian, Feb. 28, 2012)

"Fukushima pets in no-go zone face harsh winter" (photo slide show of animal rescue, featuring United Kennel Club Japan (UKC Japan) ) (Reuters, Jan. 31, 2012)

"Fukushima's animals abandoned and left to die" (Kyung Lah, CNN, Jan. 26, 2012)

"Activist Hiroshi Hoshi defies fallout to pluck animals from Fukushima dead zone" (Rick Wallace, The Australian, June 27, 2011)

"Thousands of Animals Left to Die Around Fukushima" (Discovery.com, June 9, 2011)

"Welfare groups race to rescue Japan's abandoned animals" (Mark Tutton, CNN, March 17, 2011)

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Towns evacuated around Fukushima on April 11th, 2011. (Image: Wikipedia)

-JD

Kelly Rae Kramer: "I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m hungry for peace."

Soulful anti-war poem by Kelly Rae Kramer via Common Dreams:

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m angry

… angry at those who think more killing is the answer...

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m sick

… sick at the thought of all those shot, bayoneted, bombed, gassed, and nuked in war...

I am not ‘war-weary’, but I am tired

… tired of the claim that war can be ‘humanitarian’
… tired of indoctrination into the false belief that war can bring peace...

...I am not ‘war-weary’; I am anti-war

… because war is always a failure
… a failure of diplomacy and understanding
… a failure of will and effort
… a failure of imagination and creativity
… a failure of ingenuity and investment
… a failure of compassion and morality
… a failure to invent and practice real, nonviolent humanitarian action.

I am not ‘war-weary’; I’m hungry for peace.

________________________________________

Kelly Rae Kraemer, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Peace Studies at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University in central Minnesota

Read the entire poem here at Common Dreams.

Global Agent Orange Awareness Day

Agent Orange survivor Phuong folding paper cranes with Toshiko Tanaka,

atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima. Photo courtesy of Lee, Jung Yong. 

Related blog:" Peace Boat's 63rd Voyage: 

Atomic bombing survivors (Hibakusha) dialogue with Agent Orange victims"

Via Rose Welsch of Peace Boat, Global Article 9, and US for Okinawa:

August 10th marks the day in 1961 when the U.S. began aerial spraying of toxic herbicides over Vietnam.

Tainted with dioxin, Agent Orange not only sickened Vietnamese people, it also poisoned U.S. service members who were exposed to it. Its effects did not stop when the war ended--second and even third generations of survivors have experienced a wide range of effects, such as birth defects and cancer.

In total, more than 3 million people have been affected by it and related chemicals. Unknown to many, Canadians become some of the first victims of these toxic chemicals when they were sprayed and tested at a large base called Gagetown before being used in Vietnam. Moreover, because U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Korea and Guam were used during the war in Vietnam, people were also exposed to Agent Orange in these places. Laos was also sprayed with Agent Orange, and Cambodia was affected by it when the spraying drifted from Vietnam over its border.

On this day, we also call for individuals, civil society, and governments to work together to create a culture of peace around the world to prevent similar tragedies from being repeated.

New Year's Message from Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue & Support

Many thanks to all at Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support for all they're doing for the voiceless survivors of 3/11 and the Fukushima meltdowns. Please visit their website if you'd like to help...

Mama cat Rin and her daughter Shii were rescued from Fukushima not a moment too late. Isabella Gallaon-Aoki of Animal Friends Niigata, one of our coalition shelters, tells us that no one at AFN thought the kitten would make it through. The volunteers had to feed little Shii by hand for several months. But look at her now: cuteness pure!

お母さん猫のりんちゃんと娘のしいちゃん。福島から救出されました。JEARS共同シェルターの一つ、アニマルフレンズ新潟のイザベラ・ガラオン青木はその当時の状況を振り返って、こう言います。「あの時はこの子猫が生き延びるとは誰も思いませんでした。ボランティア達が数ヶ月に渡ってミルクを飲ませたり食事をさせたりして。。。見てください、こんな可愛い子に大きくなったんですよ！」 

Charlotte, safe in Niigata, eating her holiday meal in tinsel finery

Empathy gene?

Thoughtful discussion of latest on empathy research at Ed Yong's blog at Discover:

Consider the OXTR gene. It creates a docking station for a hormone called oxytocin, which has far-ranging effects on our social behaviour. People carry either the A or G versions of OXTR, depending on the “letter” that appears at a particular spot along its length. People with two G-copies tend to be more empathic, sociable and sensitive than those with at least one A-copy. These differences are small, but according to a new study from Aleksandr Kogan at the University of Toronto, strangers can pick up on them after watching people for just a few minutes.

Amnesty International: Japan Minister Must Not Cave in to Pressure on Death Penalty, says Amnesty International

Japan Minister Must Not Cave in to Pressure on Death Penalty, says Amnesty International

WASHINGTON - October 28 - Japan’s justice minister should not sign execution warrants, Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network said today, following the minister’s announcement that he does not intend to end capital punishment, despite saying last month that he would not approve executions.

Justice Minister Hideo Hiraoka said Friday he would look at each death row case individually, after a prominent politician reportedly had encouraged him to exercise his power to authorize executions.

"After showing reluctance to sign execution warrants last month when he first took office, it is deeply alarming that Minister Hideo Hiraoka now seems to be under pressure to approve executions despite his own calls for caution," said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Asia and the Pacific. "The minister must stand by his original commitment which was to suspend executions until Japan’s application of the death penalty can be more carefully considered."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura reportedly encouraged Minister Hiraoka at a parliamentary committee on Wednesday to press ahead with executions.

The last executions in Japan were carried out on July 28, 2010, when Ogata Hidenori and Shinozawa Kazuo were hanged in the Tokyo detention center.

A study group on the death penalty was established by the former Minister of Justice Keiko Chiba in 2010. The study group is continuing to work under the current Minister, Hideo Hiraoka, who encouraged discussions on the subject both in public and within his ministry, taking into account international trends and opinions.

No date for its report has been announced.

There are currently 126 people on death row in Japan.

Executions in Japan are by hanging and are typically carried out in secret. Death row inmates are only notified on the morning of their execution and their families are usually informed only after the execution has taken place.

This means that death row prisoners live in constant fear of execution. Enduring these conditions for years or even decades has led to depression and mental illness among many death row inmates.

More than two thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Out of 41 countries in the Asia-Pacific, 17 have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, nine are abolitionist in practice and one – Fiji – uses the death penalty only for exceptional military crimes.

This means that less than half of the countries in that region still use this ultimate and irreversible punishment. Of the G8 nations, only Japan and the United States still use capital punishment.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty as a violation of the right to life in all cases, regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution.

"Japan should immediately commute all death sentences and introduce an official moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolition of the death penalty," said Baber.

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.

Zen priest in Fukushima plants flowers that absorb radiation & accepts radioactive topsoil at temple grounds

"Invisible snow" by Reuters Tokyo Pictures, Aug. 19, 2011

In August, Mike Willacy of ABC (Australian Broadcasting) reported that communities near the plant are reporting radiation at Chernobyl levels.  He spotlights one of many examples of Fukushima residents  have necessarily engaged in their own disaster response: A Zen Buddhist priest is now accepting highly radioactive topsoil on temple property:

He is the chief monk of Fukushima's 400-year old Joenji Temple and this is a sutra for peace and rebirth, a prayer for the resurrection of an entire community choked in radiation.

KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): This radiation is like an invisible snow. It's fallen and brought us a long winter. But eventually the snow will melt and spring will come.

MARK WILLACY: To help his community rid itself of this invisible snow, Monk Abe is allowing people to dump their radioactive topsoil on temple land.

Armed with his four Geiger counters, he shows me just how contaminated this earth is.

The Japanese-made Geiger counter quickly blasts off the scale. The others reveal radiation levels ten times beyond what's considered safe.

KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): The radiation level here is so high that some of the Geiger counters can't measure it. But I still accept this contaminated soil.

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Photojournalist Yuriko Nakao of Reuter has reported even more in-depth on Koyu Abe and his community at "Invisible Snow," a sensitive photo blog that includes the above video:  As well as engaging in radiation clean-up, residents  are planting flowers that absorb nuclear radiation:

Abe described the radiation particles as an “invisible snow”, “A snow you can’t see has covered the area, and has brought a long, long winter to Fukushima,” he said.

Abe’s organization called, “Make a wish upon flowers,” aimed to reduce the volume of radiation in Fukushima by using certain plants’ natural ability to reduce toxic materials in the ground. With his volunteer group, comprised of about 100 members, he planted sunflowers where radiation levels were high.

Abe hoped to lower the level of radiation and through that ease stress and anxiety experienced by the residents. He also strongly believed that his actions will tackle the prevalent sense of stagnation and help cultivate a sense of hope...

What moved me most was to see the residents not give up their hopes and strive to overcome their predicament. The three days that I spent with the monk’s family were very moving. They were like a blessing to me.

The monk also had his motives to tell me his story. He looked into my eyes and said: “Media outlets have the obligation to reveal and bring everything into the light, so that the people can make their decisions.” By making everything clear, the media can help stop the spread of bad rumors and lower the anxiety while speeding up the recovery process, he said.

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UPDATE: On Feb. 10, 2012, Yuriko Nakao updated her coverage on Koyu Abe's radiation clean-up efforts: Japan priest fights invisible demon: radiation:

On the snowy fringes of Japan's Fukushima city, now notorious as a byword for nuclear crisis, Zen monk Koyu Abe offers prayers for the souls of thousands left dead or missing after the earthquake and tsunami nearly one year ago.

But away from the ceremonial drums and the incense swirling around the Joenji temple altar, Abe has undertaken another task, no less harrowing -- to search out radioactive "hot spots" and clean them up, storing irradiated earth on temple grounds...

"You can't see it. Nothing looks as if it's changed, but really, radiation is floating through the area. It's hard for those hit by the tsunami, but it's hard to live here too."

Last summer, Abe grew and distributed sunflowers and other plants, such as field mustard and amaranthus, in an effort to lighten the impact of the radiation and cheer local residents.

Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and cleaning them up...

Abe said he and the other monks are storing the soil on a hill behind the temple as neither the government nor the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) are helping with the clean-up.

Slow, Fair, Humane, Healthful Food: "Occupy the Food System"

Slow Food USA's blog: "Occupy Wall Street: What’s food got to do with it?"

...good, clean, and fair food IS a value of the activists. But what does it have to do with Wall Street?

Food justice writer and activist Jan Poppendeick says the connection is corporate control of agriculture. The statistics are staggering (90% of the corn market is dominated by 3 companies, for example) and the resulting degradation of human health and the environment endangers our health, and the future health of our food supply.

Reclaiming control of the food system from corporate entities is one of the written tenets of the OWS declaration: “[corporations] have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.” Another tenet speaks to animal cruelty inflicted by the common industrial practice of confining animals into tight quarters with abhorrent conditions...

With so many messages on t-shirts and banners it’s hard for any one to rise to the top, but it’s clear that food activists are present on the scene. As Sheila Salmon Nichols noted on our Facebook page, “We might not all agree on all the ideologies of OWS…however, their position on what is happening to our food system is spot-on! Hopefully, this collective energy will move our country/world in a more positive, peaceful, and sustainable direction!”

Comment: The connection between the poor quality of the culture of food in the US and control of our food systems by extremely large companies as mentioned above is spot on. Major advertising budgets target children and adults with ads that have almost nothing to do with health, community or long term life-satisfaction.

"Food Inc." pointed out some of the ways that large companies are willing to directly harm small farmers - who are the best chance for renewed innovation and responsibility in agriculture - for the sake of a few more pennies profit, and increased control over farmers seeds and practices. I strongly support Occupy Wall Street for the simple reason that they are helping all of us to understand the connections between the systems we’ve created and our current reality...

Comment: Many of the rank and file dairy farmers are supportive of Occupy Wall Street.

We have watched as a handful of companies have come to dominate the prices that we receive for our milk. A handful of traders control the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that sets the price of cheese that tranlates into milk price formulas. The most spectacular display of greed was in 2009 when dairy farmers were committing suicides from milk prices that dropped to $9 0r $10 for 100 pounds of milk. There are 8.6 pounds of milk in a gallon) You, the consumer, continued to pay the same in the store. Farmers were committing suicide in rural areas. The CEO of Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk processor, took home a cool $66,000,000 that year according to Bloomberg.

As markets have become more consolidated, the companies have tightened their grip on us, the average farmers. Our share of the dairy retail dollar has dropped tremendously over the past decade. The leaders of even the largest cooperatives will tell you that Walmart has big power to push us back and down in price. The biggest dairy companies in the US have just piloted an ad campaign to force the prices paid down to the farmers.

Where will this all end? Thank you, Occupy Wall Street. Some of us will try to get to smaller occupy wall street demonstrations since it is hard for us to leave the cows, it is difficult to travel to big cities, but we are with you.

Robert Thurman @ Occupy Wall Steet: "This planet is in jeopardy because of the military-industrial machine that is beyond East & West."

Via filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, chronicler of nonviolent faith-based social movements, at his latest blog—Occupy Love: Robert Thurman, engaged Buddhist scholar and friend of the Dalai Lama, calling for a "cool revolution", compassion, meditation (to create psychological strength & focus) to challenge the organized greed and high-tech violence of the less than 1%.)

Robert Thurman shares wisdom at Occupy Wall Street: "We need a cool revolution!":

By "cool" I mean...without getting angry, without indulging in hatred...

Here we are at Liberty Plaza and we're trying to keep liberty keep growing on this planet. Actually this planet is in dire jeopardy because of the military-industrial machine that is beyond East and West.

The industrial part has to do with organized greed. It combines individuals' limitless greed with high-tech power and it's transcending the capacity of the planet. Pollution, global warming, over-population all comes from this technological expansion of greed.

On the other side you have hatred which necessarily goes along with greed because a greedy person hates the other greedy person whom he feels is trying to take away whatever he wants.

So we need to control both of these problems. Therefore, in order to do this, every person has to control the inside of their own mind.

No one should be protesting the nasty bankers if they truly hate them. They are not worthy of being hated. They are just like us. They are just luckier at the moment and unluckier in the long run because they are taking away too much from too many. This makes them paranoid. They never can have any fun because they think we're going to pick their pockets. And one billion is not enough. Even ten...twenty...one hundred billion...By that time, they're reduced to a pile of shivering paranoia...Therefore we have to be sympathetic to them. We don't hate them. We feel sorry for them...

However the corporatocracy has taken over the mass media and the electoral process and so they are defeating your will. Every poll says 70% of us wants social security without problems; want a single-payer medical system; want to have bankers and insurers know they work for us. They are service industries: they serve us, we don't serve them.

The corporatocracy are a bunch of wimpy guys with a couple of token girls who don't actually know how to make anything. But they know how to sign checks and push papers which my pathetic university taught them, without properly teaching them ethics...But one thing they're good at is not wanting to pay people to make things. An honest wage, a decent job. So they support dictatorships like China to keep slaves on tap for them for a dollar a day so they can bust the unions here and export all our jobs and even get tax breaks for it. This has to stop.

You have to vote the congresspeople who are corrupt out of office so that 70% of the wishes of the American people will be honored by them. They should serve their constituents and not their [campaign] contributors like the people up there in those buildings [pointing at Wall Street buildings], who are the 1% or less...

Don't be brainwashed by political propaganda like Fox News...who lull us into complacence, which now you all are not doing...

Let's all meditate everyday. But not just "Duh...I didn't think anything. Oh that felt so good, I didn't think anything." That can be nice, like Prozac or something...But it can be a little addictive. It doesn't really bring you insight.

And, indulge your compassion. Indulge your intelligence: what you really need. So when you meditate, think about compassion. Here we are free to take our time, envisioning a happier world...a world with gross national happiness...

Erric Solomon posted the entire talk (with good sound) at whatmeditationreallyis.com. Solomon also posted on the group of about 100 meditators at Occupy, with a link to organizer Anthony Whitehurst.

The Cove star praises Miyake island's dolphin watching; hopes Taiji dolphin slaughter will end

The world's eye is again turning on Taiji, Wakayama, where local fishermen annually kill thousands of dolphins with harpoons. Among countless forms of systematic animal abuse worldwide, Taiji's dolphin hunt vies with the worst (American aerial "trophy" shooting of wolves and Canadian clubbing of baby seals) in its needless cruelty.

The Japanese government defends the dolphin hunt at Taiji as part of Japanese culinary culture, however large-scale dolphin kills at Taiji only began in 1969. " Does anyone know a Japanese person who has actually eaten a dolphin?

Let's also hope the dolphin activists who come to Taiji will also speak out against the planned dolphin aquarium in Kyoto.

The Cove star praises dolphin-watching in Japan, hopes slaughter will end in Taiji
Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press
Aug 26, 2011

TOKYO - The star of the Oscar-winning movie about dolphin-killing in Japan had only praise for a small island off the eastern coast that thrives on snorkeling with dolphins, and he urged the rest of the country to follow that example. Ric O'Barry was heading to Taiji, the southwestern town made notorious in the documentary The Cove, where the annual dolphin hunt is set to start Sept. 1. But he stopped along the way at the island of Miyakejima for a look at how dolphins can be spared and used for tourism.

"It's very encouraging to see people celebrating dolphins, respecting dolphins, and I'm all for that," O'Barry said Friday. "We support them all the way."

Chikara Atsuta, an official with the tourism agency at Miyakejima, said he welcomed O'Barry's praise, and expressed hopes more people from abroad would visit the island of 2,700 people, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Tokyo.

"I feel so grateful," he said. "We do not hunt dolphins."

Miyakejima's dolphins live in the area so residents have even given them names. In contrast, dolphins are migratory in Taiji and so the same kind of dolphin-watching would be difficult to duplicate.

But O'Barry urged Taiji to turn to whale-watching and other forms of tourism that are kinder to animal life.

O'Barry said he will lead a prayer ceremony in Taiji for people who have died in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster and for the dolphins about to die in the hunt. He is travelling by bus with two dozen people who are all dolphin-lovers, he said.

Wakayama Prefectural police have said some 100 riot police are carrying out drills to prepare for possible confrontation with activists as the annual dolphin hunts begins, including chasing boats and making arrests...

O'Barry was an expert at training dolphins, such as the ones for the 1960s "Flipper" TV series, until he had a change of heart and instead devoted his life to saving dolphins...

Only about 2,000 dolphins are caught in Taiji every year. But the slaughter, as captured in The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos, is so striking that the town has become synonymous with the practice.

In that film, fishermen on boats scare dolphins into a small cove and bayonet them. The dolphins writhe in pain and turn the waters red with blood...

Read the entire article here. The Cove website: www.thecovemovie.com.

Filmmaker Velcrow Ripper spotlights compassionate activists & sources of hope in the "context of a global crisis, which I think is undeniable"

Velcrow Ripper's 2009 documentary film Fierce Light: Where Spirit Meets Action begins with the Canadian director sharing his personal story about the assassination of his friend, journalist Brad Will, killed by paramilitary gunmen in Oaxaca, Mexico, while filming a strike. Ripper then asks, "Why do I keep working to change the world when we're up against impossible odds and how can I even think about spirituality when they're killing my friends?"

He answers this question by following several other stories showing how grassroots activists have responded to the devastation of the Vietnam war; class and race-based oppression; commercial destruction of an urban community garden in Los Angeles; and commercial destruction of an ancient old-growth forest.

Compassionate activists featured: American civil rights activist John Lewis, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Archibishop Desmond Tutu, environmentalists Daryl Hannah, Julia Butterfly Hill, Van Jones, and Joanna Macy.

In this interview excerpt, the filmmaker describes the film's purpose:

I would say that one of the things that the film tries to do is offer us a source of hope. And all my films now are in the context of a global crisis, which I think is undeniable.

One of the roles of this compassionate activism or this shift in the way we create change is also to give us strategies for maintaining hope in the face of crisis. In fact that's what Scared Sacred was all about. In that film I went to the ground zeros of the world, the place where you'd least expect to find hope, searching for it, because I actually think that the worst thing that could happen right now is that humanity gives up. You've seen it in some tribes in the Amazon where their numbers have been reduced, their land has disappeared and they just stop procreating. Turning crisis into compassion is really the root of it....

The other big focus of this compassionate activism that Fierce Light focuses on is a shift in activism to focusing more on what we're for than just on what we're against. So it's solution based. So much of what's happening, and so much of the way change happens in the world today is through the media. We live in a mediated culture and wars are fought as much in the public arena as they are on the battleground...The message of Gandhi and the message of Martin Luther King was that the most effective tool you have is your ethical integrity. And when you react with violence, you've lost that in the public eyes...

And for me, I see spirituality as coming from a depth perspective. More than anything, what the film comes back to is the idea of what Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls 'ubuntu', and in Buddhism what they refer to as ‘inter-being'. And so, almost a definition of spirituality for me is that we are all interconnected. That in turn is also reflected in science in systems theory.

I hope to help and be part of the movement that I think is the biggest project that's taking place on the planet right now: the movement from an industrial growth society — a life-destroying society — to a sustainable society, sustainable on multiple levels. A society of mutually enhancing relationships between each other and the planet, which I think is where we're going.

That's the next step in our evolution is to get to that. Moving from the egocentric point of view to the world-centric point of view. And that's my activism.

I consider myself a media activist and that's the root of where I'm pointing people. I guess many, many people are working on this project but it's a shift we need to make right now. And it's why it's an exciting time to be alive because the stakes are really, really high and we get to choose to be part of the solution if we so desire.

I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful. I think we are waking up. Change is happening really fast. There are two graphs: there's the graph of destruction and there is the graph of transformation. It's anybody's guess which one is going to peak out first but I choose hope.

Read the entire interview at Cinema Spy.