35,000+ rally in unison to protect the marine life at Henoko, Okinawa's most beloved natural cultural heritage site • Coral scientist Katherine Muzik & filmmaker Oliver Stone share messages of support • Hayao Miyazaki joins Henoko fundraising group

Via peace photojournalist Takashi Morizumi

35,000+ rallied in unison today at Naha, the capitol of Okinawa, to call for the protection the marine life at Henoko, Okinawa's most beloved natural cultural heritage site: the only dugong habitat, and last fully intact (and healthiest, most biodiverse) coral reef in the entire prefecture.

Marine biologist Katherine Musik:

The rally right now in Okinawa is absolutely tremendous. Tens of thousands of voices, right now, shouting together, "NO", in perfect harmony! "NO" to the US military presence, how powerful!

Let's all shout, "Yes" to the blue corals, red sea fans, orange clownfish, "Yes" to the endangered dugongs in the sea, the endangered birds (yambaru quina, noguchi gera) in the forest!

"No" to imperialism, "Yes" to island autonomy!

Oliver Stone's message:

You have my respect and support for your protest on May 17. I cannot be with you in person, but in spirit. Your cause is a just one.

A new mega‐base built in the name of ‘deterrence’ is a lie. Another lie told by the American Empire to further its own goal of domination throughout the world. Fight this monster. Others like you are fighting it on so many fronts throughout the globe. It is a fight for peace, sanity, and the preservation of a beautiful world.

Muzik and Stone are part of a group of international scholars, peace advocates and artists, working behind the scenes to support Okinawa. In January 2014, they issued a statement and petition given to representatives of the US and Japanese governments:

We oppose construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment

We the undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokazu Nakaima to deepen and extend the military colonization of Okinawa at the expense of the people and the environment. Using the lure of economic development, Mr. Abe has extracted approval from Governor Nakaima to reclaim the water off [landfill] Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa, to build a massive new U.S. Marine air base with a military port.

Plans to build the base at Henoko have been on the drawing board since the 1960s.  They were revitalized in 1996, when the sentiments against US military bases peaked following the rape of a twelve year-old Okinawan child by three U.S. servicemen. In order to pacify such sentiments, the US and Japanese governments planned to close Futenma Marine Air Base in the middle of Ginowan City and  move its functions to a new base to be constructed at Henoko, a site of extraordinary biodiversity and home to the endangered marine mammal dugong.

Marine biologist Katherine Muzik with Henoko elder community leader Fumiko Shimabukuro

Governor Nakaima’s reclamation approval does not reflect the popular will of the people of Okinawa.  Immediately before the gubernatorial election of 2010, Mr. Nakaima, who had previously accepted the new base construction plan, changed his position and called for relocation of the Futenma base outside the prefecture. He won the election by defeating a candidate who had consistently opposed the new base. Polls in recent years have shown that 70 to 90 percent of the people of Okinawa opposed the Henoko base plan. The poll conducted immediately after Nakaima’s recent reclamation approval showed that 72.4 percent of the people of Okinawa saw the governor’s decision as a “breach of his election pledge.” The reclamation approval was a betrayal of the people of Okinawa.

73.8 percent of the US military bases (those for exclusive US use) in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa, which is only .6 percent of the total land mass of Japan. 18.3 percent of the Okinawa Island is occupied by the US military. Futenma Air Base originally was built during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa by US forces in order to prepare for battles on the mainland of Japan. They simply usurped the land from local residents. The base should have been returned to its owners after the war, but the US military has retained it even though now almost seven decades have passed. Therefore, any conditional return of the base is fundamentally unjustifiable.

Oliver Stone meeting Henoko elder community leaders in 2013

The new agreement would also perpetuate the long suffering of the people of Okinawa. Invaded in the beginning of the 17th century by Japan and annexed forcefully into the Japanese nation at the end of 19th century, Okinawa was in 1944 transformed into a fortress to resist advancing US forces and thus to buy time to protect the Emperor System.  The Battle of Okinawa killed more than 100,000 local residents, about a quarter of the island’s population. After the war, more bases were built under the US military occupation. Okinawa “reverted” to Japan in 1972, but the Okinawans’ hope for the removal of the military bases was shattered. Today, people of Okinawa continue to suffer from crimes and accidents, high decibel aircraft noise and environmental pollution caused by the bases. Throughout these decades, they have suffered what the U.S. Declaration of Independence denounces as “abuses and usurpations,” including the presence of foreign “standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.”

Not unlike the 20th century U.S. Civil Rights struggle, Okinawans have non-violently pressed for the end to their military colonization. They tried to stop live-fire military drills that threatened their lives by entering the exercise zone in protest; they formed human chains around military bases to express their opposition; and about a hundred thousand people, one tenth of the population have turned out periodically for massive demonstrations. Octogenarians initiated the campaign to prevent the construction of the Henoko base with a sit-in that has been continuing for years. The prefectural assembly passed resolutions to oppose the Henoko base plan. In January 2013, leaders of all the 41 municipalities of Okinawa signed the petition to the government to remove the newly deployed MV-22 Osprey from Futenma base and to give up the plan to build a replacement base in Okinawa.

We support the people of Okinawa in their non-violent struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment. The Henoko marine base project must be canceled and Futenma returned forthwith to the people of Okinawa.

Hayao Miyazaki

Last month, anime creator Hayao Miyazaki joined a new high-profile Okinawa- and Japan-based group raising funds for to support Governor Onaga's campaign to save Henoko. The group is buying advertising space in US newspapers  to counter the dearth of media reportage on the daily protests at Henoko and the All-Okinawan Movement. The most comprehensive report on this latest was posted at the pop media site, Rocket News' "Hayao Miyazaki joins politicians and CEOs donating millions to protest U.S. military in Okinawa".

Last fall,  Miyazaki, sent a  handwritten message to a former chairman of the Okinawan Prefectural Assembly, Toshinobu Nakazato, who has been enlisting the support of famous people from across Japan to support the movement to save the coral reef and dugong habitat in Henoko and the adjacent Yambaru subtropical rainforest, both which are threatened by US military training base expansion. Miyazaki's message stated, “Demilitarization in Okinawa is essential for peace in East Asia," which is consistent with the anime director's pacifist and ecologically oriented themes.

May 17: All-Okinawa Mass Rally for Preservation of Henoko, an indigenous sacred site, & Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site, habitat of the Okinawa dugong & the last fully intact coral reef in all of Okinawa

Via our friend, Dr. Masami Mel Kawamura, at Okinawa Outreach:

On May 17, a mass rally will be held at the Okinawa Cellular Stadium in Naha, Okinawa to demonstrate Okinawa’s determination to stop the construction of a US military base in Henoko and Oura Bay in northern Okinawa.

With this year marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the battle of Okinawa and of the World War II, this rally will certainly be one of the most important rallies held in Okinawa against the detrimental legacies of the war.

The people of Okinawa have suffered enough from the continuing immense presence of US military, which still occupies 18 % of Okinawa Island today. And for the last 19 years, the people have also suffered from the US and Japanese governments’ reckless pursuit of the Henoko base plan and their complete disregard for Okinawa’s democratic voice against the plan.

While the US and Japanese governments continue to do their talk in Tokyo or Washington, we the people of Okinawa know that the real struggle site that counts most is here in Okinawa. We are determined to fight through to protect our sea, our land, and our life.

Featuring Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, along with other distinguished speakers, the rally will show how the people of Okinawa are united with each other and with supporters from around the world in our fight against the Henoko base construction.

When: Rally starts at 1:00 am on May 17, 2015

Where: Okinawa Cellular Stadium, in Naha

Reverend Kinoshita of Nippon Myohoji

witnessing for the protection of Henoko,

an indigenous sacred site, with shrines & rituals going back millennia, 

and Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site, 

habitat of the Okinawa dugong & the last fully intact coral reef in all of Okinawa. 

(Photo via our friends at Blue Vigil in Solidarity with Okinawa in NYC) 

5/3 - Available for online viewing: John Junkerman's Japan's Peace Constitution

Full-length version of John Junkerman's 2005 documentary film, Japan's Peace Constitution available for online viewing from 5/3, Constitution Day, until 5/7, courtesy of Siglo Films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1gQtnDvMfM&feature=youtu.be. Film description:

This timely, hard-hitting documentary places the ongoing debate over the constitution in an international context: What will revision mean to Japan's neighbors, Korea and China? How has the US-Japan military alliance warped the constitution and Japan's role in the world? How is the unprecedented involvement of Japan's Self-Defense Force in the occupation of Iraq perceived in the Middle East?

Through interviews conducted with leading thinkers around the world, the film explores the origins of the Constitution in the ashes of war and the significance of its peace clauses in the conflicted times of the early 21st century. Key interviews include:

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower

Paris-based social theorist Hidaka Rokuro

Beate Sirota Gordon, drafter of the equal-rights clause of the Constitution

Political philosopher and activist Douglas Lummis

Political scientist Chalmers Johnson

Kang Man-Gil, president of Sangji University, South Korea

Shin Heisoo, co-representative, Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan

Korean historian Han Hong Koo

Chinese filmmaker and writer Ban Zhongyi

Syrian writer Michel Kilo

Lebanese journalist Josef Samaha

Linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky

Director John Junkerman is an American filmmaker, living in Tokyo. His first film, Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima, was coproduced with John Dower and nominated for an Academy Award. His 2002 film, Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, also produced by Siglo, received widespread theatrical distribution in Japan, the US, and Europe.

A companion book in Japanese, including the complete interviews with John Dower, Hidaka Rokuro, Chalmers Johnson, Noam Chomsky, Beate Sirota Gordon, and Han Hong Koo has been published by Foil.

"Okinawa's Future: Democracy or Military Dictatorship?" Last Day of WaPo Okinawa ad on the Online Opinion Page

Okinawa's Future: Democracy or Military Dictatorship?

Today is the last day of the 3-day Okinawa ad at the online Washington Post's Opinion Page.  The ad was taken out by The Okinawa Protest Advertising Action, an Okinawan group that, like all of Okinawa's civil society and government, opposes the Jp-US governments' plan to forcibly landfill and construction of a US military training base at Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site—against the will of the Okinawan prefectural government and citizens. As Okinawan Governor Takeshi Onaga has explained clearly in the past month, the Okinawan government and people have never consented to any U.S. military bases on their lands.

Every village, town, and city in Okinawa is united in opposing the planned construction of a new U.S. military airbase. If the plan goes ahead, the coral reef and sea-grass ecosystems at Oura Bay, Henoko, will be sealed under 740 million cubic feet of landfill to make way for U.S. military runways. This act of environmental vandalism will destroy the habitat of countless endangered species, including one of the world’s most threatened marine mammals, the Okinawan dugong, a species which on paper, though not in reality, is protected by U.S. and Japanese law...

After 2 decades of resisting the Henoko plan, and what in any genuine democracy would be regarded as decisive elections held in 2014, the people of Okinawa made their views clear to Washington and Tokyo...

On April 29, PM Abe, in an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is expected to tell President Obama and the American people that base construction in Okinawa is going according to plan, and even that the project will strengthen U.S. -Jp bilateral relations.

Pragmatists as well as idealists within the U.S. admin would do well to question this version of events. Some 60 years ago, during another period of unrest in Okinawa known as the Island Wide Struggle, U.S. troops forcibly removed Okinawans from their land using bulldozers and bayonets. At the time, senior U.S. diplomats warned of Okinawa becoming ungovernable, and  the most heavy-handed tactics of the period were abandoned in favor of negotiation.

Attempting to impose a new base on Okinawa by force, which appears to be the only option currently being considered by U.S. & Jp officials, threatens to repeat the mistakes of that period, at the same time undermining Washington and Tokyo’s credibility as agents of democracy, freedom and human rights.

See the entire ad here: http://www.okinawaiken.org/washingtonpost2015/.

反省: When "remorse" is not remorse. Translation games during PM Abe visit to the US.

反省

When "remorse" is not remorse.

One key to deciphering PM Abe's expected verbal gymnastics while in the US may be his use of the word 反省 (hansei), officially translated as "remorse" in English, but which does not suggest apologetic feelings or admission of wrong-doing in Japanese.  An alternative translation would be "thoughtful reflection."

Using this word, as scholar Tessa Morris-Suzuki has pointed out in "Japanese war apologies lost in translation," published at East Asia Forum, allows Abe to deliver two different messages. In the West, people receive the misleading impression that he is being penitent and admitting Japanese wartime aggression, whereas in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia, people understand such a response as vague evasion of responsibility.

New Face of Empire v. the Anti-War Committee of 1000: No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya Sound Parade & 4.27 "Protect the Peace Constitution" Action

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

The Anti-War Committee of 1000 (co-founded last year by Nobel Prize Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, former Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota,and other Japanese and Okinawan social and cultural leaders) brought the ubiquitous pink Okinawa Dugong balloon to Tokyo's Shibuya district on Sunday for the No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya sound parade. About 1000 people attended the "NO WAR in Shibuya! Solidarity in the struggle for Okinawa" rally, which overlapped with the Rainbow Pride parade.

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

This is one of the many ongoing  protests in mainland Japan and Okinawa, opposing the Abe administration goal of reviving the Japanese wartime military order under US hegemony. Many onlookers see in the domestic struggle as a replay of the prewar Japanese political contest between pacifists and militarists.  And as a replay of the massive protests against the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty (ANPO) forced through the Japanese Diet by PM Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. The main point of opposition was that it would allow U.S. military bases to remain on Japanese and Okinawan soil.

Hundreds of thousands protested passing of the

 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US andJapan (ANPO) 

that PM Nobusuke Kishi, grandfather of PM Abe, forced through 
the Japanese Diet on May 20, 1960, at the sacrifice of his political career. 

On Monday, the Anti-War Committee of 1000 held another rally at the PM's residence to protest the Abe administration's revision of US-Japan military guidelines which call for the increased integration of the US and Japanese militaries. Approximately 800 people participated in the 4.27 action.

The US has pushed for military integration with Asian countries since the first years of the Cold War.  President Eisenhower articulated the key concept in the early 1950s: "If there must be a war there in Asia, let it be Asians against Asians."  The Nixon Doctrine announced in Guam in 1969 consolidated the US government idea of international military integration under US domination. Historian John Dower's description of the Nixon Doctrine (in "Asia and the Nixon Doctrine: The New Face of Empire," a chapter in Open Secret: The Kissinger-Nixon Doctrine in Asia, published in 1970), also describes the motivation behind the ongoing integration:

...fundamentally a cost-conscious policy, aimed at maintaining a major U.S. role in Asia at less cost in both dollars and American lives. This combination has been given the policy a racist cast perhaps best illustrated by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's comment that [this] means changing 'the color of the corpses...

While the primary thrust of the Doctrine is military and budgetary, this thrust interlocks with important considerations concerning the future economic development of Asia...

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

Dower added that the US military and economic globalization strategy may be traced back to the Truman era:

...represents ittle more than the new face of American empire. It applies cosmetics to the scarred strategies of the past; here and there, where the old features of imperium have become particularly battered, there is even a bit of strategic plastic surgery. At this stage in history, after..decades of often tragic American policy in Asia, one looks for new questions, sensibilities, and committments which strike to the root of affairs...Upon close examination, it is fundamentally not even a new policy, but rather a pastiche of rhetoric and programs familiar since the early years of the cold war

(I)...containment remains the framework of miiltary strategy...and the U.S has reaffirmed its commitment to counterrevolution.

(II)The network of American bases and manpower commitments abroad is being rationalized and restructured, not reconsidered.

(III) Client armies are being developed to replace American combat troops in crusades largely defined by Washington and at costs to both Asia and the U.S. which are as yet incalculable...

(V) The possibility of the United States initiating nuclear wr in Asia has been immeasurably increased.

(VI) Economic policies remain structured in such a way that many Asian countries face  the prospect of becoming locked into permanent dependency as the neocolonies of the US...

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

More:

"EDITORIAL: Revised Japan-U.S. defense guidelines a dangerous departure from pacifist credo", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015: 

The guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation have been revised for the first time in 18 years.

The new guidelines, which confirm the direction of the security policies of the Japanese and the U.S. governments, call for “seamless” and “global” security cooperation between the two countries. They will accelerate the “integration” of the Self-Defense Forces with U.S. forces...

Underlying the revision is the Abe administration’s policy initiative to change the government’s traditional interpretation of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. This radical shift in security policy was formally endorsed by the Cabinet’s resolution in July last year.

Proposed security legislation in line with the Cabinet decision is the focus of the current Diet session. Although the Diet has yet to start debating the legislation, the new guidelines already reflect the Cabinet decision to make it possible for Japan to use its right to collective self-defense. They also include the SDF’s overseas minesweeping operations, an issue over which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, are at odds...

"Japanese Catholic leaders voice concern over Abe administration in peace message", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015:

Dated Feb. 25, the statement read: “Seventy years after the war, memory of it is fading along with memories of Japanese colonial rule and aggression with its accompanying crimes against humanity. Now, there are calls to rewrite the history of that time, denying what really happened.

“The present government is attempting to enact laws to protect state secrets, allow for the right of collective self-defense and change Article 9 of the Constitution to allow the use of military force overseas.”

Kazuo Koda, a bishop from the archdiocese of Tokyo who was involved in drafting the document, said he and other priests were initially reluctant to argue specific policy measures. “But we became convinced that we must speak out with clarity that these are wrong,” he said.

"Oe vows to continue work of late Article 9 torchbearer Okudaira", The Asahi Shimbun, April 4, 2015:

Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe has stressed that he and others are ready and willing to carry the torch lit by the late constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira, a leading supporter of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

Oe was one of six people who addressed a rally April 3 on the legacy of Okudaira, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo who died in January at age 85. About 900 intellectuals and activists attended the gathering in Chofu, Tokyo.

The writer said Okudaira believed that Article 9, the clause that outlaws war, has played a major role in molding the character of Japanese who grew up in the postwar period.

The Legacy of World War II in Okinawa through Discussion & Music: Panel representing Okinawa Prefecture led by MP Keiko Itokazu • Univ. of Hawai'i Manoa • April 27, 2015

Tomorrow evening a panel of women political leaders representing Okinawa Prefecture will discuss the ongoing aftereffects of World War II throughout communities in the islands.  Senator Keiko Itokazu, a member of the Japanese National Diet will lead the discussion. 

Nago City Councilwomen—Kumiko Onaga, Hideko Tamanaha, Kikue Tsuhako—will also represent Okinawa in this important meeting at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Their visit is part of a larger outreach by Okinawa Prefecture to Hawai'i—a call for international support to stop the US-Jp military destruction of the natural cultural heritage site at Henoko and Takae. Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will perform. 

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

Ryukyuan cultural heritage included properties dating back to the Jomon period and the Silk Road era, when the Ryukyuan Kingdom was a major gateway between Tang China to Japan. This was almost all lost: the US-Japan ground war in Okinawa resulted in a near-genocidal civilian death toll and near-total destruction of Okinawan material cultural heritage.

Now, during the 70th anniversary of the World War II sacrifice of Okinawa, the US & Japanese governments want to force through the destruction of Henoko and Yambaru, the most important of what remains of Okinawan natural cultural heritage. The Yanbaru ecoregion includes the prefecture's most biodiverse, healthiest coral reef; only dugong habitat; and a subtropical rainforest. Two species in Yanbaru (the dugong and the Okinawa Woodpecker) are natural monuments. Shrines and shell middens at Henoko go back millennia. 

Senator Keiko Itokazu with Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe, 

which strives to preserve the traditions of Ryukyu/Okinawa

 through education using the stage, workshops, and community programs.

The most important Okinawan value, Nuchi du Takara, means "Life, including the life of nature, is the Greatest Treasure." Yambaru is the living manifestation of this cultural value. 

Okinawans, supported by Overseas Okinawans, global environmentalists, and cultural heritage and peace activists are trying to stop this latest attempt at the military destruction of Okinawan natural cultural heritage.

For those who are not in Honolulu, Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will be live streaming the event from the Kamakaokalani Center for Okinawa Studies via USTREAM. Please tune in to the following link or search for ukwanshin on ustream. Those of you who can make it, please come in person to show your support!

Interrconnecting Peace Traditions: Blue Vigil in Solidarity with Okinawa on April 25 after Peace & Planet Event • Relaunch of The Golden Rule, a Quaker sailboat that protested US nuclear test bombing of the Marshall Islands in 1958

Blue Vigil in Solidarity with Okinawa in NYC on the coldest day of 2015.

(Photo: Blue Vigil in Solidarity with Okinawa in NYC)

Via our good friends, Blue Vigil in Solidarity with Okinawa in NYC:

With Reverend Kamoshita who has been praying in Henoko and Takae, we will have our monthly peace vigil for Okinawa! Please come and join after the Peace and Planet event.

The Okinawa vigil is part of supporting events  for the Peace and Planet Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World gathering in the NY this weekend, April 24-26. The focus of the gathering at Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan is to discuss how to encourage their governments more effectively for nuclear disarmament. Okinawan peace activists and global hibakusha (nuclear bomb and nuclear test bomb survivors) from Japan, Korea, Australia, and the Marshall Islands will participate.

Jun-san Yasuda and Peace Walkers. 

They walked from San Francisco to NYC for the Peace and Planet event. 

(Photo: Wabi Sabi: One earth, one sky, entirely at peace)

The Peace and Planet event precedes the ninth Nuclear Non Proliferation Review Conference which meets at the UN every 5 years. More than180 nations ratified the NPT 40 years ago, including the US, Russia, France, Great Britain and China, all nuclear states.  Article 6 of the treaty called for nuclear states to begin good faith negotiations toward the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately the nuclear states of Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan have refused to the NPT.

While NPT member nuclear states have made some progress in reducing the number nuclear warheads, they [notably President Obama, as demonstrated in his 2009 Prague speech] have strengthened their commitment to "nuclear deterrence" as the cornerstone of their respective foreign policy platforms, and have turned their focus to developing a "new generation" of  "smarter" and more powerful nuclear bombs. Moreover, despite overwhelming evidence of causation of birth defects and cancers, the US government has increased the testing and use of radioactive depleted uranium weapons worldwide.

This Nuclear-Free Movement is now a 70-year old global peace tradition. For decades, downwinder survivors of nuclear test bombing began joining Japanese survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, global atomic soldiers, indigenous peoples whose lands are used for uranium mining,  nuclear test bombing, and nuclear waste storage, together in dialogue and psychological healing.  They have witnessed together at the Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Nevada nuclear bomb test site, the former USSR nuclear bomb test site at Kazakhstan, the Marshall Islands.  Although the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons started as a one-issue campaign, the movement is increasingly integrating at the global level with overlapping peace, environmentalist, indigenous, women's, and faith-based movements.

Albert Bigelow; Bert Bigelow; architect, former Navy commander, and Quaker, 

who sailed the ketch Golden Rule into the U.S. nuclear bomb test site

 in the Marshall Islands in 1958. This act of civil disobedience resulted 

in the arrest of Bigelow and his shipmates and their imprisonment in Honolulu. 

(Photo: Swarthmore Archives)

This year, at Peace and Planet, Ann Wright, a supporter of the Okinawa Movement, will tell the story of The Golden Rule, a crew of 4 Quakers in a 38-foot sailboat who attempted to sail from Hawaii to stop U.S. nuclear test bombing of the Marshall Islands in 1958. The U.S. Coast Guard jailed the crew twice to stop them. The Golden Rule inspired the formation of Greenpeace International, a longtime NGO supporter of Okinawa, which used boats to attempt to stop nuclear test bombing in the Pacific.

The Golden Rule was renovated by chapters of Veterans for Peace, another NGO supporter of Okinawa, in northern California. She will be launched on April 22, 2015 in Humboldt Bay, CA and sailed down the coast of California to arrive in early August in San Diego for the national Veterans for Peace conference.

Global Hibakusha will lead a workshop at the NY event at Cooper Union Great Hall on April 25. Participants include Japan Council Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo): Japanese Hibakusha; Shim Jin Tae (Korean A-bomb survivor); Peter Watts (aboriginal nuclear test victim, Australia); Abacca Anjain-Maddison (Marshall Islands); Manny Pino (Acoma-Laguna Coalition for a Safe Environment). Their testimonies reveal and illuminate the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.  The over 2,000  nuclear test  bombings worldwide have devastated indigenous peoples and their ancestral homelands in the American Southwest, the Asia-Pacific,  Xinjiang,  China,  and Kazakhstan.  This personal level of understanding  is now recognized and discussed in the mainstream debate on nuclear weapons.

The late Western Shoshone leader Corbin Harney

praying at the Nevada Test Site on January 1, 2007.

The nuclear bomb test site was located on sacred indigenous grounds. 

Ron Paul: "Why in the world would somebody think this [new US base in Okinawa] is in America's best interest for national security? I think the attack by Japan is long-time over."

"Why was Defense Secretary Carter in Japan?" - Great US video news discussion/analysis on Okinawa via Daniel McAdams and Ron Paul.  A former US Congressman, Paul, together with former US Congressman Dennis Kucinich, notably supported former PM Hatoyama's efforts to close Futenma unconditionally in 2010.

In the same year, American traditional and libertarian conservatives, democracy- and peace-oriented liberals, and progressives initiated a movement called "Come Home America" to challenge the U.S. neocon foreign policy of global expansionism by preemptive wars and military force.

Despite diverse orientations, these foreign policy positions all represent American traditions that have antecedents dating back to the American Revolution.  Peace and noninterventionist adherents from these traditions represented the American mainstream until Dec. 7, 1941, when the military Japanese government's bombing of Pearl Harbor gave President Roosevelt a reason to enter the Second World War.

The first US bases on Okinawa were built during the ground war against Imperial Japan, to bomb Japanese cities, and to prepare for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. After the Japanese military government surrender on August 15, 1945, the US did not close the wartime bases on Okinawa, which were built on land seized from civilians who were put in detention camps during the war.  Instead, the US kept Okinawans in the camps (for up to 2 years) while seizing more private and public property, and building even more bases on them. Futenma is one of the bases that was built during the war. It is now a V-22 Osprey training base.  It is situated in the middle of a city because the base was built on the site of a former village. Some of the land owners relocated to property adjacent to the base to be close to family burial tombs that are now inside the base. During bulldozing, the US military actually destroyed some burial tombs; their remains may be seen sticking out of the fence around the base.

Camp Schwab, which is where the US wants to "relocate" Futenma and build a new military port, over the coral reef and dugong habitat, was built on land that also belongs to Okinawans. The US seized 5,000 acres of private and public lands for the base during the 1950's "Bayonets and Bulldozers" period of massive US base expansion throughout the prefecture.  The U.S. seized entire villages comprising tens of thousands of the best farm and coastal land in Okinawa  displacing 250,000 Okinawans who could only watch as their ancestral homes, farms, tombs, and cultural properties were taken by gunpoint and destroyed by American soldiers. Okinawans who resisted were assaulted and arrested. In Henoko, the Army officer in charge of the land acquisition for Camp Schwab even seized land to build an "entertainment" district of 200 bar/brothels.  The base's Red Light district "Appletown" was named after him.

Excerpts from the Ron Paul-Daniel McAdams discussion on Okinawa:

Ron Paul: Tell us what this is all about.

Daniel McAdams: Well, unfortunately, it's not all about all these troops that have been there since World War II. In fact, it's a celebration of the return of Japanese militarism, ironically. This review of the US-Japanese relationship will allow Japan to be more actively involved in US operations, they say, only in defense of an ally under attack, but... [knowing glance at Ron Paul].

Ron Paul: There are days that I am hopeful the president will be less interventionist and hawkish as the neocon Republicans. But then again, there's always a "good war" to fight, there's chaos in the Middle East, so he says, "I guess we have to ship our interests to the Far East."

I don't think China is too happy about us advancing militarism with Japan, but that remains to be seen. There's still another issue about what we should be doing in Japan. We still have 40,000 troops in Japan. And you know what my position has been for a long time, "Just bring them home..."

There are a lot of Japanese citizens annoyed with this, especially in Okinawa. Didn't we have some visitors in our congressional office dealing with this very subject?

Daniel McAdams: ...we had some fairly high-ranking individuals from the Okinawan government and different citizens' groups. What they're upset about is the US has had this base in the most densely part of Okinawa. You can imagine the noise pollution...So the US-Japan solution is "Okay we will remove this to a more remote part of the island. The problem with that is that this is one of the most pristine nature preserves that the U.S. military's going to take over. They're already drilling into the [live coral reef] seabed and the people who live there do not want this. They are really opposed to this.

Ron Paul: I am sure our government's goal was to announce the military debate that they're having there, but this pops up. This might be the biggest issue going, way bigger than our secretary is talking about.  The [former] governor of Okinawa took the position that he was with the people...then he changed his mind at the last minute and went along with the American government. And what happened? He lost the election.

Daniel McAdams: Exactly. He lost to a challenger who made it his number 1 campaign issue: "I'll fight Washington and Tokyo to prevent the moving of this base and to get rid of the base in the downtown. His name is Onaga and he's enormously popular now. He has an over 80% approval rating...He's a David against a big Goliath.

Ron Paul: It does raise a topic that is generally ignored in all this talk about our troops. People don't like to have them there. Increasing our military relationship with Japan. Why in the world would somebody think this is in America's best interest for national security?

It seems like it costs a little bit of money. We're not going to be attacked by Japan. I think the attack by Japan is long-time over. I don't see any way this can be construed as for national security.

It seems maybe a special interest, say the military-industrial complex. Somebody else might benefit from this. How in the world would the average American taxpayer get any benefit from pursuing this and insisting we change these bases around instead of the very simple solution: Just bring the troops home.

Daniel McAdams:...There was a really funny scene in the State Dept. press briefings. One of the great reporters Matt Lee from the AP always challenges the briefer.

She was complaining how the Russians are always flying planes around in eastern Asia to show us how horrible they were. Then Matt Lee pointed out isn't is true that we're also flying planes around there constantly. And actually increasingly so. It was a comical scene to see her trying to defend this.

Ron Paul: I don't think they're interested in being consistent. If Russia is influencing their neighbor or in the open sea, then all of a sudden, they're the worst people in the world.  Our people don't generally stop and think we're in 150 countries. Our Special Forces are in a lot of these countries; none of this goes well.

They send our defense secretary over there and he's expanding our military cooperation with Japan. There are some hawks in Washington that think China is an enemy. Nixon was not my favorite president, but things changed dramatically with opening the door to China. The odds are so slim that China is going to militarily attack us...

It seems like some of the people who run our foreign policy are obsessed and can't stand  the idea of peace breaking out...

Do you think very many  people knew that our secretary of defense was in Japan negotiating more militarism or do they care about the new air base in Okinawa?

Daniel McAdams: It's unfortunate that you don't see a lot of this reported in the mainstream media in the US.

Ron Paul: ...the point I tried to make was "What if they did it to us? Should we ever do something to somebody else that we wouldn't want them to do to us?" And of course that was blasphemy [to neocons].

I don't think this is a danger spot. It's this subtleness, this moving, this changing things. I'd like them to address the issue of bases in Germany and Japan. I'm afraid when they do, it will be in the midst of the bankruptcy of this country.

Japanese summary/ translation of the Paul-McAdams talk by KM, via I WITNESS OSPREY on FB.

 ロン・ポール元連邦議会下院議員が主催しているメディアで、普天間海兵隊基地の返還問題をとりあげているのをたまたま聴きました。　二人の話をきいていて、こちら（米国）の主要メディアは翁長知事の主張とその根拠（これが大事だとおもいます）を、まだ取り上げていないことをしりました。　どのようにしたら、とりあげさせることができるでしょうか？　参考になるかと思い、紹介してみました。　私は昨年12月に、連邦議会下院のマイク・ホンダ議員の補佐官と話す機会を得たときに、知事選挙での翁長知事の主張をつたえたら、理解して協力してくれるようになりましたよ。

Lambert Strether: Toward Absolutist Capitalism: "TPP elevates capitalization — the expectation of profit — as a principle to the principles of, say, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of the Rights of Man."

The TPP's “Investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) provision elevates foreign corporations doing business in host countries to the same status as sovereign governments. It would allow foreign corporations to bring frivolous lawsuits for profit against host governments, simply by claiming an environmental protection or public safety law may affect expected profit. Judgments would be rendered by secret arbitration panels composed of corporate attorneys who may represent arbitrating parties. 

The process would be unaccountable to and entirely outside of the legal structure of the respective host countries.  This raises concerns about conflict of interest, corruption at multiple levels, national sovereignty, and checks and balances.

The controversial mechanism was  introduced in a 1959 trade agreement between Germany and Pakistan, and has since been duplicated in numerous international corporate trade and investment treaties, most notoriously, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994. Government-chasing lawyers who designed the mechanism also developed a new industry to take advantage of the easy pickings from the deep pockets of taxpayers in affected nations.  A litany of arbitrary, abusive, parasitic judgments in favor of foreign corporations against host governments have followed.

This clear analysis, which contextualizes the ISDS within the TPP's absolutist capitalist ideology, by Lambert Strether of Corrente, reposted at Naked Capitalism, is a must-read:

There are many excellent arguments against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), two of which — local zoning over-rides, and loss of national sovereignty — I’ll briefly review as stepping stones to the main topic of the post: Absolutist Capitalism, for which I make two claims:

1) The TPP implies a form of absolute rule, a tyranny as James Madison would have understood the term, and

2) The TPP enshrines capitalization as a principle of jurisprudence.

Zoning over-rides and lost of national sovereignty may seem controversial to the political class, but these two last points may seem controversial even to NC readers. However, I hope to show both points follow easily from the arguments with which we are already familiar. Both flow from the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, of which I will now give two examples.

TPP’s ISDS and Local Zoning

I’m starting with local zoning because I think it’s an issue where “strange bedfellows” [Ralph Nader's Public Citizen & Cato, a think tank individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.  on left and right can work together (and so letter writing campaigns and visits to Congressional offices can be organized accordingly). I think it will be very hard to find find a constituency for a foreign corporation determining local land use, and easy to find constituencies against it.

TPP’s ISDS and State Sovereignty

Even though sovereignty, as an issue, seems absurdly large put beside zoning, I choose it because it too is an issue where the grassroots on left and right can unite. After all, whether you are a big government liberal who admires FDR, or a small government conservative who admires Coolidge, you don’t want the government of your country to be under the sway of an unelected, trans-national entity like Agenda 21 New World Order the ISDS putative courts.

[T]he investment chapter for the TPP was leaked, and the excellent Public Citizen[2] published it (link to the PDF). Their summary in relevant part describes the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions:

...Yet in a manner that would enrage right and left alike, the private “investor-state” enforcement system included in the leaked TPP text would empower foreign investors and corporations to skirt domestic courts and laws and sue governments in foreign tribunals. There, they can demand cash compensation from domestic treasuries over domestic policies that they claim undermine their new investor rights and expected future profits. This establishes an alarming two-track system of justice that privileges foreign corporations in myriad ways relative to governments or domestic businesses. It also exposes signatory countries to vast liabilities, as foreign firms use foreign tribunals to raid public treasuries.

...The TPP Implies a Form of Absolute Rule, a Tyranny as James Madison Would Have Understood the Term. First, the ISDS tribunals, putatively courts, are completely unaccountable...

Second, the ISDS tribunals are riddled with conflicts of interest and open invitations to corruption...

Third, there is no appeal from the judgements of these putative courts...

Fourth and finally, the discretion of the ISDS tribunals is so great that they can write the rules, as well as interpret them. Public Citizen:

There are no new safeguards that limit ISDS tribunals’ discretion to create ever-expanding interpretations of governments’ obligations to foreign investors and order compensation on that basis.The leaked text reveals the same “safeguard” terms that have been included in U.S. pacts since the 2005 Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA tribunals have simply ignored the “safeguard” provisions that the leaked text replicates for the TPP, and have continued to rule against governments based on concocted obligations to which governments never agreed.

In  the first three points, the ISDS tribunals are acting as putative courts, albeit conflicted, potentially corrupt, and anti-democratic and unaccountable courts...

The TPP Enshrines Capitalization as a Principle of Jurisprudence...

I’ll use the definition from Capital as Power (hat tip alert reader Sibiriak), by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, which I’m reading with great interest. Page 153 and following:

... capitalization represents the present value of a future stream of earnings: it tells us how much a capitalist would be prepared to pay now to receive a flow of money later.

By the 1950s, capitalization was finally established as the heart of the capitalist nomos...

And, so, finally the floodgates were open. Nowadays, every expected income stream is a fair candidate for capitalization. And since income streams are generated by social entities, processes, organizations and institutions, we end up with the ‘capitalization of every thing’. Capitalists routinely discount human life, including its genetic code and social habits; they discount organized institutions from education and entertainment to religion and the law; they discount voluntary social networks; they discount urban violence, civil war and international conflict; they even discount the environmental future of humanity. Nothing seems to escape the piercing eye of capitalization: if it generates earning expectations it must have a price, and the algorithm that gives future earnings a price is capitalization...

Of course, government — at least hitherto — has re-ordered prices, income steams, claims on future income streams, and capitalization generally since forever; one might even say that’s the purpose of government, its raison d’etre, at least in a capitalist society.[4] However, TPP’s jurisprudential innovation is to reframe such re-ordering as “expropriation,” and to set up the ISDS to compensate the capitalists for it...

TPP elevates capitalization — the expectation of profit — as a principle to the principles of, say, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of the Rights of Man. And then, government, when it provides concrete material benefits to its citizens, must “compensate” capitalists whenever their calculated, immaterial expectations — capitalization — have been “expropriated.” What a racket! TPP is the biggest enclosure in the history of the world!