Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Hyper-Reality and Death: Can Mortality Puncture the Veil of Simulation?


French philosopher Jean Baudrillard argues that today reality is no longer real in terms of public understandings of contemporary events and phenomena http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

Public perceptions of the real are shaped by mainstream media spin, which often deviates significantly from empirically verifiable conditions.
(E.G., see http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/public-relations-is-propaganda.html)

Thus, Baudrillard believes that mainstream media provide us with simulated images of reality. He refers to media simulations as hyper-realities.

Simulated hyper-real images are produced by oligarchic corporations that control multiple media: print (newspapers and periodicals), television, and radio.

[The oligarchic media corporations have a lot less control over the anarchic Internet; although, they do monopolize the production of Internet news. Bloggers and other non-oligarchic affiliated individuals and groups produce some news but mostly parse what is produced by the oligarchs (myself included).]

Hyper-reality is fundamentally political and typically reflects the interests of oligarchs.

Edward Bernays, the father of 20th century propaganda, argued that it is the function of the media to narrow people's choices and interpretations in order that the natural born rulers can operate with the consent of the masses.

The oligarchic media corporations are only to happy to pursue this function.

Fact is obliterated by the mainstream media when oligarchic interests are at stake.
 
We have seen how the media propagate lies and distortions in the following situations:

A. The run up to the first and second Persian Gulf Wars  (e.g., weapons of mass destruction)

B. The coverage of the BP Gulf Oil Spill (e.g., oil gone) 


I acknowledge that there are reporters and editors who seek to report truth, even when these reports threaten established power hierarchies.

However, too often the oligarchic media representations of events bear little resemblance to empirically verifiable conditions.

Please see my Lessons of Fukushima powerpoint for factual support of my claims:

As I write this post I am simultaneously observing Fukushima on the Tepco webcam. The plant has been erupting steam or smoke with increasing vigor over the last 24 hours. Indeed, yesterday's eruption was so massive that I experienced FEAR while watching it.

The eruptions of steam or smoke and the release of radiation continue NOW as I write.

Yet the Washington Post claims the disaster was "non-catastrophic."

I am pasting below an excerpt of a summary I'm working on concerning the sheer denial and criminal duplicity of western governments and media in the coverup of the horrors of Fukushima.

Before I paste the excerpt, I pose this question: Will people penetrate the hyper-real veil of deception when those around them succumb to radiation-related illnesses or even deaths?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that people in Japan are already dying from their exposure to high levels of radiation.http://enenews.com/interview-medical-doctors-working-fukushima-lots-people-dying-bleeding-losing-hair-having-bad-health-condition-video

Will the hyper-real veil resist the ruptures produced by death itself?


By June 2011, radioactive contamination could be detected in the urine of residents still living within the Fukushima prefecture and residents were still living in Fukushima City despite soil contamination readings far exceeding levels used by the Soviets to mandate compulsory resettlements after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.  

A June 26 survey found of soil in Fukushima City found all samples contaminated with cesium levels exceeding legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per.  Former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Robert Alvarez, argued that fully 600 square kilometers were “technically uninhabitable” because of cesium-137 contamination.  Yet, despite high levels of radioactive contamination within populated areas, Japanese officials refused to expand evacuations.

In early June, Japan’s nuclear safety agency acknowledged suspicion that the official statement of the radiation releases for March of 370,000 terabecquerels (publicized in April) had been grossly under-estimated.  Japan's nuclear safety agency doubled the amount of radiation previously reported by TEPCO to have “leaked” from the Fukushima Daiichi plan in the first week of the accident. This new figure reported in June of 2011 by the Japanese Nuclear Safety Agency of 770,000 terabequerels of radiation released failed to calculated radiation losses after the first week into the air or sea.  That figure would be subject to continuous official revisions and scientific challenges over the course of the year.
 
Over a year after the initial meltdown, Fukushima’s reactors and spent fuel pools continue to emit radiation daily and Tepco struggles to prevent re-criticalities and hydrogen explosions.  Tepco is attempting to inject nitrogen into reactors 2 and 3 in order to prevent another hydrogen explosion.  

A media blackout persisted on the exact condition and status of reactor units 3’s and 4’s spent fuel pools, although large amounts of steam and possibly smoke could be seen released from the general vicinities of the spent fuel pools for units 3 and 4 on Tepco’s live video cam trained on the Fukushima plants. 

Japanese American physicist Dr. Kaku described Fukushima as a “ticking time bomb” capable of more massive releases.
 
Widespread contamination in Japan from the initial and ongoing radiation releases in Japan was met with denial, censorship, and finally increases in the official standards for safe exposure. Japan Today reported in August of 2011 that Japan’s radiation detection systems were working from the first moment of the disaster when the plant decided to vent radiation but that the data on radiation levels were ignored by authorities, despite the fact that projections indicated that Karino Elementary School would be immediately in the path of the plume, leading to the irradiation of about 400 students, teachers, and parents gathered in the playground.... 
      “Fukushima Residents' Urine Now Radioactive,” Japan Times (2011, June 27): http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110627a2.html.
 
      “45% of Kids in Fukushima Survey Had Thyroid Exposure to Radiation,” Mainichi (2011, July 5): http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110705p2g00m0dm079000c.html).
 
      “Japan Admits 3 Nuclear Meltdowns, More Radiation Leaked into Sea; U.S. Nuclear Waste Poses Deadly Risks,” Democracy Now (2010, June 3): http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/10/as_japan_nuclear_crisis_worsens_citizen.

      Justin McCurry “Japan Doubles Fukushima Radiation Leak Estimate. Inquiry Launched Into Nuclear Disaster as Studies Reveal Contamination More Widely Spread Than First Thought,” The Guardian (2011, June 7): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/07/japan-doubles-fukushima-radiation-leak-estimate.

      McCurry “Japan Doubles Fukushima Radiation,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/07/japan-doubles-fukushima-radiation-leak-estimate.

      See Michio Kaku “Fukushima Still a Ticking Time Bomb,” CNN in The Arena Blogs (2011, June 21): http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/fukushima-still-a-ticking-time-bomb/.
 
      "Nitrogen Injection Could Be Delayed at Fukushima," NHK (2011, July 6): http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_18.html.
 
      Based on my personal daily observations April 1 through August 7 2011 found here http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/f1-np/camera/index-j.html.

      Kaku “Fukushima Still a Ticking Time Bomb,” http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/fukushima-still-a-ticking-time-bomb/.

      Eric Talmadge “Japan Ignored Own Radiation Forecasts From Very Beginning,” Japan Today (2011, August 10): http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-ignored-own-radiation-forecasts-from-very-beginning.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, I wonder myself if anyone will start to wonder what's going on. Sports people are starting to be affected in public now. In the UK one footballer has had a cardiac arrest on the pitch but has since left hospital. Another has developed leukaemia. In Italy a footballer died on the pitch, a runner died in the marathon at the weekend and the latest is a Norwegian Olympic swimmer.

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