posted on Sep, 2 2013 @ 08:24 AM
Originally posted by Em2013
So hating the Japanese because of what happened with the plant is about the same as a foreign country hating the US because of PRISM. It wasn't the
people's fault that it happened so please stop with the hate.
It's not quite the same thing. PRISM is beyond our control. A better example
would be the wall street mortgage securities scandal...it's a matter of greed.
The Tepco management was told by their own workers at least 2 years before the disaster that it could happen and they did nothing in those 2 years to
prevent it from happening, so there is plenty of reason to hate that kind of greed and complacency on the Tepco management team.
In contrast, another nuclear power plant that was even closer to the Earthquake survived without any meltdowns. Why? Because the Japanese executive
responsible for constructing the plant was not motivated entirely by greed, but rather insisted that extra money be spent to build the plant in a
safer manner. Both construction sites initially had significant elevations above sea level, but at the disaster site they leveled the bluffs to lower
the elevation of the facility because it was the cheaper option. At the site that survived, they spent more money to build the plant on the bluffs,
and it survived the tsunami...Local residents even used the nuclear facility as an emergency shelter.
So obviously we see one management team did things right, another management team did things wrong, so it's obviously not a problem with all of
Japan...however Japanese culture does have some bigger problems than some other countries with regulators not regulating as they should...but the USA
and other countries are guilty of this too, though perhaps not to the same extent.
But the main point of the OP I agree with, that the Japanese are wonderful people if you get to know them, and most have nothing to do with the
disaster. They do need to insist on some changes in regulation and many are actually doing that, so that's as it should be...I hope the changes are
successful.