Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I went to Okinawa last month to help the localies protest against construction of new U.S. military bases on their island. I visited two sites. One is Henoko, where US marine's runways is planned to be constructed by reclaiming the coral reef ocean where endangered mammals, dugongs inhabit.

The other one is Takae, where the U.S. marine's helicopter pads are under construction in the mountain. The helicopters or ospreys will be deployed. They are very much concerned about big noises and accident caused by those.

In both sites, localies set up tents to monitor what construction workers do and do protest activities in order to stop or delay the construction. They say they do not care what the government decides because they can decide what to do within their communities. I saw a local man stopping cars passing by including those belonging to the US marine. They had guts to protect their community. Some of them are even accused of blocking the road by the authority. But they still keep on doing what they do.

Ironically, this reminds me of what I learnt during my college days in the U.S. I think this is American way of doing democracy. If a citizen thinks his or her own government is doing wrong, right the wrong even by breaking the law. Like Rosa Parks' refusing to give front seat in the bus to white passenger which led to boycott on the commute buses by Afro-Americans and end up growing civil rights act movement.

The Japanese government and the U.S. marine is doing the wrong thing because they do the projects without approval from the localies.

It is also called "Libertarianism" which respects individuals' freedom not being intervened by the authority. That is why they protest gun control and public medical insurance offering. They want to minimize the government's restriction on individuals' lives. Their first priority is individualism and their most important community is their local town, not central governemnt. That is how the United States of America is constructed.

That means Okinawans' localies have the right to protest and overthrow the plans which the two big governments decide. Furthermore, Libertarians think such government should be overthrown by militias.

I watched documentary program on America's new movement in relation to 10th anniversary of 911 attack. In New York, there is a big controversy over opening of new Islamic Center located 2 blocks away from Ground Zero. People overlap image of Al Quaida with Islam.

Anti-Islam activist, Pamela Geller was interviewed by a Japanese journalist. She said "It is not a matter of freedom of faith, it is a matter of emotion. Why should we figure them out? It should be defeated."

Sounds scary! After I watched the program on TV, I accessed her blog and emailed her the below question.

"Your response and comments sound like what Nazi people said to Jews.

Aren’t you using the same propaganda as Nazis did? Aren’t you creating another holocaust like Israel is doing on Palestineans?"

Her response as follows,

"The Jews weren't blowing people up, slaughtering thousands in countries across the world, and killing their own if not devout enough.    

I guess not, but I did kind of similar thing to what he did. But much more minor scale.

An Australian whistle blower site manager, a former hacker was arrested for alleged sexual offense filed by Swedish police. Since US government information he leaked in collaboration with US military serviceman caused turmoil worldwide, this arrest is considered politically motivated. I think it is.  

I secretly interviewed with US miliatary serviceman in order to get sensitive information of his organization.

If you are interested, please read the below article.

Interview with CVN 73 Nuclear Reactor Crew

What Mr. Assage has done is controversial, can it be part of free speech or promotion for transparency government, or threatening national security?

It is interesting to know there are people in the U.S., who support Assange. That is great thing about the U.S. Micheal Moore is one of them.

As Moore describes, what if some necessary information was open in public, we could have avoided tragedy or change the course of the country. History tells that is true.

Last Sunday I attended the speech event of Nanjing massacre survivor. The massacre was committed by former Japanese imperial army in former capital of China, Nanjing, December 1937. Her parents were shot to death by Japanese army men when her family evacuated to the air-raid shelter. They found the evacuees and shot bullets to them from the shelter entrance by machine gun. Later they poured gasoline into the shelter and burned the dead bodies in it.

Something like that has been happening on and on in recent Iraq and Afghanistan but has been never publicised until Wikileaks released. 

"Leaking war crimes is not crime" is right!

Today I joined my new job training. I just witnessed how ordinary people have become Xenophobic these days in Japan.

Maybe it is because Japan has been in big recession and Chinese ship intruded Japanese territorital sea which caused diplomatic turmoil just recently.

In office, one worker talked about what he witnessed on the platform in the station when Chinese person yelled to a police officer. He said "it was like moster attack." Then his colleagues followed that saying "That is very Chinese personality. That is how they deal with us. See how they bumped to Coast Guard Ship."

My trainer said to me "Be careful these days our customers have become like stupid Americans who always want to sue us."

Japanese are islanders so we generally act like this but these days people have become more aggressive than before. I do not like this tendency.