newspeak

Fukushima operator feared shutdown if risks revealed • The Register.

Transparency in government seems abstract; radioactivity in the water, on the ground, in the food is not. Transparency means having access to the information and policies that affect the people making up the social fabric. What is at stake is lives: not just those of the present but of the future. And why should there be any doubt here? Why any hesitation? Why the mystery? Isn’t it the responsibility of a putative democracy to make available the information in a way that can be acted upon? Sure, there is the countervailing interest to prevent panic and stampedes and ensure orderly reaction. But that hardly seems to have been foremost in Tepco’s or the government’s mind. And this is not an outlier, nor is Japan–and this goes without saying–alone.