[CPEO-MEF] EXPANSION, GLOBAL: Okinawa

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

When the Pentagon "Kill Machines" Came to an Okinawan Paradise
The Undermining of Democracy in Japan

By MARK DRISCOLL
Counterpunch
he Undermining of Democracy in Japan

When I arrived at the small village of Takae in the northernmost part of 
the main island of Okinawa to spend 5 days at a sit-in protest there in 
mid-July, my first image of the place was the unusual municipal charter 
that greeted me as I got off the bus....

It's hard to avoid the descriptive mantra of Okinawan life as "simple 
and slow" in Japanese lifestyle magazines (with, in the last two years, 
"sustainable" [saiseisan] commonly appended) and perusal of these 
magazines convinced Naoko and Kôji Morioka to relocate to Takae four 
years ago. Amateur organic farmers and part-time artists raised in 
Tokyo, they had lived in Africa, India and Nepal before relocating with 
their two small kids to Takae to start full-time organic rice farming. 
Also refusing electricity, they built a small house from scratch just 30 
yards north of a gorgeous waterfall and 300 yards from the sea, 
determined both to pioneer a new path of zero growth against Japanese 
postmodern capitalism and to enjoy the close community of Takae, 
consisting of farmers, fisherfolk and several convivial 
story-tellers/drunks. While about a fourth of Takae's 160 residents are 
eco-conscious transplants from Tokyo and their kids, several claim 
descendants going back a millennium who have enjoyed the fruits (mango) 
and vegetables that grow wild in the area. Right smack in the middle of 
this sustainable paradise is where a large part of the newest US 
military base is about to be built.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.counterpunch.org/driscoll11022010.html


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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