Massive Anti-Government Protests in Spain Spreading to Italy! No Mention at all in Japanese Press

UPDATE! LIVE FEED OF PROTESTS IN SPAIN AT BOTTOM! 

IS THIS SITUATION IS FAST SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL? MUST SEE!

The demonstrations in Egypt weren't nearly this big! In Europe, first Greece then Iceland now Spain! Massive demonstrations and protests have broken out all over Europe. There's not a word mentioned about these huge protests in the Japanese media or in the US media either! See the live feed at the bottom of this post. These demonstrations are huge and the news about them seems to be blocked all over the world!

Twitter comment about the protests from Poland

The demonstration first started out in Madrid but have now spread to Barcelona, Valencia and other cities in Spain. The Spanish government cannot withstand this pressure. 

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - WAKE UP

Elections are tomorrow but the protesters have said that they will continue to protest until they get what they want... I'm sure the elections will not satisfy their demands. What's next? This and events in Portugal and Italy bode ill for the Euro and the world economy. This will certainly hurt Japan's already faltering economy.

These massive demonstrations continue to grow and have turned quite ugly and violent in Greece and have now been banned in Spain (which has only served to increase their size). In Spain's case, the government has banned these gatherings, but absolutely cannot afford to send the police in and kick these people out. 


Ultimately, unemployment, taxes and austerity measures have caused these huge demonstrations that are, as one protester said, "... against the criminal behavior of the central bankers and IMF. Taking tax money from the people and giving it to rich bankers have finally made the people take to the streets...." 


Yet, this news is nowhere to be found in the Japanese news services in English or in Japanese.


I predict that this demonstration in Spain will collapse the Spanish government.


Hence this blog post.


Mish Shedlock has an excellent write up about it: 


"After passively submitting to the crisis, young Spaniards have finally taken to the street. Breaking out on the eve of municipal elections, the protests of recent days have been inspired by those in Iceland that led to the fall of the government in Reykjavik.

One morning in October 2008, Torfason Hördur turned up at what Icelanders call the “Althing”, the Icelandic parliament in the capital city, Reykjavik. By then, the country's biggest bank, the Kaupthing, had already gone into receivership and the Icelandic financial system itself was in danger of going under. Torfason, with his guitar, grabbed a microphone and invited people to talk about their dissatisfaction with the freefall of their country and to speak their minds.

A movement spawned by the Internet

But those voices calling for real democracy are not just being raised in Iceland, a country of about 320,000 inhabitants. Here in Spain, the umbrella organisation for various Spanish movements – Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) – already lists among its proposals some 40 points ranging from controlling parliamentary absenteeism to reducing military spending through to abolishing the so-called Sinde law (a law restricting on-line infringements of copyright).

Spain demonstration yesterday. This is not news in Japan!????

The demonstrations have broadened spontaneously, as was the case for those who rallied under the umbrellas of the "alternative globalisation" movements, and have evolved, one decade after the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on a more modest stage than the one demonstrators faced in the past at the World Economic Forum of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland.

All this is happening at astonishing speed via the Internet, which has amplified the echo of discontent and opened the lanes of cyberactivism to groups such as Anonymous, notable for intervening against companies like PayPal and Visa during the advocacy campaign for Wikileaks chief Julian Assange. Yet it was also there at the beginning of the revolts in the Arab world, to help people get round the censorship of the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships.

“When we grow up, we want to be Icelanders!" cried one of the leaders of the organisation during the march on Sunday May 15 before a column of young – and not so young – parents and children, students and workers, the jobless and pensioners. Many Saturdays in Iceland were needed before citizens won the changes they had demanded. Spain’s first Sunday has taken place, and was followed by a Tuesday [May 17]- but there’s still a long way to go.


Protests have now spread to Italy and beyond.


Why these massive outpourings of discontent for government policies are being ignored in the Japanese press is a real curiosity. Here is a screen capture of NHK News English site. As you can see, not a word about it mentioned but there is a story of vital interest about Brazilian students sending letters to survivors of the Tohoku disaster!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

And here's a screen capture of the Japanese language page. Nothing about protests in Europe:

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

Let's see: Something about the Hague Convention member states welcoming something called "the Buddha policy," Asia's largest exhibition of Naval Weapons, special trains, Japanese children in Brazil... Oh! There's demonstrations! No. No. Those are in Thailand. Nope. Nothing about demonstrations in Europe.

Quite odd, don't you think?

MISH SHEDLOCK posts this: "SOL TV has a continuous direct broadcast from Puerto del Sol in Madrid, where today's gathering has just started."

Madrid Spain time is 7 hours behind Tokyo, Japan time

More information and additional links (in Spanish) can be found here:http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html
Use Google Translate to translate any of the links. You can use a link, not just portions of text.

The summer of 2011 has started. It's going to be a very hot one too. Got gold?

Here's a map and more information about the global insurrection against banker occupation. There's even an event planned in Tokyo today!!! http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/ 

NHK Blows Away Other Media for Nuclear Updates. Watch Live on UStream!!

If you want to really see what's going on in Japan, you only need to watch NHK news.


Japan's NHK blows away the competition for reporting on the nuclear situation... Amazingly, the staid old school broadcaster is using U-Stream to get the news out to the public.


The other stations are trying to catch up, but it is way too little too late. Checkmate for NHK.



Webcam chat at Ustream
NHK on Ustream? Who needs a TV?


View NHK on Ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-gtv

NHK to Crack Down on Non-Payment? I Doubt it.

Ha! NHK has started claiming that it will crack down on people who do not pay the monthly subscription fees. I wrote about that before here.

NHKの正体：http://yhsvtex.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

From Variety:


Japan's giant public broadcaster NHK is getting serious about forcing scofflaws to pay TV license fees. As in the U.K. and Germany, all Japanese homes with a TV must pay to receive the pubcaster's two free-to-air channels, three satcasters and three radio networks. But an estimated million viewers or more are withholding the bi-monthly $32.21 fee -- unusual in the normally law-abiding country. Under Japanese law, TV households must sign receiving fee contracts with NHK and pay stipulated fees, but penalties for non-compliance are not spelled out.


The key part is this last sentence:

Under Japanese law, TV households must sign receiving fee contracts with NHK and pay stipulated fees, but penalties for non-compliance are not spelled out.

So, you can simply stop paying and tell them that you will accept the penalty.... There is none. Or, you can be very honest about it (like me) and simply throw away your TV and remove all antennas from your house and feel good about yourself when you honestly tell the NHK collector, "We don't have a TV, so we don't have to pay." That is what I recommend doing. 

TV is brain damage. I've written about that before at Lew Rockwell here and here.

NHK and Public TV are Criminal Enterprises - Don't Pay NHK

One can only guess what the government wonks are thinking about at NHK as to how to retain revenues but one thing is certain; they are not going to let us (the public) off easily. (Even though well over 50% of NHK employees do not pay the monthly fee! See below!)


As of today, NHK charges the public (that means everybody! NHK employees included) for just having a TV set even if they don't watch NHK. The obvious solution? I threw away my TV set. No TV? No charge. It's simple.

But, even after I threw my TV away, the NHK people came to my house and tried to collect fees. When I told them that I do not even own a TV set, they didn't believe me. One collector asked, "If you don't have a TV, then why do you have an antenna?"


I bought my house used and so there was an antenna on top of the house. Since I do not want to fight with these people, I paid for a house reform company to remove the antenna. Now, NHK collectors no longer bother me.


But now, these laughable crooks are considering charging everyone (the same as a tax) whether you own a TV or not. 


The headlines at News On Japan read: Will NHK's fee system survive? / Broadcaster looks to adapt as Net viewing rapidly changes the game


Facing a changing television environment due to the growing popularity of online programming and other factors, NHK launched a review of its viewing fee system last month through an expert panel. Is the long-standing belief that "Once you have a TV set, you have to start paying NHK," about to be changed? The panel, an advisory body to NHK President Shigeo Fukuchi, comprises eight specialists, including experts on law and economics. It will make recommendations on any necessary changes to the viewing fee system when TV broadcasts are fully digitized next July. The panel will work until around June next year, and the results of its discussions will be reflected in NHK's management plan for fiscal 2012 to 2014.


What the hell!? These advisors will recommend to the president of NHK for changes to the pay system and then the management of NHK thinks they have the power to decide to levy a tax on the Japanese public? Ha! There's no way in the world that this could be legal.


The president of NHK and their attorneys have no legal standing whatsoever to levy a tax on the public. 


Under current law, it says that if you don't pay the fees for owning a TV to NHK, you can be penalized. The problem with the law is that it doesn't specify what those penalties are. So if you are reading this, then I strongly suggest that you stop paying NHK fees immediately. Now, seeing as to how this was decided, it is obvious as to why there are no penalties stated in Japanese law: it is illegal to do so.


The article at Yomiuri continues:

NHK is paying close attention to reforms under way in Germany. As in Japan, a German public broadcaster collects viewing fees based on TV ownership.

To address the issues raised by the spread of the Internet, the German government is likely to revise its broadcast law so fees are levied from the public whether or not they own TVs, with the goal of implementing the new system in 2013.

The reform is based on the idea that viewing fees for public broadcasters should be shouldered equally among members of the public. The fee will be the same for every household, while it will vary depending on payroll size for businesses.

I do not watch TV and have no plan to. I will refuse to pay any sort of levied taxes for public TV too. I suggest that you consider doing the same.


This is not the Soviet Union. If public TV decides to broadcast without commercials then that is their choice. I didn't decide that policy and so I will not pay for it. The government forcing us to pay for public TV is illegal and a criminal act. 


I strongly suggest that you inform your family and friends about this and get ready to resist this attempt to increase our taxes without public debate.


As is pointed out above; the law doesn't state what the penalties are for non-payment of NHK fees. If you read between the lines of the Yomiuri article, it is obvious why there are no financial penalties for non-payment of NHK fees; those fees fall under "users fees" under the law and, if you do not want to pay them, you do not have to. Just do not use the service.


It is exactly the same as a users fee on the highway: You don't have to pay them; use another road.

The above is a comic that appeared in several major Japanese publications after it was reported that NHK employees themselves were not paying the fees.

Translation of the comic (from top left then down): 

1) The manager at NHK asks the collector "What percentage of homes did you collect NHK fees from?"

2) The collector hands the mgr. the report. The manager reads it and says, "Hmmm, you only got 71% of the houses paying. I hope you could get 80% payment!"

3) The manager says, "By the way, do you have the report on what percentage of NHK employees are paying?" 

4) The manager gets the report and says, "52% of NHK employees are paying the fees? Good work! Excellent results!"

With this blog, I hereby grant my permission to NHK and any other public broadcaster to start broadcasting TV commercials to pay for their services. We the public are taxed too much as it is. I refuse to pay another tax for this sort of nonsense.


I will write my intention to refuse payment - along with granting my permission to air TV commercials - to NHK.


This blog is my public statement that I will refuse to pay any sort of taxation for public TV and, if forced to do so or threatened with any sort of legal actions or penalties, I will seriously consider a class action suit and sue NHK if they try to pull this stunt (not that I would be the only one). If NHK collectors come to my house and threaten me or my family (as they have do so in the past) I will call the police.


Be forewarned NHK collector: if you insist upon coming to my house for collection, then I will consider you to be trespassing and will call the police.


Either way, a flat tax to everyone whether or not they watch TV is completely illegal. Don't be railroaded into paying it.


Consider: Will the sight-impaired be taxed for this? Of course not. Nor should they. 


Under the law of Japan, taxation must be levied equally (unless it is a user's tax such as highway tolls as shown above). Considering the legal ramifications of that point then it is obvious that a tax on everyone for public TV is illegal. If we are to start changing the rules for public TV - under the weak auspices that they are a "public service" and therefore taxable -like something akin to health insurance then this country is surely in more trouble than our public debt at 200% of GDP would indicate.