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Sakamoto must have died with a bitter taste in his mouth, watching the government try to restart the nuclear plants under the pretext of power shortage. He had always been a vocal opponent of nuclear power, a rare voice in a country that seemed to have forgotten the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He had a sharp wit and a playful style, but also a deep sense of justice and compassion. He would have hated to see hi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear reactors produce plutonium. A world without any nuclear reactors or uranium enrichment facilities, is a world without nuclear weapons. It's perhaps particularly relevant with Japan; they are the nation probably most often used as an example of a country that could develop nuclear weapons almost overnight, should the political will materialize. They have the know-how, industry, missiles, and because of the nuc…
... and so? The death toll due to to nuclear weapons is a small fraction of people killed since them by either small arms or fossil fuel pollution. If one attributes the U.S. stepping back from nuclear power to the anti-proliferation scare of the mid-1970s (good heavens, brown people are making plutonium!) you might then consider the alternate path where the U.S. had stayed the course, built the 500 reactors it had p…
I doubt that. Perhaps it'd be slightly less acute, that's all.
- Ryuichi Sakamoto
Sakamoto must have died with a bitter taste in his mouth, watching the government try to restart the nuclear plants under the pretext of power shortage. He had always been a vocal opponent of nuclear power, a rare voice in a country that seemed to have forgotten the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He had a sharp wit and a playful style, but also a deep sense of justice and compassion. He would have hated to see hi…
I had heard him here and there, but the first time I really started paying attention to him was the Zero Landmine[1] project. After that I watched him alongside David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence[2] and realized he was the creator of that famous melody. After that I was hooked. Like others in this thread I really love his collaborations with Alva Noto, especially By This River[3]. I'm sad he's gone, but I'm…
Sakamoto must have died with a bitter taste in his mouth, watching the government try to restart the nuclear plants under the pretext of power shortage. He had always been a vocal opponent of nuclear power, a rare voice in a country that seemed to have forgotten the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He had a sharp wit and a playful style, but also a deep sense of justice and compassion. He would have hated to see hi…
> He had always been a vocal opponent of nuclear power, a rare voice in a country that seemed to have forgotten the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is the connection between nuclear power and Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
"There is general agreement that the bombing of Nagasaki did little in the way of changing the hearts and minds of the Japanese military. By blaming their surrender on the atomic bombs, Japan avoided the Soviet Union having a hand in the post-war reconstruction process. Japan was afraid that the Soviet Union might try to push a communist regime onto the country. It was also very convenient for the U.S. that Japan attributed their surrender to the atomic bombings."
https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/japans-surrend...
EDIT: incidentally
Just want to share a couple great works by Sakamoto. I'm a big fan. One of my favorite bossa nova albums is A Day In New York by Morelenbaum/Sakamoto. Here's Desafinado from that album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rtdR9WkOOY And his early synth-y stuff is just so hip. Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1978) is some badass stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGo7n6CMCcE
Here's the full album ("Casa") for those interested: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kD_LK3RoPwL6UNzGT2...