http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110405ad.html

In this column in the Japan Times, author Debito Arudou takes aim at TEPCO, the Japanese government, and most of all at the attitude of the Japanese people.
The translation is not perfect but his points come through.

A few quotes:
After praising the government for accepting foreign aid , rarely acepted),

"But here endeth the praise. As Fukushima's nuclear reactors became Japan's perpetually burning tire-yard fire, they have laid bare the fundamental flaw of Japan's "nanny state": the assumption that "father knows best" and that the public are children incapable of dealing with potentially dangerous situations.
The reflexive, obsessive control of information has done our people a great disservice."
"Let's start with the Tokyo Electric Power Co. They kept us woefully uninformed (to put it mildly) aboyt the stricken reactors. Some say that leaking limited information is standard operating procedure for the nuclear industry worldwide (justified under "avoiding public panic")........
"Tragically, TEPCO kept such a tight lid on information that not only was our government kept in the dark, but so were worldwide nuclear experts."..........
"While Japan's media cartels as usual skimped on investigative journalism, overseas and online media, running on fumes, had no choice but to fill in the gaps"........

"Criticism shifted from those who caused this incident to those who wanted to do something about it. People moving to safer locations were treated as deserters. ".....public began to tune out and adopt a sense of futility and fatalism, even as radiation levels rose and contaminated the food chain."
".........Sometimes the government's advice was so unscientific that it tried the patience of an educated society. (In a land of poorly insulated housing, being told to "just stay indoors" is clearly stopgap)."

"My point is that the public has been kept in the dark for generations about the risks of nuclear power,.....)"
"....TEPCO... similarly botched things after radiation leaks at Tokai...in 1999 and... in Niigata Prefecture in 2007. Yet these Homer Simpsons remainin charge,..."

"Nor will the government be held accountable, despite abetting coverups...... Part of it is due to the lack of class-action lawsuit mechanisms in Japan's judiciary, and the fact that judges almost never rule against the government."

"This is a society, remember, that has never experienced a popular grassroots revolution in its history. The result is that less cultural value is placed on fairness and social justice, more on personal perservance and knuckling under- even if that means the environment gets poisoned and people die, either as volunteer fire department heroes........"
......
"the public cannot or will not force the state to take responsibility for its mistakes. Ultimately, this is what breeds Japan's undying fatalism."

Extracted at some length because these articles tend to disappear after a few days.