I feel a lot of shame these days. Shame at my country for its history of killing the innocent, its militarism, its perpetual aggression, violence and international terrorism. More than 200,000 people died instantly after the US bombed Japan. Somehow, I had forgotten how high this number was. In addition, hundreds of thousands were left permanently damaged, and god knows how many generations will sustain deformities. This was an action that didn’t have to happen. Germany had already surrendered and the Japanese had been brought to the edge of giving up as well. General Eisenhower told President Truman that the action was “completely unnecessary.” Our dropping those bombs was a total act of retribution, a bunch of boys wanting to make something big and powerful go boom, regardless of how many human beings they took out. That human life could be so objectified is beyond shameful. That people have continued to pursue this form of energy for profit, rather than shrinking away in the shame and horror of what they created, is hubris at its very worst. Every nuclear scientist should have to spend time touring Hiroshima and Nagasaki, meeting the survivors face to face, looking in their eyes and the eyes of their children and hearing the stories of their pain.
Then there is my own shame: shame for having worked in Los Alamos, NM, birthplace of this bomb. While I can (and did) justify my actions—I didn’t work for Los Alamos National Labs, I didn’t work in an era of aboveground testing—it was and still is a flimsy, lame excuse. Through the very act of choosing to work there, I was giving my tacit acceptance for the killing of innocent Japanese citizens, the killing of all of those who have sustained breast and lung cancers due to living in the path of nuclear reactors, and the potential for centuries of perpetrating the kind of harm we witnessed this year with Fukushima.
Despite a huge media cover-up telling us that the fallout was not harmful, the truth is that people will die and become ill not only from radiation exposure, but also from ingesting the milk and meat of cattle in its path. And that these effects will travel throughout the world, as they did with Chernobyl. The fact that it’s not happening right this moment, that most everyone appears “fine,” has nothing to do with the truth. It generally takes 5-20 years for people to begin to get ill from such incidents. The Russian publication Chernobyl concludes that 985,000 excess cancer deaths occurred between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.(1) Other estimates put that number at closer to 1.5 million. Fukushima may well end up killing more.
The first 3 weeks I worked in Los Alamos, I cried each day and didn’t want to go back. But at the time the job was offered to me, I had a severe physical illness and realized that it would provide something rare in NM: a good salary and the health insurance I needed. I felt trapped in a moral dilemma and chose wrongly. From my reading, I have come to understand the role of proximity to a nuclear reactor in my mother’s death. I understand that exposure to manmade nuclear fission products dramatically increases cancer, specifically breast cancer,(2) the type that killed my mother. The process of becoming informed involves a loss of innocence and, if we’re lucky, a stripping away of denial. I am sad to realize that my own denial enabled me to work for the entity that invented the atomic bomb. And as horrified as this makes me, at least I now have the ability to see clearly. Amazing the power of the political become personal.
The amends I want to make involve sharing with people what I’ve learned. Becoming more informed. Continuing to take action on this issue. Not sanctioning government expenditures of my tax dollars on war and nukes. And, if it helps even one little bit, offering a great apology on behalf of my country to all of those Japanese citizens affected by the events of August 6 and August 9, 1945. As I begin this vigil in my heart, I light a candle and pray for your health, peace, and well being.
(1) Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko. Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences) (paperback ed.). Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
(2) Jay Gould, The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1996, p. 24.
Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt
Mother and child, 4 months after the explosion of the atomic bomb.
Here is Amy Goodman's excellent piece about this topic:
http://www.nationofchange.org/kilotons-millisieverts-japans-nuclear-legacy-1312989458.
