The Nuclear Experiment Year 71:
A Shadow On the
Collective Consciousness
By Ethan Indigo Smith
It has been a year since my annual nuclear experimentation
article. Time flies. My scale of time of course is ignorant. I cannot
comprehend the complexity of time unfolding as it does, beyond my limited human
imagination, and my ignorance of the ways of time is not unlike your own. And
perhaps it is not unlike the ignorance of the nuclear goons of yesteryear,
whose shortsighted planning for the nuclear waste ‘storage’ failed to take into
account the life of nuclear radiation in human generations much less the
millions of years that nuclear waste actually remains deadly.
Some people posit that one generation is roughly twenty
years. So, about three generations ago the first nuclear waste was created and
then buried, for future generations to deal with.
Now, in Year 71 of the global nuclear experiment, the
impermanence of the United States crumbling nuclear infrastructure is becoming
blatantly apparent. Several nuclear sites are deteriorating, and there are
increasing rates of illness around numerous nuclear sites in the USA and around
the world — that we know of. But, as whole regions are suffering worsening
nuclear conditions, we can only speculate about the total effect. We can only
speculate about what we don’t know, and don’t actively measure.
Radioactive Karma
What we know of nuclear experimentation, and of time for
that matter, reminds me of an old joke. Two sailors are looking over the ocean
and one says to the other, ‘Gosh that’s a lot of water.’ The other sailor
responds, ‘Yea, and that’s just the top of it.’ What we know of nuclear
experimentation, I fear, is very much like this joke — what we know is just
scratching the surface.
Of course, what the human collective is capable of
comprehending about its place in time is also a lot like the silliness of the
sailors observing the sea; when it comes to our understanding of space, time
and causality — and therefore our effect on future generations — we’re just
scratching the surface. When we look further, at a deeper level, life is like
an ocean, an ocean of energy the Buddhists call Mara, made up of energy and
karma. Some folks wiser than myself noted that karma might happen immediately,
what we know as instant karma, and karma also might act like a bullet with
infinite potential energy for its velocity, and this energy or bullet might
take off out to Saturn before ricocheting back to Earth only to hit the
grandchild of the person that fired it. Karma, you just never know.
Radiological contamination from nuclear experimentation is
like karma. Nuclear contamination may zap you then and there, or it may come
back to get your offspring. This understanding serves as a vital understanding
of the nuclear experimentation situation in totality. Eventually the
unprecedented environmental devastation we unleash every day the nuclear
experiment continues, returns.
Nuclear Madness
Scientifically speaking, the risk cycle of nuclear power
generation cannot be validated as “safe”
until its waste can be permanently removed, stored, treated and degraded back
into the natural environment, and potential impacts to human and environmental
health entirely mitigated. And we know that, today, that is simply not the case
– despite the industry rhetoric. The nuclear experimentation industry is still
shrouded in scientific and political secrecy, undermining our liberties and
democratic processes and risking our health and our very existence in the
process. When it all goes wrong — and history shows us this outcome is
inevitable — the environmental destruction both of nuclear accidents and
planned detonations is global, and permanent.
Based on its track record it is apparent that the nuclear
industry does not have the knowledge to properly assess and mitigate all the
risks involved in their experiment — and it is an experiment — nor to safely
manage the resulting nuclear waste for even 71 years of the one million years
it takes to break down. How can utility companies, industry regulators and
nuclear zeolots claim that an appropriate level of control is exercised on wastes
that will be dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years? In
reality, the storage cycle for weaponry and fuel related nuclear waste is only
beginning. We have reached year 71 of a million year long process. Our nuclear
waste is a problem today, and is a mounting problem for countless generations
yet to come.
And that’s just what we know about. With hindsight, it is
undeniable that the nuclear industry obfuscates the truth. Spokespersons for
GE, the corporation that built the faulty Fukushima reactors, describes nuclear
energy as “the cleanest base load power generation system available today”,
while news on the actual status of Fukushima (now 5½ years on) is sketchy at
best. The operators at Santa Susana laboratories didn’t advise those living
downwind of the Santa Susana disaster that there might be something problematic
in the air. Major fires went unreported, as did the 1959 meltdown. Only after a
similar meltdown at Three Mile Island was the extent of the Santa Susana
experiment finally revealed. And the recent near-miss at Miami never made the 6
o’clock news.
After many years of dedicated research and activism, I have
realized that the nuclear experiment is among most important subjects left
mostly unconsidered. Not only is the subject matter life-threatening beyond our
comprehension, not only is it the result of the very military industrial
complex President Eisenhower (the last military President to profoundly
understood the military and government) publicly warned us about in 1961 —
relegating the nuclear experimentation topic to the fringes of public focus and
discussion casts a shadow on the collective consciousness.
But the cover up is so great it exposes itself. Part of the
cover up, this grand shadow, is the minimizing of its importance. The
discussion of nuclear experimentation has been made taboo, shrouded in false
science and corporate agendas. But our unwillingness to confront the nuclear
issue with any real seriousness exposes our civilization as being anything but
civil. The nuclear experiment requires the light of our attention and care, but
institutions of every variation — from the USA to North Korea, from the DOE to
fisheries — all have reasons to casts a shadow on the collective consciousness
and hinder genuine consideration of the effects of the nuclear experiment. They
benefit from our silence and lack of attention to this matter of ultimate
importance. And our radioactive karma is causing many of us to look the other
way, as juveniles to consequences.
The only way for humanity to embrace truly clean energy
systems and overcome the threat of nuclear disaster is to wake up, get
informed, and rise up. Let ignorance be the new taboo. Do not allow ostriches
to pose as humans, their heads in the sand. As Year 71 of the Nuclear
Experiment begins, and its trail of destruction becomes more apparent, we must
continue to cast light on the shadows.
Peace.
About the author:
Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher Ethan Indigo Smith was
born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before
migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity
and humanity, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful,
blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, meditation and a unique
sense of humour.
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