The Great Giveaway, Part Three--- Just what are we giving away? On art, nuclear fallout, and our planet

I dread the visions I have of the future, especially if we let right-wingers hold sway...do they want to see us dyeing in the streets of painful disease, young and old, together with children,decrepit, sick, homeless, those who are still able predatorily taking advantage, while the rich who have taken all for themselves die in underground bunkers clutching the money they saved from closing down mental hospitals, health care, jails, police, fire departments??? After they did this nuclear deed to all of humanity, all other life on Earth? This is what I fear, it's been going in this direction far too long. If we shut down our willingness to engage about it, we cannot plan for a better future---and we must. We must begin now to plan compassionately for the massive die-off. And we must plan for knowledge of finding a way to end the nuclear nightmare, so that it is not ongoing for the next million years, with or without us. I don't think most people even realize that nuclear fission means never-ending.

      What goes through my mind about this beautiful planet, her waters, her air, her bodily self is so complex I barely know where to begin. I find myself in the old existential dilemma---whether it's better to face what feels horrific about our world, and all the most difficult feelings attending, or whether to do as I do in most of my life, and find a way to remove myself from the angst of our human condition---I mean the ones that we have created as humans---the nuclear nightmare, and the global warming conditions that threaten the existence of all we hold dear on Planet Earth, Earth herself. My feeling is that if we continue as a species to ignore, we are doomed.


      Now that we have opened Pandora's box and faced the worst consequences of meddling with nature, essentially playing God, we have a responsibility to make certain Earth does not "throw us off" as one put it to me lately in her explanation of how she sees recent nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, Global warming events as Earth's revenge for our poisoning of her, her waters, her air. She said "if Earth wants to throw us off her, she will, and Earth will be fine without us." Would that it were that simple! Think of the result of Chernobyl's continuous nuclear fission under the sarcophagus there, and the 15 years overdue new covering over the old one. The billions it will cost to build it are not nearly paid, it will be as high as the Eiffel Tower, 500 (?) yards long circumference, and will last 100 years. Thud. 


      In geological time it is barely the blink of an eye. If we do not continue as a species, how do we maintain Chernobyl and the rest of the nuclear power plants around the world? All of life on planet Earth is at stake. To all of you who love life, animals, water, air, Earth, I ask you if you believe there is a way for a critical mass of humanity to get to the point of expanding beyond merely maintaining the tiny status quo of our little lives and find a way toward apology and care for our Mother Earth, at (long overdue) last?


      To be alive is to think. Most in our culture repress thought too much, and untold damage results. Yet, we can not help but think, even if it is "...McDonalds...gambling..heroin...shopping...who can I hurt...air freshener...TV..." all manner of trivial drivel that might hold it all together somehow, for a while, but keeps individuals and everyone else in perpetual ignorance...when we could have been so much more! By using our brains for more than just survival, by embracing art (and the love of it), love for writing, reading, true philosophical thought, how to make the world a better place, how to treat children, how best to feed our bodies, get out of addictive cycles, affect politics toward the betterment of all of society, the environment, away from all the selfishness, the greed, the infantile need for leaders, even bad ones...if only we could have used our minds to lift ourselves up and out of the mess we're in...maybe we never would have been in this mess to begin with. Ever since we got Fooked, I cannot be other than real, as real as I can be...I'm so outraged by the fact that it finally happened, and once again the world shuts down thought, stands by, lets it happen. Better to my way of thinking, we would think and discuss our way to solution, or at least psychological grappling with it... The Joseph Campbells and the Buddhists are all well and good, I suppose, but what about you and me and the rest of us?

     
     Gandhi said anger is energy. If nothing is done with it it can kill. If it is used for the good of all, to the very best of one's individual and collective ability, there is no end to the good it can do, for self and world.

     First comes horror, fear. Then comes the anger as a defense against the terror, and galvanizing of the human spirit to do do one's best to rectify if at all possible. And if this intense need to create solutions goes unsatisfied, well then when the time to die comes, one goes out knowing that as much as possible to fix was carried out by the individual, possibly there is personal peace in that. I have not given up all hope.

       Another thought: I think that given the state of this world, no wonder people can't easily tune in to one another. Maybe it is understandable given all the problems, and given that this does indeed look hopeless. I would say that probably there is no hope, but I am one that needs to feel that there is, in order to keep on going as long as I can. Part of the hope I need to have is that somehow less damage can be done, some can survive, someone can fix it, somehow. I see how ridiculous that looks, given what we know, or probably know, but I am probably one who would have gone to my death in the concentration camps believing all the while it wasn't going to happen. This terror that they unleash on us from the inception of the insanity of nuclear knowledge, as surely as whatever was done to us by violating parents, societal violence, war, illness makes many of us to some degree crazy, including the craziness that has kept people in ignorance and denial of it all from 1942 on.

 

Tree Spirit, owned by Meena Antonia Miller
The Animals, owned by Aki Sasaki
Out of the Depths, owned by Aki Sasaki
Hand Book on the Out of Hand (Pandora's Box), owned by Terrry R. Flowers
Sink or Swim, owned by David Stuart Rose
Gandhi, owned by Rahela Ranjbin


Yes----failure of imagination, that is exactly the trouble: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6404

Unspeakable reality voiced on Australian 60 Minutes, CBS:
http://www.worldwidehippies.com/2011/08/18/fukushima-now-radiating-everyone-unspeakable-reality/


Jellyfish may be to the rescue: http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/177027/20110709/millions-jellyfish-invade-nuclear-reactors-japan-israel-2011-power-plant-shut-down-unusual-growth-tr.htm

Sunflowers, too: http://www.care2.com/causes/sunflowers-may-heal-fukushimas-radioactive-soil.html

From Dr. Helen Caldecott on radioactivity in the U.S. following Fukushima:http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/news/2011/07/12/radiation-levels-in-northwest-rain-were-up-to-130-times-drinking-water-standards-following-fukushima-japan-nuclear-reactor-explosions.html

And in the United States: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/nuclear-flood-nebraska-fire-us_n_885534.html

Recently uncovered and written about by Annie Jacobson in her book about Area 51, called Area 51: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-13/americas-secret-nuclear-test-revealed-in-area-51-by-annie-jacobsen/4/

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back comfortably for about an hour and listen to the voice of reason, Dr. Helen Caldicott:
http://worldstreams.org/past141.html


An excellent organization, on facebook, too: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2011/6/1/check-out-and-download-our-new-ad.html

Worse than a meltdown at three reactors from The Guardian:http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/08/fukushima-nuclear-plant-melt-through?cat=world&type=article

A good compilation on the latest news out of Japan: http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/05/12/japanese-officials-admit-for-the-first-time-nuclear-meltdown-at-fukushima-plant/


A warning to stay out of the rain, good links at this blog, and some interesting discussion: http://stokereport.com/rant/radioactive-rain-california

About your milk and fish: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/radiation-in-milk

The Nuclear Engineering site from U.C. Berkeley provides some interestin discussion indeed: "The one thing I do know is that the EPA has been less than truthful (I'm being kind), concerning information on their website. They've removed and changed information and ignored important facts that should have been posted. And along with that, I don't need some happy, little colorful map. I learned to read when I was four. All I want is the truthful findings from their tests and some unbiased background information pertaining to those tests. I'm not a moron or a child that needs government lackeys to draw pictures for me and tell me everything is going to be ok."
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2347


Setback at Fukushima: http://www.euronews.net/newswires/921253-japan-readies-new-tactics-for-fukushima-after-setback/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dd00a1934f450df%2C0

Architectural plans for new "safe" sarcophagas at Chernobyl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Protest of NRC: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/28/anti-nuclear-protest-planned-at-nrc-meeting/ 


Burning radioactive waste debris for fuel in Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKHCK0DvnI
A man living in Tokyo who wants the truth and tells us we should want the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pHwvRWw7kY&feature=related

Yuko Noguchi on NPR about Japanese people burning debris from Tsunami with unknown asbestos and radioactivity: http://www.ideastations.org/npr/135770675-one-big-obstacle-to-japans-recovery-trash

"One of the most monstrous medical cover-ups in history" Helen Caldecott, M.D.
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITrXVJMKeQ&feature=related gundersen

Arnie Gundersen on NPR Democracy Now with Amy Goodman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5mxi1HJP7Q&feature=related

"Bury it!" from Michio Kaku: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkCD5IInMY&feature=related

An interesting spiritual perspective/meditation on denial and compassion from Portland, Oregon:
http://www.gaiaworkshops.net/fukishima-fallout-and-the-spiritual-challenge-of-nuclear-disaster/

Great radio programming around this and all environmental issues: http://www.tucradio.org/

Very good article by excellent journalist, Alexander Cockburn on California nuclear dangers from plants: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/76471,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-another-fukushima-in-america-not-if-but-when