Nuclear Hotseat 407
(53:27-57:30)
To Hiroko Aihara, who spoke of Three Mile Island as a 40-year vision of what’s to come for the people of Japan whose lives were so devastated by Fukushima, here’s what I would like to say:
• In 32 years, at your 40th anniversary, you will be told by everybody and anybody, that nobody died from Fukushima radiation, that your cancers and thyroid diseases and miscarriages and birth defects, heart attacks and autoimmune diseases had absolutely nothing to do with when the three reactors melted down and exploded, spewing radiation.
• You will receive no compensation for your illness, for your pain, and little sympathy. You will be mocked for your fears, ignored by the authorities, your calls for medical examinations and tests and collection of data will be unheard, so that you will leave no trail of evidence that can be followed back to its source by future generations.
• You will be continually shouted down, by louder, scripted, well paid voices, told your truth is not your truth, what you know is not what you know, that black is white and down is up and you are already through to the other side of the looking glass, Alice, so just shut up and go away!
That’s what it will be like.
Here is what it will also be like:
• There will be a small band of heroes, women and men of great heart and mind who reach out to each other to share the truth, to remember the truth, and pass it on, knowing that truth has the power to heal, and no matter how bad it was, better to know than to live with the crippling ignorance.
• That they will attract others to their cause — the fight to learn all that happened: what it did to people, and what must be done to prevent this evil from ever happening again.
• The voice of opposition to the nuclear insanity will never be silenced. And it will continue, and it will grow. Even in the most despairing of times, it will grow, until it succeeds.
• And they will know that “activist” is a badge of honor for normal citizens who see a wrong that is not being addressed by the powers that be, and choose to do something about it.
Three Mile Island happened. Radiation was released. Damage was done to people and the environment. The government, the utility, the manufacturer—none of them took responsibility. Excuses were made, then heavily promoted, then mandated and enshrined as the truth—when
what was being told was a bunch of overblown, distorted, encrusted copouts. But there were no monitors operating around Three Mile Island. No one needed to test the blood because it might show something alarming – and for those in power, panic must be managed at all costs. They
were just making certain that the dog ate their homework.
The fight against nuclear has no half-life. It is forever. Or as long as the isotopes of plutonium last, which, let’s face it, in human terms, is forever. That is why I consider it my sacred duty to search for, seek out, promote the nuclear truth, and when I find it, share it widely and fully, with
everyone in anyway I can, for as long as I can. I invite you to do the same. And then pass the baton to the next generation, and teach them how to pass the baton to the generations after that, so that we continue. This may seem like the battle between David and Goliath, but I just wish to remind you that David won.
Transcribed with permission by Norma Field and translated into Japanese.
