Today, Y-12 manufactures and refurbishes new parts for old nuclear warheads and it is set to receive $7.5 billion in new funds for a new bomb plant, infrastructure and equipment and close to $1 billion for refurbishment.
The build up of nuclear weapons really got going in 1946 with President Truman's National Security State, where he devoted our wealth and resources to protect us from our enemies, which over the years has included the Soviet Union (Russia), China, Vietnam communists, Grenada and most recently, the Axis of Evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
"We have no one to blame but ourselves," said Jean Gump, 84, one of 13 protesters arrested and jailed at the Y-12 plant. "Eisenhower legitimated dropping the bomb on Japan even though he was against it. To compensate, he started the Atoms for Peace Program.
In 1955 the Atoms for Peace Program was President Eisenhower's attempt to calm fears about the destructiveness of atomic energy as a result of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and instead to emphasize its peaceful purposes. The United States gave "have-not" nations "limited amounts of raw and fissionable materials" as well as generous assistance for building power reactors. The first nuclear reactors in Iran and Pakistan were built under this program. "These exports were intended to maintain U.S. global leadership, reduce Soviet influence, and assure continued access to foreign uranium and thorium supplies."
The media has not been focused on nuclear weapons for several reasons, said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA). For one, there are a lot of people who have made a living off nuclear weapons. In the early days, everything surrounding the weapons was secret, which served these people very well because it kept the issue out of the public realm and warded off accountability of their activities.
Secondly, Congress controls the purse strings regarding the funding of U.S. infrastructure. Legislators are generally reluctant to address the weapons issue because they don't want to look as though they are abetting the enemy or not adequately protecting the country.
Finally, part of the mythology of nuclear weapons is that only experts know about them. Citizens then feel powerless to do anything about them.
Today, nuclear weapons are even further from public view since Americans are more concerned about things like the declining economy and unemployment. They are also distracted by the Internet, social networking, entertainment and simply not focused on the justice issues.
On the other hand, we may have reached a tipping point for change in our nuclear weapons policies and it comes from the most unexpected people.
In January 2007 and January 2008, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn published op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal to call for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
They subsequently formed the Nuclear Security Project, which is a major effort to "galvanize global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers and build support for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, ultimately ending them as a threat to the world." The Project links the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons with urgent steps that can be taken immediately to reduce nuclear dangers.
A film, which is available on the website, expresses their deep concern about the dramatic change in global threats since the Cold War and shares their belief that "the world has a unique opportunity--and a short window of time -- for coordinated actions to pull back from a nuclear precipice." General Colin Powell opens the film to talk about his own experiences with nuclear weapons.
"It's not just "crazy anti-nuke people' who want to see the end of these weapons," said Hutchison. "Cold War hawks are saying it now. The global reality is that nuclear weapons make us less secure than more secure. The policy of nuclear deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous."
Over the past week, the Tea Party and a few Republicans have put defense on the table for spending cuts. It seems that we could save a lot of money--and a lot of lives--by ridding ourselves of these viciously dangerous, exorbitantly expensive and wildly unnecessary weapons soon!
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