A moderate and information-packed briefing from Serbia (click here), the product of Dragana Popovic and two female particle-physics colleagues, shows the vast increases in Uranium's biotic uptake that have accompanied the Fool Cycle. It states, plainly and without artifice, some of the inevitable sorts of health consequences of this increase, which DU soldiers are permitting those not too blinded-by-bias to witness.
California's careful and comprehensive examination of its hydrological infrastructure, to determine Uranium's plausible impact on drinking water standards, repeatedly announces the sinister risks that inhere in imbibing Uranium-'enriched' liquids. As well, multiple journalistic and summary sources exist, both contemporary (click here) and historical (click here), that drive home the comprehension that--whatever the form--Uranium is among the deadliest substances to unleash in the biosphere. To deny this contention is criminal folly at best.
This checklist does not even scratch the surface of the voluminous, one might easily assert conclusive, documentation of Uranium's generally poisonous presence in the biosphere. Furthermore, as additional tomes of data, and increasing troves of new science, make clear, the specific attributes of DU ordnance in action make its hazards especially dire (click here).
Moreover, this humble correspondent has ready for publication a substantial literature review to expand on this contention that interconnects so centrally with Uranium's generally horrific cultural role. Because of its incisive reasoning and down-to-earth presentation, and her long-standing, unprejudiced scientific acumen, I would recommend a piece by Rosalie Bertell as an introduction to this corollary notion (click here). No matter what, though, whether the Manhattan Engineering District scientists intended to use Uranium, its hideous properties fitted it for the sorts of tactical utility that they perceived as possible from radioactive weaponry.
Intentional Harm--Another Substantive Defense of DU-Critiques
A second trope that upsets the Holloway-and-company apple cart is that the USG, at the highest levels, repeatedly and knowingly did in fact decide to research the deployment of radioactive toxins. An almost grotesque eagerness to discern what would transpire in the context of military and industrial dispersion of radioactive elements played a significant tactical role in the choice of targets (click here) for conducting the planet's only out-and-out nuclear war.
Of course, the culmination of this inclination to experiment with decimation was the decision to use the atomic bomb unconditionally, against the overwhelming majority of scientific advice. As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argues in Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, documentary, testimonial, and circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly indicated the choice of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in part 'clinical' decisions.
The inaugural mention, above, of the array of legislation meant to ameliorate Uranium's biological bane proves America's cupidity and venality in regard to Uranium and its byproducts--'more bang for the buck,' 'too cheap to meter,' and conscious, self-serving and double-dealing duplicity were omnipresent all through the Fool Cycle, leading in turn to the purportedly restorative statues. As well, many other sources amplify the argument that vicious negligence, shot through with homicide and horrid injury, were par for the Uranium/Plutonium fairway.
The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, for example, although on the one hand it represents something akin to an attempt to rescue honor, also stands as a complete admission of guilt in regard to citizens, wage-earners, prisoners, and--in a chilling depiction of lessons unlearned--soldiers (click here), all of whom suffered and perished as a result of a perverse combination of scientific arrogance, curiosity, greed, and dishonesty. Try as it might to 'spin' this matter without ever appearing downright demonic, the committee had to admit dark transgressions.
More important, it could not finesse the continuing potential for a repetition of the same noisome and willful negligence. "Insofar as wrongdoing may have occurred in the past, we needed to examine the likelihood that such things could happen today. (And in fact)...(h)uman research can still be conducted in secret today, and under some conditions informed consent in secret research can be waived. Events that raise the same concerns as the intentional releases in the Committee's charter could take place in secret today under current environmental laws."
Truly voluminous, almost limitless, documentation of this notion of rotten perfidy at the center of the system would also be possible to continue. Among the hundreds of archival records--only one relatively small category of evidence--demonstrative of this point, a student might look at the voluminous skein of documents that connect Harvard's, and the Manhattan Project's, Dr. Conant and the famed Vannevar Bush, who promised an "endless frontier of science and peace and prosperity stemming from the nascent military-industrial-Uranium complex at the very center of American capitalism (click here).
Records here include correspondence and other transcripts, for instance, concerning the Groves memo and the S-1 subcommittee report. The possibility for a "super," or hydrogen bomb is also present. Among dozens of other matters that concern the ethics and infrastructure of the merchandising of megadeath are materials about both the nature of what is so far the world's only atomic war, and the nuclear testing and build-up that followed in the aftermath of that heinous liquidation of some quarter million people.
Once more, then, nitpicking about whether these forefathers of nuclear holocaust specifically anticipated DU ordnance, or whether they thought precisely of the 'delicious' toxicity of Uranium when they contemplated weaponizing radioactive byproducts, seems utterly beside the point. They acted consciously to bring about ends that had to include the potential for something completely congruent with DU-penetrators and the widespread morbidity and mortality attendant on their development.
The Tactics of Democratic Dialog Versus Reactionary Derision
Whether the clear-eyed consciousness of these erstwhile heroes, whom Holloway and his ilk would defend uncritically, was primarily unconscionable or' for the greater good' is also of small import. Much more centrally, whatever 'greater good' has transpired has in fact revolved around a consolidated empire, an agglomeration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer plutocrats, and the simultaneous potential for mass collective suicide while democracy appears an ever-diminishing fantasy.
"Besides from natural sources, uranium and its daughters are found in the environment due to (agro)technological procedures. The most important sources of the technologically enhanced natural radioactivity are uranium mines, lead and coal mines, steam power plants and their by-products; particularly important sources are mineral fertilizers' production plants. Therefore, mostly due to the technological increase in natural radioactivity, the level of natural radiation has increased about 30 to 40 times in the last thirty years. ...Uranium('s)... group of toxic elements... is highly reactive and easily forms oxide compounds. It reaches humans and animals through skin (by directly deposited dust containing uranium), through air (by inhaling dust containing particles with uranium) and through food and water (by deposition of dust on the ground and due to uranium presence in groundwaters and underground waters, vegetation, etc.). The critical organ for uranium in humans is kidney and the 'biological' half-time (period of elimination) for kidneys is 15 days, i.e. 100 days for the whole body."The EPA's two volume Uranium-dangers series (Volume 1 and Volume 2), part of its TENORM materials that deal with Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials, explicitly list Uranium's deadly potential. Very aware of the intricacies of Uranium chemistry and possible pathways of dispersion, the Environmental Protection Agency clearly articulates from the early 1980's onward that Uranium and its 'daughters' in the decay process can cause well-known harms such as cancer to citizens who imbibe them.
California's careful and comprehensive examination of its hydrological infrastructure, to determine Uranium's plausible impact on drinking water standards, repeatedly announces the sinister risks that inhere in imbibing Uranium-'enriched' liquids. As well, multiple journalistic and summary sources exist, both contemporary (click here) and historical (click here), that drive home the comprehension that--whatever the form--Uranium is among the deadliest substances to unleash in the biosphere. To deny this contention is criminal folly at best.
This checklist does not even scratch the surface of the voluminous, one might easily assert conclusive, documentation of Uranium's generally poisonous presence in the biosphere. Furthermore, as additional tomes of data, and increasing troves of new science, make clear, the specific attributes of DU ordnance in action make its hazards especially dire (click here).
Intentional Harm--Another Substantive Defense of DU-Critiques
A second trope that upsets the Holloway-and-company apple cart is that the USG, at the highest levels, repeatedly and knowingly did in fact decide to research the deployment of radioactive toxins. An almost grotesque eagerness to discern what would transpire in the context of military and industrial dispersion of radioactive elements played a significant tactical role in the choice of targets (click here) for conducting the planet's only out-and-out nuclear war.
Of course, the culmination of this inclination to experiment with decimation was the decision to use the atomic bomb unconditionally, against the overwhelming majority of scientific advice. As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argues in Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, documentary, testimonial, and circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly indicated the choice of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in part 'clinical' decisions.
The inaugural mention, above, of the array of legislation meant to ameliorate Uranium's biological bane proves America's cupidity and venality in regard to Uranium and its byproducts--'more bang for the buck,' 'too cheap to meter,' and conscious, self-serving and double-dealing duplicity were omnipresent all through the Fool Cycle, leading in turn to the purportedly restorative statues. As well, many other sources amplify the argument that vicious negligence, shot through with homicide and horrid injury, were par for the Uranium/Plutonium fairway.
The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, for example, although on the one hand it represents something akin to an attempt to rescue honor, also stands as a complete admission of guilt in regard to citizens, wage-earners, prisoners, and--in a chilling depiction of lessons unlearned--soldiers (click here), all of whom suffered and perished as a result of a perverse combination of scientific arrogance, curiosity, greed, and dishonesty. Try as it might to 'spin' this matter without ever appearing downright demonic, the committee had to admit dark transgressions.
More important, it could not finesse the continuing potential for a repetition of the same noisome and willful negligence. "Insofar as wrongdoing may have occurred in the past, we needed to examine the likelihood that such things could happen today. (And in fact)...(h)uman research can still be conducted in secret today, and under some conditions informed consent in secret research can be waived. Events that raise the same concerns as the intentional releases in the Committee's charter could take place in secret today under current environmental laws."
Truly voluminous, almost limitless, documentation of this notion of rotten perfidy at the center of the system would also be possible to continue. Among the hundreds of archival records--only one relatively small category of evidence--demonstrative of this point, a student might look at the voluminous skein of documents that connect Harvard's, and the Manhattan Project's, Dr. Conant and the famed Vannevar Bush, who promised an "endless frontier of science and peace and prosperity stemming from the nascent military-industrial-Uranium complex at the very center of American capitalism (click here).
Records here include correspondence and other transcripts, for instance, concerning the Groves memo and the S-1 subcommittee report. The possibility for a "super," or hydrogen bomb is also present. Among dozens of other matters that concern the ethics and infrastructure of the merchandising of megadeath are materials about both the nature of what is so far the world's only atomic war, and the nuclear testing and build-up that followed in the aftermath of that heinous liquidation of some quarter million people.
Once more, then, nitpicking about whether these forefathers of nuclear holocaust specifically anticipated DU ordnance, or whether they thought precisely of the 'delicious' toxicity of Uranium when they contemplated weaponizing radioactive byproducts, seems utterly beside the point. They acted consciously to bring about ends that had to include the potential for something completely congruent with DU-penetrators and the widespread morbidity and mortality attendant on their development.
The Tactics of Democratic Dialog Versus Reactionary Derision
Whether the clear-eyed consciousness of these erstwhile heroes, whom Holloway and his ilk would defend uncritically, was primarily unconscionable or' for the greater good' is also of small import. Much more centrally, whatever 'greater good' has transpired has in fact revolved around a consolidated empire, an agglomeration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer plutocrats, and the simultaneous potential for mass collective suicide while democracy appears an ever-diminishing fantasy.
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