The A-Bomb and the American Psyche
The A-Bomb and the American Psyche
The question was posed on another website, "Why didnt the U.S. just loot and plunder after WW2"? There were a lot of intelligence answers pertaining to economics and politics of the U.S. and the world. These were my thoughts on what's going on underneath it all. We as a nation know up close and personal what Nuclear War does, from the attackers perspective, having blotted out 146,000 plus people in the blink of an eye at Hiroshima and 90,000 plus people in Nagasaki. We have that woven into our fiber, our collective consciousness, whether we ever think about it or not, because enough people, (at least at one time), witnessed these atrocities first hand or we lived through the events.
Below is a video made of interviews of our Veterans who did witness nuclear testing in years after the war. Self-described guinea pigs, they were silenced by the government for 50 years. Thank God there are still enough alive to bear witness.
Their horror is visceral as they describe the nightmare we have created for our planet. Please watch this.
https://youtu.be/qbBu6cWczTY
I do think we are still shaped by the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and that we still have the sense that we, as a nation are moral, and a light for the world of darkness. So that was why we created this horror to save the world from another horror. That's was Einstein's thinking and justification for its creation.
And we knew after we had used it, that it should never be used again in war. We as a nation have this understanding in our core.
We were creator's and attackers. We carry the guilt and understanding of the depth of the horror.
We did indeed "became death, the destroyer of the world," as Robert Oppenheimer so accurately called it when he quoted the Bhagavad Gita.
I believe it did something to the soul of our nation, or maybe it did at one time.
The soldiers in the first video mirror the haunted expression and demeanor of Robert Oppenheimer, in the video below as he describes the realization of what they had created.
"I become death, the destroyer of the world."
https://youtu.be/lb13ynu3Iac
On a side note, I have also talked with a scientist who worked creating the plutonium with a centrifuge in Arkansas. One of my music therapy patients's described how several times over the period of months, the government would secretly send an unwitting soldier alone, to hand carry a lead-lined suitcase filled with plutonium from Arkansas on a regular non-military passenger train to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to build the bomb. My patient was still haunted with tremendous guilt and cried about it frequently. He visited Japan several times after the war.
Yes, economics may play a big role in our dealings in the world. But we also have, or I believe, at least had, a deeply tempered understanding of the potentially horrific consequences of indiscriminate barbaric bullying around the globe.
K.R. Stephens Pow-Sang
The question was posed on another website, "Why didnt the U.S. just loot and plunder after WW2"? There were a lot of intelligence answers pertaining to economics and politics of the U.S. and the world. These were my thoughts on what's going on underneath it all. We as a nation know up close and personal what Nuclear War does, from the attackers perspective, having blotted out 146,000 plus people in the blink of an eye at Hiroshima and 90,000 plus people in Nagasaki. We have that woven into our fiber, our collective consciousness, whether we ever think about it or not, because enough people, (at least at one time), witnessed these atrocities first hand or we lived through the events.
Below is a video made of interviews of our Veterans who did witness nuclear testing in years after the war. Self-described guinea pigs, they were silenced by the government for 50 years. Thank God there are still enough alive to bear witness.
Their horror is visceral as they describe the nightmare we have created for our planet. Please watch this.
https://youtu.be/qbBu6cWczTY
I do think we are still shaped by the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and that we still have the sense that we, as a nation are moral, and a light for the world of darkness. So that was why we created this horror to save the world from another horror. That's was Einstein's thinking and justification for its creation.
And we knew after we had used it, that it should never be used again in war. We as a nation have this understanding in our core.
We were creator's and attackers. We carry the guilt and understanding of the depth of the horror.
We did indeed "became death, the destroyer of the world," as Robert Oppenheimer so accurately called it when he quoted the Bhagavad Gita.
I believe it did something to the soul of our nation, or maybe it did at one time.
The soldiers in the first video mirror the haunted expression and demeanor of Robert Oppenheimer, in the video below as he describes the realization of what they had created.
"I become death, the destroyer of the world."
https://youtu.be/lb13ynu3Iac
On a side note, I have also talked with a scientist who worked creating the plutonium with a centrifuge in Arkansas. One of my music therapy patients's described how several times over the period of months, the government would secretly send an unwitting soldier alone, to hand carry a lead-lined suitcase filled with plutonium from Arkansas on a regular non-military passenger train to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to build the bomb. My patient was still haunted with tremendous guilt and cried about it frequently. He visited Japan several times after the war.
Yes, economics may play a big role in our dealings in the world. But we also have, or I believe, at least had, a deeply tempered understanding of the potentially horrific consequences of indiscriminate barbaric bullying around the globe.
K.R. Stephens Pow-Sang
It is such nice to see this confession.
ReplyDeleteI think Bhagwad Geeta can play important role and it should be must for everyone especially if someone is on sensitive position.
Thank-you for this blog .
Yet to watch video .
Thank you for reading and thank you very much for your comment. I agree, we can learn from the wisdom of the ages and our own experience.
ReplyDelete