(no subject)
I went to the hanford nuclear site where they built the fucking bomb, it was amazing, and i'll get pictures up as soon as i can. but i saw the B reactor where they made the uranium and enriched plutonium for the atom bomb dropped on nagasaki. it was very eerie. i was standing in the shadow of the cold war, it was really crazy. anyway we were asked to write a short essay on the experience and i thought i would share it. read it if you got the time
Harvey Duncan
Take home Question
The Hanford site is a very significant microcosm of the cold war as a whole. On the surface, looking at the effort to create atomic weapons was a massive project, and took millions of dollars and even more man hours of labor to complete. Underneath lies not only the future cost of cleanup of the waste but also effects in the American psyche. The cold war wasn’t just a weapons race or a string of proxy wars but a war for ideas. Capitalism and “freedom” as well as Communism became the new world religions, and the presidents and dictators became the priests in the churches of free market economies opposed by Marxists gospels of social and economical equality. As the congregations of Russia and the United States grew more and more fanatical, fear and distrust would breed a slew of weapons development so powerful, that if the chain were triggered, the nuclear flames would rapture the whole population of Earth in the Armageddon of nuclear winter.
What does Hanford represent? To me Hanford represented the motivational properties of fear. But more literally, Hanford represented concerns about secrecy, keeping up in the arms race and, and out building and out smarting the Russian in the cold war. The concern was being dominated by communism, a system that could wipe out everything that Americans enjoyed about America. The most pressing concerns of the day were just getting it done. This “ends justify the means” mentality produced many millions of gallons of toxic and radioactive waste stored in inadequate tanks, as the burden of future generations. But this is also a metaphor for the cold war as a whole. In many ways beyond just nuclear cleanup, we are still dealing with many of the problems left by the cold war, economical as well as psychological. Beyond the debt, post cold war America has become a nation of paranoia induced fear. The prospect of being in constant danger and the possibility of getting nuked at anytime can drive even the strongest of people completely insane. People even become crazy enough to begin to give up some of their rights as citizens in order to get some relief from the fear.
I have always thought that fear was more destructive than any weapon. With a nuclear attack, everything is destroyed, but with fear, lives are controlled and panic can create more devastating things, for instance radioactive waste that is extremely dangerous for thousands and thousands of years. In the case of Hanford today fear is motivating the government to take steps to clean up the waste as soon as possible.
From the Hanford trip I learned of the scope of the cold war, I learned of the power of American ingenuity, and I learned of our drive to win with blatant disregard for the consequences. The Hanford trip brought the cold war a little closer to home than I like. As Americans we try to distance ourselves from things that bring us discomfort, and I realized that I was very close to the most destructive force on earth. It reminded me of the dichotomy of America during the cold war, a population consuming massive products, possibly trying to make their life so comfortable in “The good ol’ days” that they would try and forget that the whole earth was teetering on the brink of mutually assured destruction.
crazy shit.
Harvey Duncan
Take home Question
The Hanford site is a very significant microcosm of the cold war as a whole. On the surface, looking at the effort to create atomic weapons was a massive project, and took millions of dollars and even more man hours of labor to complete. Underneath lies not only the future cost of cleanup of the waste but also effects in the American psyche. The cold war wasn’t just a weapons race or a string of proxy wars but a war for ideas. Capitalism and “freedom” as well as Communism became the new world religions, and the presidents and dictators became the priests in the churches of free market economies opposed by Marxists gospels of social and economical equality. As the congregations of Russia and the United States grew more and more fanatical, fear and distrust would breed a slew of weapons development so powerful, that if the chain were triggered, the nuclear flames would rapture the whole population of Earth in the Armageddon of nuclear winter.
What does Hanford represent? To me Hanford represented the motivational properties of fear. But more literally, Hanford represented concerns about secrecy, keeping up in the arms race and, and out building and out smarting the Russian in the cold war. The concern was being dominated by communism, a system that could wipe out everything that Americans enjoyed about America. The most pressing concerns of the day were just getting it done. This “ends justify the means” mentality produced many millions of gallons of toxic and radioactive waste stored in inadequate tanks, as the burden of future generations. But this is also a metaphor for the cold war as a whole. In many ways beyond just nuclear cleanup, we are still dealing with many of the problems left by the cold war, economical as well as psychological. Beyond the debt, post cold war America has become a nation of paranoia induced fear. The prospect of being in constant danger and the possibility of getting nuked at anytime can drive even the strongest of people completely insane. People even become crazy enough to begin to give up some of their rights as citizens in order to get some relief from the fear.
I have always thought that fear was more destructive than any weapon. With a nuclear attack, everything is destroyed, but with fear, lives are controlled and panic can create more devastating things, for instance radioactive waste that is extremely dangerous for thousands and thousands of years. In the case of Hanford today fear is motivating the government to take steps to clean up the waste as soon as possible.
From the Hanford trip I learned of the scope of the cold war, I learned of the power of American ingenuity, and I learned of our drive to win with blatant disregard for the consequences. The Hanford trip brought the cold war a little closer to home than I like. As Americans we try to distance ourselves from things that bring us discomfort, and I realized that I was very close to the most destructive force on earth. It reminded me of the dichotomy of America during the cold war, a population consuming massive products, possibly trying to make their life so comfortable in “The good ol’ days” that they would try and forget that the whole earth was teetering on the brink of mutually assured destruction.
crazy shit.