THE AMERICAN DREAM
"It’s called the American Dream…’cause you have to be asleep to believe it."
― George Carlin *
- George Carlin:
“The Kremlin's got a hell of a sense of humor,” Colonel Trautman concluded wryly.
“Please explain,” responded Zaysen.
“You talk peace and disarmament to the world, and here you are wiping out a race of people. […] You expect sympathy? You started this damn war, now you'll have to deal with it,” the American officer declared.
“And we will. It is just a matter of time before we achieve a complete victory,” Zaysen replied.
“You know there won't be a victory. Every day, your war machines lose ground to a bunch of poorly-armed, poorly-equipped freedom fighters. The fact is that you underestimated your competition. If you'd studied your history, you'd know that these people have never given up to anyone. They'd rather die than be slaves to an invading army. You can't defeat a people like that. We tried; we already had our Vietnam! Now you're gonna have yours,” retorted Trautman.
The preceding comes via 1988’s Rambo III ― a movie in which Russia was portrayed as villainous for invading Afghanistan. However, in 2001, the United States mounted an even more destructive offensive against the same Middle Eastern nation. During this war ― which is ongoing ― the U.S. has characterized itself as the good guy. Hence, countless Americans support the same action they found repulsive when perpetrated by Russia.
You can keep deceiving yourself you’re living in a “free” country, unhindered by subterfuge, but it’s absurd enough when you lie to others. Lying to yourself is simply insane.
So, what makes a soldier any different than a serial killer? Both annihilate numerous innocent people; both do so under the auspices of a higher compulsion. However, one is sanctified while the other denigrated. Identical actions, antithetical response. Doesn’t this mean on Veteran’s Day we’re honoring mass murderers?
Somehow, the English language was replaced by acronyms, and people reverted to illiteracy. Correct communication may seem trivial. However, you’ll view things differently when individuals unable to read design the components for the jumbo jet in which you’re flying. How about entrusting cooling procedures of a nuclear power plant to someone who can’t write?
Why do folks pay extra for car alarms? When was the last time you saw anybody respond to such a feature? Car alarms activate constantly, and nobody ― including the vehicle owners ― view them as anything but a bother.
People are illogical. We don’t even know from whence our species derives, and most of us are doing nothing to find out. The blog you're reading is an effort to correct such failings.
Doesn’t it behoove us to discover why we’re here, and how this Universe works? If so, how come we constantly involve ourselves in topics more senseless than using a GPS to drive 10 feet? The pettiness with which we’re concerned is as pointless as asserting Dr. Phil is having a bad hair day.
Just because you’ve been brainwashed into accepting things as true, doesn’t make them real. Could the verisimilitude you’ve always known be no more authentic than the recent version of Dolly Parton’s face?
The above examples chip away at what most of us perceive as reality. Realize, these are a minute percentage of the lapses in logic humanity engages in every day. Documenting each instance of unreason would require volumes. Suffice it to say, the paradigm created around us isn’t real.
So, the question arises as to what reality is.
It’s when you stop watching television that it begins. Soon, you cancel your cable subscription. Sometime later, you no longer own a TV. The vacuous truth there’s a show called The Biggest Loser eludes you.
Imperative facts ― like the 240 foot wide asteroid that marginally missed Earth in 2002, unknown to humans until three days after it passed ― occupy your brain. ** You’re stupefied Heinz Haber ― a Nazi war criminal responsible for hundreds of executions ― acted beside Walt Disney on a post-World War II production known as Our Friend the Atom. *** **** You’re amazed Tom Cruise firmly believes in Xenu ― ruler of the “Galactic Confederacy,” who migrated his kind to Earth in a DC-8, positioned them around volcanoes, and destroyed them with hydrogen bombs. *****
** 2002 MN:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_MN
*** Our Friend the Atom:
**** Heinz Haber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Haber
***** Xenu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu
You now reside in a paradigm most choose to believe doesn’t exist. It’s called reality. Still, you interact with people who know nothing of it. You’ve tried to apprise them, but they’ve only gawked at you as though you had a birthmark resembling Geraldo’s face on your forehead. Hence, you remain quiet while they sermonize about an Ashton Kutcher love triangle, the best temperature for baking flan, or the amount of hair on Mitt Romney’s balls.
You observe as most of humanity drugs itself with placebos ― that cause more harm than good ― for maladies that don’t exist. You know you’d never put something in your body that could induce a heart attack, just to obtain an erection. With escalating revenue of so-called erectile dysfunction drugs, however, you realize there are those who would.
A $500 phone you’ll drop, and thus destroy; a $600 pair of sunglasses you’ll lose in a week; a blouse you can’t wash because of bleeding dyes, but one you’re willing to buy for $700 due to its name.
It doesn’t make sense to the logical…but the logical don’t make sense to those living this confusion. In the paradigm of the insane, the sane will forever be viewed like someone having sexual relations with a Disney dog mascot ― fuckin’ Goofy!
THE CULT OF AMERICA
“ 'My daddy died for that flag.'
'Really? I bought mine. Y’know they sell ‘em at Kmart and shit. Yeah, three bucks.'
'He died in the Korean War for that flag.'
'What a coincidence. Mine was made in Korea.'
― Bill Hicks *
- Bill Hicks:
Each year, on the 4th of July, 300 million people lie to themselves in such vehement fashion, they literally believe in something that has never existed.
America. A few centuries ago, some random control freak scrawls an arbitrary line in the dirt, and asserts, "On that side is Canada; on this side, the United States," and magically it becomes so? Hang on, guys. I’ve got this bottle of pills in the overheating trunk of my car I wanna sell ya’. Never mind those expiration dates reading 1937.
I ain't buyin' it. The soil on that side still looks exactly the same as the soil on this side. The next you know, you’ll be forcing me to fight with folks “over there” to preserve my freedom. Go sell your snake oil to the naive.
Strangely enough, now people on either side of this nonexistent demarcation are willing to kill and die for what was the same dirt a few hundred years ago. Dirt nobody then, nor now, owns. Songs are written, lovingly sung by millions, commemorating this fictitious division of the Earth that means fuckin’ nothing.
Armies are developed to protect this dirt from that. Children are taught to venerate this soil, and vilify what’s on the other side of our imaginary line. Yet, we don’t see ourselves as brainwashed, even though we’re willing to murder over mud.
Drive cross-country. The only thing defining one state from another is a sign. If that marker wasn’t present, I wouldn’t have known when I was in Arizona or Nevada, and neither would you.
Still, you’ll form rivalries ― thereby division between North and South Dakota. Somehow, magically, North Carolina is different than the state below it, even though neither exist anywhere but in your minds. Pittsburgh Penguins fans despise Philadelphia Flyers enthusiasts, solely because some anonymous ass cracks, centuries ago, told them such was auspicious. Do you enjoy being lead around by that cattle ring through your nose?
People think they own Earth, and can thereby divide it up in order to control each other. In fact, none of us have ever owned any part of this planet. Earth has existed roughly 4.5 billion years. Homo sapiens have been bumbling around nowhere near. We’re renting space. It’s inescapable we face facts before we're annihilated by the natural forces of this Universe, much of which we can ― given our current level of technology ― protect ourselves against.
We nearly got spanked by yet more errant asteroids recently. ** *** People need to stop looking down, toiling at their trivial tasks ― like acquiring more cash ― and begin looking up, in order to save our species.
** 2012 DA14:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_DA14
*** 2013 TV135:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_TV135
Money? It doesn't exist, and never has. Money’s nothing more than an IOU. I can sail a boat all over the planet, but I can't sail 500,000 strips of useless fabric ― cash ― anywhere. Yet, in this backwards paradigm, both are regarded as equally valuable.
What causes a $1 bill to be any different than $1 of Monopoly currency? A wooden-toothed weirdo on the front ― George Washington ― who owned over 300 slaves?
Wanna demonstrate your gullibility? Affix an American flag bumper sticker to your vehicle. Even better, how about an actual U.S. flag on your house? Those who’ve created this paradigm — within which you’re choosing to be enslaved ― are laughing at your credulity.
Most of us drank the Kool-Aid. How could we not, being forced into indoctrination camps ― reverently termed school ― for 12 straight years? That being said, some of us pretended to swallow this cyanide cocktail, before spitting it out.
What did anybody learn in school? How to read and write ― which we could’ve taught ourselves ― and a cavalcade of crap none of us can recall. How many times have you heard someone assert, “I can’t remember anything I was taught in high school”? Billions of individuals claiming the same thing, and you don’t think that’s by design?
Don’t you want those 12 years back, so you can do something memorable with them? Think for yourselves. Make your own decisions. Refuse to allow the incompetent to apprise you you’re equally inept.
The whole terminology of thinking outside the box is ludicrous. Those who coined the phrase want you to do just the opposite, and simply develop ideas that will provide them money. As long as there’s a monetary system, none of us will think outside the box. The fucking box is the monetary system. Thinking outside of it would denote getting rid of it, and looking to the stars; determining how we can travel to the next habitable solar system. Anything else keeps us confined to this fleck of dust in the middle of nowhere, and will lead to our demise as a species.
The above isn’t one dude’s opinion. It’s fact. If we don’t stop fucking around with the insignificant, we’re gonna get killed by the natural forces of this Universe.
Do you actually believe the nonexistent entity known as the United States is going to overcome the powers of the cosmos? A Universe that’s existed 13.5 billion years?! The U.S. ― a make-believe set of borders, residing solely in our delusional psyches ― hasn’t even been fictionally present 250 trips around the Sun.
Welcome to the cult of America.
FORD AND THE NAZIS
"We look on Heinrich [Henry] Ford as the leader of the growing Fascist Party in America."
― Adolf Hitler *
- Black, Edwin. (2009). Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust. Dialog Press. ISBN: 9780914153092
“I’m a Ford truck man!”
I wonder if that means third generation Ford vehicle owner, and country music icon, Toby Keith is an anti-Semite, ambitious to exploit slave labor and furtively work with Nazis.
Just when you thought it was safe to drive a fuckin’ Ford, you discover the namesake of said company blamed Jews for the problems humanity was facing during the 30s and 40s. In addition, Henry Ford dug Adolf Hitler like a backhoe does soft soil. This appreciation was reciprocated by der Fuhrer, as the leader of the Nazi war machine stated, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.” The infamous architect of the Third Reich proudly boasted a prodigious portrait of ol’ Hank over his desk in Munich.
So smile, Mr. Keith, as you croon with a guitar adorned in a Ford logo. Continue to clarify how Ford is all-American ― the only truck you’ll ever drive ― ignorant a 1945 U.S. Army report classified Ford Motor Company as “the arsenal of Nazism.”
As Bill Hicks would say:
"Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here’s Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinkin’ beer, you fuckin’ morons!"
What the―?! We are talkin’ Henry Ford here, right? The guy who’s last name is on millions of cars internationally? Founder of Ford Motor Company ― humanity’s third largest vehicle manufacturer in terms of sales volume? The dude quite possibly responsible for at least one of the autos in my garage? That Henry Ford?
The very same.
Lest we forget the Henry Ford who became a national hero for implementing the $5 workday, during an era when it was customary to pay employees half that for a nine hour shift. The same Henry Ford a considerable faction of the United States populace, at one time, believed should be president. Hank ― master mechanic and the man so many heralded the greatest industrialist of his epoch. The prime example of someone with meager beginnings, who managed to build his own empire through hard work. And who can forget the inventor of the assembly line?
Funny how effective propaganda can be.
In reality, Ford’s initiation of the $5 workday had nothing to do with sympathy for his employees. As 1914 dawned, Hank was shittin’ his pants. It appears our hero wasn’t the best of bosses. Anemic wages and a substandard working environment had resulted in almost 380% turnover at Ford Motor Company. Henry was forced to employ roughly 1,000 workers in order to retain 100 willing to stay on staff.
In a missive to Ford, the wife of an employee wrote:
"Are you aware that a man cannot “buck nature” when he has to go to the toilet and yet he is not allowed to go at his work. He has to go before he gets there or after work. The chain system you have is a slave driver! My God! Mr. Ford."
Again, Ford hadn’t increased wages, nor curtailed the workday to eight hours, out of empathy. As Henry asserted, he’d lessened the severity of his slave driving to keep workers from quitting, and increase productivity.
As far as Ford becoming president, would you feel safe if the man at the helm — when asked if he could expand on the American Revolution — stated, “I understand there was one in 1812.” The same dude who attested, “I don’t like to read books, they muss up my mind.” A true intellectual fearful of sugar because he believed the jagged edges of its crystals would shred his stomach when ingested. An individual one journalist described as, “Outside of business, where he [Ford] is a genius, his mind is that of a child.” An icon of intelligence many thought was a moron.
Too bad someone like that isn’t around today, itchy trigger finger on the nuclear button―
Oh, wait. He is.
According to Ford’s sister Margaret, Henry exaggerated to the point of lying. This great industrialist hadn’t been raised destitute, but was actually the son of an affluent father. In addition, Ford ― rather than being a superlative mechanic ― had surrounded himself with the best in the business. Henry called on the expertise of others to conceive his vehicles. Contrary to popular fallacy, Ford didn’t create the assembly line; he simply improved on the existing design.
Yeah, Hank was a real gem, in the same way a polished, petrified turd might be. Thus, when he began speaking ill of Jews ― blaming them for troubles suffered by humans ― it wasn’t a big stretch for Henry. Suffice it to say, Ford fell into the bullshit quicksand so many bigots do, displaying his one cylinder mind for humanity to see.
Henry went so far as to author a book ― The International Jew ― berating what he termed “bad” devotees to Judaism. Equally insane individuals — called Nazis — got their creepy hands on the text, busting that shit-filled pinata wide open.
When the Third Reich took control of Germany, copies of Henry’s tome ― bedecked with the names Ford and Hitler on their covers ― were distributed to schools and Nazi offices across the country.
In the words of the Fuhrer, “The book is being circulated to millions throughout Germany.”
Well, there’s a blow to starving artists who’ve been poundin’ away at the keyboard for the past 25 years, relegated to self-publishing. I ― and others like me ― distribute truths for the betterment of humans, and nobody reads the material. Along comes some psycho with cash, and millions gorge themselves on the lunacy he’s propagating.
According to Baldur von Schirach ― leader of the Hitler Youth and notorious Nazi governor of Vienna:
"The decisive anti-Semitic book which I read at that time, and the book which influenced my comrades was Henry Ford’s book, The International Jew. I read it and became anti-Semitic. This book made in those days a great impression on my friends and myself, because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success, also the representative of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and…it was Henry Ford who, to us, represented America…If he said the Jews were to blame, naturally we believed him."
Being an idiot isn’t a crime. If it were, there wouldn’t be enough prison cells to hold all the violators. There is, however, impropriety associated with forcing people into slave labor, and working them amid concentration camp conditions. One can easily assign malfeasance to those who assist in the slaughter of millions of humans. Of these two transgressions, Henry Ford is guilty.
Envision armadas of Ford trucks descending upon Europe and the USSR during World War II. Picture the occupants of these vehicles kidnapping innocents. Visualize these victims being taken to the Ford-Werke plant ― Ford’s German affiliate in Cologne ― forced to build trucks for the Third Reich.
For Elsa Iwanowa ― one of multitudinous individuals abducted by Ford and the Nazis in this fashion ― it wasn’t necessary to imagine anything, since she lived it.
"They took us by truck to the Ford plant in Cologne. We were just children, we were frightened, calling out for our mothers, crying all the time. At first, they told us it would only be for a few months and then we would go home, but they lied to us, they never let us go. At Ford, we were treated like dogs, thrown into a barracks without any heat, running water or sewage. It was freezing in the winter, terrible, just terrible. The bunks had no mattresses, just wooden planks with a little straw and they only fed us a bowl of cabbage and water broth twice a day with a slice of bread. We were always hungry. I sat all day dreaming about food. If you asked for seconds, they would beat you.
I was forced to work from seven in the morning until seven at night drilling holes in engine blocks while the foremen, who were like animals, supervised us. We had no names, only numbers. Whenever a worker got sick, they took them away. We later heard they were shot. If we didn’t meet our quota, we were beaten."
Robert Schmidt ― company manager of the Ford-Werke plant in 1942 ― asserted:
"It depends upon our work whether the front can be supplied with its necessities…therefore, we too are soldiers of the Fuhrer."
That’s not distressing, nor the type of quote you’d expect to hear from somebody working on Toby Keith’s pickup. Maybe the Ford Truck Man video should feature assembly line workers being executed, and a swastika replacing the Ford logo on Mr. Keith’s guitar.
Nazi armaments minister Albert Speer promised to provide 12,000 concentration camp prisoners for the German auto industry, which he asserted was crucial to the success of the Third Reich. As such, Buchenwald ― an infamous incarceration facility ― sent a continuous cascade of detainees to Ford-Werke throughout the war.
One may squabble Ford was coerced by the Third Reich to use slave laborers. They’d be wrong. Ford purchased these incarcerates by choice. What’s more, Ford employees could have treated these captives any way they desired. As it was, they decided to abuse them. When Allied military finally overran the Ford-Werke plant, it was ascertained most of the Russian female slaves had contracted venereal diseases, indicating they’d been raped by the Ford employees.
Keep singin’, Toby!
Imagine how shocked American soldiers must have been, hitting the battlefield, only to be met by Third Reich battalions driving Ford vehicles. More than 30% of the Nazi regime’s trucks had been produced by Ford.
According to a 1945 U.S. Army report:
"Ford increasingly resorted to use of prisoners of war and other slave labor…The foreigners employed rose to over 40 percent of its labor supply in 1944. The usual Nazi discriminations in wages and working conditions were practiced."
Even though other American corporations in Germany were seized by Hitler’s Third Reich after the U.S. entered the war, Ford-Werke was left to continue operations unhindered. In fact, profits were safeguarded in private accounts, so Ford could collect them following the culmination of the bloodshed.
Henry, himself, was awarded the Nazi Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle — reserved for “foreigners who have been of special service to the Reich.”
And what did Elsa Iwanowa receive? According to this kidnapped slave laborer, she was never paid by Ford-Werke. Rather, in 1995, she was provided a free tour of the plant as it stood then, and given a small Ford commemorative pin as compensation.
As an addendum, Ford-Werke produced the turbines used in Nazi V-2 rockets — which were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent, British civilians. The V-2 was invented, and developed, by Wernher von Braun ― who subsequently became the head of NASA and the Father of the U.S. Space Program.
Sources:
Books:
Black, Edwin. (2009). Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust. Dialog Press. ISBN: 9780914153092
Wallace, Max. (2003). Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. St. Martin’s Griffin. ISBN: 9780312335311
Online Movies:
Hitler's American Business Partners:
Online Sources:
Ford-Werke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford-Werke_AG
Opel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel
A LIVING HELL
Nothing says, “I love you” like exploding a nuclear bomb on the object of your affection.
If such is true, the U.S. government adores its citizens. What could be more proof than roughly 1,000 nuclear devices detonated upon its own people?
When you consider the United States exploded a pair of atomic weapons on Japan ― and the devastation was nightmarish ― 500 times more discharges is a living Hell. How does one justify detonating such a far greater number of nuclear devices on their own populace than on those they call foreigners? They don’t.
Even more surreal is that United States citizens paid to be irradiated. What did taxes of the U.S. working class buy them? A planet deluged in radioactive fallout. Residents paid to have themselves, and future generations, immersed in deadly radionuclides. They paid for a rapid increase in cancer. They paid to exist every moment under the ominous shadow of imminent nuclear annihilation.
But the U.S. government can’t take all the credit, can they?
No way. Any country detonating an atomic or thermonuclear device has increased the lethal radioisotopes saturating the Earth. Any nation creating plutonium, or engaging in uranium mining, is possibly to blame for your cancer, the cancer of someone you know, or have known. In short, governments participating in the production of fission, or fusion, have put us all at risk…and we’ve paid them to do so.
Think how bizarre it is we send our children to school to pledge allegiance to a bureaucracy that’s irradiated them. What does this scream about our professed love for our offspring?
Believe presidents are great people? Do great people insist on the explosions of 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, thus eradicating entire societies? *
- Marshall Islands nuclear tests:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands
So many of you reading this will do nothing to remedy these atrocities, concluding the Marshall Islands are a world away. In fact, this assemblage of atolls are located in the Pacific Ocean, directly in the jet stream blowing west to east across the U.S. Fallout from atmospheric nuclear discharges is carried on the wind, and ends up back on Earth. Hence, each thermonuclear weapons test the United States performed in the Bikini Atolls, irradiated U.S. citizens.
Sixty-seven explosions ― many of them, by themselves, hundreds if not thousands of times more lethal than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima ― are a nightmare to endure. This number doesn’t include the 1,021 discharges at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), ** and a handful of other detonations elsewhere in the United States.
** Nevada Test Site nuclear tests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_test_site
Are we told these facts in high school history class?
Of course not. They’re the equivalent of bad press for the U.S. government.
Do we question why bombs are developed and tested in the first place?
Obviously not. If we did, phrases like “for the good of our citizens” and “national security” would make no sense. How do you massively irradiate a populace for the benefit of its inhabitants?
“National security?” If you call the U.S. home, take a flight to Moscow. When you disembark, are there hundreds of Russian citizens awaiting your arrival, handguns pointed at you? No. If such isn’t so, why does the United States possess an arsenal of nuclear weapons targeted at a population who could give a flying fuck if you travel to their country?
Why would Russia have a comparable number of nuclear devices aimed at the U.S.? I don’t rush to the international terminal at my nearest airport, gun in hand, whenever somebody from a foreign land arrives.
If the citizens of the planet aren’t interested in fighting each other, why so many devastating weapons in the name of “national security?” If the answer isn’t residents, there’s one place left to turn: government.
Bureaucracies hunger to wage war. Citizens don’t. Governments require cash from these same residents to create the nuclear weapons that are destroying us all. Without financing from citizens, hegemonies wouldn’t be able to produce these armaments, and an increase in resultant diseases would diminish.
You assert how smart you are, yet how brilliant can you be if you’re paying governments to kill you?
How many of you have vacationed in Tahiti? How many answering, “Me” know said atoll has been inundated by radioactive fallout, resultant of French weapons testing?
Who wouldn’t want to visit Palomares, Spain, where tourists proliferate, unaware the U.S. dropped four, live hydrogen bombs on this village in 1966?
Headed for the luminous lights of Tinseltown? Best conduct your research, since a clandestine nuclear disaster happened 30 miles from L.A. in 1959. A catastrophe which may have yielded 240 times more fallout than the egregious Three Mile Island Incident.
These events are drops in the bucket when it comes to the total nuclear atrocities governments have executed on us all. Even so — after learning these truths — you’re likely to forget them, or convince yourself I fucked up. I assure you the latter isn’t the case, but I’d prefer you don’t take my word for it. I’d rather you investigate the reference material provided, to arrive at what seems the only conclusion: Bureaucracies are murdering people via radioactive fallout.
Radionuclides are magnificent means of massacre. Not only are they lethal in minute quantities, they’re invisible; meaning you could be ingesting them while reading this. In addition, they’re often odorless, as well as tasteless. Without a dosimeter or Geiger counter, you wouldn’t comprehend they were present even after they made you ill. And what of plutonium and uranium, both undetectable by the above two devices?
Radioisotopes are also able to traverse vast expanses upon prevailing wind systems. Most of these nuclides won’t considerably diminish for thousands, millions, and in certain cases, billions of years. This means radiation from Chernobyl, Fukushima and Simi Valley will be around well into future millennia.
It’s time we know the truth: facts hidden from us by governments. After all, millions of people continue producing children, unaware the aforementioned contaminates exist, and have been created by bureaucracies we believe protect us.
Sources:
Books:
Smith, Gar. (2012). Nuclear Roulette: The Truth About the Most Dangerous Energy Source on Earth. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN: 9781603584340
Movies:
Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents. Dir. Peter Kuran. Perfs. Adam West. DVD, 2005. ISBN: 1-58565-922-3
Radio Bikini. Dir. Robert Stone. Perfs. Kilon Bauno, John Smitherman. DVD, 1988
Online Movies:
Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents:
Radio Bikini:
SIMI VALLEY: LOS ANGELES' NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE
When it comes to nuclear reactor accidents, the top three ― in terms of radioactive fallout ― are definitively Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island, right?
Wrong. An event occurred in 1959 — 30 miles north of Los Angeles — releasing perhaps 240 times the radiation Three Mile Island did two decades later. How come you haven’t heard about it? The Atomic Energy Commission ― a now-obsolete branch of the government ― lied regarding the mishap. Isotopes from this accident still exist, and will do so for centuries.
Amid the Simi Hills, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory initiated nuclear production and rocket development in 1948. Run by Atomics International and Rocketdyne, projectile engines strident enough to be heard across Simi Valley were tested at the plant.
Trials included a Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) ― the first nuclear reactor in the U.S. providing electricity to a public power facility. This venture used sodium, instead of water, to cool its radioactive core. In 1959, something that has never been clarified went terribly wrong.
July 26th. After temperatures inside the reactor vessel drastically increased, employees at Santa Susana narrowly brought the device to shutdown. Following a cursory inspection — that lasted two hours — technicians restarted the process. Amid heightened radiation levels, workers continued operating the machine two consecutive weeks.
After readings reached horrifying plateaus for an extended period, employees reevaluated the situation. About as effective as applying the brakes after launching a car off a cliff. Lowering a camera to the core, it was established 13 of 43 fuel rods had been destroyed and, due to their use over the prior 14 days, partly melted.
Should this have occurred inside a properly protected facility, it would have been devastating enough. However, Santa Susana was a testing location. Thus, precautions employed at a nuclear power plant were nowhere to be found.
Santa Susana was no more capable of protecting surrounding environs from fallout than your home, a grocery store or office building. As if this weren’t virulent enough, the structure was specifically created to vent radioactive steam into the air.
Due to insufficient monitoring, scientists have yet to determine how much radioactivity was released. The SRE was about 100 times smaller than the damaged Three Mile Island reactor. Since Santa Susana wasn’t equipped to contain fallout, however, this may have resulted in much more discharge than the accident in 1979 Pennsylvania. Investigators speculate release of radioactive particles in Simi Valley could be hundreds of times that of Three Mile Island.
The Atomic Energy Commission erroneously asserted only one of the nuclear fuel rods was damaged and, at that, minimally.
Good luck finding these facts on Los Angeles tourism brochures. L.A., baby: Home to more plastic faces than a Barbie factory, what remains of Matt LeBlanc’s career and one of history’s worst nuclear nightmares.
Sources:
Books:
Smith, Gar. (2012). Nuclear Roulette: The Truth About the Most Dangerous Energy Source on Earth. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN: 9781603584340
Online Movies:
The Simi Valley Incident:
SPAIN WAS EVIL, AND DESERVED TO BE NUKED
When envisioning nefarious faces throughout history, certain personages come to mind ― Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy ― but who conceptualizes a whole country, let alone a nation like Spain? Similar to admiring comedian Steven Wright’s hairstyle, it’s a rarity. So why did the United States drop four hydrogen bombs on this commonwealth in 1966?
Refueling a plane in midair sounds more problematic than viewing one’s own asshole without a camera or a mirror. This was the case on January 17th of the aforementioned year, when a U.S. B-52G and a KC-135 tanker collided at 31,000 feet, off Spain’s coast. The refueling craft was instantly decimated, after the gasoline aboard ignited. The bomber tore into pieces, and four of its seven person crew were able to escape.
Hydrogen bombs. Who wouldn’t want one, let alone three, landing in their backyard? If you asserted, “The friendly folks of Palomares,” you’d be correct. Palomares ― a tiny coastal town of tomato farmers ― wouldn’t be the same after a trio of Mk28 thermonuclear devices descended upon it. A fourth ordnance of the same variety would find its way into the adjacent ocean, and be lost for almost three months.
Operation Chrome Dome was to blame on this one. During the Cold War, the aforementioned was a U.S. directive responsible for constantly flying live nuclear explosives over unwitting civilians. After all, the best way to protect people is to buzz them with hydrogen bombs.
Chrome Dome flew a number of routes, allegedly to act as a deterrent for potential Soviet attacks on the United States. The flight plan during the Palomares Incident had B-52s traversing the Atlantic Ocean, to the western border of the U.S.S.R., and back to the U.S.A. With such a vast distance to cover, refueling was necessary, and occurred over Spain.
Planes soar. Planes crash. Continually flying craft carrying thermonuclear weapons means these bombs may eventually come plummeting back to Earth, and perhaps detonate, murdering millions. Even though I wasn’t alive in 1966, I wouldn’t have voted for this suicidal plan. Of course, this is why the United States public was kept largely in the dark regarding details of Operation Chrome Dome.
What happened to “[…] of the people, by the people, for the people […]”?
The KC-135 that collided with the B-52 flew out of Moron Air Base in Spain. The name of this installation has an accent over the second “O,” but who’s counting?
The first bomb was recovered mostly intact on a dry riverbed. Conventional explosives on the second and third detonated, soaking 490 acres in plutonium-239 and radioactive debris. Desperate, the military scrambled to keep the incident from the media. When the press began swarming, the Air Force and Navy were coerced to admit an accident had occurred, but stifled the phrase “lost nuclear bombs.” Unable to withhold they'd misplaced the fourth weapon, perhaps beneath the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. was forced to concede this nuclear nightmare.
This final device ― which settled on a precarious 70 degree declination, 2,550 feet below the surface ― was accidentally dropped by salvage crews and lost a second time before it was found again at 2,900 feet. After a drone vessel ― normally employed for torpedo reclamation ― became tangled in the bomb’s parachute, the weapon, along with the recovery craft, was raised to 100 feet below the water line. From there, the bomb was guided aboard the USS Petrel, and deactivated.
Cleanup efforts of Palomares were interesting, as Strategic Air Command (SAC) ― which was responsible for the accident ― hadn’t considered emergencies of this magnitude. Thus, almost every aspect of the search was makeshift. Toilet paper played a crucial part in recovery, as U.S. soldiers marked debris with the stuff, and rolls of this valued commodity were used to demarcate distances along beaches. Contaminated earth was packed into 4,810 barrels by workers garbed in minimal protective clothing.
To compensate farmers for desecrated crops, the Air Force purchased corrupted tomatoes. Sounds like a gesture of good faith, until one learns the military then fed this poisoned produce to its own pilots. Soldiers were informed alpha radiation — with which they came in contact — could be repelled by nothing more than sheets of paper, and was innocuous. What the military failed to reveal was, when consumed, alpha radiation is often lethal. In all, it was a joyous, potentially calamitous romp along the Med.
As plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years, continual re-dredging of the ground at Palomares will cause this city to be radioactive for hundreds of generations. Scientists continue to downplay the adverse nature of what's occurring there, whilst quietly recommending new cleanup efforts.
Between 2006 and 2007, 71 million square feet of town, and outlying areas, were tested for radiation. Technicians were surprised to discover levels far exceeding what they’d expected. Increased isotope deposits were now yielding americium — a lethal product of plutonium decomposition. The most highly saturated region has been increased from 107,000 square yards to nearly 360,000.
Palomares is currently a popular tourist destination. Condominiums and hotels line the city; there's an adjacent nudist beach; and the village now has its own skyline. The town’s agricultural industry flourishes, with greenhouses springing up everywhere. What most travelers to Palomares don’t realize is they're venturing to a region contaminated by radioactive fallout, at levels harmful to their health, as well as those of future generations.
List of Places to Visit:
Hell. I have a theory it’s awesome, and only given bad press by those who want to keep it all to themselves.
Wherever Rosario Dawson happens to be.
Anywhere but Palomares, Simi Valley, Fukushima, etc., etc., etc.
Sources:
Books:
Moran, Barbara. (2009). The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History. Presidio Press/Ballantine Books. ISBN: 0891419047
Movies:
Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents. Dir. Peter Kuran. Perfs. Adam West. DVD, 2005. ISBN: 1-58565-922-3
Online Movies:
Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents:
The Palomares Incident:
WHILE WE'RE AT IT, LET'S NUKE GREENLAND
For seven airmen in 1968, the frigid climate of Thule, Greenland, became too much to bear. What resulted was one of the most deleterious nuclear accidents in history.
The cockpit of HOBO 28 ― a B-52G carrying four live thermonuclear weapons ― was freezing. So cold, in fact, third pilot Major Alfred D’Mario unlocked a conduit leading from the engine that would take the chill off things. Instead of creating more tolerable flying conditions, though, the compartment became overheated, as four stowed seat cushions caught flame. Upon uncovering the fire’s source, the plane’s navigator unsuccessfully attempted to extinguish the blaze.
Let’s stop for a minute and ponder the insanity of this scenario. Live hydrogen bombs are less stable than celebrity weddings. Why are these potential cataclysms being flown above the planet?
Six hours into the mission ― roughly 90 miles from Thule Air Base ― Captain John Haug radioed air traffic control, notifying them of the situation. After exhausting all on board fire extinguishers, smoke filled the cabin to the point the airmen could barely see their instruments, much less read them. Around that time, the plane’s electrical power ceased.
Another interjection to the military: “Thanks for playing Affirm You’re a Lunatic! Congratulations! You’ve Won!”
With no way to land, except for a powerless glide onto treacherous ice, Haug prepared to abandon the craft. Being so far from an outpost, the airplane was surrounded by blackness. It wasn’t until several excruciating minutes later pilot D’Mario announced they were over the illuminations of Thule Air Base. Six of the crew abandoned the aircraft. Copilot Leonard Svitenko ― who had no access to an ejection seat ― was killed whilst attempting to exit the plane via a hatch in the fuselage.
While Haug and D’Mario landed inside the confines of the military facility, three other crew members were rescued within one and a half miles of the base.
Captain Curtis R. Criss was discovered by dog teams roughly 21 hours later, in －23 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Having suffered hypothermia atop an ice floe, the officer had only been able to survive due to his parachute, which he’d wrapped around himself for heat.
Upon abandonment, the plane became a toxic ghost ship ― nuclear cargo aboard without a crew. Hurtling forth at speeds exceeding 500 miles per hour, the craft descended and exploded into the ice of North Star Bay, at least seven miles beyond Thule Air Base.
The resultant fireball was the ultimate dirty bomb ― a radioactive munition combined with traditional explosives ― as the conventional propellants within all four weapons detonated. Fortunately, no fissile discharges were triggered, and the blasts weren’t intense enough to initiate a critical reaction.
The temperature of the resulting fire, due to 225,000 pounds of airplane fuel, melted a sizable hole through the ground ― which consisted of solid ice. As a result, debris and whatever was left of the bombs, sunk to the floor of the ocean below. A 2,200 foot swatch of ice was stained black by aviation fuel and highly radioactive discharge, including americium, plutonium, tritium and uranium.
From this catastrophe, Project Crested Ice ― a cleanup operation about as efficacious as opening a snowplow business in Miami, Florida ― was born. Conversationally designated Dr. Freezelove, this mitigatory undertaking was a race against time. With spring imminent, portions of ice mass would melt, resulting in radioactive areas sinking, thus contaminating the oceans.
What was known as the “zero line” demarcated a one by three mile expanse where Geiger counters were picking up high levels of alpha radiation. With temperatures averaging －40 degrees Fahrenheit, and 90 mile per hour winds, workers toiled in continuous darkness, save for the generator lights of a makeshift compound.
In the end, approximately 700 individuals labored for nine months to assuage the cataclysm, and prevent a greater catastrophe. Often, these frigid souls worked with insufficient protection from the deadly contaminant they were handling.
One of the secondaries ― the main destructive force of the bombs ― remains lost to this day. Although Strategic Air Command (SAC) asserted all four weapons had been accounted for, it was later determined the armed forces lied to the media. Such was an aberrant occasion in the same way the sunrise has been a serious shocker for the past 6,000 years.
An ensuing SAC report predicated:
"An analysis by the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) of the recovered secondary components indicated recovery of 85% of the uranium and 94%, by weight, of three secondaries. No parts of the fourth secondary have been identified."
In plain English, the baddest part of one of the bombs was never found, and had most likely melted through the ice.
Ain’t nothin’ like a huge ball of radioactivity restin’ on the ocean floor to contaminate sea life, and hence seafood, for hundreds of thousands of years. Military intelligence? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
Sushi, anyone?
Sources:
Books:
Moran, Barbara. (2009). The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History. Presidio Press/Ballantine Books. ISBN: 0891419047
TAHITI: SWIMMING IN FALLOUT
Is it mandatory for governments to hate anything resembling a tropical utopia? If not, why do the sovereignties of humanity continue to contaminate idyllic, island locales?
For those who’ve spent well-deserved vacation time unwinding in Tahiti, you may find it psychologically beneficial to skip the following. Becoming aware this atoll is immersed in radioactive fallout, after you’ve lounged about this Shangri-La, isn’t comforting.
It all began in 1966 with Aldebaran ― a 200 kiloton atomic test conducted by France. Thirty years, 193 trials later, French Polynesia ― the island chain of which Tahiti is a part ― was at last released from nuclear Hell. Forty-one aboveground trials were commenced on the atoll of Moruroa. One hundred and forty-seven subterranean tests — at both this archipelago and adjacent Fangataufa — were also executed. Although the explosions have ceased, the lethal fallout will remain beyond your lifetime.
France’s leader Charles de Gaulle convinced the French Polynesian government detonating approximately 200 nuclear bombs within its borders would be beneficial for this string of islands. The influx of industry was, he asserted, a catalyst for this region’s debilitated economy. The only difference between a politician and a used car salesman? The price of his suit.
What sparked the impassioned need to annihilate the denizens of this territory? Had these people committed crimes so repugnant they warranted the utmost punishment?
Akin to Britain in the ‘50s, the government of France was petrified they were being left behind in the race nobody wins ― that of nuclear arms. As a result, this Parisian nation catapulted into atomic absurdity, in a desperate attempt to rival the genocidal forces possessed by countries with nuclear capabilities. France began a policy of exploding everything it could, and lying about the extent of damage to the intended targets.
The atolls composing French Polynesia housed about 75,000 inhabitants, none of whom were enlightened regarding the severity of nuclear tests being conducted in their very own backyards. Fangataufa and Moruroa were typically the objects of decimation. Although France’s Center for Pacific Experiments (CEP) reassured island residents they were in no danger, monitoring devices were recording readings near 70 times safe limits.
Citizens were tested for heightened levels of radioactivity, but not provided results. Hence, these natives believed they were safe. After all, no news is good news, right? Wrong. Even though endemic inhabitants commenced life as usual ― feeding on regional fruits and vegetables ― it wasn’t long before they realized French scientists on the atolls were no longer eating local produce.
A clandestine Telex from the Radiation Safety Officer stationed on adjacent Mangareva Atoll in 1966 stated:
"Minister informed radiation not negligible. Stop. Soil contaminated. Stop. Await instructions for decontamination and provisions. Stop."
It’s been alleged Philippe Millon — Chief Doctor for the Safety Department of the CEP — wrote a furtive report assessing the situation after weapons trials began. Asserting he’d tested vegetation on Mangareva, Millon found it to be as radioactive as that studied at Chernobyl in 1986, following the nuclear catastrophe in the Ukraine.
In the 1960s, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the highest allowable levels of radioactive contamination in foodstuffs to be 270 picocuries per gram. Vegetables sampled in 1966 in Mangareva registered 18,000 picocuries per gram.
Although the Partial Test Ban Treaty ― which forbade atmospheric nuclear trials ― was implemented in 1963, France failed to recognize this mandate, and continued its barrage on Tahiti.
Sarcastic wisecracks were made concerning this neophyte to the Atomic Club, in comparison to the power of the United States or the Soviet Union. The Parisian nation was viewed as having a Napoleon Complex ― only able to destroy humanity once ― while the big boys could do so thousands of times.
During 1968, France became the fifth nation ― including the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Britain and China ― to test a hydrogen bomb. This event, occurring at Fangataufa, yielded a 2 megaton blast ― 100 times more devastating than the detonation at Hiroshima, Japan.
In France’s defense, they did construct fallout shelters for occupants of adjacent islands. These buildings were made of meager, corrugated metal, contained sand floors and provided no protection against radionuclides. Residents would’ve been just as safeguarded if they’d been bequeathed huts made of cardboard and pigeon dung. Vive la France!
In addition, people were allowed to leave these impenetrable fortifications, and recommence everyday life ― farming, fishing, swimming ― mere hours following a nuclear test. Unbeknownst to these individuals, the air, soil and water they were making use of was awash in lethal radiation.
Not only were endemic peoples of this region not informed of the austere nature of these trials, French soldiers were kept in the dark.
When radiation sirens sounded on Tureia Atoll, after the 1971 Encelade test, they were turned off so recruits could fall back to sleep. Similar to silencing your car alarm whilst your vehicle is being broken into, this allowed harm to take hold, as the populace was none the wiser. Rainfall from this trial accumulated in outdoor water tanks, where soldiers brushed their teeth. Servicemen continued consuming seafood and vegetation from this region. Troops were often allowed to return to Moruroa a day or two following a nuclear test, and did so frequently garbed in shorts and other nonprotective clothing.
In order to measure these trials, planes typically flew through the mushroom clouds generated by the explosions. Thus, these aircraft were highly irradiated, and cleaned on a tarmac adjacent a tennis court where servicemen engaged in sport. Hence, the spray of foam and water ― now also radioactive ― coming off these planes drifted into the adjoining athletic facility, inundating those ill-fated enough to have been present.
A myriad of cancers, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes and aberrant skin afflictions are now commonplace throughout Tahiti.
In 1983, a squad of scientists from Australia and New Zealand ― referred to as the Atkinson Mission ― were permitted to investigate the test sites. These authorities concluded underwater rocks comprising Moruroa Atoll housed immeasurable amounts of radioactive waste that will eventually discharge into the ocean. Geologist Professor Peter Davies, of this group, referred to this sequence of islands as “a time bomb. It’s a high level nuclear waste dump in the middle of the ocean […].” According to researchers, this inevitable next phase of radioactive fallout ― much like an unexpected fart on the Paula Deen show ― can occur at any moment.
Sources:
Movies:
Blowing Up Paradise. Dir. Ben Lewis. TV, 2005
The preceding blog was written by Hugh Mungus. Feel free to contact the author directly here on Steemit, or via his personal E-Mail address: longlivenuno@aol.com