MY TURN
Greenfield Recorder, August 4, 2021
By THE REV. PETER KAKOS
If most of us can agree on anything, regarding the recent terrifying collapse of the Champlain Condominium at Surfside, Florida, it is that it was the result of inaction: periodic flooding; aging foundations; recent structural studies sounding an alarm; and intentional procrastination due to the exorbitant price tag for the changes needed to stave off disaster.
The same principle holds for the precarious balance of power among nuclear- weaponed nations. Come Aug. 6 and 9, we pause to recollect the 76-year consequence of global inaction encircling that hellish atomic explosion first over Hiroshima and then over Nagasaki. Combined, far more than 200,000 were obliterated by a searing light so intense that profiles of bodies became etched on pavements, instantly permanent sunless shadows. Given this unimaginatively devastating reality, how utterly unfathomable it is to continue to accept the fact that in the aftermath every world power would not have agreed to forever halt production of even one more missile.
Consider this: the impact of just one detonation over a comparable city would inflict so many casualties that the renowned Physicians For Social Responsibility (PSR) calculates that even all the world’s medical resources combined would still not be sufficient to care for the multitude of the partially alive.
The closest parallel to the 1945 horrors would be the two-day-long sequence of nuclear-fueled explosions at Chernobyl. While the Party estimated 40,000 to be severely affected, the greater truth is that, according to science researcher and author Kate Brown (see her “Manual For Survival,” 2019), more like 4 million were to one degree or another afflicted. She also notes that the greatest explosion became twice as powerful as the atomic bomb splayed over Hiroshima. When years later our country was invited to assess the damage to life and land, their findings avoided mentioning the far-reaching consequences, most likely because it would expose the magnitude of the ongoing risk of reliance upon our own nuclear power, in which we are so heavily invested.
The consequences of our inaction to multi-laterally dismantle the roughly 15,000, warheads now at sea as well as on land has had the result of lulling the public into complacency, causing us to be inured to the point where we are willing to let congressional hawks pour $1.7 trillion more into the newly christened “U.S. Space Force.”
Given the present global virus war, now in its second year and as threatening as ever, our resources as well as our front-line personnel are rapidly becoming depleted, (not to mention the tragic consequence of Trump’s confessed intentional inaction) The most bitter irony of our day is that we may not be able to vanquish C OV I D’s wide-spreading variants because we continue to invest in the arrogant race for nuclear superiority that might very well end up being our own undoing.
The consequences of our decadeslong inaction on altogether banning these arms could be unthinkably omnicidal. However, hope is on the horizon via the ratification of the United Nations’ Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, formulated by the international coalition, ICAN, making it a crime for any and every nation to build, possess, or sell.
Pressure now is on the nine nations to abide. Crossed fingers that they understand the urgency of the need, not only for self preservation but also for our planet reeling in the throes of irreversible environmental disintegration.
On the state and federal level, we applaud Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Sen. Jo Comerford. and U.S. Rep. Jim Mcgovern’scommitment to disarmament by their support of various legislation, advocating for a Massachusetts citizens commission and promoting the vital steps outlined by PSR’s Back From The Brink Campaign.
Join us for our annual Hiroshima commemoration on Friday, Aug. 6, in downtown Easthampton, marching from the Emily Williston Library at 7 p.m., to the pond for a 7:30 p.m. witness of music, dance, song, voice and lantern-lighting, symbolizing those victimized who now live in the light. Similarly, Greenfield area abolitionists convene the next day, Aug. 7, from 11 a.m. until noon, at the Common.
Let us pray that the Champlain Condos’ sudden collapse not be a microcosm of imminent nuclear self destruction, nor a fearful omen of the severe consequences of inaction.
The Rev. Peter Kakos lives in Northampton.
An annual Hiroshima commemoration will take place on the Greenfield Common this Saturday, Aug. 7, from 11 a.m. to noon. A similar event takes place in Easthampton on Friday, Aug. 6, marching from the Emily Williston Library at 7 p.m., to the pond for a 7:30 p.m. witness of music, dance, song, voice and lantern-lighting.
Wednesday, 08/04/2021 Page .A06Copyright © 2021 Greenfield Recorder 8/4/2021