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America’s Nuclear War Against Its Own People
As the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) sunsets, will the government once again turn its back on downwinders?
America prides itself on being an open and transparent country, at least eventually if not necessarily in real time. As a rule, we are also a people that don’t see the point of wasting too much time regretting past mistakes.
This attitude might be considered healthy if it was accompanied by a stronger memory. ‘Getting over it’ and ‘moving on’ can only serve as positive reactions if doing so includes learning from our mistakes and not repeating them. Memory needn’t mean dwelling in the past, but it does require us to be able to recall it when the circumstances warrant.
A government can always afford to eventually admit past mistakes, including past horrors, if it knows it can count on its citizens’ collective amnesia to force the acknowledgement of the injustice into a hasty retreat. On the rare occasions the memory resurfaces, we Americans can too often be relied upon to say something like ‘that’s all in the past’ and just move on.
As psychologists never tire of telling us, denial is a powerful coping mechanism. It is perhaps the only way a nation that has, among other things, sickened and killed…
