On August 6th of 1945 the United States exploded an atomic weapon over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The enriched uranium for that bomb was processed at massive war time industrial plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Oak Ridge, Tennessee is a hard place to live and still keep your dignity in clear focus. Oak Ridger’s know they were essential to the swift ending of World War II, but twice a year protestors come to town to lecture the dumb-ass locals about the real, horrible, legacy of the war. Oak Ridgers know the true legacy of World War II in their bones. The protestors are clueless.
The entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is usually the setting for both protests. This is where atomic bomb parts are dismantled, disposed, refurbished and replaced. It is home to the largest source of weapons grade uranium in the world.
Two different themes drive the protests: the proliferation of nuclear weapons in general at one protest and the sins of Hiroshima in particular for the other. The weather seems to drive the proliferation protests. It can happen as early as April and as late as August. It seems the protestors want to pick a nice day for a picnic.
The calendar drives the Hiroshima protest. Come August 6th they protest, the weather be damned.
The weather versus the calendar means the tone of the two protests are vastly different.
The proliferation protests, from the videos I have seen, feel like a carnival mixed up with a family reunion. The dress code and the convictions seem causal and comfortable. Picnic blankets and water bottles have replaced molotov cocktails. Several protestors are in clown costumes. Speeches are made, songs are sung and then the protestors get down to the serious business of getting arrested. This is essential to the protests.
Protestors are arrested for trespassing. They want to put it to da Man: trample a bit of his real estate. You can block a public road and get arrested on state charges. This is easy time. Or, you can cross over on to Y-12 federal property and get arrested on federal charges which is harder time. A federal arrest is a medal of honor.
The agitators must choose. One Des Moines man explained on a YouTube video his choice of state charges: “I want to leave my resistance dance card open so I can continue to have a presence in Kansas City.” Federal jail time might have caused his absence at the K. C. protest a few weeks later.
All the players know their roles. This is pure theatre. They’ve been going through the motions for years. The agitators play their part, the police officers and federal agents know their roles, and the broadcast media is in the thick of the choreography.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the protestors and police are on a first name basis.
Civil disobedience feels like a resume stuffer. Check off the Oak Ridge box on your resistance dance card and hit the road for an Occupy Chicago protest. Going to jail seems a largely empty gesture: a weak personal conviction calculating a meaningless sentence on state or federal charges.
Once the arrests are done, protestors, police and media cameras scatter like dead dandelion blooms on the east Tennessee winds.
The August protests, in amazing contrast, are quiet, reverential, solemn, sincere and nobody gets arrested. It’s a much smaller group. The video I saw featured a lectern and a peace bell as the only props. Members of the audience approach the lectern and express their compassion for the Japanese people. Theatre certainly, but more befitting the subject.
The locals shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes when the dissenters are mentioned. They’ve been kicked in the teeth for decades. They might say something about everybody has a right to an opinion, or that this is America where folks can object to anything they wish.
When told that some of the protestors dress up like clowns, they smile.
When the locals do dare speak their mind, they do the 360 degree sweep of the room with their eyes to make sure nobody can over-hear them and then lower their heads and their voices to say, “What did they want us to do? The slaughter would have continued for months!”
Oak Ridgers believe one thing about the bombings and the agitators quite another, and in this way, Oak Ridge is a microcosm of the nation. A Quinnipac University 2009 poll of 2,409 registered voters showed that by a 3-1 margin, Americans believe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good thing because it brought a swift end to a deadly war. Among voters over 55, the margin was greater than 5-1.
Yet, each year, the protestors, with help from the mainstream media are center stage. The media covers the condemnation of the United States worldwide. To watch the coverage, you would assume we bombed Japan without any provocation.
Oak Ridger’s hold their tongues because they know the true costs of ending World War II.
Ending World War II. What does that mean? In 2012 what does the ending of World War II mean to us? Time marches on as the greatest generation fades away.
The loss of American life during World War II would equal a 9/11 attack every five days for three and a half years.
This is the true legacy of World War II which the protestors ignore. Facts are stubborn things which can shatter strongly held convictions.
How would the protest marchers respond to such an obscene number?
A Department of War consultant estimated that over 400,000 American soldiers and five million Japanese would die in the invasion of Japan.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific by any measure, but what would the protestors say about the invasion numbers? Would there be a shrug of their shoulders? I think so. For them, any alternative carnage would be preferred over the bombings.
The protestors have leaders, they have intellectuals who have advanced their theories about the bombings and its implications for the world.
These social critics, with total support of the media, have dominated how this story has been covered since the 1960’s. The critics decided, unilaterally, our nation should be ashamed of how we ended the war with Japan.
I don’t think we should be proud. I wouldn’t want to live in a country where August 6th, and 9th were national holidays. That’s not how we roll. There must be something between the extremes of shame and pride.
The lifeblood of shame is always silence. The critics imposed a sentence of disgrace on our nation. We accepted it. The lifeblood of shame is silence.
If you dare broach the subject, the critics will shout you down as a blood-thirsty, bombing throwing, nut case. Inflamed rhetoric, shaming and censorship are the critics’ only tools.
Because of this national shame, because of our collective silence, the 130,00 workers of the Manhattan Project have been shunned like war criminals.
The domination of the critics has been complete. There is no mention of the Manhattan Project workers at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D. C. Why in the world not? The monument designers knew there would have been a firestorm of protests from a tiny vocal minority of Americans who oppose the bombings.
Because of these workers the end of the war came swiftly. Because of their work, millions of Japanese lives were saved.
The critics refuse to acknowledge these facts. The critics have thrown the amazing stories of these workers onto the trash heap of history while we stand by in silence.
This is wrong. It is time for the majority of Americans to wrestle this issue away from the social critics, academics and the protestors.
What happened in Hanford, Washington and Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge is the greatest untold epic story of American history.
It is the duty of our country to honor these workers.
It is time to build a memorial at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D. C. to honor the Manhattan Project workers who helped end the deadliest conflict known to mankind.
