The Thought of Bombs Will Take Over Our Minds (Page 2 of 2)

But those days appear to be mostly history. Only a handful of ORNL employees who came to the hearing opposed the proposals for new bombs and new bomb plants.

I don’t think the boosters — even the workers who came to the microphone with the simple “We can do the job” message and the Chamber of Commerce mouthpieces who read from a common script: “Hourly workers are highly skillful and well-paid, and jobs like this are not available in many places in the state of Tennessee … ” — agonized the moral dilemma they faced — jobs versus WMD.

Why not? Because the thought of bombs will take over our minds.

When the thought of bombs takes over our minds, other thoughts are banished: The thought of moral culpability for the carnage that will ensue should one of our bombs explode on purpose or by accident, clear thinking about how our bomb-building drives other countries to pursue nuclear capabilities for self-defense, creative thinking about developing products worthy of the skilled workforce and technological capacity that exists here in Tennessee.

When the thought of bombs takes over our minds, we don’t even have to make an effort to not think about other things, like the legacy we leave for future generations, teacher salaries or health care deficits that are a direct result of our spending $5 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons since 1941.

When the thought of bombs takes over our minds, it changes who we are as human beings. Our moral compass is distorted; we grow numb to the reality of what we are doing. We say silly things like, “Making weapons that threaten the entire globe and use up $40 billion tax dollars a year is a local issue, and people who don’t live around here shouldn’t have a say in it.” We say dumb things — I heard one speaker quote the Bible’s New Testament in support of nuclear weapons.

While we were talking in Oak Ridge, halfway around the world at a conference in Norway, military, arms control, diplomatic and security experts were meeting to talk about the world’s nuclear arsenals. George Shultz was there. Shultz was the Secretary of State during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and has served on the Board of the Bechtel Corporation for, like, forever. I heard a clip of Shultz on NPR’s Morning Edition, and this old man was practically shouting: “We have to wake up!”

I’ve never met Shultz, but I know enough about his career to feel confident that for at least a considerable portion of his life, when he was at the height of his powers, the thought of bombs took over his mind. He practiced diplomacy in the Reagan administration, when the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal was the stick with which he backed up every commitment or threat he made.

I found it interesting last year when Shultz and Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn and William Perry wrote in the Wall Street Journal the world leaders needed to embrace the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons and be serious about it. Were these men, nearing the end of their careers, trying to enhance their legacies with some noble words?

This January they published another article in the Journal, outlining practical steps to be taken by world governments toward disarmament. The list of people who back their proposals includes diplomatic, military and security leaders from the last six U.S. administrations and similarly powerful people from around the globe. Looks like they mean it.

As one who has advocated much of this agenda for 20 years, it is heartening to hear people in the upper echelons of power waking up to the reality — the world we live in is dangerous, and we are creating a significant part of that danger as long as we continue to maintain a nuclear arsenal.

There are those in Congress who see this, too. During last year’s budget process, committees responsible for nuclear weapons funding told the administration that there would be no more funds for bombs or bomb plants until a new Nuclear Posture Review is prepared;  the Nuclear Posture Review sets U.S. nuclear policy and includes a force structure assessment. What Congress was saying, in other words: “No new bombs until you convince us that we need them.”

The best part of the public hearings in Oak Ridge was the testimonies of young people who spoke with clarity and passion for a future free of nuclear weapons. The tide is turning — those whose minds have not been taken over by nuclear weapons can see it.