THE THREAD IS NOT IRAN. IS THE US MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & THE NEGLIGENCE & LIES OF OUR POLITICAL LEADERS

THE THREAD IS NOT IRAN. IS THE US MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & THE NEGLIGENCE & LIES OF OUR POLITICAL LEADERS

SEE THE FILM:

"THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA": EXPLORING A NATION’S STRUGGLE WITH NUCLEAR POWER
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/24/the_atomic_states_of_america_exploring

INTRODUCTION

from Hugo Adan. February 6, 2012

INCREDIBLE ! what is going on in America?. The mind of the nation has been set to react against the assumed atomic threat coming from Iran. It is not only Israel but our National Security that is at stake with the building of nukes in Iran, they imply. It doesn’t matter if there is no evidence supporting such claim. “Bomb Iran Now! Said “the national & international community” represented by the Corporate media . An Americans seems to agree with this evil demand. On Sunday 5 of February started the 1st day Mass Action against the war in Iran & not even 500 gathered in the streets of Manhattan, NY. (“"Day of Mass Action" against a possible war with Iran. About 500 protesters gathered in Manhattan's Times Square and marched to the headquarters of the US mission to the United Nations and to the Israeli consulate. "No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations," read a banner leading the march”.

More people were sharing enthusiastically the demand of GOP candidates like Gingrich who suggested that Obama is not only a traitor but a Muslim infiltrated inside the Administration. ““The great threat in the Middle East is not Israel, it’s Iran. The great problem in Afghanistan is the Taliban and yet you have an administration which is apparently gonna release a number of Taliban terrorists…I think you have a pro-Islamist faction in the administration that is on every front trying to appease people who are our enemies…” (quoted by http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30440.htm). Mitt Romney and the ultra-conservative Santorum made similar accusation to Obama “doing nothing to stop Iran” & promising that they will do it if they get the Presidency. Hearing this from the pro-life Santorum was pathetic and hypocritical, to say the less. This was the same guy that before said that the nation should be happy because the CIA killed Iranian scientist. If Obama invented the resurrection of Bin Laden, this Saint invented a possible attack of Iran to Missouri.“Engineering Consent For An Attack On Iran: Santorum: Iran would nuke Missouri: Rick Santorum warned that if Iran procures a nuclear weapon, it would pose a threat even to Missouri.”, read a comment in http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/208621-santorum-iran-wants-to-nuke-missouri).

Even more sheers and claps were given to Obama when he promised the production of more nukes in America in his recent Statements to the Nation. Both parties, democrats and republican saluted frenetically such initiative, even when there are several demands to investigate the leaking of radiation from atomic silos. These are real threat that are putting at risk the life of thousands of americans. Not need to be bombed for Iran, here the American Military Industrial Complex is already bombing people with their negligence. Let’s read the report below.

"THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA": EXPLORING A NATION’S STRUGGLE WITH NUCLEAR POWER. Democracy Now, January 24, 2012

HERE SELECTED EXTRACTS from:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/24/the_atomic_states_of_america_exploring

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah, home of the Sundance Film Festival, the nation’s largest festival for independent cinema. Today we’re talking about nuclear power. Why? Well, the corporate media brings out debate when the establishment in Washington is divided—Democrats debating Republicans. That scope of debate, they bring us. But what happens when the majority of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the president, as well, agree? You’re not going to get much coverage of the issue. And that’s the story of nuclear power today. Just two years ago, President Obama gave his State of the Union address and was applauded on both sides of the aisle when he said this.

We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah, and we’re about to go to a clip of President Obama speaking two years ago at the State of the Union address, when he addressed the issue of nuclear renaissance.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: [But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production,] more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country, because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy, and America must be that nation.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama in 2010 giving his State of the Union address. And that is a clip of a new movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival called The Atomic States of America. It’s directed by Sheena Joyce and Don Argott. And Sheena Joyce is joining us now.

AMY GOODMAN: So, for one minute, I mean, we’re not talking about a Republican president like President Bush. If he had tried to restart nuclear power after decades, a new nuclear power plant—one hasn’t been built in more than 30 years—I don’t think he could have. People would have risen up. But when President Obama announced that he would begin nuclear power plants, the rebuilding of them and the federal loan guarantees, well, he got a bipartisan—he got bipartisan applause. And that’s not something that happens very much in Washington today.
SHEENA JOYCE: It’s true. It’s true.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the largest festival of independent cinema in the United States, as we continue with our conversation with Sheena Joyce, the director of the film Atomic States of America, and Kelly McMasters, author of Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town.

AMY GOODMAN: When I first started in radio, one of the first documentaries I did was looking at the Shoreham nuclear power plant and the Three Mile Island disaster, because a number of people from Three Mile Island went to Shoreham, Long Island, to warn people: "Don’t let this nuclear power plant go online." And when people succeeded in preventing the Shoreham nuclear power plant from going full power, I think most people in this country thought nuclear power was dead, at least on Long Island.

KELLY McMASTERS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: But Kelly McMasters, talk about this plant you just referred to, the Brookhaven National Lab plant, how it is that that was sort of, if you will, under the radar.

KELLY McMASTERS: It was very under the radar. And even the people in my town, who worked mostly service jobs there, didn’t quite get what was going on there. Because it was a federal laboratory and because it is enclosed in these Pine Barrens, you literally can’t see it. It’s on an old Army base, and you can’t—you have no access to it.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s not providing electricity for the people of Long Island.

KELLY McMASTERS: No, no. And it has won, you know, Nobel Prizes in physics, and it’s done some fantastic medical research. But since 1955, it’s also been leaking and having a really detrimental effect on the neighborhoods around it. It was actually when Shoreham became sort of a focal point of the island, and people realized—you know, we were all saying, "We don’t want nuclear power on the island," A, because it’s an island. There’s no way off if something happens. We are all on a sole source drinking water aquifer, so if something goes into the water, then it hits everybody, all three million people on the island. Once they started saying, "We don’t want nuclear on the island," and then they heard, "Wait, we already have it on the island?" and then all the picketers sort of moved from Shoreham over to the lab.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to The Atomic States of America, a remarkable film that has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In this clip, you, Kelly, and a local resident introduce us to Carlton Road, which is nicknamed "Death Row" because so many sick people live there.

KELLY McMASTERS: So right now we’re standing on Carlton, the street that was nicknamed "Death Row." Pretty much almost every house on this street had somebody who was sick with cancer or something else. People started realizing that they weren’t the only sick ones. Their neighbors were sick, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from a new film called The Atomic States of America. Go further with "Death Row."

KELLY McMASTERS: Well, what was amazing for me when I first watched the film was to see how similar the reactor communities were. In my community, what happened was people were suffering alone in their own houses, and then they would realize, oh, my neighbor is sick, and my other neighbor is sick, and they started meeting in each other’s basements. And something very iconic in the Long Island fight against cancer are these hand-drawn maps that mostly women suffering with breast cancer would start making when they looked at all of their neighbors who were also ill.

AMY GOODMAN: In Long Island, one in nine women suffer from breast cancer?

KELLY McMASTERS: That’s actually—that was the original number back in, I believe, the '80s. And now I think the numbers are one in six or one in seven. So, it is—there's a group called One in Nine, which was one of the first breast cancer advocacy groups. But it’s amazing that even in the time that that group—I mean, the group still exists—the numbers have really jumped. And it was wild for me to watch the film and see, in all of these other reactor communities, that same iconic image of these hand-drawn maps that people, who just are everyday people—they know something is wrong in their community. They’re not sure. They’re not politicians. They’re not scientists. They don’t know how to combat it. So what do they do? They go home, and they drew a map. And over and over, we saw that.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the other nuclear power plants and communities that you cover.

SHEENA JOYCE: Another community that we go to is Braidwood in Illinois, which has a very similar story to Shirley, Long island. And as Kelly mentioned, one thing that was eerie to us is, as we went from town to town speaking to people, there were these unlikely activists, there were these, you know, moms and dads and grandmoms who were noticing that all of their neighbors were getting sick and would meet in each other’s basements and kitchens and start to draw a map. And it all kind of starts with dots on a map. And it was eerie to us how the story kept repeating, and also how people were so, you know, necessarily, busy and focused on their own communities, they almost don’t have the chance to lift their heads up and look around and see that there are other people in other parts of this country dealing with the same thing.