75 Years Ago, on August 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima…

It ranks high in what can be considered America’s national shame: the genocide against American Indians, slavery, the genocidal wars the U.S. conducted in Korea and Vietnam after WW2. How else describe the obliteration of an essentially civilian target and the pulverization of 75,000 people in a split second, the deaths of hundreds of thousands more over the decades that followed from radiation poisoning when from a number of indications (see article below), dropping “the bomb” on these two cities had less to do with ending WW2 and more as an example of U.S. postwar power.

And now the nuclear arms race is heating up again and in many ways it is far more dangerous than that of the Cold War years.

More than a $1 trillion is programmed to renew, upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, new and more dangerous nuclear weapons are being developed while the infrastructure of the country is falling apart, educational system – once the world’s finest – spiraling downward, a healthcare system that the Coronavirus has revealed in shambles… but the government is proceeding full steam to make new nukes – and at the same time withdrawing from arms control treaties.

And now the nuclear arms race is heating up again and in many ways it is far more dangerous than that of the Cold War years.

More than a $1 trillion is programmed to renew, upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, new and more dangerous nuclear weapons are being developed while the infrastructure of the country is falling apart, educational system – once the world’s finest – spiraling downward, a healthcare system that the Coronavirus has revealed in shambles… but the government is proceeding full steam to make new nukes – and at the same time withdrawing from arms control treaties.

There will be a demonstration on the west steps of the Capitol in Denver from 8-9 am on Thursday, August 6, to mark the occasion and draw attention to the new fast-escalating nuclear arms race – another kind of COVID-19 epidemic that won’t go away.

Might come out of Coronavirus hibernation for that one – the will to is certainly there.

There is classic pretext to justify Truman dropping the bomb – that a frontal assault, a full scale U.S. invasion of Japan would cost the USA a million lives. Many of us who grew up in the shadow of Hiroshima heard that from our parents, the generation that fought the war.

From the time I had anything resembling a mind – the date of which is still debatable – I had my doubts…but I lived in a house where the males of that generation were quick-minded and decisive… nor, given the war crimes the Japanese committed during the war lessen my father and uncle’s ardor: the Japanese “deserved” the “gift” delivered on August 6.

It took a long time to deconstruct those arguments – I might add that a 1982 visit to Denver by two “hibakshas” – Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors – and a 1987 visit to Hiroshima helped me to reconsider the “yes to using nuclear weapons” forever. By then I had – using a variety of sources – pretty much agreed with the assessment given below – and for the reasons Paul Ham cites here.