Atomic Ignornace

After watching Atomic Café and completing the reading assignment of Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age American Women, what I have to say initially is what I can only assume would be what the rest of my classmates would agree with me upon. That is while the sarcastic humor of Atomic Café was easily identifiable; the disturbing nature of the shared topic between these two texts was something that could not be ignored. To start off my response to these things which I have classified as disturbing, I would like to make reference to the way in which many of the people who spoke throughout the duration of Atomic Café regarded the ever-so-powerful Atomic Bomb. In their own words, it was a power, bestowed upon them by God. Looking further into in a statement like this, it seemed to me almost as if the government was trying to build itself an image of such absurd supremacy, that the only word that I can personally think of to describe it with is just that, absurd. For the United States government to make the claim that it has a destructive power that was given to them by God, immediately installs an image of relative nature between itself( the government) and God, how anyone would want to interpret this further really makes no difference seeing as it can only really go in one direction. To me, the government having placed itself on such a high pedestal, right next to God, says a couple of things. One, that the United States Government, as I have just said, is, with a “God given weapon” as powerful as God, and therefore, above any and all other peoples and countries. Second, having drawn this picture into the minds of its citizens, what other way could the American people be led to think, if not that they are now in every sense of the word better that the rest of the world, who apparently does not have the capability or even the “God given technology” to wield such a weapon. So basically, the government is telling its people, that they are smarter than everyone, more powerful than everyone, and even on par with God, who in this respect, likes them better than everyone to boot. This message, though stretched out as it may be, is wrong on so many levels that it, as I have said twice already, is nothing short of absurd. To take it even further, in the same breath that one of the speakers in Atomic Café regarded the Atomic Bomb as a gift for God, he also made to statement that it was out of our American nature to actually use such weapon. This of course being what I believe was a news reel immediately following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which basically throws a fistful of hypocrisy into an already messy batch of complete arrogance.
To make matters worse, what followed such hypocrisy and arrogance is exactly as one of my classmates put it, an American “warm glass of milk” to try and make it all better, (thanks Frank). This can be acknowledged with the section of Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age American Women regarding the Hiroshima Maidens. This of course was when a group of single women, who became physically disfigured because of the bombings and radiation were taken to the United States with a couple of doctors in order to undergo a series of plastic surgeries. In my opinion a very bold and audacious move, even cocky for a lack of a better term. Not only was our government directly responsible for the harm that befell these women and pretty much everyone they knew, our government just had to take that step further and be the one the try and “pick up the pieces” so to say. In one sense I want to say that this was a meager attempt to show that, at the time, we weren’t only a blind destructive force to the rest of the world, but that we were capable of some pathetic excuse of humility. However on the other hand, this makes me want to say that at the time, those within the government had actually gone so far as to deceive even themselves into thinking that such a “deed” could make up for the thousands of lives that they so carelessly wiped out of existence. Either way, the only real thing that I see with this, time after time is plain unnecessary American ignorance. When I say that I do want to make it clear that I am in no way blaming the government singularly or one group of people, because after watching Atomic Café, it seems pretty clear to me that there is no single entity to blame, I feel as though this ignorance came into being through a group effort so to speak. In the movie there were seemingly endless amounts of propaganda reiterating this ignorance, and while I do understand that the people at the time were of a different mindset and therefore not used to thinking against their government, I can’t help but wonder about their own personal choices. I say this because beyond the propaganda and beyond the apparent anxiety brought on due to the current events of the times, everyone still had the freedom to make their own choices. So basically, they had the choice to support the ignorance or dispel it, and in my opinion, they clearly supported it.
So that being what I got out of these first couple of texts, I feel as though I’m heading right for the Anti-American side of things, which really I’m not so sure is such a bad thing. Regardless I can’t wait to see what everyone else has to say.
-Nic Nicosia