In The Mind of A Few Angry Genies: the Vision Lives On

[EASlavin@aol.com]

Howdy:

Most of you in the radiation protection community worldwide who've spoken up 
recently have expressed overwhelming compassion, understanding and support, 
publicly and privately for sick Oak Ridge workers and residents and how DOE 
has behaved toward them.  It was so good to hear from you after sick Oak 
Ridge workers and residents were mocked and trivialized by RADSAFE posts for 
three years.  Of course, I knew before I spoke out against that mockery of 
sick workers that the late Dr. Karl Z. Morgan wrote last year that anyone who 
challenges the nuclear industry: "must be prepared to withstand political, 
economic and professional 
attacks.  For example, when I publicly criticized the majority of health 
physicists (for not stepping forward to assist injured workers in cases 
during a keynote speech in 1985 before union workers, Dr. Clarence Lushbaugh 
promptly responded in the Oak Ridger by equating that with the lowest species 
of ''animals that befoul their own nest."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised "freedom from fear."  Fear is a 
fact of life in Oak Ridge.  Lack of "academic freedom" in Oak Ridge was noted 
by the New York Times in 1983, when Dr. Stephen Gough compared Oak Ridge to 
an "intellectual ghetto" where one could not criticize management.   Even 
Ph.D.s fear to criticize the DOE/contractor "party line."  Whistleblower 
retaliation is rampant in Oak Ridge.  Dr. Karl Z. Morgan wrote before his 
death, "No society that severely restricts freedom of speech will ultimately 
survive."

I fully appreciate now that it was just a tiny, pathetic, vocal minority who 
trashed sick Oak Ridge workers when they're supposed to be working -- and 
didn't apologize for it.  The mechanisms of such retaliatory mindsets are 
discussed  by Dr. Karl Z. Morgan,  "The Angry Genie: One Man's Walk Through 
the Nuclear Age" (Oklahoma University Press 1999).  For inclusion in a future 
exhibit in the Oak Ridge Museum of Atomic Energy, here's a screed from 
someone with a derisive, ad hominem response to truthful testimony before the 
United States Senate about matters of human misery wrougt by DOE -- the 
sequelae perhaps of cognitive dissonance and a massive chip on his shoulder:

In a message dated 04/07/2000 6:00:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gwilton@chem.swri.edu writes:
<< Subj:     RE: Why not the best?
 Date:  04/07/2000 6:00:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:  gwilton@chem.swri.edu (Grant Wilton)
 Sender:    radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
 Reply-to:  radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
 To:    radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (Multiple recipients of list)
  Mr. Slavin,
  I visited your downwinders website.  It is shameless nonsense like this in
 particular and self-serving lawyers like you in general who have raised
 "victimism" to an art form.  You have no hard and fast data to back this up,
 only "inference" cloaked in heart wrenching stories.  You may wax eloquent
 until the cows come home Mr. Slavin but an ambulance chaser by any other
 name is still an ambulance chaser.
  This is the last I shall comment on this subject or Mr. Slavin.
  These opinions are mine and mine alone.
 Grant Wilton
 Senior Research Scientist
 Southwest Research Institute
 gwilton@chem.swri.edu
  >>
MR. WILTON, to quote Bart Simpson, "Don't have a cow, man!"  So much for 
respect for different views and diversity.  This unhappy man is like some of 
Al Capp's characters, who were "wildly indignant about nearly anything."  
This man obviously didn't read the testimony and its citations, or understand 
them.  He does not wish to acknowledge the nature of the AEC/DOE coverup 
documented by Dr. Morgan in his book -- do I see a thread on Dr. Morgan's 
book coming?  Have any of y'all read his book?  Unlike most of you, this man 
is not open to dialogue about how to protect workers from radiation and 
chemical hazards at DOE sites.  I feel sorry for him. He is bitter at the 
world and not trying to hide it.  I forgive him.

Perhaps he is up for a little expert "testimony" for DOE on the subject of "a 
little nukie never hurt anybody?" :)  Or perhaps he'd like to come to Oak 
Ridge and walk down the K-25 plant with some of the people who work there.  
Maybe he'd learn something if he accompanied some of the Senate hearing 
witnesses to the rooms where they were confined and exposed to the plume of 
the TSCA Incinerator, containing toxic and radioactive waste, the first in 
the Nation, without being told K-25 was a Superfund Site.  Grant Wilton, 
Senior Research Scientist, Come to Oak Ridge -- home of what one Oak Ridge 
Ph.D. once called  the largest cancer experiment in human history.  We've got 
some interesting things to show you. http://www.downwinders.org/victims.html  
:)  The Vision Lives On.

With kindest regards,

Ed Slavin
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