How They Lie To You

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

It is raining outside my door, in Olympia, as it usually does.

What is not usual is the radioactive iodine 131 in the rain, which currently is almost certainly at 46 times the allowed level.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_rain06.23ff470.html

Actually, that is a lie. There is no allowed level of iodine 131 in Washington rainwater, because iodine 131 should not ever be falling from the sky, period.

Rather, the level is 46 times the level allowed in drinking water in the hypothetical situation of contamination, should something bad happen. Something bad has happened.

Now about that figure, 46 times the allowed level, the 'allowed level' is the amount that they figure will give cancer to one person in one million after 70 years of exposure.

But rain water goes into the water you drink, or the food you eat, into your spinach and milk and meat and fish and fruits, and then it gets into you and it becomes part of you, it becomes part of your bones and cells and muscles and nerves. It becomes part of your brain, and your spleen and, of course, your thyroid, the master gland of your metabolism and life.

Then, that minimum allowed exposure is not in the room with you, it is actually inside you, all the time, really close, as close as your heart, as close as your lung, as close as your stomach. Constantly irradiating you at the closest range possible. The allowable limit does not take that aspect into consideration at all. Not at all, in any way. It is a hypothetical figure derived from external exposure then extrapolated to internal exposure. It isn't like they forced test subjects to drink poison water for a century, after all.

No level of radiation is safe. None. Not even normal background radiation. All of it ups your risk of cancer. Any amount at all.
http://www.nirs.org/press/06-30-2005/1

It is just that there are 'allowed levels', because there is just no getting around radiation. It is in everything, killing us slowly.

Only now it is killing you faster. '46 times faster', you might think. But it is worse than that, because it also matters what kind of matter the radiation is coming from. It isn't just a circumstance of ionizing radiation ripping your DNA to shreds... it is also the issue of what parts of your body prefer to absorb the matter that is releasing the radiation, and whether that matter is poisonous to begin with.

And how long you will have it inside you being part of your flesh. Roughly seven to ten years, on average, for any given molecule.

You are having years of your expected average life span shaved away, and your sources of information are trying to reassure you, tell you everything is all right. For the same reason that Japan's government just admitted, when caught lying about how bad the radiation levels were outside of the exclusion zone; to prevent a panic. http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/04/nhk-japan-government-covered-24-hours-radiation-doses-666-times-annual-limit-13877/

That too is a lie; the real issue they all want to avoid is class action lawsuits from people angry at having their life spans compromised in the interest of corporate profit and weapons-grade nuclear material for military power.

The serfs should not get uppity.

Which is why everything is fine, everything is safe, and you are in no danger, citizen.

Now I am probably not as bad off; at 51 I have only a few decades left at best, and my cells are not dividing like they would be in someone younger, say in their twenties or thirties. Those are the people who will truly lose lifespan. Then again, what is a decade or two if it fattens a billionaire's pocketbook? Billionaires matter, they are the only people that matter. You know that. Give gladly. Give willingly. Just like you already do with your slave job and slave wages in some service industry. Thank you, citizen.

I call out these facts, but do I think it will change anything? No. Nobody is going to do anything about any of this. Protesting has been useless for over a decade - get in your invisible 'Free Speech Zone' citizen, out of the view of media or the powerful. Legal action is useless, the courts are packed just enough with corporate puppets to stop any real legal action that might challenge the profits and power of those responsible.

And worst of all, most people have been propagandized into accepting nuclear power as good, and nuclear waste as invisible and 'soon to be dealt with'. Waiting decades on that last one. But belief is powerful, and believing that there is no problem means not having to lift a finger. Thus vast reason to believe what is being told.

No, nothing will change, and things will just get worse and worse, and that is that. I know this. People allow it, and they buy into the 'everything is fine' faith willingly, because the harsh alternatives are too scary to think about.

But I can't stop thinking. I can't buy into the comforting lies. It makes me angry to know what is being done to me, to you, to the majority of people unable to live like gods of wealth upon the earth.

Radiation is within 'safe limits' and your food is 'safe' and your water is only of 'minor concern', if that. Your government is looking out for you.

They are making sure you have no motivation to sue, or to rebel.

[Anna]

One thing is not a lie, you can survive it.

But the experiment is still running.
Chernobyl 1986, have a look to the maps here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chern ... _Plant.PNG
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... 0414183456

As you can see, Germany is close to it, whole Europe is close to it, more close than the USA is close to Japan,
but if the wind blows...
I just did read the german Wikipedia article about the Chernobyl and the reaction here in Germany, there is no translation available, (please feel free to use an online translator again)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tschernoby ... C3.A4ndern

And we had wind from the east for some weeks, so the cloud was here.
However, there was a miraculous stop at the french border, the french had very less radioactivity.
(No wonder, 80% of their electricity comes from nuclear plants, radioactivity is a friend in France.)

Some weeks before Fukushima, there were a news: in southern Germany the meat of wild boars have still a high level of some radioactivity elements. Wild boars are eating roots, mushrooms etc.
But I'm sure there are some similar things in the USA, - remember, nuclear tests in the atmosphere about 50-45 years ago on american ground.
I’m wondering how many hunters, (hunting is a usual behaviour for Americans.[cliché]), did consume contaminated meat in the last decades.
You can't escape, no chance.
The Fukushima stuff is only a freshing up.

[Coda]

In the very article you cite, Jennifer:

Radiation has been found in drinking water samples taken in Boise and in Richland, Wash., both with 0.2 picocuries per liter of iodine-131. An EPA statement said an infant would have to drink about 1,850 gallons of water to get a dose equivalent to the radiation people already receive daily from natural sources.

Furthermore, iodine is the easiest kind of radiation poisoning to treat. Radioiodine also has a fairly short half-life, which means it'll go away on its own in a short matter of time, and by virtue of being water-soluble isn't even a long-term threat unless it gets absorbed by the thyroid -- your body will pass it out in a matter of hours. And thyroid absorption is preventable.

You can't make ANY sort of comparisons between short-term and long-term radiation exposure. 46 times the normal level for 7 days can't be compared to 7 times the normal level for 46 days. They're completely different exposures even though the number of radioactive decays are the same, and the body will handle them differently. Short bursts of high-intensity radiation don't cause cancer -- they cause radiation sickness. Long-term low-dose exposure increases the risk of cancer but statistically speaking it's far less dangerous than the hype would indicate. Consider the cancer rates from Hiroshima: I don't remember the exact figure and I can't find the citation at the moment, but less than one percent of Hiroshima survivors developed cancer. Adjusting compared to a control population brings the figure for how many survivors developed cancer BECAUSE of the bomb even lower.

For comparison, the body's naturally-occuring radiopotassium has a radioactivity of about 100 picocuries, and a volume of liquid water somewhere on the order of 6-10 liters. YOUR OWN BODY IS RADIOACTIVE. The 0.2 picocuries per liter added to your drinking water? Pocket change! Your own body produces 10-17 TIMES that much radiation ON ITS OWN.

The conspiracy theories, panic, confusion, and chaos caused by WORRYING about the radiation is causing more damage than the radiation itself right now. Consider the increased risk factors you're putting yourself in due to the stress of worry and anger: high blood pressure, tension headaches, migraines, gastrointestinal disorders, even some forms of cancer!

Think about it that way.

[Coda]

Breaking up the wall of text, but I found some more information.

Radiation damage is better measured in sieverts than curies, since that measures actual absorbed doses. The human body's own radiopotassium provides a one-year exposure of about 390 microsieverts. The EPA's yearly exposure limit is one MILLIsievert -- and this is limits on EXCESS radiation, not BACKGROUND radiation, which is about 3.65 millisieverts over a year.

The lowest one-year dose that's been clearly linked to increased cancer risk? ONE HUNDRED millisieverts!

That's right -- in order to get an increased cancer risk you'd need exposure of over TWENTY-SEVEN times the background radiation over the course of a year.

(For comparison, FOUR HUNDRED millisieverts in a short amount of time is what it takes to get radiation poisoning.)

Edit: Corrected units on background radiation; I kinda screwed up my point by accidentally saying a number much much too small the first time!