THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
R. Ashok Kumar, B.E.,M.E.,Negentropist, Bombay
Sarvodaya Mandal, 299, Tardeo Road, Nana Chowk, Mumbai-400007.
© 2016 Ramaswami Ashok Kumar
Re: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/523474/modi-push-early-deal-jaitapur.html
The ethical basis of the contamination of the
environment which results from an unavoidable by-product of civilian nuclear
power, military nuclear weapons testing and the use of Uranium weapons.
The consequent detriment to human health makes the ethical
justification of these activities in modern civilization impossible in all but
the most extreme cases (medical interventions, research and technological uses
of radiation). If the nuclear industry and the military and thus modern
civilization are to continue within a sound ethical framework serious questions
need to be addressed and those who will suffer its health consequences need to be
informed and consulted to a far greater extent than they ever have been. This
is a political matter since it is assumed in a democracy the electorate or
their representatives have access to the best information. In the case of radiation
risk, the electorate and their representatives have no access to accurate
information on the effects of these processes and the contamination of their
bodies or its consequence.
Parliamentary democracy fails under these
conditions.
“In many
instances it is the environmental destruction that appals citizens, but that
they nevertheless find difficult to reverse. This results from the universal intellectual
domination of the ethic of capitalism, an economic system which, to paraphrase
Wilde, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. As Midgley
points out, rationality is no longer an adequate discourse for justifying human
activity. Its limitations are made clear by the conclusion implicit in
policy-making that while children will inevitably die from leukemia as a result
of radioactive discharges, causality will be denied and in any case their
numbers are ‘absolutely small’ and therefore not worthy of consideration. The
moral bankruptcy of such a justification is intuitively apparent. If we broaden
our conception of value beyond that which exists within the economic
growth-driven world system it becomes clear that far from being too cheap to
meter, civilian nuclear power is in fact too costly to permit.”(Ref 1)
The question of the systematic increases of medium
and very long-lived radionuclides in the environment from military-associated
activities
(weapons tests, Uranium weapons) and modern
civilization( dams and their destruction of Fukushima Daichi and consequent
extermination of all infants perhaps by 2028) has never been justified(Ref 2) and
therefore could
be taken to be beyond the framework of any ethical
system, including
utilitarianism. Owing to the cross-border and
indiscriminate nature of the
contamination it should be considered to be a
universal crime against humanity and indeed of all life, like of the type
discussed at Nuremberg following World War II.
It follows, by application of the precautionary
principle, that modern civilization is the biggest terrorist and development
within it must be banned by mutual consultation with the people in a framework
of awareness building of truth and thereafter a referendum(s).
Ref: 1. 2010 Recommendations of the ECRR
The Health Effects of Exposure to Low Doses of Ionizing
Radiation
Regulators' Edition Edited by Chris Busby with Rosalie Bertell, Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Molly Scott Cato and Alexey Yablokov. Published
on behalf of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Green Audit 2010
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