Congressman Kucinich Opposes New National Park Which Celebrates Manhattan Project

"The technology which created the Bomb cannot be separated from the horror which the Bomb created."

Washington D.C. (September 18, 2012) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced opposition to legislation expected to be considered on the House floor tomorrow. H.R. 5987 will establish a new National Park celebrating the technological achievement of the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret endeavor to develop the atomic bomb, which was subsequently used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed as a result of the atomic bomb attack. According to CBO, the park will cost as much as $21 million over five years.

"The technology which created the Bomb cannot be separated from the horror which the Bomb created. The celebration of the technology of the Bomb bespeaks a moral blindness to its effects, which include not only the devastation of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the ten trillion dollar cold war between the U.S. and Russia, and the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons which today hang as swords of Damocles over the world.

“At a time when we should be organizing the world toward abolishing nuclear weapons before they abolish us, we are instead indulging in hideous admiration at our cleverness as a species. The Bomb is about graveyards, not National Parks," said Kucinich.