Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Real fathers will fight

Friday, June 14, 2002 | 5:52 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: June 16, 2002

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY.

Just in case you missed the news, today is that annual event we celebrate on behalf of all fathers. Each Mother's Day we consider the fact that she is undervalued to the extent that every day should be set aside to honor the woman who gave us life and nurtured us to the point in our own lives where we could either nurture our own children or, at the very least, care for ourselves in this ever complicated and demanding world.

Fathers, on the other hand, must be content with the one day we do get because that's just the way it is. And today is that day.

Like many of my own generation and almost everyone in the preceding one, I am unable to share with my father my feelings about him and the depth of my love and respect for him. I, and others like me, must be content to enjoy the memories of the men who always supported our dreams, pushed us toward them and made it possible to even have them. For the lucky children among us, they get to do more, including the search for the appropriate gift, the obligatory Father's Day card and the always welcome hug and kiss that is usually accompanied by an "I love you." While the "I love you" is optional, it should always be the most cherished of gifts.

Today, though, I'd like to take a different approach. Not the traditional one which would have a son talk about his and other fathers, but an approach that is far more important in this grand scheme within which we live. And that is the responsibility of fatherhood. No, I don't mean diaper changing and college tuition paying, although both are worth whatever the price of admission. What I am talking about is at the core of being a good father.

My view is that my daughter and other children owe nothing to their parents other than to grow up to be good, productive and decent human beings. We, on the other hand, owe them a future in which they can be what they want to be, live where they want to live and dream the dreams for their kids that we have dreamed for them.

I have been thinking a lot about the responsibility of fatherhood in the context of Nevada's fight to stop President Bush and the nuclear power industry from having their way with our state and the futures we see for ourselves within it. There has been much written in recent weeks about the inability of Nevadans to raise, what in the context of state budgets and gross annual products, is a paltry $1 million to give Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign a fighting chance against the multimillions of dollars being spent by those who want to poison us.

Just this past week, the Environmental Working Group went live with the website, mapscience.org, which allows mothers and fathers across the country to log on and learn just how much they could be affected by the transportation of nuclear waste driving on their highways, rolling on their railroad tracks and floating on barges over the waterways of this country. It has created so much attention that the nation's media are logging on, tuning in and reporting the truth that the Energy Department and the White House have not wanted us to know. That has resulted in the administration turning up the heat on senators to force this vote much sooner than anticipated under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In short, they want the vote over and done with before Americans wake up to reality.

They may get their way, in part because the White House wields a big club and in part because the nuclear power industry writes some very big checks. But they may also win this fight because Nevada -- make that Nevada's fathers -- have come up short in fulfilling their responsibilities to their children. Notice I didn't include mothers in that accusation because they don't let their children get into harm's way. For the most part, it is the fathers who run a large majority of Nevada businesses that have spurned our governor's requests for financial aid to help win this fight.

For whatever reasons -- and I believe they are all irrelevant -- the men in this society are not stepping up to answer Gov. Kenny Guinn's call for help, and their failure to act may be the single greatest reason we might lose the Senate vote. If so, we could see thousands of trucks and trainloads of radioactive waste rolling our way -- not in eight or 10 years -- but in that many months because there will be nothing to stop the President from sending an interim storage bill -- like the one the Energy Department and its GOP backers did during President Clinton's administration -- to the Congress for immediate action. And, unlike the veto we got from President Clinton, what we will get from the current president will be a damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead response.

I am one of many Nevadans who have stepped up to the plate with financial and other help to try to assist our congressional delegation and our governor in their fight on our behalf. My family and many others have done so because we believe that to do less is to abandon our responsibilities as parents. Our children and theirs and theirs did not ask for nuclear waste to be shipped and buried not far from where they will live -- with all the danger inherent in that effort -- for the next 10,000 years. That happened on our watch.

We let a greedy and uncaring nuclear waste industry shove it down our throats 20 years ago when they wrote the law which has led to Yucca Mountain and we are letting it happen to us again, all because we have turned away from what is right for our children.

With a few more dollars we can win this fight. The website is working and the news stories are taking their toll on the DOE's underhanded attempts to hide the truth from the American public. When this fight is over, though, and if we do lose, at least those of us who did what we could will be able to look our children in the eyes and tell them we did our best.

What will the rest of Nevada's fathers -- the ones who said no or no way -- tell their children? That you didn't care? That you valued your dollars more than you valued their health and safety? That you cared more about your jobs and your futures than you did theirs?

Those are tough questions to answer. But you must do so. And you should do it today. After all, today is Father's Day.

Live up to it.

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