On that very same day, there was a train that carried tons of chemicals (mostly PVC) riding through Ohio. It exploded in East Palestine, unleashing the dangerous chemicals in the atmosphere. While The US was overreacting over the balloon, the chemicals were contaminating the air and waters. The chemicals were killing people’s chickens, dogs, cats, and other animals. The crows were circling and flying about in a strange motion as if they were drugged. The fish that flourished now lifelessly float along the river.
If the chemicals are getting to the animals, it’s getting to the people too. People who lived there experienced lung issues, breathing difficulties, and more. The PVC chemicals are causing higher risks of cancer. People are still not able to live in their homes due to the nauseating air. Those who come back are faced with dangerous conditions. Officials however, (including the FDA) have told everyone that the air is completely safe and the water is drinkable. People who drank the water described it as “smelling and tasting like chlorine.” So basically the officials were lying and trying to sweep it under the rug.
All while this was happening, you see the media overreacting over the balloon. And they pulled another stunt with Canada again this week. Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern lobbied to ease federal regulations and cut costs on the train.
Which makes me question… What are we living for? With the capitalist powers having it’s grip on the world, we are living to be slaves and to fill the wealthy man’s pockets while our lives are constantly in danger. We are just pawns in their game of wealth, power and fame. Tragedies are swept under the rug until one day there’s a large tragedy, and then there’s a compromise from those wealthy pigs that just isn’t enough. Then the cycle starts all over again.
In America, we are going backwards. At this point, we are entering back to the Gilded Age. Or maybe we’re already in it? Or never got out of it?
This is the natural and expected course of capitalist development. I’m not sure why you’re surprised, especially since you’re here so its safe to assume you’re a socialist. The only reason there was any increase in labor rights was because of the expansion of imperialism combined with a militant labor movement (extended by the USSR creating a massive threat to capital). Nowadays though the world is throughly saturated and the market has nowhere else to expand to. Combine this with a crippled labor movement and there are neither the economic nor social conditions necessary to improve or even maintain standards of living for the average worker.
Life under capitalism sucks.
It isn’t surprising that they would do this but I’m just disgusted by capitalism. I am partly surprised that I see this happening before my own two eyes. Capitalism and life just can’t coexist for everyone. It sucks, and I hate that some people defend it. Reminds me of that fable with the snake and the man.
The Ohio Chemical Spill and/or a Pullitzer Prize-winning journalist publishing his exposé on the Nordstream pipeline bombing. There’s a lot happened recently that could incite public discontent.
It’s ridiculous that the US resorts to shooting balloons out of the sky and screamimg about it to distract the public.
It’s ridiculous and demoralising that it works.
Did Americans get student debt forgiveness? Did they forget about it already and moved onto balloons?#
There’s a place called “East Palestine” in…Ohio?
First time reading had to do a double take, it is so easy to confuse with East Jerusalem.
Yep, I was so surprised!
Apparently they leaked Phosgene, a literal poison gas, as well. I know that cover-ups like this are pretty expected of the US, but seeing it myself is surreal. People are going to die because of this, both in the short and long term and the corporations care more about their profits than those people.
Mhm, and wanna know what’s crazy? The contamination has spread to other states, and has created an issue in drinking water for FIVE million people. And guess what? It’s near my state :))
Jfc. I hope you can stay safe.
Does that map show the fallout reaching the great lakes? That’s worrying considering the biodiversity of the lakes has already had to be rescued as it was on the brink of collapse.
No, the Ohio river flows southwest, away from the lakes and feeds the Mississippi. It’s just that the watershed/drainage divide between the Ohio and the lakes is very close to the shore so from this zoomed out map it looks like it connects.
Still a disaster, then, but marginally less bad than it could’ve been.
Thanks for the info.
the whole balloon situation is such a non-issue that even liberals don’t really care about it. It started from one balloon accidentally flying over montana to american msm saying “china is using balloons in order to spy on the whole world!!” it’s ridiculous.
You’re indeed right. Liberals will eat it up, swallow it, then shit it out a few weeks later. As long as they stop talking about random shit being shot down.
It is a very small point that has very little bearing, but I will mention it quickly as I have seen it brought up several times before and it is still misinformation. The crow behavior is completely normal. Crows grouping together in large flocks and circling during the winter is a standard social behavior. Crows are very social animals and are simply preparing to roost together for the night when doing that.
Thank you for the information. I notice crows circling all the time and always wondered why. Common superstition claims that death is coming when crows are circling, but simply they are coming together.
They way they were circling was strange though. It wasn’t like the usual way they circle each other…
For some reason, the far right has taken an special interest in this. They’re using it for their various dumbass conspiracy theories like Blue Beam and the WEF. Because government incompetence is just too easy.
What are these conspiracy theories? Could you explain?
WEF is the usual “Jews control the world” thing but with Klaus Scwab playing the role of devil figure for the nutjobs to rally against. Project Blue Beam is like a proposed theory that the elites will fake an alien invasion to create a one world government. Which I think is hilarious because the premise seems to rely on this sci-fi level of technology where the governments of the world can seamlessly fake a massive interstellar war. Also it was proposed 30 years ago and these guys still think the shadowy forces ruling the world would just tell us their plans.
Just like with the Nazi Holocaust that imitates the child slave camps called “Indian Residential Schools”, the Western European diaspora governments simply subject the Caucasian population to the same corrupted practices that they previously committed against the colonized people. In this case, they are subjecting the (presumably) European immigrant communities to the same war crimes that they conducted in the Indigenous concentration camps in the Federal Reserve in an attempts to force the Indigenous people to forfeit their “Indian” status that allowed them to maintain their ancestral land ownership that they and their ancestors worked hard for, their right to collect rent from white immigrants, their debt collecting right, and their right to obtain compensation money from the children enslavement, savage indoctrination, and atrocities from the Residential fake Schools during the Cold War.
Could be argued we never left the guided age, yes quality of life, housing ownership, education, healthcare all have improved, but it’s pretty clear those were only at the allowance of the rulling class. Quite literal trickle down economics, you only get any benefit from the economy if the rich are so carefree they start dropping money. However once they are scared by yet another crisis, the trickle stops. And thus we see all metrics of life quality fall.
It was my understanding this is simply capitalism ran by the bourgeoisie. Where in the world under these same relations do we see such a difference? In social democracies of the Baltic region who arrived there to stave off revolution or their citizens fleeing to the USSR at the time? All I’ve seen are proletarian-controlled societies and near them or in reaction to their influence, social democracies, which defy this concept.
Also, the rich do not become carefree and drop money, and then stop when a crisis starts. It’s the opposite, as you stated. They stinge and rob to get to where they are, their economic position being constructed and maintained by taking as much from others as possible. When a crisis occurs, this is due to these actions, and so they, for a short period of time, reverse some amount of their greed as a way to sort of lube the machine.
Wasn’t it vinyl chloride that got released and not PVC?
List of chemicals released as of today via (https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals-list-epa-1780805)
Vinyl chloride
Butyl acrylate
Ethylhexyl acrylate
Ethylene glycol monobutyl
We have fun here in Ohio
