The recent disasters at sea — in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic — although 4,000 miles apart, reveal the stark differences in how the capitalist governments and media regard the lives of poor, desperate migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, compared to the lives of five milli

Dr. Nora Markard, professor of international public law and international human rights at the University of Munster, says it is “really important to center the obligations of the Greek state. . . . They were on the scene; they were in their own search and rescue zone; they failed to rescue, and they failed to coordinate a rescue. And then they actively put the lives of the people on the boat at risk.”

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Contrast the limited media attention to the Greek disaster with a recent story that has gotten substantially more coverage. On June 18, the Titan, a minivan-sized submersible from the company OceanGate, lost contact with its ship in the North Atlantic while diving to take a tour of the wreckage of the Titanic. Onboard were the company’s CEO Stockton Rush, two billionaires, a multimillionaire and his 19-year-old son. Tickets cost $250,000 apiece.