By Fred Bethune on Saturday March 19, 2011 10:32 AM
Adam Curtis has posted an interesting episode on nuclear power from his 1992 Pandora's Box series. As with most documentary makers, Curtis often plays fast and loose with the facts, but he always manages to dig up some rare footage and put it to an interesting storyline.
This one deals with the relationship between nuclear energy, safety standards, government and business. It gives a good background on the current disaster, and explains how it was known at the time that the type of reactors used in Fukushima were never safe, but were sold anyway.
Comments (5)
Easy to sell them the technology you just used to destroy two of their cities, when you show the technology will help them "be competitive" and "modernize their infrastructure."
When you don't allow American business interests to control your "development" you get wars hiding behind the cover of "promoting democracy" or "humanitarian intervention." Just ask Saddam Hussein... wait, nope, can't ask him. Ask Muammar Qaddafi.
The point of WW2: destroy all industrialized nations's industrial competition.
Why else would Brown Bros Harriman be funding the Weimar Republic and Hitler's rise to power, and then seeing the USA intervene "to stop Hitler"?
There is no safe nuke power. There is only destruction, caused by hubris. The hubris usually looks like greed, but sometimes looks more like naked violence.
Posted by CF Oxtrot | March 19, 2011 10:53 AM
Posted on March 19, 2011 10:53
Did Smith pick the illustration? The radioactive babe looks a touch skinny for his well advertised tastes.
Posted by Boink | March 19, 2011 7:44 PM
Posted on March 19, 2011 19:44
Smith did not.
Posted by MJS | March 19, 2011 10:17 PM
Posted on March 19, 2011 22:17
Yeah, sorry, it was selected more for absurdity than attractiveness, you dirty dogs.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/vote-for-russia/
Posted by FB | March 20, 2011 10:18 AM
Posted on March 20, 2011 10:18
FB, unrelated, but a couple of gems from Kruggeleh today:
"Yes, the White House succeeded in passing significant new financial regulation. But for whatever reason, it failed to change the terms of debate: bankers and the disaster they wrought have faded from view...."
*Whatever the reason*. Hmm, wonder what that reason could be?
And this: "Republicans are offering the administration a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days."
Oh, yes, the administration undoubtedly can't wait to highlight who's in Wall St's pockets!
I sense, perhaps wrongly, that you, like I, give Krug his due. But there's something pathetic about seeing someone (a) walk right up to the precipice of saying what he knows to be true ("whatever the reason") and (b) still, after all evidence to the contrary, somehow suggest that the GOP is uniquely in the pocket of the banksters.
But then again, Krug is a guy who has, with a straight face, claimed that because he toils in Princeton, and is not a part of the DC cocktail circuit, he's somehow removed from the mindset and pressures of power and privilege. Yes, he has really said that.
Posted by chomskyzinn | March 21, 2011 4:39 PM
Posted on March 21, 2011 16:39