When people think of a stereotypical ghoulish corporation that would melt their workers into glue after they collapsed from working 50 years in a mine for scrip they are thinking about Union Carbide.
The other one I like to compare is: in the decades that the Berlin Wall - the ultimate symbol of eeeevil gommunist authoritian totalitarianism - existed, fewer people were killed attempting to cross the wall than were murdered by a single US bomb that landed on a girls’ school in Iran in a single day.
I do not know the number of Palestinians that have been murdered by the IOF just for approaching the intentionally vague “yellow line” since the “ceasefire” months ago, but I’m certain it’s higher than the Berlin Wall fatalities.
I mean, I feel like it's at least in part because one of the two still has an exclusion zone today...
Reading up on it though, Bhopal definitely should have one
Related:
in the end estimated 50-60.000 people died from cancer related to Chernobyl.
What about Dow chemical, or Monsanto?
I mean what about ww2? All terrible disasters, but the concept was "chernobyl was not small made bigger by capitalism for fearmongering, it was huge all along". Then we can also discuss how terrible and how many victims capitalism brought, just don't base it on a lie or you'll just loose the trust of other people. Whataboutism doesn't help either, you are deflecting when you already have a lot of other potential arguments. Be better.
It's because of the potential. Had Chernobyl gone extra wrong (eg had the people in charge there not responded correctly), millions could be hurt, and not just in the Soviet Union. It also dominated the news for months in Europe, with the memory of having to throw away certain homegrown vegetables due to radiation being engraved into the collective consciousness.
Additionally the Bhopal catastrophe happened to Indians and people in the West generally care little for them, due to racism and distance.
No, it's because it made excellent propaganda, lol.
I knew about Bhopal, but I didn't know it was Union Carbide. Fun fact: Union Carbide ran the Oak Ridge enrichment site for the Manhattan project. They also created the largest American industrial disaster with the Hawk's Nest tunnel disaster. It killed over 700 miners from silicosis by ignoring safety practices. They were bought by Dow Chemicals in 2001. I guess Dow didn't like the competition in the "be a horrible chemical company" market.
As someone who was alive and nearly a legal adult at this time, I can say that the Bhopal disaster was widely reported on by mainstream media. It's not all that well-remembered today, but neither would Chernobyl be if not for that miniseries and the memes it generated. It's less the result of capitalist propaganda and more the result of our innate apathy towards what happens to brown people halfway around the world.
but neither would Chernobyl be if not for that miniseries and the memes it generated.
What? Chernobyl was widely known between 1986 and 2019. The whole world isn't memes, bro.
Alive for neither; one of those is taught in US history classes, the other is not. The miniseries gave it a resurgence for sure, but even before that "Chernobyl" has been a proper noun on the list of key words to associate with the Cold War.
What do you think the Chernobyl series was exactly, and why do you think it was made?
A Marxist-Leninist hitpiece on Gorbachev's revisionism, obviously
The british accents are a metaphor for party degradation due to destalinization
🤣
There is a miniseries about Bhopal on Netflix. It’s done in a similar fashion to the Chernobyl one.
Idk how accurate it was though, but they did not portray union carbide positively
Obligatory, there’s a Behind the Bastards about this, a pretty good one
I'm one of today's lucky 10,000 for Bhopal. Horrific.
Yeah I like the sentiment, but no Chernobyl absolutely did not have such a small effect. Minimizing these things, especially when so well known, just fucks up our position. Reality denial isn't an effective way to advocate or to make people aware of the horrors of capitalism. All it does is train the average person to assume left wing points are childishly exaggerated. This is, in part, why capitalist propaganda is so easy.
Here we just accept the official number and ignore all other effects. If we took the same path with the Bhopaal disaster, we'd have to ignore all the non-fatal poisonings and believe uncritically the official instant death count of just over 2,200 ignoring any deaths to come afterwards. That would be stupid
Chernobyl was a terrible disaster that harmed an absurd amount of people, de-homed thousands, and damaged the ecosystem of the wider area. Its effects and danger are still present to this day and could have been much, much worse if not for the work of those who fixed the massive fuck up.
Both the Bhopal disaster and the Chernobyl disaster were bred by incompetence, corruption, and a general failure to care for the worker and the general population.
Now, if we were to keep a leaderboard, capitalism wins by many miles in the awfulness department. That's the note we should take, that's the drum we should beat.
It wasn't socialism that caused Chernobyl. If the workers, those who built and conceived of the soviet nuclear reactors, were in charge they would have put in the safe guards they advocated for well before this disaster. They were not allowed to and the consequence was a meltdown. That's why we should give the power to the worker. The Bhopal disaster? Capital was the determiner for who had power, and those in power caused the disaster. It was the fault of capitalism as capitalism was allowed to build Union Carbide with little in its way.
Edit: Changed Russian to soviet, re-aranged paragraphs, added clarity
The chernobyl disaster also had the chance to be much, much worse than it was. The only reason it wasn't worse was the sacrifices of the people.
Critically, the working classes were in charge of Chernobyl. Their mistakes were mistakes made by workers. The worker is not infallible.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become a haven for wildlife, with species such as lynx, bison, and deer thriving in the area due to the absence of human activity for over three decades. This has led to a richer forest ecosystem and increased biodiversity, making it one of the largest nature reserves in mainland Europe.
Also even if you take the most exaggerated numbers about Chernobyl and Fukushima combined, it's still just something we should just ignore. It was a small blip. Per megawatthour produced, nuclear energy is still by far the safest energy, safer than solar (because people fall off of roofs).
Instead you're not just resisting, you're actually angrily rebuking and scolding OP's attempt to put these two catastrophes into perspective. You apply a double standard to how factually accurate a shitpost has to be vs the global capitalist propaganda machine.
Capitalist propaganda is effective.
Board representation for workers needs to be a universal rallying cry
EVERY WORKER A MEMBER OF THE BOARD!
Hey its the guy helping me find my gun
My dad had just gotten me a hamster and we fed it lettuce that was affected. Fuckers killed my hamster. I'm just glad I didn't eat it I guess. Poor little guy, I was heartbroken.
They only paid $470 million (equivalent to $1.03 billion in 2024)?? That's not even 56 k$ (2024) per person. What in the fuck.
UCC had participated in decades of previous instances of "environmental negligence in every part of the world", directing its "responsibility… to its shareholders", and numerous dealings with local and international political and economic powers.
Wait_its_all_about_shareholders_Always_has_been.jpg
TIL Chernobyl has been re categorised as an oopsie
more of an oopsie than a murder squad murdering people ig
Union Carbide Productions
Awesome 90s underground rock
We remember
Rules TBD.
