UNITE! Info #293en: |
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A debate on Chernobyl and "green" warfare
22.09.2007 |
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Intro noteOn 12.09 I sent also to the newsgroups 'sci.energy' and 'sci.environment' item 311 in my series "News with brief comments", which reported on a recent article at the French-language blog "le pétrole abiotique" saying "The Chernobyl disaster very probably a sabotage". This caused a debate at those newsgroups which in part was a continuation of an earlier one at the Modern Marxism mailing list. Here I'm reproducing first, in Part 1, that NWBC item 311 and then, in Part 2, a reply of mine in that debate, sent yesterday.What I'm pointing to here, once more, is the fact that the ruling imperialist bourgeoisie in the world quite fanatically is striving to make all energy scarce and expensive, something which has important revolutionary consequences. An earlier posting of mine on these issues, from the beginning of that debate at the Modern Marxism list which I mentioned, was reproduced in Info #287en (05.08.2007). On the whole question of the imperialists' "green" warfare against the people in all countries, see also earlier articles listed under that subject in the "Subjects in postings" section of my homepage, and on various big propaganda frauds which are part of that warfare, see several scientific websites which I'm linking to. |
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Part 1: My "News with brief comments" item 311, of 12.09.2007Wednesday, 12 September 2007 (NWBC 311) "The Chernobyl disaster very probably a sabotage"2007-09-12, 11:02 GMT: This the blogger Alain wrote yesterday 11.09.2007 in his important blog in French, mainly dedicated to the origin of oil, at http://petrole-abiotique.blogspot.com/, which also contains articles pointing out that those same powerful reactionaries in the world who are making the oil price be so high are also the propelling forces behind the massive campaign, since many decades back, against nuclear energy. He motivates what he is saying about Chernobyl above all with a close look at the technical details of this disaster in 1986, which cost some 42 people their lives. Yes, very clearly indeed this was a sabotage. Others have noted strong suspicions in this direction several years ago. And in an article published as a leaflet in Swedish on 01.05.2006, reproduced by me in English translation as "UNITE! Info #258en: The reigning system's weakness", Stig Ek and I wrote about this, including also a hypothesis of ours concerning an important part of the motives behind this sabotage, among which, as Alain correctly notes, there certainly was not least that of combating, together with the mass medias' 10,000-folding of the effects of the disaster, peaceful nuclear energy in the whole world. We wrote in that article, noting among other things what it had been possible to ascertain concerning a certain event here in Sweden two months before that so-called "accident" in the then social-imperialist Soviet Union, in 1986 already well under way towards its eventual disintegration five years later, [QUOTE:] And when Gorbachov became president in the Soviet Union in 1985 and wanted to pursue another, though likewise extremely reactionary, policy, one of "green" strangulation of industry together with the ruling persons in the USA, the then still powerful military leaders in the Soviet Union tried to force the Gorbachov group into accepting their own line of massive threats and perhaps even aggression against West Europe, by having their intelligence service the GRU assassinate Sweden's prime minister Palme on 28 February 1986. A scapegoat first got convicted of that murder but was later acquitted, after some people within the establishment here on 24 August 1989 had reported publicly on a certain result of a bugging of a GRU agent in February 1986. It's likely, in our judgement, that the largescale sabotage later, on 26 April 1986, of a nuclear power reactor at Chernobyl which was part of a certain military complex, among other things was intended as a counterattack by the Gorbachov group and/or its US friends, against those Soviet military who among other things had then recently assassinated Palme. That it was a sabotage and not an "accident" that killed 42 people then and caused large material damage is obvious. No less than 6 different safety systems were shut off deliberately in that reactor, where, incidentally, it was possible to cause an explosion only because its moderator consisted of graphite, not of water as in all nuclear power plants in for instance Sweden. The largest damage in this connection has been caused by a massive lie propaganda, which has maintained that those very small extra amounts of radiation which arose in other countries because of the Chernobyl sabotage were "harmful", and not, as are such small amounts, actually good for people's health. [END OF QUOTE] Since the fact mentioned here concerning such small doses of ionizing radiation as those mentioned above no doubt still is unknown to many, and the international mass media since many decades back very much are trying to scare people of all radiation, even such at levels with which people in many regions on earth have always lived, their health in general being better and by no means worse than those with lower levels of natural so-called background radiation, it may be suitable to include here references to two actually scientific websites on this question: On low-dose ionizing radiation, a site managed by S. M. Javad Mortazavi, Ph. D., Iran, and containing articles by scientists in many countries: http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/ T. D. Luckey (USA) on beneficial effects of low-dose ionizing radiation: http://www.giriweb.com/luckey.htm |
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Part 2: A debate reply by me on 21.09.2007[Sent to the newsgroups 'sci.energy' and 'sci.environment' and to the Modern Marxism mailing list, as message #258 at that list]Re: "The Chernobyl disaster very probably a sabotage" This can be said to be a continuation of an earlier debate at the Modern Marxism list, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modern_marxism/. It has continued at the newsgroups 'sci.energy' and 'sci.environment'. I'm sending this reply of mine to the MM list too. The headline here is from what the blogger Alain wrote on 11.09 at the French-language blog http://petrole-abiotique.blogspot.com/, as quoted by me. He, though not a Marx adherent, agrees with me in saying that precisely those very powerful small cliques in the world who ridiculously are saying that oil has a "biological" origin and thus is "scarce" in the world - covering up their manipulations to make its price be excessively high - are the same who from the beginning on have orchestrated the anti-nuclear-energy campaign in the world. David Walters however heatedly has argued: "No, that campaign does not at all come from the ruling reactionaries" and "These are not at all waging a massive 'green', anti-industrial, warfare against the people in the world." It's important however to see that that's precisely what they're doing. On Sep 20, 12:48 am, rolf.martens@comhem.se (Rolf Martens) wrote: [In an earlier reply to Daestrom, at the newsgroups:] I knew at the time too that Carter was a nuclear engineer. But your statement saying he was "not" anti-nuclear-energy is very wrong and a bit fantastic, considering his trying to prevent West Germany from selling nuclear power technology to Brazil - just to take one small example - and also the fact that under his presidency, the construction of nuclear power plants in the USA itself continued to be zero. Concerning TMI in 1979, I've pointed to the particular political situation then and also to a couple of "strange coincidences": The release of the film "The China Syndrome" 2 weeks before that event, and the small newspaper York Dispatch's on 21.03.1979, one week in advance, pointing to "an accident" in precisely TMI 2 precisely on 28.03. Interesting, huh? Rolf M. www.rolf-martens.com [David <dave.walters@comcast.net>:] In this I agree with Rolf: Carter, it turns out, and this is widely accepted now in the US nuclear industry, was anti-nuclear. Yes, he went to Harrisburg to calm everyone down, but he then did nothing to dispel the myths and other propaganda that turned at that time and afterwards most Americans anti-nuclear. [Rolf:] The mass media, from the late 1960s on more and more anti-nuclear-energy, maintained that [they] with their own propaganda had succeeded in fooling most people in the USA at that time. This is most likely another big lie of theirs. Here in Sweden, it was so obvious that most people remained pro-nuclear-energy also after the TMI manipulation in 1979 and the much-increased media howling then that the ruling cliques here, under pressure from their "overlords" the US ones, had to cheat totally in a fantastic "referendum" here in 1980, allowing only "No" votes and no "Yes" ones at all, so as to achieve their wanted, purported, "No" "result" for propaganda use also in other countries. The fanaticism in this big lie about what people thought shows how very fanatically, already then, the main forces of the bourgeoisie in the world were combating the peaceful use of nuclear energy. [David:] Was TMI a god-send to the anti-nuclear movement? Yes, obviously it was. But already 60 or so of the planned NPPs were scrapped. Rolf and I disagree why this was the case, he sees it as nefarious politics on part of the ruling class (the same ruling class, I suppose, that started construction and developing plans to start with?) One has to ask if the US ruling class was ever pro-nuclear in Rolf's mind, and if "no", then why build ANY power plants? [Rolf:] No, there's no need to ask me that, since I've already written much precisely about this, as you David ought to know. I've written that already at an early stage, the US imperialists wanted to prevent peaceful nuclear energy in the world. They were forced to accept it anyway, after the then still socialist Soviet Union had built the first nuclear power plant in the world, at Obninsk, in 1954, and the UK for instance built the second, at Calder Hall, in 1956. Only as the third country in the world did the USA, though leading by far in nuclear technology of course, build its first civilian plant, at Shippingport, in 1957. Thus, during a certain period, the US ruling class did build some nuclear power plants "at home" too. Then as a counter-reaction (explained by Marx 120 years earlier) against the broad leftist movement in the late 1960s, the US imperialists began their more and more fanatical campaign against peaceful nuclear energy in the whole world, and also their parallel one against cheap oil, causing the first "oil crisis" in 1973-74. From then on, they have combated both nuclear energy and also everything else that could make energy cheaper, more and more intensively. Their present massive war threats against Iran, for instance, are not only over a possibly later developed nuclear weapon in defence against their own massive nuclear-weapons-blackmail against the poorer countries but also for preventing that some such get peaceful nuclear energy to meet their pressing energy needs. [David:] The US (along with Britain) was exceptional in the way way plants were designed, as if they were coddled royalty with each one designed. The average US power plant costs FOUR TIMES what a French power plant did. Some times 10 times! It was insane and...honestly, un[su]stainable within the anarchic capitalist power plant construction industry. Even though a minority of companies went bankrupt, private equity dried up. It was a waste of money as seen from the short or intermediate term from capitalist investment. Had they thought out 30 years or 40 years, they would [have] been rolling money as eventually the plants paid for themselves and then some. Producing power at $13/MWhr and selling it for $50 to $100/MWhr is an amazing rate of return. [Rolf:] This is in line with your argument: "Nuclear energy too expensive in the USA in the early 1970s". Not correct. From 1957 on, it certainly had not been "too expensive" there either; then why should it suddenly have been so 10-15 years later? And of course, that whole technology for electricity production has long been the cheapest by far, as is well-known internationally. [David:] But at that time, in the US, most Americans had had it with nuclear energy. [A mass media lie too, as I already have pointed out. - Rolf] World wide, however, Japan, S. Korea, they STARTED building NPPs. The ruling classes of those countries used state funds to build their plants. From 0% in the 1970s, S. Korea, arguably a client state of the US, went to 40% nuclear in the 1990s. This contradicts everything Rolf was arguing about...how can imperialism be against nuclear energy in one country and be for it in an other. [Rolf:] It certainly does not contradict that which I've pointed out. South Korea, in which Japan has a large influence too, a country strong enough to have withstood in part the "anti" campaign of above all the US imperialists, is a certain exception to that fact which you quoted also (see below), that since long the proportion of nuclear in the world's electricity production is stagnating or even declining. The ruling bourgeoisie as a whole in the world very obviously, thus, is abandoning precisely that most superior energy source. And why? Karl Marx gave the basic reply to this, 120-150 years ago. See below. [David:] Rolf, in another post, argues that world wide nuclear power slipped from 17 to 16%. Numbers don't lie....actually, NPP GREW in absolute terms but shrunk as an overall percentage due to the rapid growth of then cheap natural gas plants. I worked at one of these plants in 2001. They go up in 18 months and start making 500 MWs of power for about $300 Million USD. Coal and gas continued at a huge rate, the Greenies helped slow down and stop construction (although not in France or Spain) in many countries. [Rolf:] That most superior energy source shrinking in percentage compared to others already shows that the bourgeoisie is retreating towards less advanced ones. And that "growth" in absolute terms since long had been close to nil. Instead of the 2000 nuclear power reactors originally envisaged for the year 2000, there are only some 440. In 2003-2006 there was not even any growth in absolute terms either. The rather fast and natural growth of that energy source's use in the world, up until the early 1970s, was slowed down considerably already then, and has now been replaced with an abandoning of it, an abandoning whose tempo is even increasing. This is one thing which shows the utter bankruptcy of bourgeois rule in the world. That rule now is causing horrendous energy price rises, hitting the poorer countries very hard and causing considerable poverty also in the "rich" ones. [David:] The quote Rolf has used says nothing really about Marx's view on industry under capitalism. His whole work: Capital, shows the industrializing nature of nascent capitalism and the expansion of the productive forces, which continued unabated until August of 1914. That it grew in a contradictory form is without question, but Rolf's peculiar view that capitalists don't like nuclear (but like auto plants? Like coal plants? Like electronics?) doesn't make any particular economic sense in most cases. [Rolf:] True, Marx' Capital does show the industrializing role of the nascent capitalism. And that role has later not vanished completely either, but the thing is, as already Marx pointed out too, it more and more is turning into an opposite one, concerning industry. It has been some quotes from Marx about the not any longer nascent capitalism, about how it more and more was coming into conflict with those productive forces which it was engendering, already back in the 19th century, that I have repeated. They already show the reason why the bourgeoisie today, its leading political forces - who on this point also come into conflict with some industrial capitalists who see their profit possibilities diminished by the constantly upwards-manipulated energy prices, but who are concerned with the very survival of the capitalist exploitation system as a whole - hate nuclear energy like the pest, and even more and more hate cheap oil too, ridiculously maintaining that it's "scarce", ridiculously loudly howling about an invented "manmade global warming" "caused by" oil use etc, even criminally wanting to replace oil with ethanol from farmlands, thus also making the food prices rise enormously too. You even wrote, David, that it was "crazy" of me to say that these things which Marx correctly pointed out basically explained, more than 100 years ago, the motive behind the bourgeoisie's present massive "green" warfare against the people, which you also even wrote it was "a rant" of mine to point to as a fact in the world. I mean these three statements by Marx, which I'm repeating here again: The first two are from a speech in London in 1856 (see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1856/04/14.htm) "Steam, electricity, and the self acting mule were revolutionists of a rather more dangerous character than even citizens Barbès, Raspail and Blanqui."And: "This antagonism between modern industry and science on the one hand, modern misery and dissolution on the other hand; this antagonism between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted. Some parties may wail over it; others may wish to get rid of modern arts, in order to get rid of modern conflicts. Or they may imagine that so signal a progress in industry wants to be completed by as signal a regress in politics."The third is from a first draft of a letter to Vera Zasulich in Russia in 1881 (see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm) "[T]he capitalist social system...in Western Europe as well as in the United States, [is] engaged in battle both with science, with the popular masses, and with the very productive forces it engenders".It's that battle that today has become very intensive, and it's a global one. This the actual Marx adherents need to see, and to point out to everybody. It's a fact which has important revolutionary consequences. Those ruling persons, whose mass media still so loudly are repeating their ridiculous propaganda lies against nuclear energy, "don't" hate that energy source like the pest, you say? With their factually so ridiculous propaganda howling "We'll soon run out of oil!" and "There's dangerous manmade global warming!", they "don't" even hate cheap oil too, in your judgment? [David:] Where it does make sense is that under influence of carbon interests, some capitalists will oppose nuclear energy as a direct economic threat to the petroleum economy. But this is actually a minority. [Rolf:] That's not at all what's mainly taking place. You're mentioning here only some smaller inter-capitalist rivalries. The BIG thing in the world in this respect is that the main bourgeois forces are making ALL energy scarce and expensive on purpose, out of that motive which already Marx detected. ´ [David:] The facts are in: nuclear power is now growing. 6 plants in Japan under construction and more planed. 2 more in S. Korea and maybe up to 6 more bringing THEIR % up to 60%. Romania puts on line last month yet another NPP. The rejuvenation of NPPs is what is causing panic among Rolf's (and mine) enemies among the greens. They are PANICKING at what is going on, so why is Rolf so pessimistic? David [Rolf:] You're loudly hailing - as are the bourgeois mass media too - that mini-scale construction of nuclear power plants that still is going on in the world as "something very big", even as "a rejuvenation" of that energy source, when in fact it's being abandoned faster and faster, the new plants not even being enough to replace those which have been shut down. (One of them, for instance, most scandalously, rather close to where I live - see http://www.save-nukeplant-barsebaeck.com/.) If the bourgeoisie as a whole had not come to combat that most superior energy source, as it has, beginning in the early 1970s, there would have been no explanation why this is not being done in the world today - as experience here in Sweden in 1970-1985 showed it's possible and rather easy for any such relatively highly-developed country to do - for each 1 million of people to build 1 nuclear power reactor of 1 GW in a period of 15 years. That is, for Germany, some 80 such, for the USA, some 300, for China and India - assuming these countries have at least one-fifth of the construction capability of the more advanced countries - some 260 respectively 240, in such a period of 15 years. "Panic" among the "greens" - those anti-industrial propaganda forces who were created by the imperialists themselves, in the first place, some 30-40 years ago? Not at all. Those forces always had as their mission to howl very loudly as soon as the very smallest new industry was being built, respectively one temporarily saved from utter destruction. For them, the most rabidly destructive actions by their ruling reactionary masters could never be rabid enough. Those ventriloquists' dummies have always been saying to these masters of theirs: "Why, you profit-mad super-industrialists, are you leaving this and that industry still standing, considering they were only built out of profit motives and we, who represent the people, have never had any use for them?" Am I being pessimistic, concerning what the ruling reactionaries are doing and concerning what they're blaming this on? No, this most massive "green" warfare on their part is going on; this it's necessary to see and to point out to everybody. There's no "optimism" in denying this fact, as you so wrongly are doing, David. I'm pointing out to people that the massively continuing lies against nuclear energy in their mass media should not be believed, but are due to ulterior motives of theirs, that their fantasies about oil's "being scarce" and "the planet's warming dangerously" likewise are false and due to the same ulterior, very reactionary motives and that for putting an end to these attacks of theirs - which these things are, something which you however so very "optimistically" are denying, David - proletarian revolution is both necessary and possible, will make mankind's utilization of those enormous natural resources which there are a most natural thing, once that big "plug" against this, the rule of the bourgeoisie on this planet, is pulled out. Rolf M. www.rolf-martens.com |
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