U.S. Media Scrambles to Protect Nuclear Power Industry

Another decade, another nuclear disaster. In the 1970s it was Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. In the 1980s it was Chernobyl, which poisoned all of Europe. Now it's six 40-year-old nuclear reactors mismanaged by Tokyo Electric Company (Tepco), an outfit run by mendacious sacks of shit who have been lying for years about their reactors. For example, they recently lied about inspecting 33 key safety parts in the plant- they didn't inspect them. The Japanese nuclear regulators agreed to extend the licenses on these reactors just before the earthquake and tsunami wiped out ALL THREE of their power systems, causing melting of the fuel rods, exposure of spent fuel rods in pools on the roofs (great place for 'em!) of the reactors, and releases of radiation, which has already contaminated food, milk, and the nearby ocean.

The U.S. media has done it's standard song and dance of claiming that the extra radiation is "safe," or not an "immediate health risk." Note the lawyerly weasel word, "immediately." It means you aren't going to die in a week from acute radiation poisoning. Maybe you'll die in a decade or two from cancer, or your damaged genes will cause you to give birth to defective children, and/or pass on genetic damage to future generations.

Another lie they keep repeating is that Three Mile Island (TMI) was a "near meltdown." No, the fuel rods DID MELT. It was a "partial" meltdown, meaning the rods didn't completely melt into puddles of molten metal. The false claim- let's call it a lie, because the facts are readily available, so these "news" organizations surely must know- is that no radiation was released at TMI.

A third lie is that no adverse health effects results from TMI. In fact epidemiological studies have documented increased cancer rates downwind from the meltdown.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency and various Western "nuclear experts" keep lying about the horrific consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. This is made easier for them since the IGNORE ALL THE PUBLISHED RUSSIAN RESEARCH. (They can do that apparently with clear consciences since they don't read Russian, and I guess are too cheap to spring for translators.) The nuclear establishment "experts" claim almost no cancers, and NO birth defects. The Russians say there are up to ONE MILLION cancer cases from Chernobyl, and there are photos of such defects as one-eyed children (a single eye in the center of the forehead) to put the lie to the "no birth defects" canard.

Two of the supposedly most reputable and "respectable" -if not downright august- newspapers have regurgitated these lies- the Wall Street Journal, voice of big capital, and The New York "Newspaper of Record" Times. These are papers aimed at elites here.

Today in fact the Times devoted several pages to minimizing the damage and deceiving about the health risks of the Japanese meltdowns. The media is pretending that Tepco is getting on top of the matter. That's false. Tepco has managed to string new power  lines to some of the reactors. One little hitch- the pumps that are needed to run to pump in cooling water to the reactor cores and spent fuel rod cooling pools WERE DAMAGED by the tsunami. So just as soon as they manage to haul new pumps in and install them in buildings filled with lethal levels of radiation, everything will be just swell.

The ideological fanatics at the WSJ barely waited a day after the disaster to run an editorial AND an op-ed pooh-poohing the situation, and opining that this shouldn't stop the building of LOTS MORE NUKES. In fact, they opined, it would be a shame if this derailed the new, modern nukes supposedly in the works. This was after two explosions had already occured- and a third explosion occurred later that same day. Real convincing, WSJ.

Don't know what it is about the ruling establishment that makes them so fanatically, incorrigibly pro-nuclear.It's an absolutely insane, dangerous technology, run by incompetent greedheads, with no margin for error. Their reassurances and "backups" always are proven to be Potemkin-village type shams. The "back up" generators at the Tepco complex were knocked out at the same time as the external power to run the pumps was lost, and the "fail safe third backup," batteries, only are good for eight hours, max. These irresponsible con men gamble with human lives on the environment we depend on for life. 

And of course, there's the insoluble problem of the wastes these plants generate, unstorable, and dangerous for thousands of years. They're still working on "solving" that little problem. The elephant in the room, it is virually always ignored in establishment media commentary on nuclear power.