Chris Hedges: How Fascism Came
By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost, 23 Dec 24
For over two decades, I and a handful of others — Sheldon Wolin, Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Barbara Ehrenreich and Ralph Nader — warned that the expanding social inequality and steady erosion of our democratic institutions, including the media, the Congress, organized labor, academia and the courts, would inevitably lead to an authoritarian or Christian fascist state. My books — “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2007), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), written with Joe Sacco, “Wages of Rebellion” (2015) and “America: The Farewell Tour” (2018) were a succession of impassioned pleas to take the decay seriously. I take no joy in being correct.
“The rage of those abandoned by the economy, the fears and concerns of a beleaguered and insecure middle class, and the numbing isolation that comes with the loss of community, would be the kindling for a dangerous mass movement,” I wrote in “American Fascists” in 2007. “If these dispossessed were not reincorporated into mainstream society, if they eventually lost all hope of finding good, stable jobs and opportunities for themselves and their children — in short, the promise of a brighter future — the specter of American fascism would beset the nation. This despair, this loss of hope, this denial of a future, led the desperate into the arms of those who promised miracles and dreams of apocalyptic glory.”
President-elect Donald Trump does not herald the advent of fascism. He heralds the collapse of the veneer that masked the corruption within the ruling class and their pretense of democracy. He is the symptom, not the disease. The loss of basic democratic norms began long before Trump, which paved the road to an American totalitarianism. Deindustrialization, deregulation, austerity, unchecked predatory corporations, including the health-care industry, wholesale surveillance of every American, social inequality, an electoral system that is plagued by legalized bribery, endless and futile wars, the largest prison population in the world, but most of all feelings of betrayal, stagnation and despair, are a toxic brew that culminate in an inchoate hatred of the ruling class and the institutions they have deformed to exclusively serve the rich and the powerful. The Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans.
“Trump and his coterie of billionaires, generals, half-wits, Christian fascists, criminals, racists, and moral deviants play the role of the Snopes clan in some of William Faulkner’s novels,” I wrote in “America: The Farewell Tour.” “The Snopeses filled the power vacuum of the decayed South and ruthlessly seized control from the degenerated, former slaveholding aristocratic elites. Flem Snopes and his extended family — which includes a killer, a pedophile, a bigamist, an arsonist, a mentally disabled man who copulates with a cow, and a relative who sells tickets to witness the bestiality — are fictional representations of the scum now elevated to the highest level of the federal government. They embody the moral rot unleashed by unfettered capitalism.”
…………………………………………………………………… The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin called our system of governance “inverted totalitarianism,” one that kept the old iconography, symbols and language, but had surrendered power to corporations and oligarchs. Now we will shift to totalitarianism’s more recognizable form, one dominated by a demagogue and an ideology grounded in the demonization of the other, hypermasculinity and magical thinking.
Fascism is always the bastard child of a bankrupt liberalism.
“We live in a two-tiered legal system, one where poor people are harassed, arrested and jailed for absurd infractions, such as selling loose cigarettes — which led to Eric Garner being choked to death by the New York City police in 2014 — while crimes of appalling magnitude by the oligarchs and corporations, from oil spills to bank fraud in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which wiped out 40 percent of the world’s wealth, are dealt with through tepid administrative controls, symbolic fines, and civil enforcement that give these wealthy perpetrators immunity from criminal prosecution,” I wrote in “America: The Farewell Tour.”
The utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism is a vast con. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, was funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, fueling the worst economic inequality since the age of the robber barons. The working poor, whose unions and rights were stripped from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment…………………………………………………
“The permanent lie is the apotheosis of totalitarianism,” I wrote in “America: The Farewell Tour”:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
It is not going to get better. The tools to shut down dissent have been cemented into place. Our democracy cratered years ago. We are in the grip of what Søren Kierkegaard called “sickness unto death” — the numbing of the soul by despair that leads to moral and physical debasement. All Trump has to do to establish a naked police state is flip a switch. And he will.
“The worse reality becomes, the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it,” I wrote at the conclusion of “Empire of Illusion,” “and the more it distracts itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns, gossip and trivia. These are the debauched revels of a dying civilization.” https://scheerpost.com/2024/12/23/chris-hedges-how-fascism-came/
Israeli Attacks in Gaza Kill at Least 32 More Palestinians Over 24 Hours
Many children were killed by Israeli strikes across the Strip on Sunday
by Dave DeCamp, December 22, 2024 , https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/22/israeli-attacks-in-gaza-kill-at-least-32-more-palestinians-over-24-hours/
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded 54 over the previous 24-hour period as children were slaughtered across the Strip.
The ministry’s numbers only account for dead and wounded Palestinians who arrived at hospitals and don’t factor in those missing under the rubble or in besieged areas rescuers are unable to access.
“There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said.
Israeli attacks on Sunday included the bombing of a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. According to Gaza’s Civil Defense, the strike killed at least eight Palestinians, including four children.
Israeli strikes also targeted Jabalia, northern Gaza, which has been under total siege since early October as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. According to Al Jazeera, the strikes killed at least five Palestinians, including four children.
Another child was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a group of people in the Burej refugee camp in central Gaza.
Overnight Israeli strikes hit a home in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, at least five were killed, and women and children were among the dead.
A day earlier, Al Jazeera reported that an Israeli strike that hit a home in Jabalia on Friday evening killed at least 12, including seven children. “All of the martyrs are from the same family, including seven children, the oldest aged six,” Gaza’s Civil Defense said in a telegram post about the strike.
Later on Sunday, Israeli strikes hit the al-Mawasi camp, which Israel has labeled a so-called “safe zone” but has come under repeated IDF attacks. At least seven were killed in the camp by strikes that targeted tents.
The Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its recorded death toll since October 2023 to 45,259 and the number of wounded to 107,627.
In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
Will the legacy of nuclear power ever disappear from our coasts?
BANNG 17th Dec 2024,
https://www.banng.info/news/regional-life/nuclear-power-legacy/
Andrew Blowers tackles this ongoing question in the December 2024 issue of Regional Life magazine
Back in the last century a fleet of nuclear power stations emerged, their bulky and threatening presence dominating peaceful and often precious, protected coastal environments. Now most have been retired and are in the long process of decommissioning and waste management before all traces of their existence can be erased a century or more from now. Or not…. If plans for new nuclear fructify, then the nuclear presence on our coasts may never disappear.
It is a little difficult to recall Bradwell in past times, a sinister presence on the low shoreline, with its silent reactors and the turbines howling throughout the night; its garish lighting polluting the night sky. Today Bradwell power station is silent and in darkness, its turbines demolished and its reactors shrouded within a huge box clad in grey and blue.
The ecological impact of nuclear power stations is both visible and invisible. Within these structures dangerous radioactive wastes are stored for generations and the risks of radioactive releases, accidental or deliberate (cyber, warfare, terrorism) are incalculable. And, in the age of accelerating climate change, these plants are at risk from sea-level rise, storm surges, flooding and erosion which will inflict yet more grief on future populations.
For existing stations and those currently under construction, there are plans to adapt to changing conditions through massive sea defences and removal of the wastes to a deep repository – if a suitable host rock and willing community can be found. This will be a daunting challenge but greatly exacerbated if a fleet of new nuclear stations is built, leaving vast volumes of wastes to be managed indefinitely on vanishing shores into the far future.
Hinkley Point C
The gigantic Hinkley Point C on the Somerset coast is currently the largest construction site in Europe with a 12,000 workforce and drastic shortage of accommodation for local people. Once operating, it will kill millions of fish, sucked in through its cooling water intake pipes. EDF, the developer, is trying to avoid providing mitigating Acoustic Fish Deterrents (AFD), perversely hoping that by the creation of a saltwater marsh, fish and other marine life will automatically migrate there.
New nuclear is already impacting environments in Somerset and the Suffolk coast is afflicted by preparations for Sizewell C.
Sizewell C
The site lies within a designated National Landscape adjacent to the RSPB’s flagship sanctuary at Minsmere as well as to other designated sites. SZC has not yet got the finance to go ahead but the demolition of a treasured woodland and trashing of other areas has already scarred a wide area in preparation for roads, rail lines, transformer buildings. All in advance of a project that may never materialise. These are premature, wanton acts of vandalism.
Fortunately, the destruction already endured in Somerset and that beginning in Suffolk can be avoided in Essex where proposals for a giant, new nuclear power station which would have inflicted untold damage on the marine and terrestrial environments of the Blackwater region were pushed back by BANNG and other stakeholders.
Now nuclear’s moment may be passing and our energy future lies in other directions, far less dangerous and with far less damaging impacts on the environment for future generations to cope with.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Releases Report Confirming Radioactive Material Lost in Transit — Shipping Container Arrives Damaged and Empty in New Jersey
WCBM: Dec. 18, 2024,
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has confirmed that radioactive material was lost in transit earlier this month, heightening fears about public safety and sparking theories about mysterious drone activity in New Jersey.
Officer Lew, a prominent political commentator, highlighted the NRC’s event report during a review of regulatory alerts.
“While looking at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Alerts. I can confirm that there is radioactive material that has gone missing on Dec 2nd, 2024 out of New Jersey. This might be the reason for the drones… just speculation at this point,” he wrote.
The missing material, identified as a Ge-68 pin source manufactured by Eckert & Ziegler, was reported lost by its licensee on December 3, 2024. Shipped for disposal, the container arrived at its destination severely damaged and empty.
According to the NRC’s report, the radioactive source, while classified as “Less than IAEA Category 3,” still poses potential risks if mishandled or exposed for prolonged periods.
According to the report:………………………………………….more https://wcbm.com/national-headline/u-s-nuclear-regulatory-commission-releases-report-confirming-radioactive-material-lost-in-transit-shipping-container-arrives-damaged-and-empty-in-new-jersey/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHUIsVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaC7ofrCr2kLP94TcSi7EYfOtaubssy-0TKBwUEdQvNgm4uJEV2_JCc9yQ_aem_BLSGE-89x-qjcSu3l2UQqw
Week to 23 December – news counteracting the nuclear-military-industrial-media complex.
Some bits of good news
– Incredible progress in reducing infant mortality in South Asia – UNICEF,
India extended health coverage to millions of elderly citizens, The green economy defied sceptics
TOP STORIES
Syria Today, Iran Tomorrow, and Inevitably China.
Finding the Unmentionable: Amnesty International, Israel and Genocide. Israel’s War on Gaza Is a War on Children.
SpaceX Wants to Increase Launches at Boca Chica Without a Full Environmental Review.
Olkiluoto 3 has been a financial catastrophe for Areva, Siemens.
Dutton said a reactor’s waste would fill a Coke can: Try 27,000 of them.
Climate. World’s largest iceberg on the move again after months spinning on the spot.
Noel’s notes. ‘Tis the season to be fake about nuclear power, AI, plastic leaves, and a lot of other things.
******************************
AUSTRALIA. The LNP’s nuclear policy is working just fine. Don’t want nuclear power’: Wild scenes as protestors storm Perth’s CBD during inquiry into nuclear energy.
The Coalition is playing voters for mugs once again with its nuclear costings. Coalition’s nuclear plan will hit Earth with 1.7bn extra tonnes of CO2 before 2050. The glaring gaps and unanswered questions in the Coalition’s nuclear plan and costings. More Australian nuclear news headlines at https://antinuclear.net/2024/12/17/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-17-23-december/
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| ART and CULTURE. Power, control and symbolic masculinity: How Freud might diagnose the pro nuclear lobby |
| ATROCITIES. Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza. |
| CLIMATE. Major report joins dots between world’s nature challenges. |
| ECONOMICS.Privatizing Syria: US Plans to Sell Off A Nation’s Wealth After Assad.U.S. Corporate Land Grab in Ukraine Underlies War With Russia.France’s most powerful nuclear reactor joins grid after €13bn holdup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32XKveP01x4Foreign company withdraws from plans for Swedish nuclear power. |
| ENVIRONMENT. Risky Revival: How Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant could impact agriculture . Will the legacy of nuclear power ever disappear from our coasts?. |
| LEGAL. Nuclear company Orano seeks arbitration over Niger mining licence. |
| POLITICS. Martial Law Fiasco Casts Doubt Over Korea’s Nuclear Power Push. Starmer backs minister accused of embezzling billions in Bangladesh. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Israel, not the ‘liberators’ of Damascus, will decide Syria’s fate. Blinken Confirms the US Is in Direct Contact With al-Qaeda-Linked HTS. Blinded to Syria. How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus. |
SAFETY.
- Europe fears nuclear catastrophe: This plant sets off all alarms due to risk of explosion.
- Nuclear Power Plants Report Massive Uptick In Drone Sightings. Drone Incursions Closed Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night.
- Missing nuclear package sparks major search after ‘very dangerous’ radioactive container vanishes on its way to Spanish airport.
- Aldermaston nuclear bomb factory makes explosives error.
- Incidents. Radioactive spill reported in Northeast Ohio nuclear power plant. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Releases Report Confirming Radioactive Material Lost in Transit — Shipping Container Arrives Damaged and Empty in New Jersey.
| SECRETS and LIES. “I don’t care if its tainted money”: Council leader’s telling admission in Nuclear Waste Services cash grab debate. |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. US Space Force conducts ‘simulated on-orbit combat’ training. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear shipping will face significant challenges. |
Decommissioning. ‘Long journey ahead’ for nuclear plant clean-up. Final German nuclear power plant enters dismantling phase.
| WAR AND CONFLICT On Ukraine war, will Trump channel JFK or LBJ? Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria. Overnight Israeli Strike In Syria So Large It Caused Earthquake. Trump And Israel Can’t Wait To Start Bombing Iran. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. With no real enemies, US poised to spend $1.8 trillion for national security in 2025. Despite 100% Pentagon Audit Failure Rate, House Passes $883.7 Billion NDAA. Israel’s not-so-secret nuclear weapons. |
Israel’s War on Gaza Is a War on Children
Children in Gaza are not merely collateral damage; they are often actively being targeted.
By Henry A. Giroux , Truthout, December 21, 2024
In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”
It is no wonder why the statistic, which came from a survey of families with disabled, injured or unaccompanied children, is so bleak. Amnesty International’s recent report lays bare the magnitude of the crisis: “Israel’s actions … have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.”
This unfathomable suffering — inflicted disproportionately on women and children — represents a moral abomination, a political travesty, and a militaristic cruelty of the highest order. The destruction of lives, institutions and essential humanitarian infrastructure goes beyond the annihilation of a people; it constitutes an assault on future generations and the very fabric of our shared humanity. Genocidal language dehumanizes and legitimizes the unthinkable: an indiscriminate war waged against the most defenseless — children.
Israel’s war on Palestinian youth is genocidal — not only in the starvation, maiming and unimaginable killing of children but in its relentless assault on any viable notion of what it means for these young people to be valued, human and alive with hope. It seeks to strip them of their dignity, rendering them invisible and unworthy in the eyes of the world, as if their lives are expendable, their dreams inconsequential. This overpowering violence amounts to what we may term childcide, which is the deliberate or systematic destruction of children, whether through direct violence, neglect, or the conditions of war and oppression that render them uniquely vulnerable. It is a traumatic manifestation of collective failure — a war against innocence, in which the fragile promise of childhood is extinguished before it can bloom. In Gaza, where children face relentless bombings, displacement and deprivation, childcide becomes not just an act of violence but a moral collapse: the erasure of futures, dreams and entire generations. It is a crime not only against the child but against humanity itself, leaving behind a void that no words can fill and no justice can fully repair…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://truthout.org/articles/israels-war-on-gaza-is-a-war-on-children/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=bdbe0251d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_12_21_08_06_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-5f034c9084-650192793
HS: Olkiluoto 3 has been a financial catastrophe for Areva, Siemens
Helsinki Times 19th Dec 2024 Finland , https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/25890-hs-olkiluoto-3-has-been-a-financial-catastrophe-for-areva-siemens.html
THE THIRD REACTOR of Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant has been a financial disaster for the two plant suppliers, France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens, writes Helsingin Sanomat.
Helsinki guide
Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the company operating the plant, communicated last week that the suppliers have pledged to inject an additional 80 million euros in capital into a fund set up to guarantee the completion of activities during the warranty period.
“The funds reserved for their completion in the fund mechanism were depleted in the autumn of 2024” the company wrote in a press release issued on 12 December.
The third plant unit has experienced numerous faults and disruptions since it was officially inaugurated in 2022. TVO ordered the plant from the suppliers under a turnkey agreement for a fixed price of roughly three billion euros more than 20 years ago. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2005, with the completion date set for 2009.
Ultimately, the unit was completed 14 years behind schedule, with the original budget comfortably exceeded. The unit began commercial electricity production in mid-2023.
Helsingin Sanomat on 12 December reminded that Areva estimated already in 2012 that the plant would ultimately cost around 8.5 billion euros. The endeavour eventually bankrupt the company, resulting in intense talks in 2016 as the French government decided to incorporate healthy parts of the company into the state-owned Électricité de France (EDF). The concern was that the plant supplier would not be left with the funds and expertise to complete the project.
Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza
Authorities’ Widespread Deprivation of Water Threatens Survival
Human Rights Watch 19 Dec 24
Israeli authorities have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.
In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide. The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.
- Governments and international organizations should take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, including discontinuing military assistance, reviewing bilateral agreements and diplomatic relations, and supporting the International Criminal Court and other accountability efforts.
(Jerusalem) – Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
In the 179-page report, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water,” Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.
“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 66 Palestinians from Gaza, 4 employees of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), 31 healthcare professionals, and 15 people working with United Nations agencies and international aid organizations in Gaza. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery, photographs, and videos captured between the beginning of the hostilities in October 2023 and September 2024, as well as data collected and estimates produced by doctors, epidemiologists, humanitarian aid organizations, and water and sanitation experts.
Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli authorities have intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza in whole or in part. This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to one of the five “acts of genocide” under the Genocide Convention of 1948. Genocidal intent may also be inferred from this policy, coupled with statements suggesting some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, and therefore the policy may amount to the crime of genocide.
Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”
That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza
Radioactive spill reported in Northeast Ohio nuclear power plant
Dec. 18, 2024, By Zachary Smith, cleveland.com
PERRY, Ohio — At least 78 gallons of water containing radioactive chemicals were spilled at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County in 2024, according to a voluntary report from its parent corporation, Texas-based Vistra Corp.
In its report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Vistra says that on Oct. 14, “manipulation of a lid upon a container holding radiological waste” in an outdoor radiologically-controlled area spilled “contaminated water from the container” onto the ground of the Lake County facility.
When plant personnel conducted subsequent research into the event, they found that a total of “78.5 gallons of contaminated water had spilled to the ground” since January 2024, according to the report. Vistra described that figure as a “conservative” estimate.
A representative from Vistra told cleveland.com that this was because the “storage cask lid was not tightly sealed,” allowing rainwater to enter the cask and “causing it to overflow.”
Vistra calculated its estimate of 78.5 gallons of spilled contaminated water by using the recorded rainfall from January to October of this year, the representative said.
Two chemicals contaminated the water, according to the report. The first was cobalt-60, which can cause cancer if someone is exposed to it over a long period, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The second was the less-toxic manganese-54……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
In May, the Perry Nuclear Power Plant closed so inspectors could find and repair a coolant leak.
Perry Nuclear Power Plant was expected to close in 2021 because it was no longer profitable compared to natural gas plants. This was initially avoided when Ohio House Bill 6 was signed into law in July 2019. H.B. 6 added a fee to residents’ utility bills that funded subsidies of $150 million per year to keep Perry and the Davis–Besse nuclear plant operational.
However, the state blocked the collection and distribution of the H.B. 6 nuclear bailout fee.
This was partly due to H.B. 6 being part of the Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s $60 million bribery scheme to benefit FirstEnergy Corp, which Energy Harbor was a subsidiary of at the time. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/12/radioactive-spill-reported-in-northeast-ohio-nuclear-power-plant.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawHUI2hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRGZZd3bsRqINuMTDChN1SbcOe9WmyzTMNhIXv48Ps6MxNLvPnj74LdJZQ_aem_yhJN1nrwRbcSYx1Ps_WPHg
Nuclear Power Plants Report Massive Uptick In Drone Sightings
The drone reports filed by nuclear power plant operators for the entire year nearly doubled in just the week after Dec. 10.
Howard Altman, The War Zone 21st Dec 2024
he number of drone flyovers of nuclear plants for the entire year nearly doubled in one week, from December 10th to December 17th, according to data provided to The War Zone by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Between Jan. 1 and Dec.10, nuclear facility licensees reported a total of 15 drone events. As of about 1 p.m. Dec., 17, that number had jumped to 26, NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre told The War Zone on Friday in response to our query. While the timeline overlaps with a rash of drone sightings across the country and especially in the New Jersey area – including over military installations and energy infrastructure – it is unclear at the moment what, if any, connection there is to the dramatic increase in suspicious drone events over nuclear facilities…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.twz.com/news-features/massive-uptick-in-official-drone-sightings-by-nuclear-power-plants
Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria
https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 21 Dec 24
Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government
The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.
For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.
However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”
The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.
Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.
In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”
Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.
Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.
On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.
Aldermaston nuclear bomb factory makes explosives error
By Niki Hinman, Local Democracy Reporter, 21 Dec 24
Aldermaston’s nuclear bomb making factory AWE has been ordered to
improve procedures after damaging an explosives component. The Office for
Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served an improvement notice on the Atomic
Weapons Establishment following an incident at its Aldermaston site.
Newbury Today 21st Dec 2024 https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/awe-told-to-improve-by-nuclear-regulator-after-explosives-er-9397154/
Syria today, Iran tomorrow and, inevitably, China
Brian Berletic, New Eastern Outlook, December 19, 2024,
The collapse of the Syrian government in December 2024 was a key moment for the implementation of US geopolitical strategies in the Middle East and beyond.
This development is consistent with long-standing goals, including the eventual disarmament, partition, and destruction of Iran, as well as the overthrow of the Iranian government, the possible displacement of Russian military bases from Syria, and the use of U.S.-sponsored terrorist organizations that have taken over Syria to export terrorism to other target countries both in the region and beyond, including Russia and China.
The United States has sought to undermine Syria’s stability since the 1980s, with its most active efforts beginning in 2007, as detailed in Seymour Hersh’s article “The Redirection” in The New Yorker. The article exposed covert U.S. efforts to support extremist groups to weaken Iran and Syria. These efforts escalated during the Arab Spring of 2011, when protests escalated into armed conflicts backed by the West and Gulf states. By 2012, U.S. intelligence recognized that the so-called Syrian opposition included extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, backed by the West and the Gulf states. The strategy was aimed at creating a Salafist enclave, as evidenced by the rise of the Islamic State, which was used to isolate the Syrian regime.
Through sanctions, military interventions, and the occupation of strategic resources such as oil fields, Syria’s stability was undermined, ultimately leading to the fall of its government. The destruction of Syria’s air defense systems by US- and Israeli-backed forces now facilitates future operations against Iran, including possible airstrikes against its nuclear facilities.
The fall of Syria also strengthens the US’s ability to use militants like the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) against adversaries like China. TIP, which has been linked to terrorist attacks in China’s Xinjiang region, has openly declared its intention to attack Chinese projects around the world. US support for such groups underscores its broader strategy of destabilizing rivals through terrorism and information warfare.
The collapse of Syria demonstrates the US reliance on a multifaceted approach that combines military, economic, and information tools to maintain its dominance. As China and Russia bolster their defenses, the global balance of power will depend on their ability to counter US influence in the information and geopolitical realms.
ED. A longer version of this article – in English – is at more https://journal-neo.su/2024/12/19/syria-today-iran-tomorrow-and-inevitably-china
‘Tis the season to be fake about nuclear power, AI, plastic leaves, and a lot of other things
It was this charming picture of nuclear stooge Jennifer Granholm, on a background of plastic leaves, which prompted me to ponder on FAKENESS.
It really is an appropriate picture. She’s telling a lot of whopper lies about green nuclear energy as the cure for climate change.. And her cheating method is illustrated beautifully with those cheating plastic green leaves.
The picture popped up in Dawn Stover‘s superb article “AI goes nuclear“. Stover comprehensively explains the Big Tech Bros’ grandiose plans for spectacular growth of Artificial Intelligence, “hyperscale” data banks and big existing nuclear reactors, small not-yet-existing nuclear reactors, and not-yet existing nuclear fusion reactors.
Politicians, media and stooges like Jennifer Granholm go into orgasmic delight about all this excitement, and its undoubted progress for our lucky populace. But Stover reminds that:
“both the government and the tech industry are largely ignoring the known and significant downsides of nuclear power—including high costs, long construction times, accidents, nuclear weapons proliferation risks, and environmental contamination from uranium mining and radioactive waste disposal”.
It is so bizarre that the people are tamely allowing these tunnel-vision technopaths to run our energy systems, (and perhaps ultimately our lives) The most extreme sociopath of all, Elon Musk, is likely to be giving President Trump his orders, when that fateful new USA administration takes office. A government supposedly the servant of the American public, more likely to be the servant of very unreasonable “colonising Mars” ambitions, among the rest of the grandiose technology growth.
Fakeness has become so acceptable, as that green leaf wall above shows us. We know that plastic pollution is everywhere – in giant garbage gyres in the oceans, in tiny particles in our body organs. Yet we still accept more and more of fake plastic leaves, fake plastic Christmas trees, plastic everything.
There is a lot of fakery at this time – inordinate spending of money on completely unnecessary things, extravagant food and drink, and stuff in general – all of which is a pretty fake way to celebrate the birthday of Jesus – who taught ‘Do unto others as you would that they should do to you” . ‘Twould be less fake, if the prevailing Western culture were to make a special effort now, instead of consumer madness, -to help the disadvantaged, wherever they may be.
Most people are aware of the genuine Christmas message. Perhaps there will be a growing awareness of the culture of FAKE. Perhaps in 2025, there will be an awareness of the fakeness surrounding the “Tech Bros” and their nuclear+ AI obsession.
After polishing off Syria’s Assad, US has open road to Iranian regime change
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 21 Dec 24
After the 911 attacks the US war party responded by declaring all out regime change on Middle East countries it deemed a threat to the Homeland.
Their coveted prize was the despised Iran, a potential hegemon rival to America’s revered allay Israel. America couldn’t realistically start off attacking large, powerful Iran or change out its hated regime. So it embarked on a multi country regime change tour, saving Iran for best and last.
America kicked off its Excellent Regime Change Tour by invading Afghanistan shortly after the September, 2001 attacks. The Taliban fell within weeks, But 20 years, several trillion in US treasure, 2,400 US soldiers killed and tens of thousands of injured later, the Taliban marched back to power after a humiliating US exit.
Next up was Iraq, invaded in March, 2003 under false pretenses that would have made Hitler proud. But the entire US media went along with this grotesque made up war which killed hundreds thousands including over 4,500 Americans.
Don’t forget America’s grisly regime change imposed on Libya’s strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The US led a NATO offensive (from an ostensibly defensive alliance) to depose the hated Gaddafi. When Gaddafi was sodomized with a bayonet, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughingly gloried “We came, we saw…he died.” All the US accomplished was turning Libya into a chaotic, failed state for the past 13 years.
In 2017 US General Wesley Clark, who led the US destruction of Serbia in the 90’s, summarized a Pentagon meeting on regime change thusly: “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
It’s taking a tad longer than the US war party promised, but with Syria handed over to Jihadist terrorist Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the final regime change prize of Iran is in sight.
Incoming President Trump is a dedicated Iran hater who nearly stumbled into war with Iran during his presidency. Drafting his war cabinet from the ‘Get Iran’ farm team is not a hopeful sign for peace next year. But saving America’s most powerful Middle East regime change target could backfire spectacularly as Iran poses an immense threat to thousands of US troops in the region.
The US war party may be ecstatic about adding Iran to its regime change belt, but should ponder that wise aphorism, ‘Be careful what you covet… you just might get it.’
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
-
Archives
- October 2026 (160)
- September 2026 (339)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
