America: Off the Rails - News With Views

By Sidney Secular

March 18, 2023

A literal toxic cloud hangs over America today. Many cannot really see it, much less see through it! The fog of paralysis eliminates effective action while producing an inertia that, together with a lack of incisive analysis, will end in our nation’s death spiral. There has never been such an open show of contempt and hatred for normal Americans – a/k/a “the deplorables” – as is presently displayed by our ruling elites and their governing regime. These malignant views are continually demonstrated by the Bolshevik Biden Administration’s original non-response, followed quickly by a grudging “mini-response” to the environmental disaster that took place in East Palestine, Ohio. Only the appearance of former President Donald Trump on the scene forced any kind of a “response” by the rulers of the Deep State to a situation that America has been repeatedly assured is environmentally calamitous. And as we are supposed to be in the hands of those who LOVE Planet Earth and live for the Green Movement, this lack of concern for a real “environmental crisis” beggars the imagination.

And it’s not just East Palestine that is imperiled, but the entire “promised land ” of the Middle West – a/k/a “flyover country”– along with northeast America and a good deal of highly populated regions in Canada! The Norfolk Southern Railroad’s governing board’s response to the disaster obviously represents a return to a more backward environmental era! For in a display of unfathomable irrationality they failed to bring expertise to the fore and instead decided to burn voluminous amounts of the extremely toxic chemical vinyl chloride and other poisons being transported on the derailed train cars rather than taking the time to transport them to a remote site where they could have been buried in a manner to prevent leakage either back to the surface or into the water table. Of course, this is always assuming that the decision was made by the railroad for the quiet and deadly hand of the Deep State may well have had a part in the matter. Indeed, usually such an overwhelming response in these highly public matters is the opposite of “good business practices,” thus suggesting that the force behind the action was not a private concern.

The train disaster occurred on February 3rd when a two-mile long convoy of 150 cars powered by 3 locomotives, many of them loaded with the aforesaid and other toxic cargo derailed as it passed through the town. Those addressing the matter, dilly-dallied for two days doing nothing before deciding on the controlled burn that has been the cause of the ensuing tragedy. Such a response is understandably burning many people up. Vinyl chloride, when burned produces hydrogen chloride and phosgene. The latter is the gas that was used by the combatants during the “Great War,” World War One, the war was that was considered so bad it would end any future warfare save for small “brush conflicts.” Phosgene causes lung damage, and with sufficient exposure, asphyxiation, while hydrogen chloride corrodes any living tissue with which it comes into contact. Phosgene has long been banned by the international community as a legal instrument of warfare. That must have been comforting to the residents of East Palestine!

The result of this so-called “control burn” was a huge toxic mushroom cloud that, settling back to earth, poisoned everything with which it came into contact including the air, the land, the water and all life in the area, animal, vegetable or human. Animals began dying in droves. Of course, these toxic poisons entered local tributaries of the Ohio River and thence into the River itself, a primary source of water for 30 million Americans. The poisons quickly reached Cincinnati, nearly 300 miles downstream from East Palestine, resulting in the city cutting off the water supply from the River. Luckily, the city has its own reserve water supply. The Ohio River is 981 miles long and East Palestine is 25 miles downstream from Pittsburgh. That was a stroke of luck as rivers don’t back up as toilets sometimes do. Recently, there was a short video on Facebook in which a gentleman from Massachusetts “set fire” to a snowball that contained a cocktail of these chemicals when contaminated snow fell on his home. The snow didn’t even melt, it just burned as would any chemical solution!

Of course, there has been only a minimal and muted criticism of Norfolk Southern by the Biden bunch. Maybe it is because the top four stockholders of the Road are: 1- The Vanguard Group (8.04%), 2- BlackRock Institutional Trust Co. (4.57%), 3- State Street Global Advisors (4.46%) and 4- J.P. Morgan Asset Management (3.81%). These are some of the biggest corporate entities in the US and the world and their big bucks can successfully buck any major efforts to penalize Norfolk Southern for their gross negligence. Meanwhile, Washington remained unmoved and unreceptive regarding possible help for the stricken area until “The Donald” announced he would visit the scene! An hour later FEMA announced that it would release some disaster relief funds! Meanwhile, Biden was in Poland pushing for World War 3 on President’s Day and couldn’t be bothered by events in his own back yard providing he actually remembered that Ohio is, in fact, a state in the nation of which he is supposedly the president. Of course, the residents of East Palestine are mostly farmers – a despised population – and worse, over 98% white – with a handful of blacks – so neither he nor his “guvmint” give a damn. And, of course, 80% of the locals voted for Trump in the 2020 election and are therefore considered potential “domestic terrorists” in the eyes of the Biden Bolsheviks, thus they become deserving of their fate. But big explosions and huge clouds of poison cannot be reasonably buried in the 2 A.M. news, so the response even of the media has been such that it was determined that these “terrorists” were, in a way entitled, but only to the barest assistance in the ongoing debacle.

Not to belittle Transportation Secretary Pete “Butt-gig” – something that this “gentleman” does so well all by himself! – but he made it apparent that his DEI promotions took precedence over either visiting the stricken area or participating in the town-hall meeting that took place addressing the disaster. But then, perhaps Pete didn’t realize that railroads are under his government agency! Face it, he’s more the unicorn and flying carpet type! Meanwhile, at the town hall meeting the only political representative above the municipal level to show up was Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson. Now, it may take decades to sift through the hype and questionable “information” to obtain the full story of what happened. Indeed, such a report may just disappear down a convenient memory hole if it were to prove contrary to the regime’s agenda. Given our present “history,” any such exposure of the facts already has “one foot in the grave” so to speak, leaving us with nothing but a nightmare of ungodly consequences to remember. At the moment, the National Wildlife Federation and other prominent environmental organizations have yet to raise a ruckus over the way the incident was handled since it doesn’t play into the “social justice” theme that memes are required to promote nowadays. The Biden bunch didn’t waste any time sending $100 million in earthquake relief to Turkey and Syria three days after the derailment, some of which could have been diverted to the heartland of our own country.

Whether it can be called a conspiracy or just an example of massive negligence, it is surely noteworthy that this was the eighth train derailment in the past five years at the same location! From being a sort of anomaly a few years ago, there is now an average of 1,704 train derailments per year in the US! Given the huge amount recently voted to “repair our infrastructure” as well as past bills that supposedly address such needs, apparently nothing is being done to repair our railroads and the cost of that negligence is rising rapidly – perhaps fatally. Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board has yet to announce the official cause of the derailment, but a mechanical problem with an axle in one of the 150 cars is believed to have led to the derailment. The axle was seen throwing sparks 20 miles before the train reached the location where the derailment occurred. In other countries, far more care is taken with their rail transportation than is taken to protect Americans. I guess that’s because our elites travel by air and don’t live close to railroad tracks.

According to reports, the original fire resulting from the derailment did not involve any of the cars carrying toxic cargo but did continue to burn for two full days without being extinguished. However, once it threatened to blow up the cars that did contain toxic material, apparently it was determined that some ameliorating action had to be taken. There is no mention of the crew contacting the local fire department with help in putting out the fire. Maybe the crew thought the local yokels were incapable of doing that. Youngstown, Ohio is only some 20 miles away and their fire department had been able to assist efforts to out the fire. Company management, apparently on its own and without consulting experienced government or private sector engineers and experts, determined to do a controlled release and burn off the vinyl chloride in 5 of the rail cars. They probably thought it less risky – and expensive! – from a legal standpoint to chance giving everyone in the vicinity slowly developing cancer rather than killing them with jagged chunks of flying steel. However, Norfolk Southern representatives balked at attending a town hall meeting knowing that they stood to be blown away by enraged citizens. Their CEO Alan Shaw takes home just under $4 million annually in total compensation but his company has only allocated a measly $1 million in relief aid to the community. That sum represents a measly $1,000 per resident, another indication of the responsibility the company feels about the disaster.

Given the present administration and the lack of favor found by the deplorables of East Palestine, naturally the mainstream media was quick to state that the incident was not an environmental disaster anywhere near the scale of events such as, say, Chernobyl, the BP oil spill, or God forbid, the lead found in the water of black dominated Flint, Michigan. They even had the temerity to state the water was safe to drink albeit, nobody from either Washington or the media were hurrying to that town to prove their point! Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Ohio’s Governor whiney Mike DeWine said the FEMA representatives told him they were withholding relief funds because a toxic derailment didn’t fit the profile of a “traditional disaster;” that is, such events as can be blamed on “climate change” or a lack of “diversity” or Donald Trump. However, they did admit that the 9/11 attacks did qualify as such but whether the citizens of East Palestine took comfort in that, I don’t know.

Many lawsuits have been filed against Norfolk Southern for their gross negligence, but it is probable that a massive class action suit would be the proper tack to take for any chance of a result before those affected are long in their graves. Hopefully, those who are still standing at the time such a case is filed will have the luck to get judges who will accept their legal “standing” to bring such a suit. As well, a retired veteran fireman and HAZMAT expert from the nearby Youngstown fire department claims the controlled burn was merely a means to save money without any concerns for the safety of those llving nearby, something else that would help in any suit brought by the folks of East Palestine. A reasonably articulate tattoo artist from the town opined that the town’s motto, “A Place You Want To Be”, should now be changed to “A Place You Don’t Want To Be.” It’s a strange situation when firemen and tattoo artists can wax more eloquently and be more lucid than journalists, politicians, and CEOs. But then, they are trying to communicate, not silence communications.

Norfolk Southern employees have complained to the media that any train containing 150 cars is too long and that the huge tonnages involved are too high for safety’s sake. Employees of the road have also complained that they are overworked, that the frequency of safety inspections has been drastically cut, and that there are no regulations as to the length and weight of such trains. Unbelievably in these days of COVID, employees are not allotted a designated number of sick days and they have also complained that crews are undermanned and are required to be on call 90% of the time, a situation that leads to extreme fatigue and the consequences of that situation. Labor unrest arising from these complaints nearly resulted in a strike in September 2022 that was averted only when the workers agreed to accept an approved sick leave of only one day! Apparently, these American workers have no union to represent them or, if they do, it is a “sweetheart” union catering to the wishes of the company.

In sum: it is amazing that the United States is the only major country on earth that does not guarantee paid sick days. German workers are entitled to four weeks of sick leave paid at a rate of 70% of their base salary. Almost amazingly, Norwegian workers are entitled to one year of paid sick leave, though one would suppose such a situation would relate to an approved disability determination. Bernie Sanders appears to be the only federal politician that seems to take any interest in these issues – or any other working class issues for that matter. These “workers’ issues” once constituted the core of Democrat Party platforms. But as the so-called “Democrats” move to take up the banner of elitism, Donald Trump could steal away many votes from the remaining Democrat base by basing at least part of his next campaign on these issues – always assuming that American lower middle class workers – including farmers – are still around in 2024!

E-Mail Sidney Secular: Success_Express@yahoo.com