The fact is, politics is just how we respond to the news and events of the day as a society. Nearly everything is political in some sense. Whether it is partisan (what some people call "political") is another matter, but going based on that can also let one side dictate what is discussable if they suddenly want to not like it.
Palestine Ohio
- Thread starter clonefreek
- Start date
The fact is, politics is just how we respond to the news and events of the day as a society. Nearly everything is political in some sense. Whether it is partisan (what some people call "political") is another matter, but going based on that can also let one side dictate what is discussable if they suddenly want to not like it.
Something a lot of you are unaware of, underestimating, or maybe forgetting.
The power of the US Railroads.
The US RR companies and their combined effort, have extreme power. They control every narrative about them, they control what they want in Washington. Their Unions are there to at least keep the idea they have a some power for their employees but it is mostly just for show.
The Railroads are still probably the most powerful industry in the US, and have as much control and influence as to what happens to them and their narrative as any in the country, they have as much control in this government as anyone and probably more.
There was never really any chance there would be a strike, None. No, one would ever let that happen as it would be a national emergency. And it doesnt matter what side of the aisle you are on, being responsible for the scale of mass shutdowns that would happen in a rail strike is political suicide. The country would all but shut down without the Railroads. We all like to believe trucks would pick up the slack, but their isnt enough trucks now, and much of what railroads carry is mass commodities that are more difficult to truck etc. Rail still accounts for over 1/3 of the shipping in the US and there is no alternative for that tonnage.
You see Rail Unions gave away the right to strike in the 80s and as you all saw this year if the gov steps in they can not strike. Period, at that point anyone striking or organizing a strike gets arrested and serious charges.
Railroads have gag orders on all employees. Employees are forbidden from EVER talking about work conditions, work events or anything else rail related to media, police, investigators, etc, unless they have strict permission from upper management that never comes. RRs have carefully worded statements for any and all events, and employ people to handle all media issues. Employees can not even tell the news they got laid off etc or it is termination. This is why you will see the local factory is laying off 25 people all the time, but you never EVER hear about the thousands of layoffs at the railroad yearly, as business cycles.
This is why you get very little in the form of real news about the railroads with very rarely any actual info. Many times a news story will report a derailment, or a crossing accident, with few or no other details, this is because no one from the railroad or any investigative efforts such as the STB or FRA will talk to the media or give anything more than a prewritten out of the box statement. And in many times the Railroads themselves do all the investigations, with the Feds or locals not even involved. The onboard data recorders are controlled by the RR, they can only be read by the RR, and if for instance the STB gets involved they must get downloaded and read data from the RR instead of directly taking control of the event recorder themselves. Unlike the Airline black boxes going directly to the FAA. Every bit of information released to the public is carefully crafted before ever hitting the public airwaves.
The rules Railroaders must follow are insane, the number of rules are insane, and the way they are enforced is even more insane. And the lengths the Railroads will go to to maintain their power and image is unmatched. They fight every possible thing that could advance the quality of life of their employees, and push anything that will advance the shareholders value. The big one today is called Precision Railroading and there is nothing precise about it. It is all about making employees do more with less, running massive trains that dont fit anywhere, 2 to 3 times longer than ever have been, with as few engines, with as few crew as possible. All the while limiting the maintenance on track and equipment to the absolute minimum.
The power of the US Railroads.
The US RR companies and their combined effort, have extreme power. They control every narrative about them, they control what they want in Washington. Their Unions are there to at least keep the idea they have a some power for their employees but it is mostly just for show.
The Railroads are still probably the most powerful industry in the US, and have as much control and influence as to what happens to them and their narrative as any in the country, they have as much control in this government as anyone and probably more.
There was never really any chance there would be a strike, None. No, one would ever let that happen as it would be a national emergency. And it doesnt matter what side of the aisle you are on, being responsible for the scale of mass shutdowns that would happen in a rail strike is political suicide. The country would all but shut down without the Railroads. We all like to believe trucks would pick up the slack, but their isnt enough trucks now, and much of what railroads carry is mass commodities that are more difficult to truck etc. Rail still accounts for over 1/3 of the shipping in the US and there is no alternative for that tonnage.
You see Rail Unions gave away the right to strike in the 80s and as you all saw this year if the gov steps in they can not strike. Period, at that point anyone striking or organizing a strike gets arrested and serious charges.
Railroads have gag orders on all employees. Employees are forbidden from EVER talking about work conditions, work events or anything else rail related to media, police, investigators, etc, unless they have strict permission from upper management that never comes. RRs have carefully worded statements for any and all events, and employ people to handle all media issues. Employees can not even tell the news they got laid off etc or it is termination. This is why you will see the local factory is laying off 25 people all the time, but you never EVER hear about the thousands of layoffs at the railroad yearly, as business cycles.
This is why you get very little in the form of real news about the railroads with very rarely any actual info. Many times a news story will report a derailment, or a crossing accident, with few or no other details, this is because no one from the railroad or any investigative efforts such as the STB or FRA will talk to the media or give anything more than a prewritten out of the box statement. And in many times the Railroads themselves do all the investigations, with the Feds or locals not even involved. The onboard data recorders are controlled by the RR, they can only be read by the RR, and if for instance the STB gets involved they must get downloaded and read data from the RR instead of directly taking control of the event recorder themselves. Unlike the Airline black boxes going directly to the FAA. Every bit of information released to the public is carefully crafted before ever hitting the public airwaves.
The rules Railroaders must follow are insane, the number of rules are insane, and the way they are enforced is even more insane. And the lengths the Railroads will go to to maintain their power and image is unmatched. They fight every possible thing that could advance the quality of life of their employees, and push anything that will advance the shareholders value. The big one today is called Precision Railroading and there is nothing precise about it. It is all about making employees do more with less, running massive trains that dont fit anywhere, 2 to 3 times longer than ever have been, with as few engines, with as few crew as possible. All the while limiting the maintenance on track and equipment to the absolute minimum.
I'm not sure I see the relationship between the strike and this incident. The strike was primarily about worker's benefits, not safety regulations or something else that might have materially impacted this event.
I seem to remember safety being mentioned quite a bit back then. The "benefits" being discussed were centering around problems created because railroads were running their employees absolutely ragged- they wouldn't even agree to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off
NSFW video from a rightfully pissed off citizen. Totally normal looking sky
Correct. Much of the issues raised by workers in the lead up to the strike is that the rail companies are basically operating skeleton crews and forcing their employees in to mandatory over time, while also reducing time and spending for inspections and maintenance of equipment.
This derailment was identified as being caused by a bad wheel bearing that was not caught during inspection, and the employee that did that inspection has been scapegoated.
Every American institution has been corrupted to the point that no one can take anything said at face value. Personally, I think distrust is good generally, but having said that, we have not been presented with any real information that suggests the effects of this spill will be a long term problem. We know exactly how the chemical components involved react with the environment when they burn or are mixed with water, so much of the coverage I've seen comes off as breathless agitprop while people clean up the mess and monitor the effects, which is all that can be expected at this point, eight days later.
As far as people thinking there was some sort of sinister delay in reporting the story, I'd like that explained. I saw it the morning after, with video. I think it is more a function of stories that happen outside national media hubs like DC or NY having a difficult time breaking through into national discourse, but that's more an argument for continued decentralization of reporting away from entities that funnel coverage for the viewer than anything else.
As far as people thinking there was some sort of sinister delay in reporting the story, I'd like that explained. I saw it the morning after, with video. I think it is more a function of stories that happen outside national media hubs like DC or NY having a difficult time breaking through into national discourse, but that's more an argument for continued decentralization of reporting away from entities that funnel coverage for the viewer than anything else.
Right but then you have folks who sit and take pot shots at each other and completely drag agenda based comments in here. Which has been going since page one. Most of the posters in here just want to talk about the accident proper, new happenings with it and so on. It doesn’t need to dive deep into politics.
One mechanic commenting said they may have had too many of the heavy cars at the back of the train causing some type of stress wave. And I think they also commented that the video made it seem like a bearing was going which should have been caught in maintenance. Said railroads were pushing a type of maintenance scheduling that was basically trying to reduce how much manpower hours were spent on it. I'll have to see if I can find the links, was several days ago so I'm sure I'll never find it. But it was very interesting to read.
Funny part is that was filmed there
Life Imitates Art: Train Derailment in Ohio Is in the Same Town Where ‘White Noise’ Train Crash Was Filmed
Ohio residents who appeared as extras in the film have been forced to evacuate their homes for real this time.
decider.com
Funny part is that was filmed there
Life Imitates Art: Train Derailment in Ohio Is in the Same Town Where ‘White Noise’ Train Crash Was Filmed
Ohio residents who appeared as extras in the film have been forced to evacuate their homes for real this time.
Just seems like the type of story that would be plastered all over the front pages, FOX/CNN breaking news alerts, and just plain non stop coverage. It's also crazy that they just shot a Netflix movie in the same area about the same situation.
Maybe there is just too much crazy stuff going on at once.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Yeah, this.
The story is being covered, it’s been on the news, there’s no conspiracy hiding it from you for political reasons or any other reason. Unfortunately this happened at the same time as 1) an unimaginably deadly earthquake in Turkey that’s killed tens of thousands of people and 2) the exciting, unusual story of weird balloons floating over America being shot out of the sky by fighter jets.
People only have so much attention span these days, and “ooh shiny” is going to get more focus than most other things. This also highlights the increasingly fractured, siloed way people get their news now - they look at only a few sources of news, and if those particular outlets aren’t covering something, those people get all up in arms about “why isn’t there more coverage of this event?” when places like network TV news and national newspapers have had stories about it for days.
quotes in wrong order but that's what the mechanic referred to - precision maintenance.
Especially when it’s happening in Ohio. It would be different if it was happening in Iowa and the thread could be used to share resources (e.g. location of Red Cross assistance)