My brother told me that the HBO mini-series “Chernobyl” was very good and worth watching.
I haven’t seen it yet so this is not a review (although Gerard once told me I’d be a pretty poor journalist if I couldn’t write a review of a Sundance film without seeing it first) but a review of the reviews I’ve read. Most are positive, that indicate it is a well-made, compelling historical documentary that gets a few things wrong but most things about the disaster right.
A good number of the reviews however are quick to point out that Chernobyl is not an indictment of Communism. Perhaps it wasn’t written to do that but it seems from what I’ve read that it must be. Chernobyl is the cautionary tale of what can happen when a Communist behemoth cuts corners in both standards and materials, demonstrates a reckless disregard for human life and is willing to lie to everyone about everything in order to protect itself. The almost inevitable manmade disaster sounds like an indictment of Communism to me. In short, Chernobyl is about Communism, it's failures and lies.
PJMedia covered this:
The excellent miniseries Chernobyl, which just finished on HBO, is one of the most searing indictments of communism ever put on the small screen, at least since the halcyon days of The Americans.
Systematically and dramatically, Chernobyl exposes the communist disregard for human life and safety, socialism’s ineptness at designing anything that works as it should, and the totalitarian state’s fear that anything that exposes the sham is an existential threat to its existence.
And then cites several sources that don’t think it really is, including The Atlantic, the New Republic and CNN. But the best is Washington Post who thinks it’s not only not an indictment of communism, it’s and indictment of…wait for it… Trump!
“Depressing as it may be, “Chernobyl,” created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck, is a fine study in the uses of sanctioned obfuscation — and how much easier that becomes in a country where media and scientific leadership are tightly restricted. There was a time when that sort of thing might have seemed entirely foreign to an American audience; now, it’s another resonant alarm sounding uncomfortably close.”
Of course there’s not much difference between Communism and socialism, even “Democratic” socialism, when the power of Big Government is in the equation. Best if America learns that before the next election.
Save yourself America: Communism/Socialism is deadly every time it’s tried
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