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So Wednesday, in West, Texas, an explosion killed at least fourteen people (I expect the number to rise as I believe that people are still missing). The explosion was the result of criminal behavior: the fertilizer plant that exploded was operated without a safety plan for years, and had been cited for unsafe practices, which as far as I can tell were never ameliorated because the state government signed off on a statement by the factory owners that nothing bad could ever happen there
You can see images of the destruction here. I recommend it only if you've been constantly refreshing reports on the Boston Marathon bombing.
I went looking to see if President Obama had promised to bring the perpetrators of the West, Texas explosion to justice, as he promised to bring the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing to justice.
As far as I can tell, what the President has promised the folks of West is FEMA support, which is good, but . . . why not justice too?
Why, out of all the media reports I have looked at, has only Democracy Now expressed outrage at the fact that OSHA last stepped foot in this factory in . . . (I don't know. The early transcript of the conversation with the labor reporter Mike Elk said "at least five years," but I see a reference to 1985 somewhere)? That the state government actually accepted the plant's own finding that nothing bad could ever happen in a factory full of anhydrous ammonia and so therefore they didn't need a safety plan?
Why are our national spokespeople not vowing to bring to justice the owners of the plant, the (non) regulators who signed off on their criminal behavior, and Governor Rick Perry, who said on April 9th, less than two weeks before this explosion: ""The men and women in Texas know something now after a decade-plus of our governorship and our policies being implemented by a Republican House, Senate, lieutenant governor and speaker. We’ve kept our tax burden as light as we could and still delivered the services that the people of Texas desire, and we have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable. I cannot tell you how important is predictability and stability in the regulatory climate."" (quote from Democracy Now transcript linked above).
(I can tell you what is predictable. It is predictable that if you do not regulate and enforce the behavior of capitalists, they will cause real harm, chronically and actuely)
Well, of course I know the answers to this. I don't want to belittle the horror of two men setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon and murdering a handful of people and injuring nearly two hundred more. What I want to do is to point out that it is even more horrible that our governmental institutions are colluding with or incapable of engaging with criminals who continue their life-threatening behavior for years, backing it up with economic blackmail, and that when people die and their homes are destroyed because of it, nobody seems to care much.
You can see images of the destruction here. I recommend it only if you've been constantly refreshing reports on the Boston Marathon bombing.
I went looking to see if President Obama had promised to bring the perpetrators of the West, Texas explosion to justice, as he promised to bring the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing to justice.
As far as I can tell, what the President has promised the folks of West is FEMA support, which is good, but . . . why not justice too?
Why, out of all the media reports I have looked at, has only Democracy Now expressed outrage at the fact that OSHA last stepped foot in this factory in . . . (I don't know. The early transcript of the conversation with the labor reporter Mike Elk said "at least five years," but I see a reference to 1985 somewhere)? That the state government actually accepted the plant's own finding that nothing bad could ever happen in a factory full of anhydrous ammonia and so therefore they didn't need a safety plan?
Why are our national spokespeople not vowing to bring to justice the owners of the plant, the (non) regulators who signed off on their criminal behavior, and Governor Rick Perry, who said on April 9th, less than two weeks before this explosion: ""The men and women in Texas know something now after a decade-plus of our governorship and our policies being implemented by a Republican House, Senate, lieutenant governor and speaker. We’ve kept our tax burden as light as we could and still delivered the services that the people of Texas desire, and we have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable. I cannot tell you how important is predictability and stability in the regulatory climate."" (quote from Democracy Now transcript linked above).
(I can tell you what is predictable. It is predictable that if you do not regulate and enforce the behavior of capitalists, they will cause real harm, chronically and actuely)
Well, of course I know the answers to this. I don't want to belittle the horror of two men setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon and murdering a handful of people and injuring nearly two hundred more. What I want to do is to point out that it is even more horrible that our governmental institutions are colluding with or incapable of engaging with criminals who continue their life-threatening behavior for years, backing it up with economic blackmail, and that when people die and their homes are destroyed because of it, nobody seems to care much.
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