Mad As A Hatter

Among the vagaries of my existence is the fact that I live in a household that subscribes to The Progressive Populist. I was perusing an article in it entitled "2004's 10 Worst Corporations" (evidently they are ALL bad, these are just the "worst") when I came upon this section (quoted from a longer online version):

At midnight on December 2, 1984, 27 tons of lethal gases leaked from Union Carbide’s pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, immediately killing an estimated 8,000 people and poisoning thousands of others.

Today in Bhopal, at least 150,000 people, including children born to parents who survived the disaster, are suffering from exposure-related health effects such as cancer, neurological damage, chaotic menstrual cycles and mental illness.

Over 20,000 people are forced to drink water with unsafe levels of mercury, carbon tetrachloride and other persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals.

Activists from around the world — including human rights, legal, environmental health and other experts — mobilized this year to demand that Dow Chemical, the current owner of Union Carbide, be held accountable.

Twenty years after this disaster, the company responsible for this catastrophe and its former executives are still fugitives from justice. Union Carbide and its former chairman, Warren Andersen, were charged with manslaughter for the deaths at Bhopal, but they refuse to appear before the Indian courts.

Let's see if I've got this straight. Dow having purchased Union Carbide's North American operation in 1999 now has to take responsibility for the Bhopal disaster of 1984? A disaster that involved a plant run by Union Carbide India LTD, which was not a wholly owned subsidiary of Union Carbide North America but which was a joint effort with the Indian government and individual shareholders, and which still exists today (re-named Eveready Industries India)? I'm sorry if the people of India haven't been able to get their hands on Warren Andersen or anyone else who is criminally liable in the case, but to dump responsibility for Bhopal on Dow for buying a different but related company is insane. By this logic if I buy shares of Volkswagon today do I have to take some responsibility for the Holocaust?

Dow has no responsibility for Bhopal? The people of Bhopal don’t agree. They say Union Carbide was responsible, and if Union Carbide is now owned by Dow, then Dow’s responsible. They refuse to accept Dow’s corporate shell game.

What shell game? If there are outstanding monetary judgements against Union Carbide NA, Dow should be liable for them when it purchased the company. Obviously there were none. So therefore it isn't. That isn't a "shell game," that's the law. That's the end of this story really.

And don't get me started about the facistic way they want to control what people are allowed to eat. (Read the bit about Hardee's Monster Thickburger to see what I mean. They can't point to any lie or misinformation that Hardee's perpetrated on people., Hardee's is just evil because they make a hamburger these people don't like. Fine, then don't eat one you braying jackasses.)