There was a good doc on about the Bhopal disaster; it wasn’t anything astounding it was just one of those ‘Seconds from Disaster’, ‘Nat Geo’ docs. It went to great detail about the catastrophic chain of events which lead to one of the worst industrial disasters ever.
Over three thousand people died initially from the release of a deadly toxic chemical MIC (methyl isocyanate), and a further eight thousand died as a result of the deadly gas over the few weeks afterwards. Since then, a government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial, and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.
If that is not a massive crime against humanity I don’t know what is. It shows in a painfully eloquent way, the psychopathic nature of corporations.
Firstly it shows the greed, the desire to make lots of money cheaply, and with the maximum profit. Then it follows on by showing how when the psychopath realised it was not going to make as much money or profit as first expected, because the service of supplying the world with deadly and dangerous pesticides was not as large as initially thought, it decided to cut costs.
Then the true psychopathic nature begins, in the form of neglect, and a deliberate cost cutting exercise, taking away vital safety features, and slowly but surely running the place into the ground. Then on that fateful night in December 1984, when a series of catastrophic events unfolded, allowing tonnes of the deadly gas to be released into the atmosphere around Bhopal. The psychopath holds its hands up and says, so it’s not my fault.
Every one of the failures could have been avoided if the Corporation, ‘Union Carbide’, had been more thoughtful towards the safety of its staff, and proper storage of dangerous chemicals, other than profit.
What makes the whole incident more distasteful is the fact, the Indian government allowed it to happen, and you could say were complicit in allowing the industrial site to become so dangerous, especially with all the warnings over the previous years. As well as the American government who have allowed the people responsible, the guys at the top to get away with their crimes and hide in the US.
Basically, no one cared, no one was interested, and this was compounded by the pitiful payout received buy the victims. Supposedly the payout was equivalent to around six hundred dollars per victim, for a crime against humanity, a crime by a psychopath, a crime that virtually went unpunished.
This is how a corporation thinks and acts, it does not care about its employees, it only cares about profit and cutting corners. Making someone’s life much harder, by either taking away resources or funding, making each person involved less likely to perform their job effectively.
Corporations destroy lives every day, without a care for the damage they are doing. They do not care if you lose your job, they do not care if you are made ill by your job, they do not care if you are injured through your job, and they certainly do not care if you die because of your job.
And what is worse they care even less if you do not work for them.
Bhopal happened in 1984, nearly 30 years ago, and still we allow these psychopaths to exist and to continue to perform their criminal acts against humanity. Not every act of negligence or cost cutting can cause such a catastrophic disaster, but that does not take away the fact that everyday corporations are making the lives of their employees miserable, worthless and pointless at times.
In a way we are all slaves to the corporation, they are like the Roman Senate and we are all slaves to their power.
And so what happened to the CEO of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, the person who decides how psychopathic the corporation will be? He lives a very nice life in America protected by American laws, never forced to face his accusers in a court of law. Hiding behind red tape and bureaucracy, the head of the psychopath will never have to go through the agonising pain or horror, his corporation caused for hundreds of thousands of people in India.
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