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from the somebody-should-invent-a-cleaner-world dept.
Ever more the light seems to be shining in dark spots, and the cockroaches scatter. The Huffington Post reveals today that DuPont has knowingly been poisoning a small farm and community for decades, desperately trying to dump and hide the environmental, social, and medical fallout of their chemical C8. Despite their efforts, the scandal behind C8 cannot be so easily pushed down inside a landfill and forgotten like a painfully produced Atari video game. From the TFA:
That May, a group of DuPont executives gathered at the company's Wilmington headquarters to discuss the C8 issue. According to the minutes, attendees discussed recently adopted plans to cut C8 emissions at Washington Works, such as adding scrubbers to vents that spewed the chemical into the air. But they decided to scrap these initiatives. The additional expense was not "justified," the executives concluded, since it wouldn't substantially reduce the company's liability. "Liability was further defined as the incremental liability from this point on if we do nothing as we are already liable for the past 32 years of operation," the minutes read. "From a broader corporate viewpoint the costs are small."
One might think we would have learned our lessons from poisoning the world with lead, but clearly these executives never got the memo. Quite strange, given they're from the same company. I'm almost speechless at the scope of the harm and damage, knowingly and premeditatively, performed against all of humanity worldwide. The Chinese government announced today the arrests, and more than likely inevitable executions, of a score of executives and officials responsible for the Tianjin port explosions.
At what point does the harm that executives, in companies such as DuPont, meet thresholds high enough to discuss special prosecutions and the death penalty? When even China, who lacks a strong history of supporting human rights and consumer protections, recognizes that some executives and officials need to be "criminally detained" and ultimately dealt with, when can we in the so-called civilized Western societies perform the same? We've yet to even slow DuPont down.
[More after the Break]
DSM-IV Definition. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture. There is a marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Individuals with this disorder are sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths.
From the quote in the article (emphasis mine), can any reasonable person conclude that these executives do not need to be handed life sentences in prison at a minimum? It's not hyperbole to say that I could walk into a church, make racists statements, kill a half a dozen people, and receive a much harsher sentence than a group of executives that knowingly caused birth defects, miscarriages, cancers, among a myriad of other serious health conditions, up to and including grisly and pointless deaths. More maddeningly, to be commensurate, I would need to have children and begin a multi-generational attack on my fellow citizens to come close to what DuPont executives have done against a single community, much less the world.
It may be time to seriously, and a civilized manner, begin discussing how to bring these executives up on criminal charges, and even executing them. Especially helpful to remember in these discussions, that it is now TWICE that DuPont has knowingly poisoned the world and harmed MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of our fellow human beings . Forget about our reputation in the world now; We're the country that has deliberately been destroying the world for profit, and all of the documents and science exist to prove it.
So.... do we need a third time from the same company before we can start talking about preventative measures and justice?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday August 28 2015, @08:33PM
No, they usually aren't, actually, because when conservatives are talking about a lack of personal responsibility they are usually referring to the irresponsibility of poor people, whereas when liberals are complaining about the "the pursuit of profit at all costs" they are usually referring to the irresponsibility of rich people.
There are important differences between the two, as well: Irresponsible rich people usually do more damage and are punished much less for their crimes than irresponsible poor people. For example, this kid [time.com] ran over and killed 4 people while driving drunk at age 16 and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
No, it isn't. These crimes, because they were committed a long time ago, and were committed behind the corporate veil, means that the individuals who made those decisions probably profited handsomely from them in the form of raises and promotions for cutting costs. That's a big reason I'm not a fan of the corporate veil in criminal cases: If a business commits a crime, that means somebody who worked there decided to commit it, and fining the business (which will have minimal consequences for the perp, who might not even work there anymore) is far less of a deterrent than jailing the person or people who made the decision to commit the crime.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Friday August 28 2015, @10:39PM
This is exactly how I feel. There are some valid business cases why you might want to limit liability. I can fully appreciate the distinction that I *cannot* go after Mr. Smith personally for liabilities of the company, and that the company must handle its liabilities. That's appropriate for certain situations and markets. No problem.
That only applies though when are talking about abstract concepts like money, contracts, etc. It never applies when we are no longer talking about the minutia of capitalism, but the socopathic results of premeditated crimes against fellow citizens. The corporate veil should be instantly pierced for anything that falls within criminal statutes. Knowledge that your activities are deliberately introducing toxins that can cause cancer at best, and painful bleeding until you die at worst, is most certainly an issue for the criminal courts and not government regulators. This I feel is absolutely obvious; That they acted criminally.
Of course the argument is that if we ever threatened not just regulations with only weak financial penalties at best, and actually threatened them, that businesses and the economy would somehow suffer. Intelligent and rational businessmen would conclude to simply not enter markets in which they could go to prison or be executed for matters best relegated to consumer protection divisions and lawyers. That's so offensively ridiculous that it borders on insane. That position is saying that we can't have a safer world free of known toxins because our economy couldn't function as a result of the executives being incompatible with accountability.
What's unable to function properly are the executives moral compasses. Not the rest of us.
Well this is the price we pay for *not* being able to take a page out of China's book, and criminally detain all of the senior executives for DuPont in the last 30 years (including any on their death beds). This is the price we pay when corporations are granted personhood, but not *enough* personhood to actually fit inside a prison cell or the execution chamber. We give up when the corporation can't "fit" inside the jail cell, instead of pulling our heads out of our butts, and saying, "Well yeah. However, 17 executives *do* fit in 17 individual cells. We most certainly can put the entire corporation in jail if we want".
China takes it a little further. 17 bullets can kill 17 executives, and killing a corporation is a rather trivial thing. I'm beside myself that in my country a corporation is effectively immortal, untouchable, and unaccountable to the laws, morals, and ethics that the rest of us are bound by equally. Not a fan of the death penalty at all. In this case, my vote as one of their peers, is death.
I don't hear anyone vilifying China yet for how they handled the executions of the executives that poisoned baby milk. In fact, maybe we should just see if China has been damaged by C8, and just agree to extradition? So far we are assuming that the US is the only country and people that might want to bring DuPont to task.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday September 23 2015, @09:53AM
Just a late quick thank you for the submission (and the editor for accepting it). While there might be points about tone etc. I think SN should have plenty of room for submissions like this with a possibly controversial tone and/or opinion.
I hadn't heard of this specific news anywhere else although I knew about other Dupont evils/crimes. Even so this and the comments gave me a lot to think about.
By the way on the topic of the death penalty I'm conflicted but if I let reason prevail then I think Ian Hislop's¹ argument is (unfortunately) correct: historically there has just been far too many incorrect judgements and executions (at least in Britain where he lives but likely anywhere/everywhere) and since it's not a judgement that can be undone after execution it becomes unjustifiable for that reason alone even though plenty of crimes certainly merit it. In my case I guess I should add I'm not at all a pacifist.
¹ He probably wasn't the first to make it or anything like that but he's the one I saw and heard make it that did it convincingly enough to sway me (I think it's on YouTube somewhere if you're interested). Not to keen on him as a political person or the whole Private Eye magazine thing he's in charge of but I guess that's sort of beside the point.
Anyway sorry for rambling (late/tired) and thank you :)
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