Neighbor News
Parsippany Does Not Remember Bhopal
With Parsippany large Indian population why is this so. Is it because it was a corporate crime committed against the poor?
Bhopal India December 1984 A Herbicide that killed Thousands in minutes.
Strange how Parsippany with it's large East Indian population, does not publicly acknowledge and remember the disaster of Bhopal. 3,928 deaths had been officially certified from that night of December 2-3. 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases, with 558,125 further injuries. Death Tolls may have topped 25,000.
What killed these people is a case study in Capital, how did such a Union Carbide chemical plant come to exist in such an heavily populated area? The chemical that leaked that night; MIC vapor a heavier than air man-made chemical that does not exist in nature, escaped from a known malfunction system of storage. MIC was used as a Herbicide/Pesticide in industrial agriculture. MIC does not dissipate, but settles on anything surrounding it. If exposed to water bearing tissues it reacts violently and can not be contained by the the organism. In this case, human, skin, eyes, mouths, lungs. The body suffers severe burns,instant severe asthma, blindness, pneumonia, cardiac arrest. Most of the damage if one survived, would be permanent.
The MIC weed-killer was being stored in tanks, that were not maintained, and when workers concerns were voiced they were ignored. If a pipe leaked; don't replace, it patch it up. If the pressure gauge on a tank didn't work; don't be concerned. Union Carbide supervisors under higher authority were unconcerned and several employees were dismissed for sounding alarms.
Another chemical had been found that could be produced cheaper, than MIC, and Union Carbide did not know what to do with the MIC overproduction at that time. In short it become a case of corporate profits, and cutbacks to a plant now in many ways not making money for the corporation.
The whole efficient cause of making such a chemical plant in Bhopal is another case in capital; cheap labor, and a political deal between Union Carbide CEOs and India's Madhya Pradesh government. So amongst a population of an estimated 559,835 people 36 of 56 wards being affected.
Union Carbide then invested millions in legal defense, and a purposeful distortion of the facts, leading to the preventable disaster.
Remember Pearl Harbor, as you did the Alamo, and 911 too, but Bhopal India let us forget; or shall we say; corporations are just people, corporations don't care about you, and money has no loyalty, but to the monied class. Borders disappear with money. White Collar Crime is just the cost of business, Robin More; steals from the poor and gives to the rich, the rich beyond reason.
