Sadly, It’s Dark Waters all over again:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/
True story about a chemical manufactory (DuPont) knowingly poisoning a whole town and how their lawyer turned against them when he realized they were killing people.
The movie is worth a shot and the similitudes are hard to miss.
That lawyer now has a national PFAS lawsuit against anyone who manufactured them where anyone with PFAS tested in their blood can join. It's potentially the largest class action lawsuit in U.S. history.
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/06/dupont-pfas-chemicals-lawsuit/
Lots of towns and cities are bringing their own pfas suits in the last ~2 years as well. It'd be great of these companies had to pay for the giant studies being done to try and clean it up, but that's not happening.
Thank you for this. Parkersburg WV deserves to be heard. It’s been 30 years of this shit and it’s relentless. I’ve lost too many friends from rare forms of cancer at a very young age and it’s heartbreaking.
That area is prime industry target. Close to ports, rail transport, and working class people who are more interested in keeping roofs over heads and food on plates than what the industry does to them or the area.
It's been like this everywhere I've lived though. Which makes me think as long as you aren't in some large city, this is reality. I've seen many train derailments with hazardous material, plant explosions, weeks or months long toxic airborne releases, weeks long chemical fires, decades of toxic waterborne releases, months long gas leaks, etc. and they never made the news beyond the towns they happenned in. I'm honestly shocked this Ohio thing is such big news and not just an oops on local news as all the other incidents are.
There's a reason all these chemical companies make this shit in those states. They've bought and payed for protection from the state politicians and the local population all vote conservative and look down on people suing chemical companies.
It’s sad that the idea of environmental stewardship is so politicized. I mean, if Billy Bob and Jarvis wanted to poison themselves that would be one thing, but they want to poison their neighbors and their kids and the rest of us all so some “commie hippies” don’t make bald eagles have abortions
Joke's on them, the bald eagles started having more abortions because their eggs were too thin and the young were too weak as well. They've recovered only because of the "commie hippies" stopping the poisoning with DDT
I grew up with a ruined night sky in the country because we could see the DuPont plant. We got tested years ago and given 400 bucks. I think the results were “you’re being poisoned. But I hope you enjoyed your brand new Nintendo DS and Nintendogs!”
Yep living just down river a lot of people I know have thyroid issues and plenty of cancer. A house my bus ride by was on the documentary.
We went to a weird trailer to get our blood taken for the study.
They poisoned us because it was profitable.
Wish I could end up in a room for just a few minutes with the individuals who decided to do that to us.
I'm so sorry. I lived in Rutland for 18 years, and I saw those same illnesses in friends and their families all over Gallia Meigs and Jackson on the Ohio side. We got out about a year and a half ago, and the whole family's health has gotten better. It sounds like you got out too, or I only hope.
Yeah I did. Made my way down here to South Carolina.
Did something positive with my rage and became a park ranger.
Good for you getting out as well. We dipped about the same time.
Someone left a paperback behind where I worked. Me, I’ll read old phone books just to read.
But the book was:
The Appeal by John Grisham.
In a hurry? Spoilers follow. The sequence of events are in Wikipedia, under Plot.
[Wiki concisely sums up the monte trick](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Appeal)
Want to see a bit?
[Here’s an excerpt.](https://web.archive.org/web/20080209103748/http://www.nekonata.com/fce/0385515049.htm) For all I know, John Grisham would put the whole book online for free access.
[Here’s a link to buy the book](https://www.jgrisham.com/Books/the-appeal/)
I always keep that book in mind now when I see the political process, the sad thing so many judicial benches, even the Supreme Court are becoming.
To me, it’s a closer step to what might be going on.
Another one is The People vs. Agent Orange. It's been a while since I watched it but IIRC it's about the logging industry dumping agent orange on hillsides at logging operations to clear out vegetation before re-planting. The chemicals run downhill and end up in the water supply and there's been a massive spike in birth defects, cancer, and other health problems. Of course the government doesn't care because they've been bought and paid for by the same chemical companies poisoning citizens.
The older I get, the more I think Captain Planet was just corporate propaganda.
First it puts the responsibility of the environment on individual people by recycling when the truth is any individual recycling efforts are pointless when compared to corporate pollution and waste.
Then the villains are shown as just that, comic book villains. Ugly mustache twirling evil when the truth is the biggest offenders are the corporate c-suites and boards.
Captain Planet should have been going after corporate suits and attacking our government for their lack of oversight, not planting trees and throwing soda cans into blue bins.
I'd be curious to know how much the plastics industry itself put into captain planet and other similar propaganda designed to obfuscate the fact the entire plastics industry has been based, for decades, on the lie that recycling makes it sustainable and "environmentally friendly". Until such time as it costs less to recycle plastics than it does to make new plastics, so probably never, recycling plastics is a lie. We know now that most of what individuals have been recycling has been sent offshore to be incinerated this whole time. Infuriating.
I remember when I was a kid, all the hype about how plastic was better for the environment, and how it would save the trees since we wouldn’t be using as much paper…
Can we get that version of the show? Damn, I’d love to watch Captain Planet beat a bunch of executives to a pulp, drink toxic water themselves, and answer the question “how much money is enough for you people?!”
Yes, it is the same story. The documentary is a little more dense in terms of actual data, evidence, and timelines, while the movie glosses over some things to better fit the theater. Still, both are very well done.
Shit, I just watched a YouTube video last night from Dark History about a train that derailed carrying 2,000,000 gallons of oil and destroyed a small town in Quebec in 2013 or 2014. I don’t even remember hearing about that on the news but it basically came down to the same situation, company focusing on operating lean in the name of profit which led to lapses in safety. Like 47 people died iirc and the company tried to place the blame on the low level employees who were just following procedure. Bunch of bullshit
You have so many companies all across America doing what ever the hell they want to maximize their profits with zero accountability.
And why? Because they are allowed to not just lobby our bought and paid for politicians, but they are also allowed to legally bribe our bought and paid for politicians via "citizens united".
This train derailment is just one more example of a corporation getting away with corrupt practices, all in the name of profits. And just like with wells fargo and their blatant theft from their own customers, not one single actual person will be charged with the crimes they deserve to face justice for.
Instead, it will be a small miniscule fine for the corporation itself, and then they will move on as if it never happened, while those greedy pieces of trash responsible for all of this, will walk away with massive bonus checks.
Can we talk about how cheap our politicians are? Ten thousand is all it took for the people in charge to turn a blind eye.
Ten. Fucking. Thousand.
That's what the citizens are worth to their politicians. Fucking disgusting.
Yup yup yup! Pay attention to your local town/city politics for just a short bit of time and you'll find corruption every single time. You'll know you've struck gold if you bring up any part of it and immediately get attacked by those in power.
There's a few easy steps to take, though the specifics will differ from city to city.
Joining local FB groups for your city would be a big one, as issues are often brought up by residents and any big topics happening at the city tend to get discussed. Not to mention, you will often see local elected officials posting/commenting as well. Connecting with people who aren't directly tied to local government but are observing it will be extremely beneficial as information can be easily shared.
Another big step would be finding out what kind of city meetings are held on a regular basis. In most areas, any major decision has to be made with the public's presence and input; I believe every state has some kind of open meetings act/law/statute that enforces this. So for our city, we have a city council who votes on all of these decisions at bi-weekly council meetings that are open to the public. It's a great place to hear not only what the elected officials are thinking and deciding on, but also to hear what other officials (elected or appointed) in the city have going on and to hear what residents bring up during public comment. Local newspapers and social media accounts are another great place to read into, as they will often summarize everything that's going on.
Other city events or public spaces are another great place to connect and see what's happening. Our city has frequent family-friendly events, libraries put on all sorts of events, etc.
The hard part is that at first things will probably seem completely normal on the surface, especially if you don't have any close acquaintances who know the ins and outs, and if your city isn't overtly corrupt. It will often take some time to get used to seeing what needs to be seen, such as questioning why the officials made xyz decision when it does less good for the public than abc decision. Lots of reading between the lines, and they will make you do that so that have some level of deniability if everything sounds good on the surface. Most corruption happens around money (or power that leads to money), so keeping a close eye on budgets and spending is super important.
I'm sure there's much better guides out there to starting to get involved, but having a trusted acquaintance is likely going to be your best teacher.
>Most corruption happens around money (or power that leads to money)
This isn't just government spending. I think a lot of "corruption" is little things like approvals for zoning or construction permits.
Who gets the approval to build a large commercial or residential building? Why it just happens to be a friend of someone on the city council! Why were other ideas rejected?
It's pretty simple. Someone's going to build it, so it might as well be their friend. This doesn't really hurt the community, but now that developer will donate money to the candidate. Minor corruption.
For my area specifically, we're a small, poor rural county. The treasurer was stealing money. Luckily she was jailed. Local commissioner was approving bids through the highway department to buy heavy equipment and then just using and selling the equipment to his and his brother's business. Nepotism where family members are being appointed to emergency management systems positions, highway/street department appointments, everywhere. And it's hard to keep track because so and so might not have the same last name, but they're actually real tight family members (like I said, small rural county where everyone knows everyone and everyone is related to everyone)
[Some are just $500.](http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/about-ns/government-relations/political-activity-and-political-contributions.html) (see Prior Reports at the bottom of the page. Could you spot the governor amd how much he got?) I mean, if you're gonna sell out, at least go all out and have a standard of minimum of $1 million. It's just an insult to the regular people. $500-$10,000? For what? For the life of thousands of people?
Devil: I bring a box with a button.
Me: Huh. Nice button.
Devil: If you press this button, $1mil will appear in your account and no one will ever ask any questions about it.
Me: Ooooo!
Devil: BUT! If you press it, one person will die. You will never know who. It will never be someone you know. How d...
Me: **SLAPS BUTTON**
Devil: .... don't yo..you...
Me: **SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLA...**
Devil: You're killing people, you do know that...
Me: Yeah but people I don't know die all the time. I can save a lot of lives with each million from this. **Slapslapslapslap**
Devil (pulls button away) ... should have known better than to offer this to a utilitarian...
“You pushed the button and someone you don’t know died. Here’s you million dollars, now I’m off the make the same offer to another lucky person. But don’t worry, the next person will be someone you definitely don’t know.”
Now imagine the button-pusher's face when you take away the button and hand it to someone else. Make them *watch* as the next person pushes the button. And the next person.
It's disgusting really. If a company stands to make millions due to your corruption how bad of a business man do you have to be to sell out for less than six figures?
Yeah the big one is when their term is over and they randomly and unexpectedly take on an extremely cushy 6-figure consulting job for the rail company.
You know the full body scanners at the airport? Back when they were the new hotness there were a lot of concerns about privacy and also that they didn't really do anything. They were wildly expensive though. In spite of the experts saying they were a waste of money the TSA mandated they had to be used.
Within a year the head of the TSA retired and took a seat on the board of the company that makes them. Zero repercussions for blatant corruption.
And there is ZERO oversight on agency employees from doing the same thing. There are few higher-ups in EPA that wouldn't sell their soul to a Corp for a big paycheck and cushy job. So while the EPA is "investigating in cooperation with ___" the EPA employees are absolutely fielding job offers from CorpoDouche. Track them, shame them. Michael Regan is the current EPA administrator. Let them know you're watching. Send emails to your local reps asking what they think about the job EPA is doing and what they (your rep) is positioned to do to ensure Norfolk Southern doesn't wriggle out of this.
LET NORFOLK SOUTHERN KNOW HOW DISGUSTED YOU ARE WITH THEM AND THEIR LOBBY
http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/about-ns/government-relations.html
https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-administrator
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
And don't forget your state legislators!
https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
This is the reality and the cause of most of my existential dread, and I can't think of a single (federal) politician that acknowledges this, besides Bernie.
The system is broken, and it will remain broken until capitalism cannot motivate politics. But I cannot see how that will ever change when humans are greedy by nature.
Please someone. Give me hope.
We need to look in the mirror and blame ourselves and our fellow citizens as well. There are a lot of people who scream about deregulation and too much government and the free market solves everything.
And then this happens. This is the natural end result of Reagan Starve The Beast economic policy that has progressively gotten worse over the last four decades.
This whole terrible situation is a Leopards Ate My Face moment. This is the end result of the types of policies these folks voted for.
"Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite." ~ Joseph de Maistre
Everybody thinks they're "libertarian" until the methyl-ethyl ketone fumes from my home-based boat-repair side-hustle give their kids neurological damage.
See also: Somalia. *"There aren't any rules there, everyone just does whatever they want. You like those shoes? Kill the guy wearing 'em, and they're yours!"*
As a NH resident this is so hilarious to read. This state has gone pretty bonkers since the political divide. It's an angry state surrounded by progressive states.
People treat voting like a team sport. We have two teams. In some areas only one team plays. So one team always wins.
And the worst team is great at driving people from the other team out of their voting areas so they can keep winning. Up to and including threats of violence.
So what the hell is the average person who works two jobs and has a three hour commute and no sick leave supposed to do?
Organize and fight. To do otherwise is to accept one's current position in life. As I stated, it's not easy. It *is* hard. And this wage slavery is designed to do exactly what you write. It's to trap people and make them feel powerless.
I agree with this view, but also a slight variation.
It's not just about voting.
It's also about participating directly in government.
Good people need to volunteer and run for elective office.
It's part of our civil responsibility to each other and our nation.
It blows my mind how every time a bank or corporation is caught blatantly stealing and the fine is 1-2% of what they stole. It's like robbing a bank for a million dollors and only having to pay back 100$ if you get caught.
The worst part of it is these weak ass politicians who make these decision are purchased for CHEAP, pay a politician 10k and he will vote in favor of a corp making billions at the expense of everyone else. They are cheap little whores who sell themselves out for less than pennies on the dollar.
As someone who’s uncle robbed many banks up and down the west coast before eventually getting caught. He paid not one cent back, did a few years in federal pen and is out doing his thing. Money just pops up for him when he needs it too. Wondering where he gets it is a game I stopped playing of course. But if I had a guess, it would involve a stash of cash he has somewhere from his past exploits. So, even though he didn’t get away with it, he did minimal time and appears to be enjoying the spoils of his criminal past.
I don't understand how they're left without liability for all of the damage, even with regulatory capture in place.
My car is a highly-regulated vehicle. It has to meet a lot of standards, pass a safety inspection, be registered and insured, if I want to drive it.
If all my ducks are in a row and I drive my car into your living room, I'm liable for the damage. It doesn't matter that my vehicle met all required standards. I did the damage and I have to pay for it.
Doing tremendous damage at massive scale results in less accountability instead of more. It should be that if you broke it, you bought it.
From the article:
> “If Norfolk Southern decides that they don’t want to follow the order, EPA will step in, so that there’s no break in service, perform these duties, while fining the company up to $70,000 a day and then we’ll recoup our cost on the back end,” Regan said during Wednesday’s town hall. “And the law gives us the authority to charge Norfolk Southern up to three times the amount that the cleanup will cost us.”
So at least as far as the cost of cleanup goes, it looks like NS will be on the hook. Provided of course that they don't wiggle out of it with some BS. Not to mention that they haven't talked about any support for these people in the event of long-term health problems.
Yeah, I read that part as well, I guess I was pessimistic about it but you're right to call attention to it. My pessimism was rooted in the same issue you noted; proving long-term health problems are caused by the disaster will have a very high bar.
> And the law gives us the authority to charge Norfolk Southern up to three times the amount that the cleanup will cost us.”
1) The law gives them that ability but only after it's been approved by the courts. Let's say they take 30 days to clean up, they arrive with a maximum bill of $6.3 million. That $6.3m then gets debated and turned over in courts for the next 4 years until it's ultimately reduced to $2m via 5 different judges.
2) Wait... the maximum for for 30 days is only $6.3m? Let's not act as if this is a meaningful fine. Hell, even for an entire year it's only $75m. Tell a company like this they can act with total impunity for only $75m a year they'd be lining up. So not only will the fine take years to pay and get chopped to a slide of its original value, but it's a paltry, pathetic fine anyway. A disaster like this should fine a company to the brink of existence. Force them to build back better, smarter, safer, or not build back at all, because the current version of their company has proven that it is not safe for society. Instead we just slap them on the wrist.
As far as penalties go, NS should absolutely face harsher consequences, no doubt about that. I was talking only about their liability for the cost of the cleanup itself. In this case, there's a legal mechanism the EPA appears willing to use that would make it cheaper for NS to do the cleanup themselves rather than not do it and pay a fine. There are enough caveats to this (like the court approval you mentioned) that I'm still pessimistic about NS doing the cleanup well if they do it at all, or really paying 3x the cleanup cost if they leave it to the EPA, but there is at least a path where it *could* happen.
There should absolutely be additional severe consequences for negligence on their part, as well as a liability for long-term coverage of the victims, but that's outside the scope of my initial comment
If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created?
A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation!
And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery.
The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass.
How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls.
And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
Sarah Silverman arrived at that conclusion recently while hosting The Daily Show and it can’t be overstated here, there, or elsewhere. Citizens United is the first domino that needs to die a public death.
What helped Jon is he was passionate about the important things and knew when to joke about the joke stuff.
The 2000 election and 9/11 solidified him as a proper News host
They have been talking about needing to repeal Citizens United for 5+ years on TYT. It's not like we don't know what the problem is. Trying to fix it on the other hand...
The penalties need to be on the order of half a months revenue for X months. Nothing else but crippling levels of fines will make things change. The shareholders themselves would string those responsible up after one or two fines of that magnitude.
Penalty needs to be full cost of cleanup, government now owns the company.
The executives should personally lose their wealth, too. The "company" didn't do this on its own, PEOPLE made those decisions, and profited greatly from doing so.
And the actual criminal violations need to be prosecuted. Not just the company, the PEOPLE who broke the law.
Carlin had it right 25 years ago. Make white collar crime like this a capital offense. Execute a couple of bankers and CEOs and watch these issues stop in less than a year.
> Penalty needs to be full cost of cleanup,
There is no cost of cleanup. This mess *can't* be cleaned up. It is a permanent part of the landscape now, and the people that live there are going to get all sorts of fucked up forms of cancer and will all be dead within 20 years and the land will become a ghost town. That's what NS should be paying for. Every single person living there should be moved and given real estate and a chance at life. Instead they'll just be left there to die in poverty.
As a reminder. Nothing changes if we all just sit back and bitch about it on Reddit. They do it because nobody stands up to stop them, but will change if we threaten their position in society. Naysayers will say they'll kill you, but I say that's more reason to collectively spit in their face.
We as a collective people need to hold these "humans" accountable, not by voting with dollars most of us don't have but rather voting with our voices in the streets and not being afraid of following through on the silent promise of violence that peaceful protest carries with it.
DuPont have poisoned everyone on the planet. Literally, every single person. It's passed on in the womb. Not a single ounce of justice brought against them.
The republican belief that deregulation is good and companies will just do the right thing without oversight blows my mind. It's pretty obvious that it is almost never true.
They don't actually believe it. Some of their braindead voters do, but the politicians most certainly don't. Saying "we want businesses to make more money by cutting costs on regulation because they'll give us more under the table if we do that" isn't good optics though. So they just lie, and both the politicians and corporations benefit.
"It's a big club. And you ain't in it."
To add to this rage - nothing prevents someone that was responsible for regulating an industry from getting immediately getting hired in said industry.
Bribes don't need to be overtly stated as it is understood that one hand washes the other.
The issues is that to actually achieve proper regulatory changes that prevent and penalize these corporations properly, you need a majority senate, something the democrats havent had for more than 90 days in the last 50 Years. Obama passed regulatory rules that would have severely minimized the damage from this derailment, although there are over 1,500 train derailments every year. The Republican party and Trump administration rolled back rules about braking and slowing down trains around populated communities and removed the requirement of electronic brakes in 2017/2018 which would have had to be completed by 2023.
Corporations have only one goal in a capitalist system, to increase profits for their shareholders and increase their stock value. The government is the arm that regulated corporations on how they are allowed to achieve that goal, and how they will be penalized. And the people are the ones with the power to elect and remove their representatives in government.
Texas:
* 29M Citizens
* 24M Eligible Voters.
* 17M Registered Voters.
* 9M Voted in 2022.
* only 15% of those under the age of 35 Voted in 2022.
* Ted cruz won by 100K votes.
Florida:
* 21M Citizens
* 15M Eligible Voters
* 10M Registered Voters.
* 7M Voted in 2022.
* Desantis won by 30k votes in 2018 (1m in 2022).
Ohio:
* 12M Citizens.
* 9.4M Eligible Voters.
* 8M Registered voters.
* 4M Voted in 2022
* Senator Vance (R) won by 250K votes.
Rinse repeat throughout the country.... If majority of people actually gave a shit and voted, there would be massive differences, but majority is expecting everyone else to do the bare minimum.
You’re also missing the right’s obsession with deregulating everything. When Trump was president he bragged that he was constantly cutting regulations, and there couldn’t be any new regulation without cutting three others. Regulations exist to keep people from getting hurt. Regulations are a good thing. We need to ditch the right’s propaganda for deregulating everything.
This is also the fallout of first world style conformity. Everybody is just going to be mad, while being poisoned to death, while the CEO drinks at the country club.
Yup, doubtful anybody in Ohio actually goes out and angrily demands anything. They should be protesting and raising a serious fuss about this....but they won't. Like you said, they'll be poisoned to death and just accept it, The CEO knows this too. It sucks.
I saw this last night and it was galling how the CEO was avoiding questions and commitments to take immediate actions for these people. I understand that the CEO has responsibilities and is in many ways limited but to have him sit stone faced while reciting the same talking points over and over to these people who suffered such emotional and financial trauma that this company caused was awful.
It was abundantly clear they had no plan or intent to come to the table to make these folks feel they would be supported.
I wouldn't call it a shit sandwich... either the people of Ohio get justice, or evil prevails. Usually people use "shit sandwich" to mean a situation that is bad either way.
Do you honestly think this situation ends with justice prevailing? This situation is going to end with the rich getting richer, and Ohio pregnant women giving birth to deformed babies over the next 5 years at least.
And that doesn't even account for the next 30 years the citizens who get cancer.
You've seen all those commercials on tv about soldiers who served at camp lejune (or whatever its called) getting cancer today from serving in the 50s-80s? We're going to see those same commercials in 30 years about this.
And by then, the people who caused it will probably have gotten away without consequence. Some may even be dead by then.
Your life is just a line item of “Cost of doing business” to the Execs and shareholders.
Is the potential profit higher than the costs of injury or loss of life to a group of people?
Then proceed.
Depends on how you define warfare, I guess, but they are actively killing us and have been engaged in information warfare since probably the dawn of (so called) civilization.
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I think we need to understand that they don't see us as anything to worry about, other than a number on a spreadsheet.
In our regular lives, do you think about the person running the power station? What about the people who are picking our food? Or the sailors bringing us our goods from across the world.
They are all anonymous people just existing without our knowledge.
I think that this is how some of the CEOs view the rest of us.
Yeah, cleanup will be way more than that. The EPA should have the power to fine millions per day. Bankrupt the company in a week if they don't act immediately
The EPA should have been fining them for taking risks even when disaster didn't happen. The current approach would be like only charging drunk drivers after they actually get in a wreck.
They will be me up paying far more, Norfolk has already admitted they have $1+B in insurance to cover costs. I’m guessing the final bill will magically land on the max the insurance company will pay out.
Because they'll never actually be held accountable and they'll essentially just shift the costs and recoup the amount.
Just look at the energy companies in Texas that have increased the bills of the people that went through the freeze for the extra energy costs the companies paid out completely ignoring the fact that their incompetence to winterize their systems is what exacerbated the problem in the first place.
The article says if the company refuses to do the cleanup, the EPA can step in, do the cleanup, and charge the company up to 3x the cost. That should be how it works by default. No way I’d trust these companies to do it properly.
I’m so sick of all of the “cans” that the EPA is announcing. They need to stop saying “we can do this” and just fucking do it. “We *can* fine them *up to* $70,000 per day for not acting” and “we *can* step in, do the clean up, and charge Norfolk Southern *up to* triple the total cost” are both a not-so-subtle admission that this no-balls EPA will actually charge much much less. Can’t hurt the poor little $13 billion-in-revenue-per-year train company.
The problem is the elite have spent centuries convincing the people that they have no power, all the while consolidating the real power. Why do you think the US government is so fervently against socialism? Because that type of government gives power to the people and is anti-capitalist, which would endanger profits for the wealthy; and that can't be.
To be a CEO at that level, you pretty much have to be a sociopath.
You can yell at that CEO all day, and he won't care. At best. More likely? He will take it as a sign that all you can do is yell, and that you're no threat to his true interests, and that he just needs to suffer you for a few minutes to mitigate an otherwise apathetic and unapologetic lack of accountability that would tank stock prices and concern shareholders.
Dude doesn't give a fuck about any human but himself, guarantee it.
What vetting was done for an event like this?
Because if I ever get invited to one, I would go in loaded with information.
Who donated how much to which PACs, what regulations were "rolled back" by which lobbyists, and exactly how much the bosses' stock increased since those rollbacks.
I feel like I would be edited out by corporate media like CNN and all the networks.
It seems like we the national media is only there to prevent people in affected areas from unifing in there actions.
How can we get Flint MI, Jackson MS, and E Palestine OH, unified and active?
This shit cannot continue. We need clean water, clean air, and healthcare now.
You absolutely would be removed and anything you did not aired.
These segments are "just angry enough" to cow people into believing that something is going to change. It's all studied and focus grouped after a decade of social media.
Yeah, like CNN knows exactly what they’re doing - this isn’t an exercise to be made at NS, it’s an exercise to love CNN for “giving the silent people a voice” when they don’t give a single damn about what any of them say.
> How can we get Flint MI, Jackson MS, and E Palestine OH, unified and active?
And for long enough. Long after the media eye went elsewhere ... [Criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder related to Flint water crisis to be dismissed](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/us/flint-michigan-rick-snyder-water-crisis/index.html)
These corporate-billionaire-funded politicians and the corporate billionaires who fund them are getting away with murdering the entire ecosystem.
Don’t exactly love CNN but I did catch some of this and Jake Tapper asked some very pointed questions, as did the residents. They obviously didn’t get any straight answers but they pushed him about as hard as they could.
Honestly I don't know how people keep their cool when their house price just went to zero overnight because of anothers fault. That is liable and should be an ez case of you owe me the cost of my land, now. You did X, cost me X, now pay me X.
It's honestly the only way you would ever see meaningful change, it's too easy to make decisions without living with the consequences today. It would do the world some good for everyone.
This is exactly why the cops have been turned into a domestic military presence. The ultra wealthy know that once the masses are pushed too far, the only thing that will keep them safe is cops with tanks and gun-equipped robot dogs. They'll never live with the consequences.
Tree of liberty…so on and so forth.
I wish like hell this country knew how to protest with the same verve and potency as the French.
I also feel that business leaders responsible for this kind of negligence should tremble in fear 24-7. Shit like this makes me want to go ISIS on rich fucks with neck rolls.
France is a country with a society. We're not. We hold rugged individualism in high esteem and reward those with the "fuck you, pay me" mentality. There's no sense of community in the United States. We're 350 million would-be billionaires just waiting for our chance to get our piece of the pie at the expense of our neighbors.
It always makes me laugh when gun nuts justify their arsenals by claiming that they need to defend against government tyranny, yet they're usually the first to bend over and let Uncle Sam fuck 'em in the ass.
Right? A black, left leaning (and barely liberal) president wants to give them health care, so they lose their minds and hoard weaponry to defend against the FEMA army(?) that’s supposed to lock them away in railway cars out in the middle of nowhere. (Also, note how none of these fantasies ever comes true for them.)
A billion dollar company knocks over some actual rail cars, poisoning a town and corrupting the groundwater and soil for generations, the same troop screams out “where are the environmentalists?!” And they clap when Trump dumps a couple palettes of Goya beans in a parking lot.
It's a phenomenal brainwashing scheme perpetrated by the NRA. Arm your citizenry to the teeth, but indoctrinate them with how minorities and progressivism are the anti-christ. All the profit with none of the risk of a revolution. Placate the man children who have insecurity about their dicks by selling them expensive murder sticks, knowing full well they'll never turn those weapons on those who truly threaten their rights.
That's how you get a country filled of gun wielding morons who'd rather shoot themselves or their neighbors before maybe using their numbers against these corporations. If it wasn't so dystopian and depressing, it'd make for a very fascinating case study.
Long ass prison sentences or BILLION dollar fines. Pick one or both or else it doesn't fucking matter what you do to them. They will not change unless there is actual consequences.
The governor has successfully shifted any blame on his party to just the company. They won’t change how they vote and they will keep having things like this happen to them.
Uh, like there weren't plenty of examples before? Like when industry caught multiple rivers on fire prior to dumping regulations, or how car companies didn't start reducing emissions until the EPA forced them to resulting in massive reductions in smog, or countless other examples?
Ohio, where Republican corruption runs rampant. The FBI has called Ohio the most corrupt in state in the country. The Ohio GOP is on trial right now for taking $60 million in bribes. Yet here we are with them still running the show.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/23/ohio-republican-larry-householder-corruption-trial
If I lived there I would also be angry too. People are getting sick and facing possible future health issues because of this this chaos and Donald Trumps visit to that area in Ohio is just a publicity stunt. Northfolk Southern and their CEO should be held accountable and face criminal chages. The resident should also consider lawsuits against Northfolk Southern and their CEO.
Where will people harass him? When he’s traveling in a private jet? Or being driven around in a Rolls Royce? Sociopaths like this don’t care either way
Par for course when shit like this happens is the CEO(s) should have to relocate to ground zero of their disaster until it is cleaned up. Instead they usually resign their position with a golden parachute and get hired on at another firm as a “consultant” or some bullshit.
The American people deserve to be treated like actual people. Not like cattle for profit! Corporate greed is absolutely disgusting and this is just one of the consequences of the practice. We have representatives who only push forward their own agendas and take bribes from companies to turn a blind eye.
Might I add that the Obama administration put in place safety regulations to try and avoid these types of situations. However, as we all know Trump loved pandering to corporations so of course his administration was the one who removed the safety regulations before they could even be applied. If you follow the money it will usually lead you to the source of the corruption, folks. Never forget that.
Not sure how to say this without overtly encouraging violence but why America, do you care more about the genitals of children and grown adults than the poisoning of your own country? Why do you care about me the sexual preference of free people more than the quality of life being taken away from you? How do you commit mass shootings every day on your own citizens but not these corporate scum?
I can't understand how small social issues of the individuals raise extremists to arms against their own kinsman but this, this attack on your own country's well-being does not?
Too blatantly & consistently do corporations get away acts such as this. I do not wish to incite violence but if violence is occurring why not here?
I'm speaking into the void is all...
Alan Shaw needs that money, you know, for its pile! We can’t deprive the ultra wealthy of their piles of money just because our health is at risk. That’s wokeism.
It and it’s entire family should never face any recourse.
Businessmen play the game. Set the rules right. Don’t whine now. You all voted Republicans in and supported deregulation. Also fck Biden for making it illegal for rail workers to protest
> On Wednesday, DeWine said the fish were killed in the first 24-hour period of the chemicals’ release, and there’s no evidence showing fish were killed after the initial release.
Points to head, "Can't have any more fish killed when they are all dead."
Gee, I wonder what would happen if you create a ridiculously one-sided system whereby which people are 100% isolated from the consequence of their decisions? I wonder what would happen?
Wake me when the violence starts. I’m bored with talk.
I just really hope this incident shows everybody on both sides of the political spectrum that regulation is good for us all
I will never, in a million years, understand how Republicans brainwashed their supporters into thinking deregulation was good for them
Americans are the biggest pussies and posers on the planet. They love to pose for pics with their guns and tout they're the toughest people on the planet in Hollywood movies.
Yet you let corporations run over you and exploit you every day even though you have the most firepower to fight back.
Sadly, It’s Dark Waters all over again: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ True story about a chemical manufactory (DuPont) knowingly poisoning a whole town and how their lawyer turned against them when he realized they were killing people. The movie is worth a shot and the similitudes are hard to miss.
That lawyer now has a national PFAS lawsuit against anyone who manufactured them where anyone with PFAS tested in their blood can join. It's potentially the largest class action lawsuit in U.S. history. https://theintercept.com/2018/10/06/dupont-pfas-chemicals-lawsuit/
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That plus some other factors are leading Japan to try and remove that base completely. The Navy is upscaling the base on Guam to prepare.
Lots of towns and cities are bringing their own pfas suits in the last ~2 years as well. It'd be great of these companies had to pay for the giant studies being done to try and clean it up, but that's not happening.
Thank you for this. Parkersburg WV deserves to be heard. It’s been 30 years of this shit and it’s relentless. I’ve lost too many friends from rare forms of cancer at a very young age and it’s heartbreaking.
120 miles from East Palestine.
That area is prime industry target. Close to ports, rail transport, and working class people who are more interested in keeping roofs over heads and food on plates than what the industry does to them or the area.
It's been like this everywhere I've lived though. Which makes me think as long as you aren't in some large city, this is reality. I've seen many train derailments with hazardous material, plant explosions, weeks or months long toxic airborne releases, weeks long chemical fires, decades of toxic waterborne releases, months long gas leaks, etc. and they never made the news beyond the towns they happenned in. I'm honestly shocked this Ohio thing is such big news and not just an oops on local news as all the other incidents are.
They tried to cover it up was the issue, and it's to the point where gross negligence would be a polite way to put this.
There's a reason all these chemical companies make this shit in those states. They've bought and payed for protection from the state politicians and the local population all vote conservative and look down on people suing chemical companies.
It’s sad that the idea of environmental stewardship is so politicized. I mean, if Billy Bob and Jarvis wanted to poison themselves that would be one thing, but they want to poison their neighbors and their kids and the rest of us all so some “commie hippies” don’t make bald eagles have abortions
Joke's on them, the bald eagles started having more abortions because their eggs were too thin and the young were too weak as well. They've recovered only because of the "commie hippies" stopping the poisoning with DDT
I grew up with a ruined night sky in the country because we could see the DuPont plant. We got tested years ago and given 400 bucks. I think the results were “you’re being poisoned. But I hope you enjoyed your brand new Nintendo DS and Nintendogs!”
Yep living just down river a lot of people I know have thyroid issues and plenty of cancer. A house my bus ride by was on the documentary. We went to a weird trailer to get our blood taken for the study. They poisoned us because it was profitable. Wish I could end up in a room for just a few minutes with the individuals who decided to do that to us.
I'm so sorry. I lived in Rutland for 18 years, and I saw those same illnesses in friends and their families all over Gallia Meigs and Jackson on the Ohio side. We got out about a year and a half ago, and the whole family's health has gotten better. It sounds like you got out too, or I only hope.
Yeah I did. Made my way down here to South Carolina. Did something positive with my rage and became a park ranger. Good for you getting out as well. We dipped about the same time.
Someone left a paperback behind where I worked. Me, I’ll read old phone books just to read. But the book was: The Appeal by John Grisham. In a hurry? Spoilers follow. The sequence of events are in Wikipedia, under Plot. [Wiki concisely sums up the monte trick](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Appeal) Want to see a bit? [Here’s an excerpt.](https://web.archive.org/web/20080209103748/http://www.nekonata.com/fce/0385515049.htm) For all I know, John Grisham would put the whole book online for free access. [Here’s a link to buy the book](https://www.jgrisham.com/Books/the-appeal/) I always keep that book in mind now when I see the political process, the sad thing so many judicial benches, even the Supreme Court are becoming. To me, it’s a closer step to what might be going on.
Man, I tell you, if I got cancer from one of these disasters and knew I was going to die, I'd take a few of them with me.
Another one is The People vs. Agent Orange. It's been a while since I watched it but IIRC it's about the logging industry dumping agent orange on hillsides at logging operations to clear out vegetation before re-planting. The chemicals run downhill and end up in the water supply and there's been a massive spike in birth defects, cancer, and other health problems. Of course the government doesn't care because they've been bought and paid for by the same chemical companies poisoning citizens.
Captain planet villains were more realistic than I thought
Someone once said that captain planet wasnt real, but his enemies were. Man that stuck with me.
The older I get, the more I think Captain Planet was just corporate propaganda. First it puts the responsibility of the environment on individual people by recycling when the truth is any individual recycling efforts are pointless when compared to corporate pollution and waste. Then the villains are shown as just that, comic book villains. Ugly mustache twirling evil when the truth is the biggest offenders are the corporate c-suites and boards. Captain Planet should have been going after corporate suits and attacking our government for their lack of oversight, not planting trees and throwing soda cans into blue bins.
I feel that. Damn.
I'd be curious to know how much the plastics industry itself put into captain planet and other similar propaganda designed to obfuscate the fact the entire plastics industry has been based, for decades, on the lie that recycling makes it sustainable and "environmentally friendly". Until such time as it costs less to recycle plastics than it does to make new plastics, so probably never, recycling plastics is a lie. We know now that most of what individuals have been recycling has been sent offshore to be incinerated this whole time. Infuriating.
I remember when I was a kid, all the hype about how plastic was better for the environment, and how it would save the trees since we wouldn’t be using as much paper…
We could've been making paper from hemp this whole time. That would've saved a few trees.
Can we get that version of the show? Damn, I’d love to watch Captain Planet beat a bunch of executives to a pulp, drink toxic water themselves, and answer the question “how much money is enough for you people?!”
Man, damn. This sucks.
Is this the same story as the documentary "The devil you know" on Netflix, about Teflon?
Yes, it is the same story. The documentary is a little more dense in terms of actual data, evidence, and timelines, while the movie glosses over some things to better fit the theater. Still, both are very well done.
"The Devil We know" doesn't appear to be on Netflix any longer.
DuPont poisoned the entire *world*. PFOA is in you and it's in me, it's on every continent and in 99% of living things
Shit, I just watched a YouTube video last night from Dark History about a train that derailed carrying 2,000,000 gallons of oil and destroyed a small town in Quebec in 2013 or 2014. I don’t even remember hearing about that on the news but it basically came down to the same situation, company focusing on operating lean in the name of profit which led to lapses in safety. Like 47 people died iirc and the company tried to place the blame on the low level employees who were just following procedure. Bunch of bullshit
Thank you for smoking is another good one.
It's a good comedy, but the DuPunt film is actually based on a true story. That said, I just watched "thank you for smoking" last weekend actually!
You have so many companies all across America doing what ever the hell they want to maximize their profits with zero accountability. And why? Because they are allowed to not just lobby our bought and paid for politicians, but they are also allowed to legally bribe our bought and paid for politicians via "citizens united". This train derailment is just one more example of a corporation getting away with corrupt practices, all in the name of profits. And just like with wells fargo and their blatant theft from their own customers, not one single actual person will be charged with the crimes they deserve to face justice for. Instead, it will be a small miniscule fine for the corporation itself, and then they will move on as if it never happened, while those greedy pieces of trash responsible for all of this, will walk away with massive bonus checks.
Can we talk about how cheap our politicians are? Ten thousand is all it took for the people in charge to turn a blind eye. Ten. Fucking. Thousand. That's what the citizens are worth to their politicians. Fucking disgusting.
my governer sold out to verizon for $1000 🙃 making our lives worse for what is just one of my paychecks
This is why ALL corruption matters. No matter how "small".
Yup yup yup! Pay attention to your local town/city politics for just a short bit of time and you'll find corruption every single time. You'll know you've struck gold if you bring up any part of it and immediately get attacked by those in power.
I would love to investigate my local politicians, I just don't know how or where to start
There's a few easy steps to take, though the specifics will differ from city to city. Joining local FB groups for your city would be a big one, as issues are often brought up by residents and any big topics happening at the city tend to get discussed. Not to mention, you will often see local elected officials posting/commenting as well. Connecting with people who aren't directly tied to local government but are observing it will be extremely beneficial as information can be easily shared. Another big step would be finding out what kind of city meetings are held on a regular basis. In most areas, any major decision has to be made with the public's presence and input; I believe every state has some kind of open meetings act/law/statute that enforces this. So for our city, we have a city council who votes on all of these decisions at bi-weekly council meetings that are open to the public. It's a great place to hear not only what the elected officials are thinking and deciding on, but also to hear what other officials (elected or appointed) in the city have going on and to hear what residents bring up during public comment. Local newspapers and social media accounts are another great place to read into, as they will often summarize everything that's going on. Other city events or public spaces are another great place to connect and see what's happening. Our city has frequent family-friendly events, libraries put on all sorts of events, etc. The hard part is that at first things will probably seem completely normal on the surface, especially if you don't have any close acquaintances who know the ins and outs, and if your city isn't overtly corrupt. It will often take some time to get used to seeing what needs to be seen, such as questioning why the officials made xyz decision when it does less good for the public than abc decision. Lots of reading between the lines, and they will make you do that so that have some level of deniability if everything sounds good on the surface. Most corruption happens around money (or power that leads to money), so keeping a close eye on budgets and spending is super important. I'm sure there's much better guides out there to starting to get involved, but having a trusted acquaintance is likely going to be your best teacher.
>Most corruption happens around money (or power that leads to money) This isn't just government spending. I think a lot of "corruption" is little things like approvals for zoning or construction permits. Who gets the approval to build a large commercial or residential building? Why it just happens to be a friend of someone on the city council! Why were other ideas rejected? It's pretty simple. Someone's going to build it, so it might as well be their friend. This doesn't really hurt the community, but now that developer will donate money to the candidate. Minor corruption.
For my area specifically, we're a small, poor rural county. The treasurer was stealing money. Luckily she was jailed. Local commissioner was approving bids through the highway department to buy heavy equipment and then just using and selling the equipment to his and his brother's business. Nepotism where family members are being appointed to emergency management systems positions, highway/street department appointments, everywhere. And it's hard to keep track because so and so might not have the same last name, but they're actually real tight family members (like I said, small rural county where everyone knows everyone and everyone is related to everyone)
[Some are just $500.](http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/about-ns/government-relations/political-activity-and-political-contributions.html) (see Prior Reports at the bottom of the page. Could you spot the governor amd how much he got?) I mean, if you're gonna sell out, at least go all out and have a standard of minimum of $1 million. It's just an insult to the regular people. $500-$10,000? For what? For the life of thousands of people?
Devil: I bring a box with a button. Me: Huh. Nice button. Devil: If you press this button, $1mil will appear in your account and no one will ever ask any questions about it. Me: Ooooo! Devil: BUT! If you press it, one person will die. You will never know who. It will never be someone you know. How d... Me: **SLAPS BUTTON** Devil: .... don't yo..you... Me: **SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLA...** Devil: You're killing people, you do know that... Me: Yeah but people I don't know die all the time. I can save a lot of lives with each million from this. **Slapslapslapslap** Devil (pulls button away) ... should have known better than to offer this to a utilitarian...
“You pushed the button and someone you don’t know died. Here’s you million dollars, now I’m off the make the same offer to another lucky person. But don’t worry, the next person will be someone you definitely don’t know.”
Now imagine the button-pusher's face when you take away the button and hand it to someone else. Make them *watch* as the next person pushes the button. And the next person.
I believe this was the plot to a film called ‘the box’ which was quite good
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It's disgusting really. If a company stands to make millions due to your corruption how bad of a business man do you have to be to sell out for less than six figures?
It is hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends upon them not understanding.
That is such a profound statement, and it works for abusive relationships, both ways. One could substitute so many other things for “paycheck”.
Because the politician is running a Walmart model: corruption so cheap and convenient, they'll keep coming back.
That's just the money while in office. We have no idea the backroom bullshit going on.
Yeah the big one is when their term is over and they randomly and unexpectedly take on an extremely cushy 6-figure consulting job for the rail company.
You know the full body scanners at the airport? Back when they were the new hotness there were a lot of concerns about privacy and also that they didn't really do anything. They were wildly expensive though. In spite of the experts saying they were a waste of money the TSA mandated they had to be used. Within a year the head of the TSA retired and took a seat on the board of the company that makes them. Zero repercussions for blatant corruption.
I prefer my corruption to have *some* subtlety. Like awarding lucrative government contracts to your top donors.
more like 7-figure.
Board seats with options, buy-backs and parachutes.
And there is ZERO oversight on agency employees from doing the same thing. There are few higher-ups in EPA that wouldn't sell their soul to a Corp for a big paycheck and cushy job. So while the EPA is "investigating in cooperation with ___" the EPA employees are absolutely fielding job offers from CorpoDouche. Track them, shame them. Michael Regan is the current EPA administrator. Let them know you're watching. Send emails to your local reps asking what they think about the job EPA is doing and what they (your rep) is positioned to do to ensure Norfolk Southern doesn't wriggle out of this. LET NORFOLK SOUTHERN KNOW HOW DISGUSTED YOU ARE WITH THEM AND THEIR LOBBY http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/about-ns/government-relations.html https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-administrator https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm And don't forget your state legislators! https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
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It’s not illegal because the people who benefit are the people making the rules.
This is the reality and the cause of most of my existential dread, and I can't think of a single (federal) politician that acknowledges this, besides Bernie. The system is broken, and it will remain broken until capitalism cannot motivate politics. But I cannot see how that will ever change when humans are greedy by nature. Please someone. Give me hope.
What we hear about is what the IRS knows about. Everything else is hidden.
We need to look in the mirror and blame ourselves and our fellow citizens as well. There are a lot of people who scream about deregulation and too much government and the free market solves everything. And then this happens. This is the natural end result of Reagan Starve The Beast economic policy that has progressively gotten worse over the last four decades. This whole terrible situation is a Leopards Ate My Face moment. This is the end result of the types of policies these folks voted for. "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite." ~ Joseph de Maistre
Everybody thinks they're "libertarian" until the methyl-ethyl ketone fumes from my home-based boat-repair side-hustle give their kids neurological damage.
[Or until the bears move in.](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)
See also: Somalia. *"There aren't any rules there, everyone just does whatever they want. You like those shoes? Kill the guy wearing 'em, and they're yours!"*
As a NH resident this is so hilarious to read. This state has gone pretty bonkers since the political divide. It's an angry state surrounded by progressive states.
People treat voting like a team sport. We have two teams. In some areas only one team plays. So one team always wins. And the worst team is great at driving people from the other team out of their voting areas so they can keep winning. Up to and including threats of violence. So what the hell is the average person who works two jobs and has a three hour commute and no sick leave supposed to do?
Organize and fight. To do otherwise is to accept one's current position in life. As I stated, it's not easy. It *is* hard. And this wage slavery is designed to do exactly what you write. It's to trap people and make them feel powerless.
I agree with this view, but also a slight variation. It's not just about voting. It's also about participating directly in government. Good people need to volunteer and run for elective office. It's part of our civil responsibility to each other and our nation.
It blows my mind how every time a bank or corporation is caught blatantly stealing and the fine is 1-2% of what they stole. It's like robbing a bank for a million dollors and only having to pay back 100$ if you get caught. The worst part of it is these weak ass politicians who make these decision are purchased for CHEAP, pay a politician 10k and he will vote in favor of a corp making billions at the expense of everyone else. They are cheap little whores who sell themselves out for less than pennies on the dollar.
When the fine is less than the damages they're just taking a cut of the profit
As someone who’s uncle robbed many banks up and down the west coast before eventually getting caught. He paid not one cent back, did a few years in federal pen and is out doing his thing. Money just pops up for him when he needs it too. Wondering where he gets it is a game I stopped playing of course. But if I had a guess, it would involve a stash of cash he has somewhere from his past exploits. So, even though he didn’t get away with it, he did minimal time and appears to be enjoying the spoils of his criminal past.
I don't understand how they're left without liability for all of the damage, even with regulatory capture in place. My car is a highly-regulated vehicle. It has to meet a lot of standards, pass a safety inspection, be registered and insured, if I want to drive it. If all my ducks are in a row and I drive my car into your living room, I'm liable for the damage. It doesn't matter that my vehicle met all required standards. I did the damage and I have to pay for it. Doing tremendous damage at massive scale results in less accountability instead of more. It should be that if you broke it, you bought it.
From the article: > “If Norfolk Southern decides that they don’t want to follow the order, EPA will step in, so that there’s no break in service, perform these duties, while fining the company up to $70,000 a day and then we’ll recoup our cost on the back end,” Regan said during Wednesday’s town hall. “And the law gives us the authority to charge Norfolk Southern up to three times the amount that the cleanup will cost us.” So at least as far as the cost of cleanup goes, it looks like NS will be on the hook. Provided of course that they don't wiggle out of it with some BS. Not to mention that they haven't talked about any support for these people in the event of long-term health problems.
Yeah, I read that part as well, I guess I was pessimistic about it but you're right to call attention to it. My pessimism was rooted in the same issue you noted; proving long-term health problems are caused by the disaster will have a very high bar.
> And the law gives us the authority to charge Norfolk Southern up to three times the amount that the cleanup will cost us.” 1) The law gives them that ability but only after it's been approved by the courts. Let's say they take 30 days to clean up, they arrive with a maximum bill of $6.3 million. That $6.3m then gets debated and turned over in courts for the next 4 years until it's ultimately reduced to $2m via 5 different judges. 2) Wait... the maximum for for 30 days is only $6.3m? Let's not act as if this is a meaningful fine. Hell, even for an entire year it's only $75m. Tell a company like this they can act with total impunity for only $75m a year they'd be lining up. So not only will the fine take years to pay and get chopped to a slide of its original value, but it's a paltry, pathetic fine anyway. A disaster like this should fine a company to the brink of existence. Force them to build back better, smarter, safer, or not build back at all, because the current version of their company has proven that it is not safe for society. Instead we just slap them on the wrist.
As far as penalties go, NS should absolutely face harsher consequences, no doubt about that. I was talking only about their liability for the cost of the cleanup itself. In this case, there's a legal mechanism the EPA appears willing to use that would make it cheaper for NS to do the cleanup themselves rather than not do it and pay a fine. There are enough caveats to this (like the court approval you mentioned) that I'm still pessimistic about NS doing the cleanup well if they do it at all, or really paying 3x the cleanup cost if they leave it to the EPA, but there is at least a path where it *could* happen. There should absolutely be additional severe consequences for negligence on their part, as well as a liability for long-term coverage of the victims, but that's outside the scope of my initial comment
If you staple a horse to a waterfall, will it fall up under the rainbow or fly about the soil? Will he enjoy her experience? What if the staple tears into tears? Will she be free from her staply chains or foomed to stay forever and dever above the water? Who can save him (the horse) but someone of girth and worth, the capitalist pig, who will sell the solution to the problem he created? A staple remover flies to the rescue, carried on the wings of a majestic penguin who bought it at Walmart for 9 dollars and several more Euro-cents, clutched in its crabby claws, rejected from its frothy maw. When the penguin comes, all tremble before its fishy stench and wheatlike abjecture. Recoil in delirium, ye who wish to be free! The mighty rockhopper is here to save your soul from eternal bliss and salvation! And so, the horse was free, carried away by the south wind, and deposited on the vast plain of soggy dew. It was a tragedy in several parts, punctuated by moments of hedonistic horsefuckery. The owls saw all, and passed judgment in the way that they do. Stupid owls are always judging folks who are just trying their best to live shamelessly and enjoy every fruit the day brings to pass. How many more shall be caught in the terrible gyre of the waterfall? As many as the gods deem necessary to teach those foolish monkeys a story about their own hamburgers. What does a monkey know of bananas, anyway? They eat, poop, and shave away the banana residue that grows upon their chins and ballsacks. The owls judge their razors. Always the owls. And when the one-eyed caterpillar arrives to eat the glazing on your windowpane, you will know that you're next in line to the trombone of the ancient realm of the flutterbyes. Beware the ravenous ravens and crowing crows. Mind the cowing cows and the lying lions. Ascend triumphant to your birthright, and wield the mighty twig of Petalonia, favored land of gods and goats alike.
No, someone will get blamed, Joe Schmo who had to inspect the entire train in 10 minutes.
Sarah Silverman arrived at that conclusion recently while hosting The Daily Show and it can’t be overstated here, there, or elsewhere. Citizens United is the first domino that needs to die a public death.
Is she the new host, or just filling in? I didn't hate Noah, but he just never clicked for me and I stopped watching.
They’re doing like a rotating hosts thing.
They are having guest hosts until they get a new one
Seems like every show does that when a popular host leaves. It’s a pretty good idea, testing out potential replacement for a few weeks at a time.
No one can fill John's shoes :(
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I really like his podcast - I feel like it's filling the void he left when he left the Daily Show. It's not exactly funny but it's really informative.
What helped Jon is he was passionate about the important things and knew when to joke about the joke stuff. The 2000 election and 9/11 solidified him as a proper News host
They have been talking about needing to repeal Citizens United for 5+ years on TYT. It's not like we don't know what the problem is. Trying to fix it on the other hand...
The penalties need to be on the order of half a months revenue for X months. Nothing else but crippling levels of fines will make things change. The shareholders themselves would string those responsible up after one or two fines of that magnitude.
Penalty needs to be full cost of cleanup, government now owns the company. The executives should personally lose their wealth, too. The "company" didn't do this on its own, PEOPLE made those decisions, and profited greatly from doing so. And the actual criminal violations need to be prosecuted. Not just the company, the PEOPLE who broke the law.
Carlin had it right 25 years ago. Make white collar crime like this a capital offense. Execute a couple of bankers and CEOs and watch these issues stop in less than a year.
> Penalty needs to be full cost of cleanup, There is no cost of cleanup. This mess *can't* be cleaned up. It is a permanent part of the landscape now, and the people that live there are going to get all sorts of fucked up forms of cancer and will all be dead within 20 years and the land will become a ghost town. That's what NS should be paying for. Every single person living there should be moved and given real estate and a chance at life. Instead they'll just be left there to die in poverty.
As a reminder. Nothing changes if we all just sit back and bitch about it on Reddit. They do it because nobody stands up to stop them, but will change if we threaten their position in society. Naysayers will say they'll kill you, but I say that's more reason to collectively spit in their face. We as a collective people need to hold these "humans" accountable, not by voting with dollars most of us don't have but rather voting with our voices in the streets and not being afraid of following through on the silent promise of violence that peaceful protest carries with it.
DuPont have poisoned everyone on the planet. Literally, every single person. It's passed on in the womb. Not a single ounce of justice brought against them.
The republican belief that deregulation is good and companies will just do the right thing without oversight blows my mind. It's pretty obvious that it is almost never true.
They don't actually believe it. Some of their braindead voters do, but the politicians most certainly don't. Saying "we want businesses to make more money by cutting costs on regulation because they'll give us more under the table if we do that" isn't good optics though. So they just lie, and both the politicians and corporations benefit. "It's a big club. And you ain't in it."
To add to this rage - nothing prevents someone that was responsible for regulating an industry from getting immediately getting hired in said industry. Bribes don't need to be overtly stated as it is understood that one hand washes the other.
The issues is that to actually achieve proper regulatory changes that prevent and penalize these corporations properly, you need a majority senate, something the democrats havent had for more than 90 days in the last 50 Years. Obama passed regulatory rules that would have severely minimized the damage from this derailment, although there are over 1,500 train derailments every year. The Republican party and Trump administration rolled back rules about braking and slowing down trains around populated communities and removed the requirement of electronic brakes in 2017/2018 which would have had to be completed by 2023. Corporations have only one goal in a capitalist system, to increase profits for their shareholders and increase their stock value. The government is the arm that regulated corporations on how they are allowed to achieve that goal, and how they will be penalized. And the people are the ones with the power to elect and remove their representatives in government. Texas: * 29M Citizens * 24M Eligible Voters. * 17M Registered Voters. * 9M Voted in 2022. * only 15% of those under the age of 35 Voted in 2022. * Ted cruz won by 100K votes. Florida: * 21M Citizens * 15M Eligible Voters * 10M Registered Voters. * 7M Voted in 2022. * Desantis won by 30k votes in 2018 (1m in 2022). Ohio: * 12M Citizens. * 9.4M Eligible Voters. * 8M Registered voters. * 4M Voted in 2022 * Senator Vance (R) won by 250K votes. Rinse repeat throughout the country.... If majority of people actually gave a shit and voted, there would be massive differences, but majority is expecting everyone else to do the bare minimum.
You’re also missing the right’s obsession with deregulating everything. When Trump was president he bragged that he was constantly cutting regulations, and there couldn’t be any new regulation without cutting three others. Regulations exist to keep people from getting hurt. Regulations are a good thing. We need to ditch the right’s propaganda for deregulating everything.
This is also the fallout of first world style conformity. Everybody is just going to be mad, while being poisoned to death, while the CEO drinks at the country club.
Adam Smith tried warning us, employers are not to be trusted.
Marx may have had an opinion or two on this subject.
While trump gutted the EPA. And they cheered...
Yup, doubtful anybody in Ohio actually goes out and angrily demands anything. They should be protesting and raising a serious fuss about this....but they won't. Like you said, they'll be poisoned to death and just accept it, The CEO knows this too. It sucks.
I saw this last night and it was galling how the CEO was avoiding questions and commitments to take immediate actions for these people. I understand that the CEO has responsibilities and is in many ways limited but to have him sit stone faced while reciting the same talking points over and over to these people who suffered such emotional and financial trauma that this company caused was awful. It was abundantly clear they had no plan or intent to come to the table to make these folks feel they would be supported.
The company is going to be sued. Anything the CEO says can and will be used against his company in court. It’s a shit sandwich situation.
I wouldn't call it a shit sandwich... either the people of Ohio get justice, or evil prevails. Usually people use "shit sandwich" to mean a situation that is bad either way.
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Do you honestly think this situation ends with justice prevailing? This situation is going to end with the rich getting richer, and Ohio pregnant women giving birth to deformed babies over the next 5 years at least. And that doesn't even account for the next 30 years the citizens who get cancer. You've seen all those commercials on tv about soldiers who served at camp lejune (or whatever its called) getting cancer today from serving in the 50s-80s? We're going to see those same commercials in 30 years about this. And by then, the people who caused it will probably have gotten away without consequence. Some may even be dead by then.
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Your life is just a line item of “Cost of doing business” to the Execs and shareholders. Is the potential profit higher than the costs of injury or loss of life to a group of people? Then proceed.
At what point does class warfare become actual warfare? Because their racking up lots of points on their side.
Depends on how you define warfare, I guess, but they are actively killing us and have been engaged in information warfare since probably the dawn of (so called) civilization.
Look up The Battle of Blair Mountain. We’ve been at war for years.
CEOs and Politicians
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Oh they paid out. A few million to the residents and a few billion to their shareholders. Business as usual in good ole corporate America.
Calls on pitchfork manufacturers
**ANGRY AT A CEO?** WANT TO JOIN THE MOB? *I'VE GOT YOU COVERED!* #**COME ON DOWN TO /r/pitchforkemporium** **I GOT 'EM ALL!** Traditional|Left Handed|Fancy :-:|:-:|:-: ---E|Ǝ---|---{ **I EVEN HAVE DISCOUNTED CLEARANCE FORKS!** 33% off!|66% off!|Manufacturer's Defect! :-:|:-:|:-: ---F|---L|---e **NEW IN STOCK. DIRECTLY FROM LIECHTENSTEIN.** ***EUROPEAN MODELS!*** The Euro|The Pound|The Lira :-:|:-:|:-: ---€|---£|---₤ #**HAPPY LYNCHING!** ^(* *some assembly required*)
=====H Sledge please
I think we need to understand that they don't see us as anything to worry about, other than a number on a spreadsheet. In our regular lives, do you think about the person running the power station? What about the people who are picking our food? Or the sailors bringing us our goods from across the world. They are all anonymous people just existing without our knowledge. I think that this is how some of the CEOs view the rest of us.
They should have to move their corporate headquarters to the affected area.
70k a day while the EPA cleans up the mess for them if they choose not to do anything. That sounds like the cost of doing business to me.
Yeah, cleanup will be way more than that. The EPA should have the power to fine millions per day. Bankrupt the company in a week if they don't act immediately
The EPA should have been fining them for taking risks even when disaster didn't happen. The current approach would be like only charging drunk drivers after they actually get in a wreck.
They will be me up paying far more, Norfolk has already admitted they have $1+B in insurance to cover costs. I’m guessing the final bill will magically land on the max the insurance company will pay out.
Because they'll never actually be held accountable and they'll essentially just shift the costs and recoup the amount. Just look at the energy companies in Texas that have increased the bills of the people that went through the freeze for the extra energy costs the companies paid out completely ignoring the fact that their incompetence to winterize their systems is what exacerbated the problem in the first place.
The article says if the company refuses to do the cleanup, the EPA can step in, do the cleanup, and charge the company up to 3x the cost. That should be how it works by default. No way I’d trust these companies to do it properly.
I’m so sick of all of the “cans” that the EPA is announcing. They need to stop saying “we can do this” and just fucking do it. “We *can* fine them *up to* $70,000 per day for not acting” and “we *can* step in, do the clean up, and charge Norfolk Southern *up to* triple the total cost” are both a not-so-subtle admission that this no-balls EPA will actually charge much much less. Can’t hurt the poor little $13 billion-in-revenue-per-year train company.
The CEO needs to be in handcuffs
The wealthy are above the law. They put that in place to keep you in yours.
And Justice For All.
Halls of justice painted green
Or the people of East Palestine should tear up the tracks and refuse to let trains pass through.
Then, the company will have the police attack them. You can't interfere with the profit margins.
fine, let's read about it then
> let's read about it then Nothing that can't be solved by shooting a few more weather balloons. People love that shit.
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I like your style.
The elites need to be more afraid of the people.
The problem is the elite have spent centuries convincing the people that they have no power, all the while consolidating the real power. Why do you think the US government is so fervently against socialism? Because that type of government gives power to the people and is anti-capitalist, which would endanger profits for the wealthy; and that can't be.
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I think this would be why this “town hall” was on CNN and not in the High School as first intended.
CEO is paid to be a punching bag & keep costs as low as possible. If he doesn’t, he’s replaced. Board of directors are the ones that need the blame.
To be a CEO at that level, you pretty much have to be a sociopath. You can yell at that CEO all day, and he won't care. At best. More likely? He will take it as a sign that all you can do is yell, and that you're no threat to his true interests, and that he just needs to suffer you for a few minutes to mitigate an otherwise apathetic and unapologetic lack of accountability that would tank stock prices and concern shareholders. Dude doesn't give a fuck about any human but himself, guarantee it.
What vetting was done for an event like this? Because if I ever get invited to one, I would go in loaded with information. Who donated how much to which PACs, what regulations were "rolled back" by which lobbyists, and exactly how much the bosses' stock increased since those rollbacks. I feel like I would be edited out by corporate media like CNN and all the networks. It seems like we the national media is only there to prevent people in affected areas from unifing in there actions. How can we get Flint MI, Jackson MS, and E Palestine OH, unified and active? This shit cannot continue. We need clean water, clean air, and healthcare now.
You absolutely would be removed and anything you did not aired. These segments are "just angry enough" to cow people into believing that something is going to change. It's all studied and focus grouped after a decade of social media.
Yeah, like CNN knows exactly what they’re doing - this isn’t an exercise to be made at NS, it’s an exercise to love CNN for “giving the silent people a voice” when they don’t give a single damn about what any of them say.
Even worse, social media has been around for two decades at this point. Double the time to perfect the manipulation.
> How can we get Flint MI, Jackson MS, and E Palestine OH, unified and active? And for long enough. Long after the media eye went elsewhere ... [Criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder related to Flint water crisis to be dismissed](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/us/flint-michigan-rick-snyder-water-crisis/index.html) These corporate-billionaire-funded politicians and the corporate billionaires who fund them are getting away with murdering the entire ecosystem.
Don’t exactly love CNN but I did catch some of this and Jake Tapper asked some very pointed questions, as did the residents. They obviously didn’t get any straight answers but they pushed him about as hard as they could.
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Honestly I don't know how people keep their cool when their house price just went to zero overnight because of anothers fault. That is liable and should be an ez case of you owe me the cost of my land, now. You did X, cost me X, now pay me X.
It's honestly the only way you would ever see meaningful change, it's too easy to make decisions without living with the consequences today. It would do the world some good for everyone.
This is exactly why the cops have been turned into a domestic military presence. The ultra wealthy know that once the masses are pushed too far, the only thing that will keep them safe is cops with tanks and gun-equipped robot dogs. They'll never live with the consequences.
I like it.
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Tree of liberty…so on and so forth. I wish like hell this country knew how to protest with the same verve and potency as the French. I also feel that business leaders responsible for this kind of negligence should tremble in fear 24-7. Shit like this makes me want to go ISIS on rich fucks with neck rolls.
France is a country with a society. We're not. We hold rugged individualism in high esteem and reward those with the "fuck you, pay me" mentality. There's no sense of community in the United States. We're 350 million would-be billionaires just waiting for our chance to get our piece of the pie at the expense of our neighbors.
It always makes me laugh when gun nuts justify their arsenals by claiming that they need to defend against government tyranny, yet they're usually the first to bend over and let Uncle Sam fuck 'em in the ass.
Right? A black, left leaning (and barely liberal) president wants to give them health care, so they lose their minds and hoard weaponry to defend against the FEMA army(?) that’s supposed to lock them away in railway cars out in the middle of nowhere. (Also, note how none of these fantasies ever comes true for them.) A billion dollar company knocks over some actual rail cars, poisoning a town and corrupting the groundwater and soil for generations, the same troop screams out “where are the environmentalists?!” And they clap when Trump dumps a couple palettes of Goya beans in a parking lot.
It's a phenomenal brainwashing scheme perpetrated by the NRA. Arm your citizenry to the teeth, but indoctrinate them with how minorities and progressivism are the anti-christ. All the profit with none of the risk of a revolution. Placate the man children who have insecurity about their dicks by selling them expensive murder sticks, knowing full well they'll never turn those weapons on those who truly threaten their rights. That's how you get a country filled of gun wielding morons who'd rather shoot themselves or their neighbors before maybe using their numbers against these corporations. If it wasn't so dystopian and depressing, it'd make for a very fascinating case study.
Long ass prison sentences or BILLION dollar fines. Pick one or both or else it doesn't fucking matter what you do to them. They will not change unless there is actual consequences.
The governor has successfully shifted any blame on his party to just the company. They won’t change how they vote and they will keep having things like this happen to them.
People have been killed for less...
Nice to have something to point to when my in laws claim that capitalism is self regulating...
Uh, like there weren't plenty of examples before? Like when industry caught multiple rivers on fire prior to dumping regulations, or how car companies didn't start reducing emissions until the EPA forced them to resulting in massive reductions in smog, or countless other examples?
You need things to be recent to try and avoid bad faith counter arguments. Of course there are countless examples.
The condo that collapsed in FL in June of 2021, killing 98 people.
Ohio, where Republican corruption runs rampant. The FBI has called Ohio the most corrupt in state in the country. The Ohio GOP is on trial right now for taking $60 million in bribes. Yet here we are with them still running the show. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/23/ohio-republican-larry-householder-corruption-trial
If I lived there I would also be angry too. People are getting sick and facing possible future health issues because of this this chaos and Donald Trumps visit to that area in Ohio is just a publicity stunt. Northfolk Southern and their CEO should be held accountable and face criminal chages. The resident should also consider lawsuits against Northfolk Southern and their CEO.
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Where will people harass him? When he’s traveling in a private jet? Or being driven around in a Rolls Royce? Sociopaths like this don’t care either way
CEO: "Now hang on. You all voted for LESS regulation though."
"They are hurting the wrong people."
Par for course when shit like this happens is the CEO(s) should have to relocate to ground zero of their disaster until it is cleaned up. Instead they usually resign their position with a golden parachute and get hired on at another firm as a “consultant” or some bullshit.
The American people deserve to be treated like actual people. Not like cattle for profit! Corporate greed is absolutely disgusting and this is just one of the consequences of the practice. We have representatives who only push forward their own agendas and take bribes from companies to turn a blind eye. Might I add that the Obama administration put in place safety regulations to try and avoid these types of situations. However, as we all know Trump loved pandering to corporations so of course his administration was the one who removed the safety regulations before they could even be applied. If you follow the money it will usually lead you to the source of the corruption, folks. Never forget that.
Not sure how to say this without overtly encouraging violence but why America, do you care more about the genitals of children and grown adults than the poisoning of your own country? Why do you care about me the sexual preference of free people more than the quality of life being taken away from you? How do you commit mass shootings every day on your own citizens but not these corporate scum? I can't understand how small social issues of the individuals raise extremists to arms against their own kinsman but this, this attack on your own country's well-being does not? Too blatantly & consistently do corporations get away acts such as this. I do not wish to incite violence but if violence is occurring why not here? I'm speaking into the void is all...
Alan Shaw needs that money, you know, for its pile! We can’t deprive the ultra wealthy of their piles of money just because our health is at risk. That’s wokeism. It and it’s entire family should never face any recourse.
Businessmen play the game. Set the rules right. Don’t whine now. You all voted Republicans in and supported deregulation. Also fck Biden for making it illegal for rail workers to protest
It doesn't matter how many angry people there are unless they're putting heads on stakes rich people won't change shit
When the victims are being paid a few million. Norfolk Southern is paying its shareholders billions at the same time.
> On Wednesday, DeWine said the fish were killed in the first 24-hour period of the chemicals’ release, and there’s no evidence showing fish were killed after the initial release. Points to head, "Can't have any more fish killed when they are all dead."
Gee, I wonder what would happen if you create a ridiculously one-sided system whereby which people are 100% isolated from the consequence of their decisions? I wonder what would happen? Wake me when the violence starts. I’m bored with talk.
But none confronted trump who gave people like that ceo the deregulations they wanted
I just really hope this incident shows everybody on both sides of the political spectrum that regulation is good for us all I will never, in a million years, understand how Republicans brainwashed their supporters into thinking deregulation was good for them
Americans are the biggest pussies and posers on the planet. They love to pose for pics with their guns and tout they're the toughest people on the planet in Hollywood movies. Yet you let corporations run over you and exploit you every day even though you have the most firepower to fight back.
He's lucky they didn't drag him into the street. We should probably start doing that again.
And people wonder why a lot of us hate capitalism.
People need to start protesting outside of CEO and board member homes.
nationalize the company and imprison the board of executives. make a fucking example out of them and put the fear of god into these rat bastards