The NRA slogan is starting to look to me like a pretty good starting point in analyzing the popular meme, which in it's simplest form can be stated, "Corporation = Evil."
First I want to look at "Cars Don't Kill People, People Kill People."
The walk from Southwark to Canterbury is about 60 miles. In Chaucer's time this was an occasion for an extended, leisurely pilgrimage that took about a week. People greeted each other courteously on the way and new friends were often made. If a pilgrim had behaved like a modern driver it would have been a shocking departure from the norms of civilized behavior.
Isolate someone from their environment and other travellers in a 3,000 lb. cocoon of hurtling metal and things become starkly different from Chaucer's Pilgrims. While the trip, depending upon traffic, only takes and hour or two - as opposed to a week - there is a much higher level of stress and a whole different set of behavioral norms.
Driving psychologists have identified what are called "Driving Norms." They include such things as:
Valuing territoriality, dominance, and competition as a desirable driving style
Condoning intolerance of diversity (in needs and competencies of other drivers)
Supporting retribution ethics (or vigilante motives with desire to punish or amend)
Social acceptance of impulsivity and risk taking in driving
Condoning aggressiveness, disrespect, and the expression of hostility
Inaccurate risk assessment
Biased and self-serving explanations of driving incidents
Lack of emotional intelligence as a driver (Goleman, 1986)
Low or underdeveloped level of moral involvement (dissociation and egotism)
I want to focus on that last one - "Low or underdeveloped level of moral involvement (dissociation and egotism)"
Again, insulated and protected from the environment and other travelers in your safe cocoon of speeding metal you have made a tradeoff. You save vast amounts of time, you're protected from the weather, you have control of your environment (temperature, background sounds, etc.).
But, as the psychologists tell us, you've become a bit of a sociopath in the process. Nevertheless, if you kill someone in an auto accident on the way to Canterbury you are responsible for it and you may be severely punished.
But what if you had no consequences for any of your driving behaviors? What if you knew that you were legally protected from any liability arising from your use of the car?
This is where I want to bring in corporations.
On December 3, 1984, at about midnight, the Union Carbide pesticide plant spewed a cloud of toxic methyl isocyanate gas and other ugly stuff that ended up killing 25, 000 people and permanently injuring 200,000. This was not because of some natural disaster, like an earthquake, it was because Union Carbide was maximizing profits and the Indian government was happy to have Big Money in their country so they went all Free Market and didn't require limits on that profit maximization.
In 1999, after years of legal battles, the company paid $470 million in "a full and final settlement of its civil and criminal liability." The U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 said the Indian victims had no legal standing and couldn't sue a U.S. corporation. Payments to the families of those who were killed averaged $2000.00 and to those injured, $830.00. All appeals to date have been dismissed. No one has been prosecuted. The site is still contaminated.
So, who killed all those people? There is no identifiable individual who openly pulled the trigger and killed all those who died. Many would like to see Warren Anderson stand trail for this, but, really he was thousands of miles away in the comfort of his corporate headquarters when it happened and legally protected by the corporate charter of Union Carbide. The Bhopal plant was another entry on his corporation's balance sheet.
Here's what Union Carbide says about their products:
Union Carbide both produces and purchases ethylene, a basic building-block chemical, from components of crude oil and natural gas. We convert ethylene to polyethylene or react it with oxygen to produce ethylene oxide, the precursor to many of the products we sell: ethylene glycol and hundreds of solvents, alcohols, surfactants, amines and specialty products.
Some of the chemicals we make go directly into products used every day: polyethylene and polypropylene into food containers or toys; ethylene glycol into automotive antifreeze, and isopropanol into rubbing alcohol. Others are used in manufacturing processes to enhance quality and performance: ethyleneamines for wet-strength in paper towels; biocides as bacteria-growth inhibitors in cosmetics, and surfactants for soil removal in industrial cleaning. Other essential products include: deicing and anti-icing fluids to remove or prevent ice buildup on airplanes; amines for removing impurities in oil and gas refining processes; solution vinyl resins for industrial coatings to prevent corrosion, and polyethylene glycols to make tablets and pills easier to swallow.
Whether they are adding strength to stretch wrap, or smoothness to paint, removing static from laundry or simply making a teddy bear more cuddly, the products of Union Carbide make great chemistry a part of daily life.
I want to particularly emphasize the "products used everyday." Food containers, antifreeze, rubbing alcohol - these are things I use (maybe not everyday). And I sure as hell don't want ice on the wings of any plane I fly in.
Remember the "Green Revolution?" The manufacture of pesticides was one of the foundations of that "Revolution." The Bhopal plant was a joint venture with the government of Madhya Pradesh and employed thousands of Indians.
Things are starting to get a little more complicated.
I seem to have entered the realm of ambiguity.
It would be nice to see Warren Anderson on death row for his responsibility in killing 25,000 Indians. But I don't believe in the death penalty. It would be nice to see Union Carbide completely dismantled and all its assets distributed to the surviving victims of its negligence. But then, I eat food that was raised using pesticides probably made by them and I occasionally fly in an airplane. And Union Carbide provides a lot of jobs.
So now I'm stuck back on the "food containers, anti-freeze, rubbing alcohol and airplane de-icing" part of the story. And I have to think about the "preponderance of evil" regarding my own actions. I like to think I'm a good person and that the things I do are good things. But I use stuff produced by Union Carbide. I use it without thinking about it. I mean, I don't want my car to freeze up in the winter do I? And, frankly, I haven't noticed whether the anti-freeze I use was made by Union Carbide or not.
Abraham Lincoln said:
The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
So I reject Union Carbide because I judge, after researching the issue, that its actions evince a "preponderance of evil." But what is it I am rejecting? Am I rejecting the automobile because it's use brings out the worst in the people who use it's protections? Not all corporations show this "preponderance of evil." Some are actually doing very good things.
It's like Union Carbide were some giant meth lab and the people working inside it were caught up in the madness like addicts. I can protest meth labs all I want but it won't get at the source of the problem - the problem is what meth addiction does to the people who are addicted to it.
There are serious problems with corporate influence in our government. Any bill that makes it's way through Congress has got corporate fingerprints all over it. But, I can't say all corporations are evil, immortal psychopaths... well, I did say it, actually, in another diary. So, I have to admit that that diary only captured part of the story. I stand by it, but it was incomplete. The real story is more complicated than that.
Damn, complexity just takes all the fun out of righteous anger.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people, somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
-A.Solzhenitzen