Framing the issues.
Next
month, London plays host to an Olympic Games that promises to ‘Inspire a
Generation’. At its heart will be the flagship East London stadium, encircled by
a fabric ‘wrap’ sponsored by Dow Chemical, sole owner since 2001 of Union
Carbide. That is, sole owner of the company responsible for one of the worst cases of corporate negligence in living memory: Bhopal. Tell LOCOG chair Lord Coe to stop defending Dow Chemical
On the night of 2-3 December 1984, a cloud of toxic gas leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India towards nearby shantytowns. Between 7,000 and 10,000 people were killed immediately and a further 15,000 people died as a result of the disaster over the next 20 years.
Today, contamination at the site continues to directly affect 100,000 people, denying their rights to health, water
and housing. Victims of the disaster are still fighting for justice from
Dow in both Indian and US courts, justice that involves the long overdue
clean-up of their environment.That fight may have been made a lot harder as a result of LOCOG Chair Sebastian Coe’s public statement that Dow were not responsible for the events of 1984. In doing so, he effectively declared victims’ claims to be unfounded. Send an email: End LOCOG’s shameful defence of Dow Chemical
Not only does this association with Dow damage the Bhopal victims’ quest for justice, it taints the London Olympics itself. Yet it’s not too late for LOCOG to retract its defence of Dow, apologise to victims – and help bring the day closer that Dow finally accepts responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.
Tell LOCOG chair Lord Coe to stop defending Dow Chemical
Thank you,
http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=15017&utm_source=aiuk&utm_medium=mass_email&utm_campaign=Dignity&utm_content=dow_email
Acceptable Risk: "Acceptable Risk™
Acceptable Risk™ is a voluntary initiative of Dow to safely predict the precise point at which profitability is threatened by danger to the public.
Using our new Acceptable Risk Calculator™ ARC , we weigh profits against costs in human life or health, thereby involving the public in the decision-making process about whom to put at risk, and where to locate risk globally. The ARC is available free for industry use; log on below to test-run it for yourself.
Acceptable Risk™ and the ARC were launched on April 28, 2005 at the International Payments 2005 conference, London, in solemn commemoration of the April 30 anniversary of the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Dow owes a debt of gratitude to the people of Vietnam for helping Dow define the limits of Acceptable Risk™. Dow s contribution to the War effort was very profitable, and recent appeals for damages by VietNAMEse people who received coatings of special Dow herbicides were rejected by US courts two weeks ago, proving the Dow adage: A skeleton in the closet is quite often golden.
Acceptable Risk™ is practiced by Dow all over the world. While Acceptable Risk goes above and beyond what is legally required for doing business in most countries, we hold ourselves accountable by making Acceptable Risk a condition of membership in the most modern way of d"
Acceptable Risk™ and the ARC were launched on April 28, 2005 at the International Payments 2005 conference, London, in solemn commemoration of the April 30 anniversary of the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Dow owes a debt of gratitude to the people of Vietnam for helping Dow define the limits of Acceptable Risk™. Dow's contribution to the War effort was very profitable, and recent appeals for damages by Vietnamese people who received coatings of special Dow herbicides were rejected by US courts two weeks ago, proving the Dow adage: "A skeleton in the closet is quite often golden."
Acceptable Risk™ is practiced by Dow all over the world. While Acceptable Risk goes above and beyond what is legally required for doing business in most countries, we hold ourselves accountable by making Acceptable Risk a "condition of membership" in the most modern way of doing business.
- Text, photos and video of April 28 launch by Dow VP for Acceptable Risk™, Erastus Hamm
- Official announcement
- Conference web page (archive)
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Wow Dow, Did you send me the above-referenced email, and if so why? The contents are an indictment of your company, and in no way absolve Dow nor justify Dow's position. The argument made is that the financial interests of corporations in general, and yours in particular take precedence over the suffering for which they are responsible. Instead of taking responsibity you offer this rationalization and call it "clarity"! May I suggest, if this email is genuine, that you save even more money and fire your PR department.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
I must respond to your very strange and unsettling message!
> "Company responds to activist concerns with concrete action points"
There are no concrete action points here -- only paper-thin alibis.
>Dow Chemical (http://www.dow-chemical.com) has
> issued a statement explaining why it is unable to more actively
> address the problem.
You have NOT explained why you are unwilling to extend further compensation to the thousands upon thousands of people whose lives YOU HAVE DESTROYED through negligence. It's called impunity.
When you absorbed Union Carbide, you took on their liabilities -- and this is a fact you are still evading.
> "We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about
> the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years," said Dow
> President and CEO Michael D. Parker. "But this just isn't true. Many
> individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow
"Sorrow" doesn't cut it. It's a cavalier way of stiffing the victims of Union Carbide's negligence. The terrible tragedies of Bhopal were caused by Union Carbide's willingness to risk a disaster to save a few pennies of operational cost...
> "Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our
> industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being
> clear about this has been a very big step."
This is the most absurd statement I've ever read. You are blaming your own Stockholders and OTHER COS. for your irresponsible, callous, inhumane greed! Just when I thought corporate America couldn't sink any lower, you found a way!!!!!
> Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union
> Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly
> deny these findings.
Had to? What in the world are you talking about. You just stated Union Carbide was the source of the accident, and then you say you "had" to deny the findings? You are making no sense at all.
> "We understand the anger and hurt," said Dow Spokesperson Bob Questra.
> "But Dow does not and cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did,
> not only would we be required to expend many billions of dollars on
> cleanup and compensation"
Obviously, a greater tragedy as far as you are concerned than the loss of life. Your attitude is that of a MASS MURDERER.
> "much worse, the public could then point to
> Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took responsibility; why
> can't you?' Amoco, BP, Shell, and Exxon all have ongoing problems that
> would just get much worse.
That's not worse my friend, it's better. It's called corporate responsibility -- a concept that apparently you are too depraved to understand.... Aren't you kind? Looking out for other company's welfare.
> "We are unable to set this precedent for
> ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue
> resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
God, what humanists you are! Maybe you should share the Nobel prize with Netanyahu and Kissinger!
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
You and most corporations are poor excuses for human beings. Do you really consider $300 to 500. compensation for a person's life??? Why don't you admit you're at fault and do the right thing. I once owned Dow shares and I'm really glad I sold them years ago. Your loyalty to the other corporations is akin to the Mafia's loyality to its "family".
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Referring to Dow Chemical as having a constructive part in the birth of the environmental movement is like crediting Hitler and Eichman's racial cleansing policies against the jews as having led to the origins of international ethical and moral judgements at Nuremberg. Or crediting cancer with the origins of chemotherapy. Your letter can only lead a normal person to question the reliability of the people running your corporation. Is it legal for a deranged and certifiably insane group of people to run a company selling stock to the public? By the way, a minor point, but when at the close of your letter, you refer to Dow's products as "solutions" for industry, you proudly include Agent Orange and DDT but forgot Napalm. As i recall that one added a significant amount of profit to those shareholders about whom you are so concerned.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Let me paraphrase your message: "For me (the murderer) to accept responsibility for my crime would be impossible, as it would mean I'd have to go to jail...I'd like to effectively admit guilt without paying the consequences."
This is total bullshit. In what kind of world can you actually try to pass off such a weak position as 'honest and clear'? $300-$500 per person??!!! Pay up some real money you cheap bastards!
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Feeling responsibility and sorrow is just not the same as taking responsibiltiy for the actions of the company. May I suggest a hefty pay cut for executives and members of the board to help pay for the disaster. Perhaps Michael Parker could lead the way.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: the daily improvement of living
Brilliant! I love it. My life has improved simply by pointing and clicking on your website. Give me more!
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION [!!!]
Gentlemen,
I find the response by the Dow Chemical Corporation not in the least satisfactory. There must be, and we will continue to insist upon, more satisfactory ways for the large corporations -- including their directors and managers -- to be held accountable for the consequences of their actions and installations. All of them. Otherwise 'bancruptcies' and other ploys will continue to be used as 'escape hatches' for corporate responsibility.
The use of the word "unfortunately" here and in most cases is deviously and insidiously misleading. What we are dealing with has nothing whatever to do with "fortune" or misfortune", good "luck" or bad "luck". What we are dealing with are human - "man-made" - provisions, constructions and situations which therefore need to be dealt with, and dealt to, by human action: socially, financially, and above all *politically*.
It is evidently and completely unfair, unjust, and reprehensible that *some* (few) people can reap huge rewards and high incomes, while (many) others are killed, injured, starved, and continue to live in miserable degraded conditions.
That 'situation' is not simply "unfortunate" --- it must and will be changed, by people, sooner or later, one way or another. Whoever does not see this is blind.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Dear Mr. Questra, Dow Spokesperson,
As a Dow retiree, and a Social Activist, a lot of correspondence has come across my desk that has made me either shake my head in disbelief or feel a huge sense of outrage, and in some cases both. So when I say that this bit of corporate spin is the most irresponsible, reprehensible, and nauseating piece of whitewashed corporate-speak that I have ever seen, I speak from truth. And it makes me ashamed of my long association with the company....
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Dear Dow Press Office:
This is in response to Dow Chemical's statement explaining why it is unable to more actively address the problem of the tragedy in Bhopal.
When corporations were given personhood in the early nineteenth century by the U.S. Supreme Court, it was not envisioned that such personhood gave only the benefits but none of the responsibilities of personhood.
Bhopal was ruined by the destruction of a chemical plant, and responsibility lies with the corporation who was benefitting from it OR its successors.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
For Dow to take "credit" for poisoning the planet with DDT, and thereby to take credit for Rachel Carson's alerting the world to your company's poison represents a new low in corporate ethics.
Combining this with the thoroughly amoral statements of your CEO on why Dow cannot acknowledge responsibility for Union Carbide's legacy at Bhopalmakes Dow Chemical a blight on the hope that corporations can act ethically and morally even if it has an adverse effect on profits.
If you compare Dow's behavior with that of Johnson & Johnson when some of it's McNeil Division's Tylenol was poisoned by a criminal, you would find that corporations can remain profitable, even highly profitable, in the long run by sacrificing short term profit for moral and ethical reasons.
Incidentally, Rachel Carson died in 1964 after authoring Silent Spring in 1962, not 1969 as your web site states.
Would you be kind enough to remove this disgusting paragraph from the home page of your web site?
Thanks for allowing me this opportunity to communicate with you.
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Is this supposed to make me feel BETTER??? Or is this some mentally-deranged person's idea of a joke???
You people are HORRIBLE!!! and your position is illogical, to boot.
You are saying that you (SOME of you) care, but it's just not convenient to do anything about it.
These are human LIVES we are talking about. Impoverished people, sick people (and their sickness caused BY YOUR CHEMICALS)
You are saying that MONEY is more important than PEOPLE.
You are saying that shareholders are more important than the innocent people you killed, maimed and sickened.
Right is right. If you made the mess, it IS your job to clean it up. Most of us learn this in kindergarten. It's part of the GOlden Rule. Or do you have different rules you play by (apparently!), and if so, who gave you the right to decide when you would and would not take responsibility for what YOU (and no one else) DID?!?!?!
I am shocked, appalled, horrified, sickened and disgusted with you. I guess "corporate responsibility" is the biggest oxymoron of them all. Rest assured, you will never receive a dime from me as a customer. I will make sure I boycott any company that has any connection to yours.
Some time ago I had a debate with a friend about whether or not "evil" exists.
I took the side that it doesn't. People are just misguided, I said.
Well, I take it back.
You are EVIL INCARNATE!!!!!!
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Bhophal disaster
To Michael Parker, President:
The statement issued recently regarding Dow's lack of willingness to take responsibility for what happened at Bhopal declares that your stockholders and the business you are in makes this impossible. Profiting richly from the cover-up of your culpability in the miserable and painful deaths of some 20,000 poor and humble people is clearly, however, not beyond the capacity of Dow and its subsidiary Union Carbide. Could there be any clearer demonstration of the venality and cruelty of Capitalism? I think not.
The world, however, is full of people who unlike you, have not lost their moral compass. There is a growing tide of righteous anger building toward people like you, your board of directors and your stockholders. A day of reckoning will one day come. Meanwhile, if you have any gods I suggest you pray for your immortal soul. This may comfort you. But if you, like me, are guided only by my own sense of right and wrong, may you never have a good night's sleep or moment of personal peace or happiness until you make things right with the people of Bhopal.
Have you no sense of decency?
To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
I guess that the almighty dollar is more important than human lives. Yes, Dow is a heartless giant that does not care about people. Shareholder value > moral responsibility. Shame on you......
.........................keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!...............................
.............................kosmicdebris...........................
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