Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Travesty of the Coverage of the Boston Bombing

Today the FBI arrested three more hardened criminals (i.e. other nineteen-year-old students) who they say aided the Boston bombers by taking evidence and throwing it away or some such.  (CNN:  Who are Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos?)

The Boston bombing or Marathon bombing, as some have called it, has become one of the most absurd turkey shoots in media history.  Yes, the bombers were dangerous and destructive little bastards but what they did doesn't come close to the deaths, injury, and destruction that came when Donald Adair's West Fertilizer Company exploded after years of willful violation of federal policy and procedure if not federal law.  Donald Adair is not being held accountable and has not, to my knowledge, received so much as a parking ticket.  He is certainly not in a federal jail.  (Huffington Post:  West Fertilizer Co. Failed To Disclose It Had Unsafe Stores Of Explosive Substance)

It was just the same with the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in which there was great loss of life, tremendous property damage and long-lasting environmental damage all due to willful negligence on the part of BP as shown by their cost-cutting measures.  There was been some minor financial consequence to the corporation (i.e. far less than a year's profits) and none of the executives have been held accountable in any way.  Thus far, Halliburton hasn't even paid a fine.  (WIKI:  Deepwater Horizon explosion)

It was also the same in Bhopal, India, when thousands of died.  Some Indian executives were sent to jail, albeit for two years or less, but the CEO of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, despite being found guilty of negligence by the Indian court, never appeared in court and has never served any time for it.  (WIKI:  Bhopal Disaster)

The above facts notwithstanding, there has been a terrorist snipe hunt of profound proportion as a result of the Boston bombing but the consequence of this slanted attention is quite obvious to those in West, Texas.  Contribution to victims of the Boston bombing have vastly outweighed any assistance the people in West have received.  That problem is grossly insensitive but some of the reaction has been ludicrous as a pressure cooker has now been classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.  If that's true then why not a storage silo for ammonium nitrate.  The patent absurdity of all this flies right past the Department of Homeland Security.

If there were even the faintest sense of proportion regarding deaths in the United States, based on the carnage wreaked by drunk drivers, the DHS would be tracking drunks as terrorists but usually they just pay a fine ... and then head out to a bar.

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