In Small WV Town, Monsanto Faces Class-Action Suit Over Agent Orange Chemical 185
eldavojohn writes "Agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto is now at the receiving end of a lawsuit from representatives of anyone who lived in the small town of Nitro, WV from 1949 on. This suit alleges that Monsanto spread chemical toxins all over town — most notably the carcinogenic dioxins. The plant in question produced herbicide 2,4,5-T, which was used in Vietnam as an ingredient for 'Agent Orange.' [Note: link contains some disturbing images; click cautiously.] From the article: 'Originally the suit called for Monsanto to both monitor people's health and clean up polluted property. The court rejected the property claims last year, leaving just the medical monitoring.' Strange that the suit is only allowed to address the symptom and not the root cause."
What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange? (Score:5, Funny)
Dihydrogen monoxide. They should really ban the stuff....
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No! You can't ban dihydrogen monoxide! I'm addicted to the stuff so badly that withdrawal would certainly be fatal!
Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're an idiot.
To clarify, I don't think that the herbicide 2,4,5-T is safe, or not dangerous. The point is that calling it "an ingredient in Agent Orange" is designed for emotional rhetoric, not reasonable inquiry.
Forget that it was used in Agent Orange, which was an unhealthy mix of numerous toxic chemicals, and rather, focus on the specific effects of 2,4,5-T itself... like "the herbcide 2,4,5-T, which is a known carcinogen".
This avoids hype and emotional rhetoric, while at the same time educates the person about how the substance is dangerous in its own right, without resorting to mentioning that it was just one part of a large concoction of toxic chemicals. ... and now that I've explained my joke, it's no longer funny...
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Yes they made herbicides too but production was done here with the specific intent to make chemical weapons.
Huh, WHAT?! The suit is only about a herbicide, and Agent Orange is AN HERBICIDE, was not intended as a chemical weapon.
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I suppose you can use both a herbicide and an herbicide, but in the same sentence? How did that H become silent all of the sudden?
Because the "h" sound is nondeterministic in English as to if it's an "a" or an "an".
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Incorrect; Agent Orange was a herbicide, and was used to defoliate forests in VietNam to make it harder for the Viet Cong to hide. Its danger wasn't known publicly then, and it's not a direct poison like "drop it from a plane and everybody dies."They used carpet bombing munitions, mortars, grenades, and M-16 rifles for that.
Dioxin, Agen Orange's effective ingredient, was used commercially in the US as a herbicide for decades until its danger became known and it was banned.
The Agent Orange was dropped on our
Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange? (Score:5, Informative)
Huh?
First of all, Agent Orange was not a chemical weapon. It was a nasty chemical and it injured my father-in-law and his children--my wife included--but that was collateral damage from what was intended as a defoliant. It was intended to clear tree cover and/or destroy food crops (though that was more Blue than Orange).
The really nasty chemical in Agent Orange was actually a contaminant; ,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. It was not supposed to be there at all.
Agent Orange was supposed to be a 50:50 mixture of (2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxy)acetic acid and (2,4-dichlorophenoxy)acetic acid.
I agree with snowgirl, the article title was for emotional impact. It's like saying "KNOWN CHEMOTHERAPY INGREDIENT "NORMAL SALINE" FOUND DUMPED NEAR SCHOOL!"
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Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange? (Score:5, Informative)
In defense of the article: Agent Orange was a 50:50 mix of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.
In your defense: 2,4,5-T is only moderately toxic, as long as it is not contaminated with TCDD.
It was legal in the U.S. to use it on crops until 1970. Even the 1970 ban had an exception: It could be used on rice crops.
In 1985, it was finally completely outlawed.
Basically, the lawsuit is saying that even though Monsanto had the right to make the chemical, sell the chemical, and use the chemical until 1970, the damage done to the land is bad enough that they should be sued anyway.
I think that the sentence should require the current Monsanto CEO to purchase a ticket to use a time machine, and go back and tell the previous CEO not to pursue 2,4,5-T.
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They used the land, they made a product there, they made a profit. Now the people who lived or worked there suffer and die and your "legal thinking" precludes redress?
The money went into the coffers of Monsoto the death and misery should be absorbed by someone else?
I not talking negligence or guilt I just think economic crimes like this one always deserve swift and clean restitution.
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They used the land, they made a product there, they made a profit.
Actually, if you read the lawsuit, you'll find that this isn't true. Part of "Old Monsanto" used the land, made a product there, and made a profit. That part of Old Monsanto split off as Solutia, and continued to make products under that name for 6 years, and eventually filed Chapter 11.
The agricultural part of "Old Monsanto" never used the land, and never made a profit off of Agent Orange. It is currently called Monsanto, and is actually unconnected to all this. They are the ones being sued.
Now the people who lived or worked there suffer and die and your "legal thinking" precludes redress?
Wrong again
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"The money went into the coffers of Monsoto the death and misery should be absorbed by someone else?"
Of course. It's Monsanto. Monsanto does not absorb anything other than profits.
Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange? (Score:4, Informative)
A quick check on Wikipedia shows that 2,4,5-T made up about 50% of Agent Orange (the other 50% was another herbicide), and 2,4,5-T is considered the more hazardous of the two, so in this case the reference as a component of Agent Orange seems quite legitimate and so is linking the emotional connotations of Agent Orange to the compound in question.
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A quick check on Wikipedia shows that 2,4,5-T made up about 50% of Agent Orange (the other 50% was another herbicide), and 2,4,5-T is considered the more hazardous of the two, so in this case the reference as a component of Agent Orange seems quite legitimate and so is linking the emotional connotations of Agent Orange to the compound in question.
But the article doesn't EXPLAIN any of this. That's the issue I had with the article. It doesn't explain why it's harmful on its own, and just relies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to establish that it is harmful. Well, big fucking whoop. I want to know why the chemical itself is harmful, you know, like if it were any other chemical in the world, the press about the chemical would be explaining just why the chemical is toxic, and why it's dangerous. Instead, this article sees a shortcut, and just jumps
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Not only that, but 2,4,5-T is only moderately toxic and is not a dioxin. The greater problem is that it often is contaminated with the dioxin TCDD, which is highly toxic. TCDD is thought to be responsible for most of the ill effects of Agent Orange.
While mentioning Agent Orange here is a certainly an emotional appeal, it's not entirely inappropriate. Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, used as an herbicide. It caused health problems in people. Here, one of the two herbicides that made up Agent Ora
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While mentioning Agent Orange here is a certainly an emotional appeal, it's not entirely inappropriate. Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, used as an herbicide. It caused health problems in people. Here, one of the two herbicides that made up Agent Orange is being used as an herbicide. It's the one that was, more or less, responsible for Agent Orange's health problems. The lawsuit is about health problems as a result of the use of this chemical. The comparison to Agent Orange is apt.
After reading a bit, it would be reasonable to say "2,3,4-T is one of the two herbicides of Agent Orange, and that when heated it can produce TCDD, which is extremely toxic." However, no one actually says that they, just kind of say the vague "it's a chemical in Agent Orange!" Which again, gives no background or information about how dangerous it is in its own right.
Nothing about my statement required 2,3,4-T to be safe and inert or even anything less than the most dangerous chemical of Agent Orange. Rather
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Gr... NO! That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if this were an article about ANY OTHER CHEMICAL, there would be a short sentence IN THE ARTICLE (which I've already read... SCARY ME! I RTFA'ed) explaining why the chemical is harmful and why it is harmful. This article short-circuits all of that with: "it's a part of Agent Orange!"
Of course herbicides are toxic, they're kind of designed to be. But just how toxic is it? What makes it such a big deal? Why is it that this chemical made Agent Orang
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Doesn't that give enough info for a summary though? The average reader knows it was harmful - caused cancer. Most people don't know a whole lot about chemistry or Agent Orange. So by linking it to Agent Orange (and its a good link not a bogus link) people understand that its dangerous and can go look up if they want details.
But just because it was "a part of Agent Orange" does not mean that it was the reason why Agent Orange was so toxic in the first place. Water is "a part of Agent Orange", and thus my satirical comment that kicked off this thread. The fact that Agent Orange was so toxic and dangerous does not mean that each and every individual part of Agent Orange were harmful.
Explaining that it is the principle reason WHY Agent Orange was so toxic, would have been far better, and would have just been a few more words addit
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We should really write NPR to stop with the rhetorical "it was part of Agent Orange!"
Yes. It's the same as If they wrote an article on petroleum and headlined it by saying it was an ingredient in napalm that was used in Vietnam.
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without agent orange, it wouldn't have been made (Score:2)
so therefore it is relevant. without the 'emotional rhetoric' about the threat of the communist chinese, the domino effect, etc etc etc, there would have been no need to kill a million people with various weapons like agent orange. so there would have been no need to manufacture it.
i only hope that your railing against 'emotional rhetoric' expands to the well payed, well rewarded PR industry that is at constant beck and call of industry and government to rile the people up so that they, in fact, allow Monsa
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so therefore it is relevant. without the 'emotional rhetoric' about the threat of the communist chinese, the domino effect, etc etc etc, there would have been no need to kill a million people with various weapons like agent orange. so there would have been no need to manufacture it.
What the fuck are you going on about? Agent Orange was a DEFOLIANT, and 2,4,5-T is an HERBICIDE, and was used on corn crops to prevent weeds for a period of time.
Agent Orange was NOT intended to be a chemical weapon, it just happened to be ubiquitously contaminated with TCDD, which was a highly toxic dioxin.
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They call it out as an ingredient in Agent Orange because a lot more people remember what that is/was than 2,4,5-T. It is/was also thought to be the primary problem with Agent Orange.
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But 2,4,5-T is one of only two active ingredients.
Which the article never says.
Dihydrogen monoxide is not an active ingredient.
Not the point that it's an inactive ingredient. The article never explained by 2,3,4-T alone is dangerous.
Both active ingredients, on their own, are harmful.
I already noted that, but "harmful" is a gradient. Things can be more harmful than others. There is no explanation in the article about why 2,3,4-T is so harmful on its own. It's just "it's a chemical in Agent Orange!"
The entire suit is about ingredients being manufactured specifically for use in Agent Orange. It is perfectly reasonable, and contextually accurate, to refer to it as an Agent Orange Chemical.
I agree, it's totally poignant to mention that it was one of the two active ingredients in Agent Orange, and that when it breaks down under heat it turns into
Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay you're really an idiot. It is one of the two active ingredients [va.gov] in agent orange. Jesus fucking christ people are stupid ... it is half of agent orange ... you don't even produce evidence that water is one of the ingredients of agent orange, you just speculate to make your joke. And you call this fucking hype? Seriously?
Nothing I said was about the content of their argument, but rather just the presentation of the argument. The article explains NOTHING about how dangerous 2,3,4-T is, and simply replies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to assert the harmfulness of the chemical.
If the article had included any of what you included as information (that it's one of two chemicals in Agent Orange, and that it breaks down into TCDD which is crazy harmful when heated) then there would have been no issue at all with the article.
This is not a substance argument, it is a FORM argument, and thus attacking me with "but it really is dangerous!" is completely beside the point, because that's not what I was arguing. I knew 2,3,4-T was harmful, the point was that the article doesn't establish WHY it is harmful in its own right.
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This is not a substance argument, it is a FORM argument, and thus attacking me with "but it really is dangerous!" is completely beside the point, because that's not what I was arguing. I knew 2,3,4-T was harmful, the point was that the article doesn't establish WHY it is harmful in its own right.
I don't disagree with you, but going into that level of chemistry is probably going to make even NPR listeners/readers glaze over. Using the AO shortcut might not be the best way to present the argument from a scientific point, but since they're presenting to a popular audience I don't personally have a huge issue with it.
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I don't disagree with you, but going into that level of chemistry is probably going to make even NPR listeners/readers glaze over. Using the AO shortcut might not be the best way to present the argument from a scientific point, but since they're presenting to a popular audience I don't personally have a huge issue with it.
It would cause their listeners/readers to glaze over to say "2,4,5-T is one of the two herbicides in Agent Orange, and the one that breaks down into the extremely toxic dioxins that made Agent Orange so much more harmful than it was original designed to be"?
I have heard some people say that NPR listeners/readers are retarded idiots, but that would have to take the cake. I mean, we're not talking about explaining complicated chemistry here, we're talking "there are two active chemical ingredients" and "when
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It's harmful because it causes some of the same problems that Agent Orange caused?
Exactly, and the TCDD that 2,4,5-T turns into under heat was responsible for Agent Orange being so dangerously toxic (as opposed to "reasonably" toxic). But there is no explanation that an all but ubiquitous 2,4,5-T contaminant was the principle chemical for why Agent Orange was so dangerous.
Just explaining that it was the principle cause of why Agent Orange was so toxic would have been better than the simple and uninformative, "it's a part of Agent Orange".
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Except that in this case, because it is an ACTIVE ingredient AND toxic the association is valid and not hype.
Sounds like you are backpedaling.
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Except that in this case, because it is an ACTIVE ingredient AND toxic the association is valid and not hype.
Sounds like you are backpedaling.
I'm not backpedaling, because I never made the claim that 2,4,5-T was not dangerous or toxic. Just that the article wasn't clear about what the actual dangers of 2,4,5-T actually are, and just said, "it's an ingredient of Agent Orange!"
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That may not have been the intention, but it's how it came across
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Well according to almighty wikipedia [wikipedia.org] the oral LD50 of 2,4,5-T is 389 mg/kg in mice and 500 mg/kg in rats. That struck me as not being especially hideous, and on a whim I looked up the LD50 of aspirin [iastate.edu]: 250 mg/kg in mice and 200 mg/kg in rats. By this measure 2,4,5-T is less toxic than aspirin!. It's more complex than that however. It doesn't i
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I'm impressed with your tenacity in attempting to explain something I would have expected to be easily understood by this community.
See, it's funny because it's true... oww... I made myself sad.
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Citation or tits or GTFO.
You know what ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those fucks recently applied to whatever regulatory agency that regulates those stuff in the u.s., to permit usage of base elements used in agent orange, for agricultural pesticide applications again.......... it seems superbugs adapting to afflict their genetically modified corps have come too much for them. (was in slashdot news recently too)
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While normally I might take issue with the rhetorical usage of "base elements use in agent orange" as hyperbole meant to generate an emotional response against chemicals which are, by themselves, not nearly as dangerous as Agent Orange itself (albeit still moderately toxic), in this case I will make an exception, because FUCK MONSANTO.
Evil filthy scumbag bastards who sue farmers after the cross-pollination from Monsanto corn caused their patented genes to show up in the farmers crops. Yes, they will sue a
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Monsanto has not sued any farmer for unintentional cross-pollination that they have not unreasonably exploited.
Ohhhh, now I know why you were angry from the "hype and emotional rhetoric [slashdot.org]" of saying this chemical was an active ingredient in Agent Orange.
... 2,4,5-T is bad. TCDD that it is likely contaminated is even worse. I think that Monsanto should have to pay to clean up wherever it can be shown that this chemical is in significant occurrence. Do you know why? Because it's bad shit, and companies should be held accountable for their actions.
But Monsanto is not any more evil than any other corporation, and they have not unethically sued people when those people have had no fault.
I'm a pedantic bitch, if you don't like me complaining about unnecessary em
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First, 2,4-D is already commonly used for weed control.
Second, you're thinking of the corn engineered to resist it that may soon be on the market, not the chemical itself.
Third, that was Dow, not Monsanto.
Fourth, 2,4-D was an ingredient in Agent Orange. So was water, but no one complains that Pepsi has Agent Orange ingredients in it.. Neither was the source of the problems it is famous for.
Fifth, herbicides don't contribute to resistant insects. You're confusing two entirely separate issues.
Sixth, I love
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"Seriously, I will never understand what some people have against GMOs. Don't want them? Go organic"
'GMO' and 'organic' are not two mutually exclusive categories of food.
Re:You know what ? (Score:4, Informative)
'GMO' and 'organic' are not two mutually exclusive categories of food.
In order to be certified organic in the United States, food cannot be genetically modified. This is true of most (although not all) countries.
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Good show. Utter failure.
Re:You know what ? (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of points:
I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned. http://www.pan-uk.org/archive/Projects/Food/gmobriefing.html [pan-uk.org]
Some people object to GM partly on the basis that crops end up being patented. While I agree that's tangling two issues, that still could be a reasonable objection to GM in its current form.
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I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned
Well, it is widely questioned, just not by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. There's plenty [usda.gov] of [oregonstate.edu] info [wustl.edu] on the subject, and strangely the only ones disputing that are either some organic woo-mongering organization or outright quacks, and usually their evidence is pretty flimsy. They claim that GE crops, with an anti-insect protein, require higher pesticide usage? Even if the GE protein was totally ineffective (which is false) how the heck does the addition of that extra protein make the cr
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You don't understand. They're breeding supersoldiers.
If we would just allow free market (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I understand, Ron Paul believes that any laws passed by the congress by the people, for the people, should be enforced. He has never stated that any laws that the public deems necessary should go unenforced in the name of the free market. The kind of rhetoric you blindly parrot is what's damaging our nation, not people like Ron Paul. If you honestly believe that Ron Paul is on the same side of the equation as Monsanto, you've been horribly misled and should probably take a break from CNN and Fox News for a while to detox.
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and the problem with state level EPAs is what exactly? If I am not mistaken many states have their own regulations that are stricter than the federal ones.
RP is pretty much the only guy who plays by the rules written in the constitution. Everybody else bends it to suit his needs because after all it's for the greater good and it's the right thing to do. It's not. Well intentioned ends don't justify the means of wiping the ass with the constitution.
If you want federal level EPA, amend the fucking law of the
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Because clearly pollutants are polite enough to stop at state lines.
Fuckwit.
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The problem with the EPA is they do often give exceptions to laws and hurt the victims. For example I live on the East side of Lake Michigan. Air quality is bad here because of winds from Chicago and Gary. The EPA has been considering forcing more stringent air quality control on cars and the few manufacturing plants we have. These are not the problems of our bad air but we'd have to pay the economic cost. Another great lakes area issue with the EPA, BP wanted to put a processing plant on the shores of Lake
Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:5, Funny)
Well it's quite simple, if Monsanto releases dangerous chemicals over a town, the residents will boycott the Monsanto chemicals they were never buying, and when news of this boycott gets to the megacorps using these chemicals, they will stop using them and the shareholders will absorb the higher operating costs out of the goodness of their hearts, then Monsanto will go out of business.
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Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Market includes Courts to address grievances exactly like this. In a Free Market, a company such as Monsanto would and could be sued in perpetuity for hazards it created either intentionally or unintentionally. If bad enough, the entire company could be liquidated to pay for damages, leaving shareholders nothing. Additionally, in MY version of the free market, the CEO (all of them) and anyone sitting on the Board of Directors would be criminally liable for any criminal activity condoned or sanctioned by them.
In this case, if found guilty, Monsanto would be forced to pay for cleanup, health monitoring and medical bills of all people damaged by their product or the process used to create that product.
Free market works if the right application is applied. Don't blame the free market when we have no such thing to blame. There is no "free market", because we have government involved in too many places telling businesses how to do business.
Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't have it both ways.
Courts are by definition a part of the government. And courts are supposed base their decision on law, not Solomon-esque declarations of wisdom off the cuff.
You argue that the courts are a required part of the free market.
You then say that free markets don't currently function properly because there's too much government involved in the process.
Your argument is absolutely contradictory to itself.
Aside from this, it also ignores the fact that the folks with the money can always influence decision makers, including the justices or judges of a court. So, no, in your case, the little guys suing the big guy would be even more screwed.
Finally, arguments like this always ignore the fact that power abhors a vacuum. Government may be in some ways fundamentally evil, but it is the bulwark that our societies build against even more evil (private and unaccountable) entities filling that niche. Taking government away will not stop power from being exercised; all it will do is ensure that the people of the land have no protections against that power.
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Let's say I'm a factory owner. I make widgets. My factory dumps poison into the sky and into the water. After all, it's my air and water, too, right? And it's next to my factory. If you stop me from dumping the waste, you are imposing on my property rights; you are decreasing the value of my factory. If I change this, I will have to cut back payment of my workers, thus impacting their property rights.
Now, let us switch positions. Let's say that I'm the guy who lives downwind and downstream. The fac
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If you cause harm to another, it trumps "property rights" does it not? I'm not free to murder people on my p
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I don't disagree that power corrupts.
My primary point is that government is not the only place that power concentrates. Right now, there is more power in the corporations than is vested in the instrument of power of the people: the government.
Too many arguing for purely free market approaches in our technological and interconnected world seem to be very aware of the evils of government, but seem to think that by reducing government, they'll reduce the overall exercise of power. This is simply not the case
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Except that is exactly the argument being made. And a response cannot by definition be a strawman when it is basically exactly the argument being made by the person with who you are arguing.
When industry says that they need "less regulation" they are arguing for the right to dump crap in the rivers and air and to force their workers into the company store with company script. That is the regulation and law that industry is always complaining about, and trying to undermine.
And by convincing people that gov
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Since your basic arguement is we don't need less regulation because you equate that with no regulation, And that we need more regulation. Then I'll apply your basic logic and say that you're for total and complete regulation of everything by the state.
There is a point where existing regulations are enough, and adding more regulation doesn't accomplish anything or worse, adversely affects everyone. What people like you are unwilling to look at is that regulation will never stop malfeasance. That is what a Cr
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That may be the philosophical definition of a crime; the legal one includes codification of the acts that comprise a crime.
And unless you allow an individual to embody the law - a king, a judge - you need this codification. Which means laws and regulations.
Furthermore, without such codification, there is no sociatal contract about what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral, and what the consequences of crossing the line are. It becomes arbitrary, and decided by those with the greatest wealth and p
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The best ones are the *atheist* free-market zealots who will get /very offended/ if you compare their zeal to religious belief. They totally can't see it, of course.
Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:5, Insightful)
What good is a court to address grievances when your kids were already born deformed, you've been burned by the agent, and your crops have all failed due to some careless disposal of toxic chemicals? Will you have the money to pay for the court fees before judgment is handed down? Will your kids ever be supported enough by the company to make up for the fact that they were born fully disabled and in permanent pain? If the company is liquidated, who pays for the medicals bills?
Libertarians never think these things through. To them, a check in the mail is the most that they see necessary to right a wrong. Somehow, I'm convinced that behind every hardcore libertarian is a white male who hasn't had a debilitating accident happen to them, or hasn't gotten shafted hard by someone more powerful than them.
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You have a very shallow view of Libertarians.
Perhaps that's because so many Internet Libertarians have a very shallow philosophy that they haven't thought through the consequences of. I know; I used to be that guy.
It's not true of all libertarians, but damnation are there a lot of that kind spouting off.
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I thought the courts were bad for the free market since left wing radical activist judges were legislating from the bench.
Re:If we would just allow free market (Score:4, Insightful)
Out here in the real world the rich can afford better lawyers than we can; y'know, /free market/.
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war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressing (Score:2, Insightful)
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As an American, I don't think we can ever repay our debt to Viet Nam.
No, you can't. However, you can come close by using the same chemicals in your country, so at least you can share the pain.
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If you saw the episode, then you'd remember that such a "war room" approach was shown to be more evil than "real" war, because it killed, but hid the killing, but didn't stop it. And death is death. Sanitizing and hiding it is a far cry from ending it.
And if you think about it, from the American point of view, we have in large hidden it away. When Bush took us to war against Iraq, the press was embedded - a control mechanism to ensure that there wasn't a repeat of the media footage of Vietnam. There was
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I did not remember that ending, but the cause of that conflict was different. My real problem is overpopulation. Until we deal with that, random death seems like a good solution. Right now, it's targeted death for specific regions/cultures/etc.
Ah, you are a moron. Thanks for clearing that up.
Anyone who is in favor of killing as a solution to overpopulation is a moron, and should be first in line for their own solution. Please do us all a favor by volunteering.
Population controls, urban reorganization, settlement, are all valid solutions. If you even believe in overpopulation on a global scale, which I certainly do not. I believe tiis more of a a resource allocation problem, which can certainly be solved in other ways than killing anyone that is c
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Kirk and Spock smash it up, tell them if they want to have a war, have a real war. Or better, figure out how to solve their problems without killing.
I grew up across the river from there (Score:3)
I knew a lot of people that had or developed cancer that lived in the area and I remember seeing a study showing the rate was noticeably higher than the national norm.
I grew up in Nitro (Score:5, Informative)
The sad part is that this is barely news in WV. Oh, there have been numerous lawsuits over the years challenging each of the companies mentioned above for various abuses, often with commercials and mailers asking you to contact Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe, attorneys at law or some such nonsense. I moved away six years ago and I still get mailers today for class-action suits from my time there.
I played baseball at the parks across Viscose Road from the industrial park mentioned in the story. My mom worked in Nitro along that same road where there was an EPA Superfund cleanup site for Fike Chemical. They found all kinds of junk there, including hydrogen cyanide and methanethiol. There was also a tremendous tire warehouse fire about five years ago near the industrial park mentioned in the story. The story goes on and on, and has ever since the nitrocellulose plant was built in 1917 for World War I.
It's unfortunate, but coal and chemicals (and medical services for those dealing with coal and chemicals) are the only kind of work that is generally available in that area. It provided a good living for the time, but left a pretty awful legacy now that those jobs are packing up and leaving.
I grew up in and still live in Nitro (Score:5, Informative)
Since we're besting each other, I also have a box full of my grandfather's diaries after he found FMC(right down the street from the Monsanto plant in question) dumping barrels of cyanide in the Kanawha River in the 70's. The management threatened to kill him and his daughters.
You're right though, it's no better now. Despite the fact that the Nitro area(don't even get me started on Manilla Creek) had one of the highest concentrations of marker cancers in the world before the plants closed down, if you say anything negative about the chemical industry in town you're immediately attacked.
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Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood (Score:4, Interesting)
So, I can pretty much guarantee that anybody who was involved in Monsanto's decisions 63 years ago is no longer at the company and, in fact, may no longer be alive. Why does it make sense to sue the current company and injure its current stockholders for something that those people did all that time ago?
The answer? The legal fiction that the company is a 'person' that, among other things, has to be responsible for its actions.
All the people complaining about companies not being 'persons' in regard to free-speech rights should be careful, because if they're not persons, then they're just collections of people. And in the US, we only hold people liable for things they're personally responsible for. For example, if your parents die owing a lot of money, you don't inherit their debt. If corporations are just collections of persons, then there's no sense in suing Monsanto for this today -- they weren't involved. At most, you could find out who made all the decisions and go back and sue their estates.
Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
The idea that if a corporation isn't a person that it's nothing at all is a false dichotomy. A corporation is a legal construct. We can attach whatever we want to that construct (and technically we do -- corporations exist explicitly to serve the public good in most states, as an example). If we want to cease the illusion of it being a person and yet still attach legal liability for its actions, we can do that.
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So, a corporation is, indeed, a legal construct. Saying that it's a "Legal Person" is simply a shorthand to say that the law treats it as if it were a person in many cases: it can own property, it can sue and be sued, it has to pay taxes, it can be found criminally liable, there are due process rights, etc....
You're right that we could do what you suggest, but that would involve re-writing a bunch of law that, currently, treats corporations as persons.
As a side note the idea that "corporations are people,
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Citizen's United did not say that corporations are people. That's a popular, but incorrect, misstatement of its holding. See my reply to the other post.
Incidentally, businesses still are chartered -- that's what happens when a corporation is formed; they get a charter from the state. The idea of limited liability for stockholders is a bit more recent invention, but has been an enormous benefit to each of us: Do you have any mutual funds in your 401(k)? Under the rule you propose, you would be _personall
Washington Lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
Agent Orange and its emotive supporters want to keep the revenue pump primed. Together with asbestos, this is productive government teat:
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/112_HR_812.html [washingtonwatch.com]
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/112_SN_1629.html [washingtonwatch.com]
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_2254.html [washingtonwatch.com]
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_637.html [washingtonwatch.com]
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_3491.html [washingtonwatch.com]
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_972.html [washingtonwatch.com]
etc., etc.
Regarding free markets. My city used to dump raw sewage in the river, until it was sued in 1925 by a downstream town for polluting the water. After a court case, a treatment plant was built - no EPA or federal government required, common law is sufficient.
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If your city was sued, it means that there was a law that the courts ruled on a law.
Which means that a government made a law that said, no, dumping sewage into the river is a no-no because there was a law that said it was a no-no.
Unless you are proponing that the courts legislate from the bench with declarations of Solomon-esque wisdom. In which case, the courts become the government, and you've gone full circle.
Not to mention that in your fantasy system that you can ever stop someone from doing something
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If your city was sued, it means that there was a law that the courts ruled on a law.
No, there is Common Law. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law [wikipedia.org], in particular "The common law evolves to meet changing social needs and improved understanding".
If you intend to stop any harm before it happens, then you may as well go and live in a cave (that new-fangled bow and arrow will surely put someone's eye out).
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So - you can't stop someone from dumping poison in the town well, causing everyone's children to be stillborn.
But hey - you can sue them for damages, right?
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Absolutely, if you knew it was poison. But if the elected town chief and witchdoctor told you the mushrooms were ok, you would have some wriggle room. Maybe it would be better not to have a well?
Today comes the news that "sugar is a toxic, addictive substance" http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/01/BA891N1PQS.DTL [sfgate.com]
I guess the sugar companies will be hounded, just like the tobacco companies and Monsanto, while the actual producers (farmers) continue to be subsidized.
Government oversight
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Interesting. Did the lawsuit somehow pay money to the people affected by the sewage dump? How much? What about the people farther downstream than the town that sued?
Also, note that it took a town to sue, not individuals. Are you saying that only those wealthy enough to afford a lawsuit should be able to sue? What if the town administration would just have been paid a lump sum by the town upstream, and the town administration downstream just said "Keep on dumping!"?
Lots of questions, few answers.
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As usual with these things, it is more complicated than a sound bite. In 1892 the downstream town had dammed the river to power the numerous mills that were springing up. At the same time, the growing upstream city, for the first time, constructed a sewage collection system which discharged into the river. In itself considered a great environmental improvement. Both actions made the pollution situation a lot worse.
The suit was brought collectively by the mills and the local inhabitants (I think). Altho
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Interesting post. Thanks for the clarification.
Different Monsanto? (Score:2)
Monsanto spun off it's chemical business in 1997 as Solutia, in part to distance itself from the liability of Agent Orange and PCBs. In 2000, Monsanto merged with Pharmacia (who had bought Solutia earlier), and the company was gutted and restructured, and left as a seed company with the glyphosate division. Shortly thereafter, Monsanto was spun off as a separate company again (Pharmacia mostly wanted GD Searle). The chemical business (at that point, part of Pharmacia), Solutia, went bankrupt in 2003.
There's
Nitro (Score:2)
I like the town's name, "Nitro". Even sounds toxic. Or a place where hot-rodders live.
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Or named for the product of the chemical plants it sprung up around (rather than the plants moving into town, the first plants came first, and people moved around them to shorten their commutes).
Property claims dismissed? Why? (Score:2)
So Monsanto was not responsible for the stuff getting all over town? Nitro,WV is probably a EPA SuperFund site now and Monsanto should be picking up the tab for the clean-up. But since Monsanto's legal department probably makes more in a year than the combined lifetime earnings of the residents of Nitro, I doubt there's a damned thing that can be done to get the company to do the right thing. If you live in WV it looks like you have the choice to get screwed over by a chemical company or a coal mining compa
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Seriously? [stateabbreviations.us]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_abbreviations [wikipedia.org]
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If not WV, what would be more common? "WVa" really isn't that much different.