I have only one thing to say about all of this Boston mess.
Several people are dead, many more were injured. A criminal is loose, armed, dangerous and on the run. The entire city of Boston is in lockdown and the entire media system of the United States is in an absolute reporting frenzy.
Yesterday a fertilizer plant exploded in the Texas town of West. No one knows how many were killed in the explosion…well over 30 bodies have been found so far…and half of the town of 2600 has been destroyed or severely damaged from the blast.
Info about the plant immediately smells rotten on every level.
…cited for failing to obtain or qualify for a permit in 2006 after a complaint of a strong ammonia smell, a smell that was reported to be ‘very bad last night.’ The plant hasn’t been inspected in the past five years, and in fact only six Texas fertilizer plants were inspected in that time. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is chronically understaffed, which means that a given plant like West Fertilizer can only expect to get a state inspection once every 67 years on average.
Regulator Citations
The company has been cited for a series of violations over the past few years.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration on June 12 ordered the company to pay $5,250 for improperly planning to transport anhydrous ammonia. Violations included the use of unauthorized cargo tanks and failure to develop a transportation security plan, according to a PHMSA order that said the company had corrected the violations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted an inspection of the risk management plan at the plant in 2006, and found a number of deficiencies, including that the company was two years late filing the document. It fined the facility $2,300, and directed it to correct deficiencies, such as the failure to document hazards, EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson said in an e-mail.
Texas environmental regulators investigated the facility seven times between 2002 and 2007. An odor complaint in June 2006 triggered an inspection that resulted in a notice of violation for operating without a required air permit.
Facility `Grandfathered’
The facility, built in 1962, wasn’t required to have air permits until 2004 because it was “grandfathered” under state law, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. A series of subsequent inspections through 2007 found no concerns. No complaints were received in the past six years, the state agency said.
A risk management plan the company filed with the EPA said it “received, stored and distributed” 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, which it didn’t characterize as flammable, according to a copy of the plan published on the Center for Effective Government website. The inventory of emergency and hazardous chemicals filed by the company with Texas regulators also didn’t list fire among the hazards for anhydrous ammonia.
—snip—
And:
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration most recently inspected the Texas fertilizer plant that exploded Wednesday night in 1985.
Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that OSHA issued the West Chemical & Fertilizer Co., as the plant was called at the time, a $30 fine for a serious violation for storage of anhydrous ammonia.
OSHA cited the plant for four other serious violations of respiratory protection standards but did not issue fines. The maximum fine for a serious violation was $1,000.
It is not unusual for companies to negotiate lower fines.
I repeat:
It is not unusual for companies to negotiate lower fines.
It is also “not unusual” for bribes to be taken in exchange for leniency. $30? Please.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is chronically understaffed, which means that a given plant like West Fertilizer can only expect to get a state inspection once every 67 years on average.
If the Boston reports are at all reliable, it looks like these two brothers were involved in some sort of Chechen…read Muslim and anti-American…scene. If the U.S. was not doing its economic imperialist best to continue the subjugation of most of the Muslim world to the NATO powers in blood for oil wars, these two would have been off bombing somebody else. And if those blood for oil wars had not been fought, would the U.S. not by now be better off financially than it is? Would it not have found ways to produce energy that do not depend of foreign oil? Would the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been spent on foreign adventures not have been spent on the rapidly failing infrastructure of this country? Would inspection agencies like OHSA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission…you know…the bank patsies that let the housing and loan bubble absolutely cripple the economy of this country.) not be “chronically understaffed?” (“Chronically understaffed.” Translation…”Kept totally incompetent and powerless on every level so that the corporate criminals who are running things here can become obscenely rich.”)
Boston is presently in total lockdown because two criminals did something unthinkable to a number of innocent people. Why is the U.S. not in some form of “total lockdown” due to the absolutely massive criminality that has been in operation here over the past 50+ years? How many troops have died in our blood for oil wars? How many Americans have had their lives totally ruined as the whole infrastructure of the country…the physical, social, political and financial infrastructures, just for starters…has imploded due to the criminality of a few?
And the Great Media Game continues. Breathless days and hours covering the criminality of two people while almost no mention of the less sensational but much, much more dangerous criminality of the 1%.
As a friend said to me this morning when I told her about the Boston lockdown, “Shame on them!!!” Shame on them for reacting to one criminal’s actions…no matter how horrendous and no matter how sensationally covered by the media…by cowering behind their doors, afraid to answer a knock unless it’s a policeman.
Shame on them?
Shame on us!!!
It is the citizens of the United States who have allowed this to happen. Fat and happy in our little homes with our little TV sets and little computers, sucking up the media bullshit and stuffing ourselves with bad food.
Shame on us!!!
Paul Revere made his ride shouting “The British are coming! The British are coming!” I am here to tell you the not only are the One Percent “coming,” they have fucking won!!!
Wake the fuck up.
We need some sort of revolutionary change here. Preferably a peaceful one.
Step away from the media with your brains in the air.
Compared to the One Percent, these two Chechens are small potatoes. Nothing. A mosquito bite. They ain’t shit.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
