Aberfan.

       In the morning of October 21st. 1966, darkness fell on a small village in Wales, on that day, half the children in Aberfan ended their short lives under a mountain of coal slurry. This was no unavoidable accident, nor some "weird act of god", this was death by industrial quest for profit, and gross neglect of its duty of care. Something that should never been allowed to happen and was avoidable.

 The following extract from Wikipedia:

         The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a collieryspoil tip in Wales on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. A period of heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and other buildings. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.
        There were seven spoil tips on the slopes above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was begun in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. In contravention of the NCB's official procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which water springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of spoil slipped down the side of the hill and onto the Pantglas area of the village. The main building hit was the local junior school, where lessons had just begun; five teachers and 109 children were killed in the school.
        An official inquiry was chaired by Lord JusticeEdmund Davies. The report placed the blame squarely on the NCB. The organisation's chairman, Lord Robens, was criticised for making misleading statements and for not providing clarity as to the NCB's knowledge of the presence of water springs on the hillside. Neither the NCB nor any of its employees were prosecuted and the organisation was not fined. 

         

 

          This of course was not the first or the last mass deaths from industrial drive for profit, nor will it ever be the last as long as profit is the driving force for industry.

        Sometimes these avoidable disasters hit suddenly and with mass deaths, Aberfan, Bhopal, but other times that same drive for profit kills much slower and over many many years, the asbestos disaster that is still with us today as people still die from the results of working with this slow killer. These deaths are nothing short of industrial murder.

         Avoidable industrial deaths will continue to blight the lives of millions of ordinary working people as long as industry is driven by the capitalist model of profit, with profit comes avoidable deaths. Not until we the ordinary workers take over the production of all goods will the health and welfare of the people be at the forefront of all working conditions.    

         Until that day we will have to live with more Abefans, Bhopals and Mesothelioma.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Profits From Killing.

        I saw a recent headline in the Guardian which read," Revealed: the £1 billion of weapons flowing from Europe to the Middle east.” I suppose this was meant as an exposé, to shock us, perhaps make us throw our arms in the air in horror, and shout “Surely not”. However common sense would tell you that there is a lot of fighting going on in the Middle East and most of it is done with very powerful and sophisticate weaponry. Where do they think all that comes from, did they believe that it was all made in Syria, Iraq and Libya? Of course most of the weaponry used in that region will come from the worlds biggest arms dealers, who happen to be American and European. They are not made in some cave in the mountains of the Middle East. When ever there is brutal violence with powerful weaponry you can rest assured that the big arms dealers will be supplying both sides, business is business. So yes, £1 billion worth of weaponry, and more, will be flowing to the Middle East from all the big manufacturers, and they will be praying on their bended knees that the brutality and the killing continues. What a wonderful boost for the Western economy, just think how much they have made from the Middle East. From 2001 in Afghanistan to 2016, in Syria, think of all those whirring machines churning out replacements for all that destructive material. Massive profit margins, what a wonderful investment, the policy of permanent war, is a government gift to the arms industry. The arms industry, like states, has no morality, they are in the business of supplying weapons to those who wish to use them, and states love the arms industry. It gives them the means to defend their power base and expand their influence. If we want to get rid of war, then we have to tackle the arms industry and the state. In today’s world, they are two sides of the same coin. 

Figures for arms expenditure 2015:

USA; $597.5 billion, percentage of GDP, 3.9%

UK:   $56.2 billion, percentage of GDP, 2%

       That's a lot of your tax money flowing into the pockets of the shareholders in the arms industry. Think of the death and destruction caused by that expenditure, and what else it could have been spent on, if we lived in a sane world. The UK is the worlds 5th. biggest arms budget, the USA is the world's biggest spender on arms, by a long way. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk