Dow embraces 'golden skeletons'

"We made an incredible [US]$1.35 billion this quarter", a "shareholder" told the Dow annual general meeting on May 12. "For most of us that just means a new set of golf clubs. Instead, let's do something useful with it — like finally cleaning up the Bhopal plant site, or funding the new clinic there." Dow has bought out Union Carbide, the company responsible for the 1985 chemical spill in Bhopal that killed up to 20,000 people. The speaker, whose suggestion was curtly rejected, was a member of the Yes Men, who have been infiltrating Dow company events. Two weeks earlier, two Yes Men attended a London banking conference posing as Dow representatives. In a feature presentation, one launched the Dow "acceptable risk calculator", which calculates an exact financial value on human life to determine what corporations can get away with. The presentation was enthusastically received, with several bankers posing with the Dow "mascot", a golden skeleton representing industrial crimes that had been profitable, and mostly kept secret, such as IBM's work with the Nazis. Visit <http://theyesmen.org>.

From Green Left Weekly, May 25, 2005.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 627