The Mysteries of History (May 15 Edition)
George Wallace Shot; GE Reluctantly Begins Cleaning Up Its Mess
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
1972 — Alabama Governor and Presidential Candidate George Wallace Shot
public domain images from wikimedia commons
Alabama Governor and Presidential candidate George Wallace (1919-1998) was shot on this date in 1972 by a disturbed 21-year-old man named Arthur Bremer during a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland.
Wallace was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Bremer was not anti-Wallace because of the Alabama Governor’s racist views, but was rather looking for fame. The month before, Bremer had planned to kill Richard Nixon (1913-1994), but never got a good opportunity to do so (Nixon’s security was too tight and the windows in his limousine were bulletproof). Prior to attacking Wallace, Bremer had traveled to Wallace’s campaign headquarters and volunteered to be of assistance to Wallace’s bid to be President, presumably out of a desire to get close to the man so as to carry out his planned murder.
Wallace, while campaigning for Governor of Alabama, had promised his white supremacist supporters: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”
Wallace did, however, change his views over time. At first, the federal Government forced him to “change his mind,” mandating desegregation in Alabama schools. In the 1980s, though, Wallace changed his stance to such a degree that he apologized to Civil Rights leaders for how he had opposed them and wound up appointing more African-Americans to political office than any previous Alabamian.
There was another Nixon connection to Bremer’s shooting of Wallace: within hours of the attempted murder, “Tricky Dick” connived to send one of his minions to Bremer’s apartment to plant literature intended to make it appear that Bremer was a supporter of Nixon’s opponent in the Presidential election, Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978).
Questions: If you were alive in 1972, do you recall this event? Were you aware that Wallace changed his tune and tone regarding race matters and Civil Rights during the next decade? Do you think his apparent change of heart was sincere or was he just “playing politics”?
2009 — G.E. Fails Ethically, Morally, and Intellectually
image generated using Bing Image Creator
G.E. stands for General Electric, but for what they did to the Hudson River and the people who swim or fish in it, or use its water for any other purpose, you could be excused for thinking it stands for Genuinely Evil.
And, for bad measure, their partner in crime in this case is Monsanto, also a poster demon for bad corporate behavior (see the article “1984 — Agent Orange Settlement” here, for just one example of their malfeasance).
In a nutshell, G.E. had been badly polluting the Hudson River with chemicals for years, and the Government was trying to get them to clean up their mess. G.E. probably spent more money fighting undertaking a cleanup than it would have cost them to just “bite the bullet” and do it. And they ended up having to spend 1.6 billion on the cleanup, anyway.
Even so — even after their several-years-long, forced cleanup of the Hudson River — it’s still not a safe river to swim in or eat fish from: even today, children and women who may bear children are warned away from eating fish from the Hudson, and others are advised to be judicious about how much fish from the river they consume, as well as to avoid swallowing any of the water from it, as it is still contaminated with PCBs.
For a little more detail, G.E. had two upstate New York plants along the river, in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward. These plants dumped PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) — made for G.E. by serial ecological criminal and bully of farmers Monsanto — for several years in the mid-1970s.
As early as 1976 (the pollution began in 1974), New York State banned fishing in the Hudson River due to how polluted it had become. In 1984, the Hudson became a Superfund site; G.E., rather than apologizing for their misdeeds and making amends as best as they could, used its fiscal might and legal maneuverings to try to get out of paying for the cleanup. G.E. was able to drag things out for 18 years, until they finally lost their case and were ordered to pay for the cleanup in 2002.
Even then, G.E. continued to resist and procrastinate. Only after seven more years had gone by (25 years after the Hudson had become a Superfund Site) did G.E. begin the reclamation project, on this date in 2009. The $1.6 billion G.E. ultimately had to pay to dredge the river was likely far more than they would have spent had they acted honorably and ethically and found a safe way to store their pollutants in the first place.
Thus, G.E. was not just foul, but also foolish; their being dense brought, not only damage to others, but also harm to themselves. Their disregard for the health and well-being of others was vile in the extreme. And, to add further injury to their sins of commission and omission, there are still high levels of PCBs in the Hudson River.
Questions: What other instances of corporations polluting the environment have you heard of? In how many of these cases did they seem truly apologetic and desirous of making things right? In how many of these cases were they ignorant of causing any harm? What punishment do you think is fair for those who make the decisions (the CEOs, the Board of Directors, the “Inner Circle” of these corporations) to put profit over people?
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