From John Shirley:

## “A federal indictment charges that W.R. Grace and Co. and seven of its executives knew a mine was releasing cancer-causing asbestos into the air and tried to hide the danger from workers and townspeople..A newspaper study linked nearly 200 deaths to asbestos from the vermiculite mine in the small town of Libby near the Canadian border. More than 1,200 became ill over the 30 years...The federal grand jury handing down the indictment said top Grace executives and managers kept secret numerous studies spelling out the risk the asbestos posed to its customers, employees and Libby residents."

What does this little story have in common with so many others that we read about, if we look close, somewhere in the backs of the daily papers? Just this: The execs knew they were killing people, and they didn't care. It wasn't just carelessness. They didn't overlook it. They knew. Just as IBM knew it was killing people in its so-called “clean“ rooms, and covered it up; just as cigarette companies worked to cover damaging research up; just as pharm companies try to hide research that suggests they're killing people. That's a prominent common denominator.

They don't care if they kill you, so long as they're making money.

OK, here are my thoughts on this. Yes, these greedy bastards are killing people, but I still contend that big business is not entirely to blame. How do they stay in business? Where do they get the money? From you and me.

And yes, I still say we deserve whatever we get. When are we gonna wake up and realize that whatever we ALLOW these murdering pricks to get away with, they're gonna do. We can no longer trust the government to protect us, yet we have all the power in the world. Power in the form of green pictures of dead presidents. That's all the Corporate Monster wants, what it feeds on. If We the People take that away, the Monster dies. End of story.

But we don't really give a shit. If we did, we wouldn't continue to support the Monster who dumps toxic chemicals in our drinking water, pumps carcinogens in the air we breathe, and then claims ignorance when confronted. Until we stop bitching and whining and become proactive, we can expect the Monster to keep up it's unrestricted killing.

By the way, if you get cancer from smoking and sue the tobacco companies, you should be shot.