In Small WV Town, Monsanto Faces Class-Action Suit Over Agent Orange Chemical

eldavojohn writes "Agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto is now at the receiving end of a lawsuit from representatives of anyone who lived in the small town of Nitro, WV from 1949 on. This suit alleges that Monsanto spread chemical toxins all over town — most notably the carcinogenic dioxins. The plant in question produced herbicide 2,4,5-T, which was used in Vietnam as an ingredient for 'Agent Orange.' [Note: link contains some disturbing images; click cautiously.] From the article: 'Originally the suit called for Monsanto to both monitor people's health and clean up polluted property. The court rejected the property claims last year, leaving just the medical monitoring.' Strange that the suit is only allowed to address the symptom and not the root cause."

Comments

What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

Dihydrogen monoxide. They should really ban the stuff....

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

On multiple occasions, I've experience uncontrollable caughing after breathing DiHydrogen Monoxide...

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

You're an idiot.

To clarify, I don't think that the herbicide 2,4,5-T is safe, or not dangerous. The point is that calling it "an ingredient in Agent Orange" is designed for emotional rhetoric, not reasonable inquiry.

Forget that it was used in Agent Orange, which was an unhealthy mix of numerous toxic chemicals, and rather, focus on the specific effects of 2,4,5-T itself... like "the herbcide 2,4,5-T, which is a known carcinogen".

This avoids hype and emotional rhetoric, while at the same time educates the person about how the substance is dangerous in its own right, without resorting to mentioning that it was just one part of a large concoction of toxic chemicals. ... and now that I've explained my joke, it's no longer funny...

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[jamiesan]

On multiple occasions, I've experience uncontrollable laughing after breathing DiNitrogen Monoxide

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Dyinobal]

ya but it doesn't get the headline attention that agent orange does.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

On multiple occasions, I've died of smugness after mentioning Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Sincerely,

The average Slashdotter

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Garth Smith]

This plant specifically made chemicals for Agent Orange. Yes they made herbicides too but production was done here with the specific intent to make chemical weapons. (Hint: The town's name is NITRO.) This gives the reader an idea how bad these chemicals are. They are bad enough for warfare. Considering we are a nation at war, it is good to be reminded of the collateral damage that war brings back home.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[uigrad_2000]

In defense of the article: Agent Orange was a 50:50 mix of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.

In your defense: 2,4,5-T is only moderately toxic, as long as it is not contaminated with TCDD.

It was legal in the U.S. to use it on crops until 1970. Even the 1970 ban had an exception: It could be used on rice crops.

In 1985, it was finally completely outlawed.

Basically, the lawsuit is saying that even though Monsanto had the right to make the chemical, sell the chemical, and use the chemical until 1970, the damage done to the land is bad enough that they should be sued anyway.

I think that the sentence should require the current Monsanto CEO to purchase a ticket to use a time machine, and go back and tell the previous CEO not to pursue 2,4,5-T.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[thrich81]

A quick check on Wikipedia shows that 2,4,5-T made up about 50% of Agent Orange (the other 50% was another herbicide), and 2,4,5-T is considered the more hazardous of the two, so in this case the reference as a component of Agent Orange seems quite legitimate and so is linking the emotional connotations of Agent Orange to the compound in question.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

But 2,4,5-T is one of only two active ingredients. Dihydrogen monoxide is not an active ingredient. Both active ingredients, on their own, are harmful. The entire suit is about ingredients being manufactured specifically for use in Agent Orange. It is perfectly reasonable, and contextually accurate, to refer to it as an Agent Orange Chemical. In fact, to leave out that fact would be somewhat misleading, since the actions that spawned the lawsuit had little to do with herbicides, and lots to do with chemical warfare.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[blueg3]

Not only that, but 2,4,5-T is only moderately toxic and is not a dioxin. The greater problem is that it often is contaminated with the dioxin TCDD, which is highly toxic. TCDD is thought to be responsible for most of the ill effects of Agent Orange.

While mentioning Agent Orange here is a certainly an emotional appeal, it's not entirely inappropriate. Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, used as an herbicide. It caused health problems in people. Here, one of the two herbicides that made up Agent Orange is being used as an herbicide. It's the one that was, more or less, responsible for Agent Orange's health problems. The lawsuit is about health problems as a result of the use of this chemical. The comparison to Agent Orange is apt.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

Yes they made herbicides too but production was done here with the specific intent to make chemical weapons.

Huh, WHAT?! The suit is only about a herbicide, and Agent Orange is AN HERBICIDE, was not intended as a chemical weapon.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

While mentioning Agent Orange here is a certainly an emotional appeal, it's not entirely inappropriate. Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, used as an herbicide. It caused health problems in people. Here, one of the two herbicides that made up Agent Orange is being used as an herbicide. It's the one that was, more or less, responsible for Agent Orange's health problems. The lawsuit is about health problems as a result of the use of this chemical. The comparison to Agent Orange is apt.

After reading a bit, it would be reasonable to say "2,3,4-T is one of the two herbicides of Agent Orange, and that when heated it can produce TCDD, which is extremely toxic." However, no one actually says that they, just kind of say the vague "it's a chemical in Agent Orange!" Which again, gives no background or information about how dangerous it is in its own right.

Nothing about my statement required 2,3,4-T to be safe and inert or even anything less than the most dangerous chemical of Agent Orange. Rather, I was simply noting that saying "it was a part of Agent Orange!" is done for rhetorical effect, and devoid of any meaningful information.

If I have to pull up Wikipedia, and read about it in order to have any idea of how toxic it is, why it's usually even more toxic than the chemical all by itself, the article isn't providing any useful information about why I should care about 2,3,4-T, beyond rhetoric, and that's simply unconvincing to any skeptical person. All it takes is a sentence to explain why 2,3,4-T is so bad, (and then a parenthetical aside as to why that made Agent Orange so bad).

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Troyusrex]

According to Wikipedia TCDD is of questionable toxicity even at "huge doses". So if it's the most toxic thing in the mix this lawsuit is bunk. "Unequivocal evidence of the toxic effects on dioxins on human beings have been shown by surprisingly few studies. The best proven is chloracne.[1] Even in poisonings with huge doses of TCDD, the only persistent effects after the initial malaise have been chloracne and amenorrhea."

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

They used the land, they made a product there, they made a profit. Now the people who lived or worked there suffer and die and your "legal thinking" precludes redress?

The money went into the coffers of Monsoto the death and misery should be absorbed by someone else?

I not talking negligence or guilt I just think economic crimes like this one always deserve swift and clean restitution.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight ... you are demanding that in the summary we are supposed to break everything down to it's basic cause and effect explanation? We get away with summarizing about computer viruses without having to explain why they're called viruses every time or even what a 'bit' is. Yet you criticize calling this chemical a part of Agent Orange (which is factually correct) because we didn't get into the chemical implications with heating it up -- which is where, in your "expert" opinion, the real danger lies? It's either this or you're attempting to run the Tour de France backward.

We should really write NPR to stop with the rhetorical "it was part of Agent Orange!" because saying that it was a herbicide used in Agent Orange is wrong. In fact, we should correct the title to say "2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) which contained traces of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)" instead of "Agent Orange Chemical." Is that what you're suggesting? I mean, we wouldn't want to spread hype and emotional rhetoric!

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

But 2,4,5-T is one of only two active ingredients.

Which the article never says.

Dihydrogen monoxide is not an active ingredient.

Not the point that it's an inactive ingredient. The article never explained by 2,3,4-T alone is dangerous.

Both active ingredients, on their own, are harmful.

I already noted that, but "harmful" is a gradient. Things can be more harmful than others. There is no explanation in the article about why 2,3,4-T is so harmful on its own. It's just "it's a chemical in Agent Orange!"

The entire suit is about ingredients being manufactured specifically for use in Agent Orange. It is perfectly reasonable, and contextually accurate, to refer to it as an Agent Orange Chemical.

I agree, it's totally poignant to mention that it was one of the two active ingredients in Agent Orange, and that when it breaks down under heat it turns into TCDD, which is many times more toxic than either of the two intentional active ingredients. ... But the article didn't explain any of this. It just says "It's a chemical from Agent Orange!" Which is just emotional rhetoric.

As I've already explained in the comment you replied to: my issue is not with their argument being counterfactual, but rather that the presentation is uninformative, and meaningless rhetoric.

In fact, to leave out that fact would be somewhat misleading, since the actions that spawned the lawsuit had little to do with herbicides, and lots to do with chemical warfare.

Agent Orange was not chemical warfare. It was a defoliant, which we even occasionally sprayed it on our own troops, because we didn't expect it to be as dangerous as it turns out it was. If Agent Orange were a chemical weapon, then we would not have ever used it where it could expose our troops to harm.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

A quick check on Wikipedia shows that 2,4,5-T made up about 50% of Agent Orange (the other 50% was another herbicide), and 2,4,5-T is considered the more hazardous of the two, so in this case the reference as a component of Agent Orange seems quite legitimate and so is linking the emotional connotations of Agent Orange to the compound in question.

But the article doesn't EXPLAIN any of this. That's the issue I had with the article. It doesn't explain why it's harmful on its own, and just relies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to establish that it is harmful. Well, big fucking whoop. I want to know why the chemical itself is harmful, you know, like if it were any other chemical in the world, the press about the chemical would be explaining just why the chemical is toxic, and why it's dangerous. Instead, this article sees a shortcut, and just jumps on it: "It's a part of Agent Orange!"

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[muser8]

I'm pretty sure snow girl isn't pro cancer... IMO the point being made is that use of inflammatory rhetorical devices such as 'Agent Orange" are, in fact, counter productive: a certain portion of the audience immediate tunes out instead of actually reading the article. In fact, those predisposed to be influenced by the rhetorical device used would have most likely read the article in the first place: Monsanto Spreads Known Carcinogen on Town is effective all my its self. What you have after this are two polarized side ready to fight... a real shame when there is something that needs to be addressed.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

Gr... NO! That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if this were an article about ANY OTHER CHEMICAL, there would be a short sentence IN THE ARTICLE (which I've already read... SCARY ME! I RTFA'ed) explaining why the chemical is harmful and why it is harmful. This article short-circuits all of that with: "it's a part of Agent Orange!"

Of course herbicides are toxic, they're kind of designed to be. But just how toxic is it? What makes it such a big deal? Why is it that this chemical made Agent Orange so toxic in the first place?

We're not all fucking chemical experts who understand and know everything about Agent Orange before we even read the article. Give us BACKGROUND, give us EXPLANATIONS. It takes one god-damn sentence out of an entire article to explain this shit to someone who has never actually learned anything about Agent Orange beyond "it was used in Vietnam to defoliate, and ended up causing serious harm to our soldiers."

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[mcgrew]

Incorrect; Agent Orange was a herbicide, and was used to defoliate forests in VietNam to make it harder for the Viet Cong to hide. Its danger wasn't known publicly then, and it's not a direct poison like "drop it from a plane and everybody dies."They used carpet bombing munitions, mortars, grenades, and M-16 rifles for that.

Dioxin, Agen Orange's effective ingredient, was used commercially in the US as a herbicide for decades until its danger became known and it was banned.

The Agent Orange was dropped on our own soldiers as well as the Vietnamese. I used to know several combat veterans from that war who died in their 30s from cancers that chemical caused.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[anotheryak]

Huh?

First of all, Agent Orange was not a chemical weapon. It was a nasty chemical and it injured my father-in-law and his children--my wife included--but that was collateral damage from what was intended as a defoliant. It was intended to clear tree cover and/or destroy food crops (though that was more Blue than Orange).

The really nasty chemical in Agent Orange was actually a contaminant; ,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. It was not supposed to be there at all.

Agent Orange was supposed to be a 50:50 mixture of (2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxy)acetic acid and (2,4-dichlorophenoxy)acetic acid.

I agree with snowgirl, the article title was for emotional impact. It's like saying "KNOWN CHEMOTHERAPY INGREDIENT "NORMAL SALINE" FOUND DUMPED NEAR SCHOOL!"

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[anotheryak]

Also what does the name "NITRO" have to do with this in anyway? The original plant was set up to make nitrocellulose, also known as gun cotton. What does that have to do with chemical weapons, Agent Orange, or herbicides?

Nitrocellulose was gun powder. It was also used to make cue balls, movie film, and wood coatings.

So what? Aside from being very flammable, it's not even that dangerous, nor is it an explosive...

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[tomhath]

We should really write NPR to stop with the rhetorical "it was part of Agent Orange!"

Yes. It's the same as If they wrote an article on petroleum and headlined it by saying it was an ingredient in napalm that was used in Vietnam.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[mcgrew]

No! You can't ban dihydrogen monoxide! I'm addicted to the stuff so badly that withdrawal would certainly be fatal!

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[LandDolphin]

Doesn't that give enough info for a summary though? The average reader knows it was harmful - caused cancer. Most people don't know a whole lot about chemistry or Agent Orange. So by linking it to Agent Orange (and its a good link not a bogus link) people understand that its dangerous and can go look up if they want details.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

Doesn't that give enough info for a summary though? The average reader knows it was harmful - caused cancer. Most people don't know a whole lot about chemistry or Agent Orange. So by linking it to Agent Orange (and its a good link not a bogus link) people understand that its dangerous and can go look up if they want details.

But just because it was "a part of Agent Orange" does not mean that it was the reason why Agent Orange was so toxic in the first place. Water is "a part of Agent Orange", and thus my satirical comment that kicked off this thread. The fact that Agent Orange was so toxic and dangerous does not mean that each and every individual part of Agent Orange were harmful.

Explaining that it is the principle reason WHY Agent Orange was so toxic, would have been far better, and would have just been a few more words additional, rather than even the whole sentence that I've called for earlier.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[uigrad_2000]

They used the land, they made a product there, they made a profit.

Actually, if you read the lawsuit, you'll find that this isn't true. Part of "Old Monsanto" used the land, made a product there, and made a profit. That part of Old Monsanto split off as Solutia, and continued to make products under that name for 6 years, and eventually filed Chapter 11.

The agricultural part of "Old Monsanto" never used the land, and never made a profit off of Agent Orange. It is currently called Monsanto, and is actually unconnected to all this. They are the ones being sued.

Now the people who lived or worked there suffer and die and your "legal thinking" precludes redress?

Wrong again. The class action lawsuit identifies 9 families who are affected. Added together, there are 9 counts of "property damage" and 9 requests for "medical monitoring". This means that no one has gotten sick. No one is suffering adverse effects. No one has died. But, their property has probably lost value, due to its location. The chemical plant closing probably hurt their value as much the chemicals.

The money went into the coffers of Monsoto the death and misery should be absorbed by someone else?

I not talking negligence or guilt I just think economic crimes like this one always deserve swift and clean restitution.

I can understand frustration and anger. This land was probably perfectly fine for living on with the minimal amount of chemical pollutants, but it will be impossible to sell (partially because of the EPA, and partially because of fears of buyers). It makes sense that the people who decided to start the chemical plant could be sued, but most of those people are retired, if not dead today. The company they worked for has already been sued out of existence. So, now they're pulling at straws, trying to find someone else with money to pay for the damages.

TBH, I understand why the lawsuit was filed. It's frustrating to see your property lose value for reasons outside your control (just ask all the property owners of Wetlands, who lost all value when FEMA declared them unusable). If your property suddenly loses value, it makes sense to sue anyone you can think of that has money (it's how our lawyer-driven society operates). Unfortunately, I don't see any easy answers here. I don't see this lawsuit going anywhere (for reasons mentioned above).

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Runaway1956]

"The money went into the coffers of Monsoto the death and misery should be absorbed by someone else?"

Of course. It's Monsanto. Monsanto does not absorb anything other than profits.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[mister_playboy]

Posting this many replies dilutes your point and makes you sound whiny.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about your addiction to dioxygen? Withdrawal is also fatal but much, much quicker if you don't get your "fix".

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[morgauxo]

According to the caption on the picture in tfa it is the PRINCIPLE ingredient of agent orange, not just another among many.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[sFurbo]

I suppose you can use both a herbicide and an herbicide, but in the same sentence? How did that H become silent all of the sudden?

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[samoanbiscuit]

Because the 'H' was really a lamb! It spreads the lotion on it's skin, or it gets A SLAP!

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[snowgirl]

I suppose you can use both a herbicide and an herbicide, but in the same sentence? How did that H become silent all of the sudden?

Because the "h" sound is nondeterministic in English as to if it's an "a" or an "an".

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[TempestRose]

No, No, it was funny to most of us...

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[Anonymous Coward]

You use "an" when the next word starts with a vowel sound and you use "a" when the next word starts with a consonant sound. The problem is that Americans pronounce herbicide as "ER-bi-cide" and Brits (and presumably others) pronounce it as "HHER-bi-cide", so when speaking English you must correct for the country/culture you are in, and when you are writing English, either one is acceptable because on the internet nobody knows where you are from (and nobody knows you're a dog).

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[sound vision]

Dioxins have never been used as herbicides. The dioxins in Agent Orange were contaminants in the herbicides 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, which were the two herbicidal components of Agent Orange.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[tehcyder]

The US military/government should have properly tested the shit they were dumping to weed out any contaminants. But as it was only being dumped on yellow-skinned commies, they didn't give a fuck.

Re:What else was an ingredient in Agent Orange?

[sjames]

They call it out as an ingredient in Agent Orange because a lot more people remember what that is/was than 2,4,5-T. It is/was also thought to be the primary problem with Agent Orange.

You know what ?

[unity100]

Those fucks recently applied to whatever regulatory agency that regulates those stuff in the u.s., to permit usage of base elements used in agent orange, for agricultural pesticide applications again.......... it seems superbugs adapting to afflict their genetically modified corps have come too much for them. (was in slashdot news recently too)

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

their genetically modified corps

Too bad you weren't just slightly more off with your typo, or it would have made a good Freudian slip.

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine the regulatory body you're referring to is the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) although I suppose it *could* be the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) but I feel like it's probably the FDA.

Having said that, your argument seems a bit biased. The information available suggests it was the other compound of Agent Orange (2,4,5-T) was responsible for the horror of the chemical - the one they want to try again is 2,4-D. Even then, military strength chemicals tend to be that - military strength. When's the last time you bought a thing of C4 (keep in mind, plenty of consumer goods can explode) at a supply store? I can respect that many people aren't comfortable with GMO's, but try to be a little more rational in your arguments. Some of these crops help fight world hunger you know - it shouldn't be simply cast aside as some conspiracy of big industry.

Besides, it's not like an organism building resistance is new. We've done it as a species, antibiotic-resistant diseases are another hot topic right now... That's the thing about evolution - it's not always to our benefit. Doesn't mean you scrap a method of dealing with something. Particularly - you're railing so much against genetically modified crops but that same gene-splicing allows to use FAR less chemicals to deal with pests than we once had to. We can either play Frankenstein or drown our crop sorrows in chemicals (which doesn't help with the drought resistance or anything) - I'd rather toy with DNA myself.

Seriously, I will never understand what some people have against GMOs. Don't want them? Go organic.

Re:You know what ?

[WilyCoder]

"Seriously, I will never understand what some people have against GMOs. Don't want them? Go organic"

'GMO' and 'organic' are not two mutually exclusive categories of food.

Re:You know what ?

[prefect42]

A couple of points:
I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned. http://www.pan-uk.org/archive/Projects/Food/gmobriefing.html
Some people object to GM partly on the basis that crops end up being patented. While I agree that's tangling two issues, that still could be a reasonable objection to GM in its current form.

Re:You know what ?

[0xdeadbeef]

You don't understand. They're breeding supersoldiers.

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They want to use the base elements of Agent Orange in pesticides? So that would be Carbon, and Hydrogen, and Oxygen, and *gasp* Chlorine? Holy shit! My body is full of those elements! Quick, someone throw me in a nuclear reactor. It's the only way to be sure they are destroyed.

Re:You know what ?

[Baloroth]

While normally I might take issue with the rhetorical usage of "base elements use in agent orange" as hyperbole meant to generate an emotional response against chemicals which are, by themselves, not nearly as dangerous as Agent Orange itself (albeit still moderately toxic), in this case I will make an exception, because FUCK MONSANTO.

Evil filthy scumbag bastards who sue farmers after the cross-pollination from Monsanto corn caused their patented genes to show up in the farmers crops. Yes, they will sue a farmer because of an act of nature. If the devil founded a company, it would probably look something like Monsanto.

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the GMO plants are spreading by seeds and actually taking out the organic, orignal, natural seeds.

Monsanto is suing organic farmers because they can find some of the gmo plants on their fields.

So GMO and organic are mutually exclusive in a practical sense.

Re:You know what ?

[snowgirl]

Monsanto is suing organic farmers because they can find some of the gmo plants on their fields.

Monsanto has not sued anyone who has not intentionally exploited GMO genetic material in their plants. The primary example was a guy who was growing something, and when he suspected that some GMO round-up resistance had pollinated his crop, HE SPRAYED THE WHOLE CROP with RoundUp, and low and behold, only the GMO contaminant survived, which he then used to plant his next crop.

Monsanto does not sue farmers who have incidental cross-pollination.

Re:You know what ?

[snowgirl]

Evil filthy scumbag bastards who sue farmers after the cross-pollination from Monsanto corn caused their patented genes to show up in the farmers crops. Yes, they will sue a farmer because of an act of nature. If the devil founded a company, it would probably look something like Monsanto.

Yeah, fuck Monsanto for suing a farmer for spraying his whole crop with RoundUp after a cross-pollination incident, which resulted in only the RoundUp resistant cross-pollinated stock surviving... That farmer was just practicing selective breeding, right?! Right?!

Monsanto has not sued any farmer for unintentional cross-pollination that they have not unreasonably exploited.

Re:You know what ?

[Rary]

'GMO' and 'organic' are not two mutually exclusive categories of food.

In order to be certified organic in the United States, food cannot be genetically modified. This is true of most (although not all) countries.

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto has not sued any farmer for unintentional cross-pollination that they have not unreasonably exploited.

Ohhhh, now I know why you were angry from the "hype and emotional rhetoric" of saying this chemical was an active ingredient in Agent Orange.

Re:You know what ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, girl, should cut down with the snow.

Re:You know what ?

[Oligonicella]

Your first sentence is complete bullshit. Your second is a lie. This makes your third (not a conclusion you can draw from false #1&2 anyway) wrong as well.

Good show. Utter failure.

Re:You know what ?

[snowgirl]

Monsanto has not sued any farmer for unintentional cross-pollination that they have not unreasonably exploited.

Ohhhh, now I know why you were angry from the "hype and emotional rhetoric" of saying this chemical was an active ingredient in Agent Orange.

... 2,4,5-T is bad. TCDD that it is likely contaminated is even worse. I think that Monsanto should have to pay to clean up wherever it can be shown that this chemical is in significant occurrence. Do you know why? Because it's bad shit, and companies should be held accountable for their actions.

But Monsanto is not any more evil than any other corporation, and they have not unethically sued people when those people have had no fault.

I'm a pedantic bitch, if you don't like me complaining about unnecessary emotional rhetoric, then state shit clearly, and if you don't like me correcting facts, then GET THE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

There are a whole lot of reasons to hate Monsanto (the same as any corporation), but hyperbolic rhetoric is not a good reason to hate Monsanto.

Re:You know what ?

[ChromeAeonium]

I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned

Well, it is widely questioned, just not by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. There's plenty of info on the subject, and strangely the only ones disputing that are either some organic woo-mongering organization or outright quacks, and usually their evidence is pretty flimsy. They claim that GE crops, with an anti-insect protein, require higher pesticide usage? Even if the GE protein was totally ineffective (which is false) how the heck does the addition of that extra protein make the crops need more pesticides? That doesn't even make sense. Well, not scientifically, but if you think genetic engineering is some magical black box with crazy Hollywood effects, then it must be perfectly rational. GE crops have actually reduced pesticides so much in some places that non-target insects (that is to say, non-lepidopterans, as only they are effected by the currently used pest resistance trait) that were once controlled by broad-spectrum pesticides have for the first time become pests. The claim that GE crops increase pesticide use, sorry, absolute bullshit.

Now, two points of clarity, first, they have promoted an increase in use of certain herbicides. The Round-Up Ready ones, obviously, go hand in hand with an increase in Round-Up, and Liberty Link with Liberty. This sounds like a pretty good argument against them, until you consider that they do this at the benefit of replacing other, more environmentally harmful herbicides (as well as promoting no-till practices). Yes, spraying herbicides is bad, but this isn't a case of choice 1 vs the ideal, it is realistic choice 1 vs realistic choice 2, and for better or worse, the herbicide resistant ones, for all the ill will they get, come out on top. The other caveat is that, yes, some insects have developed resistance to the insect resistant GE trait. Ironically, anti-GE groups are quick to point this out, but (since they know bugger all about population genetics) don't understand that this is evidence that the GE trait is working. You don't create population shifts without selection pressure, and you don't get selection pressure by not working. If this resistance becomes widespread, the GE plants still will not need more pesticides, but they will lose the advantages they provide, which would be bad. It should be noted that this is not the fault of the plants themselves, rather, management practices, and over-reliance on a single trait, and also, that such instances are not unique to GE crops. Selection pressure is selection pressure and evolution doesn't care where it came from. Problems of resistance have happened before, and will happen again, GE or not.

The notion that people are against GE crops for patent reasons is a good one, but considering how how many plants are patented that go unprotested, it cannot be entirely true, though I'm sure it plays a role for those who know bugger all about plant breeding (which accurately describes most people who oppose GE crops). Lots of plants are under patent, and I don't see anyone complaining about them. when the Honeycrisp apple or Flavor Grenade Pluot came out, no one cared that they were patented (Honeycrisp's has since expired btw, and the royalties the breeders received from it went on to create my personal favorite apple variety, Snow Sweet, which is also patented). When the USDA announced the HoneySweet plum, or when Okanagan Specialty Fruits announced the Arctic apple, people did, and when they're released, you can bet there'll be backlash. Why, when they were pretty much the same things, and both under patent (though the HoneySweet might be free to prop

Re:You know what ?

[ChromeAeonium]

First, 2,4-D is already commonly used for weed control.

Second, you're thinking of the corn engineered to resist it that may soon be on the market, not the chemical itself.

Third, that was Dow, not Monsanto.

Fourth, 2,4-D was an ingredient in Agent Orange. So was water, but no one complains that Pepsi has Agent Orange ingredients in it.. Neither was the source of the problems it is famous for.

Fifth, herbicides don't contribute to resistant insects. You're confusing two entirely separate issues.

Sixth, I love what passes for interesting about agriculture nowadays.

If we would just allow free market

[Are You Kidding]

to function without interference, we would not have such problems. Right? Maybe Ron Paul, or one of his disciples will explain how that works in a case like this.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand, Ron Paul believes that any laws passed by the congress by the people, for the people, should be enforced. He has never stated that any laws that the public deems necessary should go unenforced in the name of the free market. The kind of rhetoric you blindly parrot is what's damaging our nation, not people like Ron Paul. If you honestly believe that Ron Paul is on the same side of the equation as Monsanto, you've been horribly misled and should probably take a break from CNN and Fox News for a while to detox.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[thelexx]

Seems like it's functioning perfectly. Company screwed up and people are seeking redress through the legal system. What is your point besides being a snarky fuckface?

Re:If we would just allow free market

[GameboyRMH]

Well it's quite simple, if Monsanto releases dangerous chemicals over a town, the residents will boycott the Monsanto chemicals they were never buying, and when news of this boycott gets to the megacorps using these chemicals, they will stop using them and the shareholders will absorb the higher operating costs out of the goodness of their hearts, then Monsanto will go out of business.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot, that is not what Ron Paul says. Ron Paul wants limited government not NO government. Unfortunately you are too stupid to know the difference so there's no point in explaining it.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

to function without interference, we would not have such problems. Right? Maybe Ron Paul, or one of his disciples will explain how that works in a case like this.

If you are damaged by the actions of another, you take them to court. It's pretty simple. That is what is happening in this case. The problem is when government interferes in the process and passes laws to limit damages or make companies immune to lawsuits.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[countertrolling]

No, the directors screwed up, and they will not be punished. (The whole point of incorporating) Punishing an abstract corporation does nothing except become part of the cost of doing business. You're right about one thing, the system is working perfectly.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

We should send corporations to some form of jail like regular people. Shutting down the business for a few years would make management think twice.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhetoric? You're hallucinating. Try reading the OP again. It's a simple question. Your defensive posture indicates you aren't 100% comfortable with your own position -- you have self doubt. Like a paranoid alcoholic, you everyone is out to get you.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not, stupid. If it were functioning perfectly, then the company wouldn't have screwed up in the first place.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Archangel Michael]

Free Market includes Courts to address grievances exactly like this. In a Free Market, a company such as Monsanto would and could be sued in perpetuity for hazards it created either intentionally or unintentionally. If bad enough, the entire company could be liquidated to pay for damages, leaving shareholders nothing. Additionally, in MY version of the free market, the CEO (all of them) and anyone sitting on the Board of Directors would be criminally liable for any criminal activity condoned or sanctioned by them.

In this case, if found guilty, Monsanto would be forced to pay for cleanup, health monitoring and medical bills of all people damaged by their product or the process used to create that product.

Free market works if the right application is applied. Don't blame the free market when we have no such thing to blame. There is no "free market", because we have government involved in too many places telling businesses how to do business.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem is that in a Ron Paul world there would be no EPA and there would be no laws against pollution.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Rhacman]

I was doing a little reading about the history of asbestos use and I've found that a common response to that seems to be one of three things:
1) A cherry picked example of why the material isn't really that harmful after all.
2) A selectively framed explaination of how much worse off we would be overall if said material were not so economically produced and readily available.
3) Stating that regulations don't work and that therefore we should never even try to regulate anything.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[ZFox]

So your goal is to prevent people from screwing up? And you call the GP stupid???

Re:If we would just allow free market

[forkfail]

You can't have it both ways.

Courts are by definition a part of the government. And courts are supposed base their decision on law, not Solomon-esque declarations of wisdom off the cuff.

You argue that the courts are a required part of the free market.

You then say that free markets don't currently function properly because there's too much government involved in the process.

Your argument is absolutely contradictory to itself.

Aside from this, it also ignores the fact that the folks with the money can always influence decision makers, including the justices or judges of a court. So, no, in your case, the little guys suing the big guy would be even more screwed.

Finally, arguments like this always ignore the fact that power abhors a vacuum. Government may be in some ways fundamentally evil, but it is the bulwark that our societies build against even more evil (private and unaccountable) entities filling that niche. Taking government away will not stop power from being exercised; all it will do is ensure that the people of the land have no protections against that power.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[NeutronCowboy]

What good is a court to address grievances when your kids were already born deformed, you've been burned by the agent, and your crops have all failed due to some careless disposal of toxic chemicals? Will you have the money to pay for the court fees before judgment is handed down? Will your kids ever be supported enough by the company to make up for the fact that they were born fully disabled and in permanent pain? If the company is liquidated, who pays for the medicals bills?

Libertarians never think these things through. To them, a check in the mail is the most that they see necessary to right a wrong. Somehow, I'm convinced that behind every hardcore libertarian is a white male who hasn't had a debilitating accident happen to them, or hasn't gotten shafted hard by someone more powerful than them.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[cvtan]

Or in Bhopal, India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Vaphell]

and the problem with state level EPAs is what exactly? If I am not mistaken many states have their own regulations that are stricter than the federal ones.

RP is pretty much the only guy who plays by the rules written in the constitution. Everybody else bends it to suit his needs because after all it's for the greater good and it's the right thing to do. It's not. Well intentioned ends don't justify the means of wiping the ass with the constitution.
If you want federal level EPA, amend the fucking law of the land to be crystal clear and be done with it. Same thing with education, healthcare and whatnot. Don't hide your ass behind the ambiguous general welfare and commerce clauses.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[jahudabudy]

Company screwed up for the last 60 years. And are now (possibly) being taken to task for the last round of victims - I see nothing that will punish the company for the previous generations of people killed by their negligence (at best - at worst, malicious indifference). I'd hardly call that "functioning perfectly".

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto would be forced to pay for cleanup, health monitoring and medical bills of all people damaged by their product or the process used to create that product

And who would enforce this? That's right, some evil, interfering government agency.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Vaphell]

it is not contradictory.

baseline is 'you have a right to protect yourself and your property' and courts follow that
upgrade that with government intervention to 'you have a right to protect yourself and your property.... unless arbitrary thresholds set by a government agency say otherwise' and courts follow that, dismissing some cases.
upgrade that even more and suddenly you are in China with 'you have no rights at all because some bureaucrat feels like it' and judges outright laugh you out of court.

also do you really believe that any of these government agencies setting the rules, like FDA or EPA, manned by the industry insiders, really protects your peasant interests? They are giving absolution to corporations as long as the stink is not big enough to get to the national TV stations.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're content with a reactive approach when it comes to companies poisoning people for profit?

Re:If we would just allow free market

[forkfail]

Let's say I'm a factory owner. I make widgets. My factory dumps poison into the sky and into the water. After all, it's my air and water, too, right? And it's next to my factory. If you stop me from dumping the waste, you are imposing on my property rights; you are decreasing the value of my factory. If I change this, I will have to cut back payment of my workers, thus impacting their property rights.

Now, let us switch positions. Let's say that I'm the guy who lives downwind and downstream. The factory has destroyed my farm. My kids are sickly. You are imposing on my property rights (my farm), and also, upon other inalienable rights (I don't own my kids, but the factory has absolutely done them permanent harm).

In order to protect your property rights, the factory would need to be left to continue to operate as it is. In order to protect mine, it needs to clean up after itself.

This is why we need set laws and limits. This is why we need to be able to say, here is the law that determines how much person A's rights are allowed to impose on person B's.

Furthermore, having laws that determine where your rights end and mine start allow me to prevent you from doing harm before hand. If I have to wait until my children have birth defects and my land and health are ruined, it is really too late. You cannot make up for that with money or property.

Finally, yes, let us look at China. They've poisoned their air, their water and their land. Yes, they have a massive concentration of power in their government, which is one and the same with their private enterprise for the most part (though, this is changing to some extent). However, here's the bit you're still missing: power will be exercised no matter what.

In China, there are no controls on power. Our government is in many ways designed to be a control on power - on it's own, on private power. If you remove those controls, then you have no justice. But you won't make the exercise of power go away. Corporations will continue to exercise power, and there will be no way to mitigate the results. And so, to return back to our original example of a factory and a river, the factory will continue to dump its poisons; the factory owner would be the sole exerciser of power, and the folks downstream could do nothing enforceable about it. It would be just like China, but it would be a corporation instead of a government exercising power.

In closing, you will never stop the exercise of power. All you can do is ensure that you chose the lesser of evils, that there is no single, overbearing concentration of power, and that power is structured so that it cannot act in its own interests without at least some benefit to the people. It is naive and dangerous to think that removing government will stop the wielding of power in harmful ways; quite the opposite.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Sentrion]

I thought the courts were bad for the free market since left wing radical activist judges were legislating from the bench.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Nimey]

Because clearly pollutants are polite enough to stop at state lines.

Fuckwit.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Nimey]

Out here in the real world the rich can afford better lawyers than we can; y'know, /free market/.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you should get involved in state politics and stop sticking the rest of us with a single federal agency that is stupendously vulnerable to regulatory capture.

Fuckwit.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case it would be appropriate for the Federal government to have authority. Inside state lines, not so much.

(By the way, your use of obscenities is very clever)

Re:If we would just allow free market

[houghi]

Insightfull? Where is the +1 Cynical mod when you need it?

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Renevith]

Let's say I'm a factory owner. I make widgets. My factory dumps poison into the sky and into the water. After all, it's my air and water, too, right? And it's next to my factory. If you stop me from dumping the waste, you are imposing on my property rights; you are decreasing the value of my factory. If I change this, I will have to cut back payment of my workers, thus impacting their property rights.

This is a ridiculous strawman mockery of the position held by most small-government advocates. If you seriously believe that anyone other than perhaps the unscrupulous factory owner himself would make that argument with a straight face, you are the problem with modern political discourse. That sort of complete unwillingness to attempt to understand the positions of those you disagree with is what creates hostile, unproductive standoffs at all ranges of the political hierarchy, from your water cooler at work all the way up to congress.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[forkfail]

Except that is exactly the argument being made. And a response cannot by definition be a strawman when it is basically exactly the argument being made by the person with who you are arguing.

When industry says that they need "less regulation" they are arguing for the right to dump crap in the rivers and air and to force their workers into the company store with company script. That is the regulation and law that industry is always complaining about, and trying to undermine.

And by convincing people that government is the most fundamentally evil of human inventions, they get the people protected by government to undermine their own protections.

Furthermore, if you think that there is some sort of nobility or interest in the human condition that would prevent the proverbial factory owner from doing so, take a look at those parts of the world where there are not such protections for workers for against dumping crap in the river. A corporation will get away with every single thing that it can. It has no conscience, no humanity, no care. It is a machine that is built to make money. And that is not a bad thing, as long as there is a balance. And that balance is government.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[digitalsolo]

On the topic of fuckwits...

Do pollutants stop at country borders? Perhaps we should get to legislating pollution internationally too.

No one has stated that there are not benefits to federal control of certain things. The existence of certain benefits does not automatically make that option the best choice.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Archangel Michael]

Let's say I'm a factory owner. I make widgets. My factory dumps poison into the sky and into the water. After all, it's my air and water, too, right? And it's next to my factory. If you stop me from dumping the waste, you are imposing on my property rights; you are decreasing the value of my factory. If I change this, I will have to cut back payment of my workers, thus impacting their property rights.

If you cause harm to another, it trumps "property rights" does it not? I'm not free to murder people on my property, or shoot my gun into my neighbors yard because of property rights.

You assertions are ridiculous on face value.

Power corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. The State always wants more power. Which is why our system of governance was based on INDIVIDUAL rights, and not group or states rights. With rights comes responsibility, something NOBODY is talking about these days.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[jandrese]

The problem with state level environmental controls is that it ends up with acid rain two states over and inter-state lawsuits that never solve anything.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

strong property rights means that the neighbors would be able to sue for damages.... in this case, leading to the complete liquidation and destruction of monsanto. epa laws protect companies by limiting the amount of damages an individual can claim. Companies poisoned our rivers... strong property rights would ruin the people who did the polluting. in addition cities upstream would get sued for dumping sewage into the rivers by folks living downstream... we can't have that so we have an agency around to pretend to do good, but really they protect the bad guys. Omaha could ruin Souix City, Kansas City could ruin Omaha, St Louis could ruin kansas city and so on.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Archangel Michael]

Since your basic arguement is we don't need less regulation because you equate that with no regulation, And that we need more regulation. Then I'll apply your basic logic and say that you're for total and complete regulation of everything by the state.

There is a point where existing regulations are enough, and adding more regulation doesn't accomplish anything or worse, adversely affects everyone. What people like you are unwilling to look at is that regulation will never stop malfeasance. That is what a Crime is, willful disregard for public safety.

Take for example all the ADA laws out there, do you know that there are people who make their entire living looking for ADA compliance problems and SUING people for refusing to fix the issues. For example the handicapped railing has to be 36" off the ground, but a measurement shows it to be 35", so they sue. They make millions each year doing exactly that. Parking space not exact ... sue! Historical building but doesn't have wheel chair access .. sue .

As for other parts of the world, of which we (I, you, us Americal, western world etc) has little or no control over, is something ... well I don't have any control over. Iran is going to build a nuke, and there is nothing I can do, why worry about it, because besides handwringing there isn't much we're doing to stop them.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[witherstaff]

The problem with the EPA is they do often give exceptions to laws and hurt the victims. For example I live on the East side of Lake Michigan. Air quality is bad here because of winds from Chicago and Gary. The EPA has been considering forcing more stringent air quality control on cars and the few manufacturing plants we have. These are not the problems of our bad air but we'd have to pay the economic cost. Another great lakes area issue with the EPA, BP wanted to put a processing plant on the shores of Lake Michigan. The EPA came up with a legally allowed pollution runoff of the plant that was higher than the state wanted to allow. Thankfully there was enough bad PR put up to stop it, but in this case the EPA was going to trample state rights.

Now as to Ron Paul, the libertarian ideal of do no harm to others would allow lawsuits to anyone that pollutes. Currently if you meet the EPA standards you're protected, so big business (Like the previous BP examples) can get the feds to let them do harmful things that they're protected from repercussions. Our current system of Corporatism is not Free Market.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[forkfail]

I don't disagree that power corrupts.

My primary point is that government is not the only place that power concentrates. Right now, there is more power in the corporations than is vested in the instrument of power of the people: the government.

Too many arguing for purely free market approaches in our technological and interconnected world seem to be very aware of the evils of government, but seem to think that by reducing government, they'll reduce the overall exercise of power. This is simply not the case.

Both corporations and government can do good and evil. However, if not balanced against each other, they both tend towards evil.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[forkfail]

That may be the philosophical definition of a crime; the legal one includes codification of the acts that comprise a crime.

And unless you allow an individual to embody the law - a king, a judge - you need this codification. Which means laws and regulations.

Furthermore, without such codification, there is no sociatal contract about what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral, and what the consequences of crossing the line are. It becomes arbitrary, and decided by those with the greatest wealth and power.

Furthermore, unless you have that codification, you cannot prevent someone from doing something wrong - only punish. And there are many crimes that cannot be paid for. If you steal the years of someone's life (by, for example, dumping cancer causing agents into the river), there is no way you can repay that person for their pain and lost years. None. A court could strip the guilty of everything they own, make a slave of them - and it would not pay for the lost time.

The legal system, the courts - are where we go for justice under the law. That second part is critical. Under the law. Though many complain about "judicial activism", the fundamental role of the courts is to interpret the law, and make rulings in cases of disputes. Where there is no law, the courts have no power.

The regulation and law that we have are necessary protections. What would you remove? Maybe allow factories to poison air but not rivers? Maybe allow them to hire 9 year olds, but make them pay minimum wage? Why is the argument that "we need less regulation" always so generic; why is the regulation never named? Could it be, perhaps, because when specifics are given, people would look on those advocating the removal and call them evil, crazy or backwards?

Finally, my example of what happens in other countries without regulation was meant of an empirical example of what happens when there is inadequate regulation; an object lesson in how not to do it. Maybe I can't do anything about it here, but what I can do is prevent the river near my house from becoming an inflammable and toxic open sewer and keep my the expectations for my kids over working in a damaging sweat shot.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleeding heart liberals never think these things through.

"Whenever somebody receives something without working for it, somebody else has to work for it without receiving."

>Will you have the money to pay for the court fees before judgment is handed down?

Depends on the libertarian with which you speak. Many advocate for the court system to be one of the sole remaining publicly run items remaining.

>Will your kids ever be supported enough by the company to make up for the fact that they were born fully disabled and in permanent pain?

They should be. That's what justice and courts are for.

>If the company is liquidated, who pays for the medicals bills?

Their insurance. Failing that, you're SOL. Which is why I put that quote up there. If the company cannot pay for what they've done, then if your children are to receive money, it will need to come from someone else. That means someone who did nothing wrong, the children's neighbours, their teachers, their priest, their coach, the bus driver, and even the grocery store owner will have to pay for it. That seems like an even worse solution.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

What good is a court to address grievances when your kids were already born deformed, you've been burned by the agent, and your crops have all failed due to some careless disposal of toxic chemicals? Will you have the money to pay for the court fees before judgment is handed down? Will your kids ever be supported enough by the company to make up for the fact that they were born fully disabled and in permanent pain? If the company is liquidated, who pays for the medicals bills?

Ok, so we have established that monetary compensation is not actually adequate to redress all the harms done. Its not perfect so lets ignore that possibility and instead just make the company make sure those children are no longer deformed, make you forget about that burn and the pain it caused, and bring those crops back to life.

Oh wait, none of those things are actually possible? In that case cut me a check and I'll have to make the best of it.

My point is, that although making money exchange hands does not fix all the problems its closer than many alternatives.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a very shallow view of Libertarians.

You should try to imagine that people who disagree with you are not as one-dimensional as you make them out to be. They are no less capable of weighing benefits and risks than you are, they simply assign different weights than you do. All systems can eventually be scammed and manipulated by dishonest people.

In the last century, alone, Governments killed 100 million of their own citizens. Yet you complain that hundreds or thousands got sick, and therefore limiting government power is short-sighted idiocy?

I know that's not what you're thinking, but that's what someone who views you one-dimenionsally for disagreeing with them could read from your post

Re:If we would just allow free market

[mbullock]

Well said. I line up libertarian in many ways, but why is it so hard for people to understand that the "free market" isn't a naturally occurring state that we've somehow screwed up and if we just let well enough alone it will emerge in all it's shining glory. That whole perspective on things is nothing more than a free market religion. It is so simple and obvious that the "free" in the free market is something we create through civil society by establishing rules and giving entities like "the government" the power to enforce those rules. We can all argue over how much government is enough versus too much, and we can talk about different flavors of government, but at the end of the day, we'll find we need it. I'm tired of these free market evangelicals who are no different than any other flavor of religious zealot.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say I'm a factory owner. I make widgets. My factory dumps poison into the sky and into the water. After all, it's my air and water, too, right? And it's next to my factory. If you stop me from dumping the waste, you are imposing on my property rights; you are decreasing the value of my factory. If I change this, I will have to cut back payment of my workers, thus impacting their property rights.

This is a ridiculous strawman mockery of the position held by most small-government advocates. If you seriously believe that anyone other than perhaps the unscrupulous factory owner himself would make that argument with a straight face, you are the problem with modern political discourse. That sort of complete unwillingness to attempt to understand the positions of those you disagree with is what creates hostile, unproductive standoffs at all ranges of the political hierarchy, from your water cooler at work all the way up to congress.

Any time the argument is made to consider the economic effects of pollution abatement requirements is made, the factory owner's argument is made. How do small government advocates feel that Midwest particulates from burning coal affecting states to the East should be addressed?

You could make it a matter of law enforcement. "Hello, monitoring your power plant from the road, we found evidence of greater than legal emissions. We are arresting you as the head of the corporation, and will retain title to the plant if you are found guilty."

You could make it a matter of civil action. "Air pollution? Well, as a citizen, if you can find evidence of excessive levels of emissions, you can sue the company. Because you don't have a job or anything."

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Nimey]

The best ones are the *atheist* free-market zealots who will get /very offended/ if you compare their zeal to religious belief. They totally can't see it, of course.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Nimey]

You have a very shallow view of Libertarians.

Perhaps that's because so many Internet Libertarians have a very shallow philosophy that they haven't thought through the consequences of. I know; I used to be that guy.

It's not true of all libertarians, but damnation are there a lot of that kind spouting off.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

So why not have an international EPA and be subject to even more regulation.

In the case were State B's pollution is polluting State A's land/water, State A would have prove that State B was causing the pollution. If this is the case, State B will have to compensate State A. The libertarian ideal is to elevate personal property and compensation for damages. So, the states, as well as individuals, have incentive not to to harm others. Of course, this doesn't prevent corruption and what not, However, with the current system we have now the EPA is trying to put ridiculously costly mercury emission regulation in place for power plants driving up energy costs at the same time other bureaucrats are pushing mercury filled light bulbs and outlawing others.

If more people actually listened to Ron Paul they would be surprised that it isn't the doom and gloom the media presents. It's scary being held responsible and to give others liberty when you don't agree with them.

Re:If we would just allow free market

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Market includes Courts to address grievances exactly like this. In a Free Market, a company such as Monsanto would and could be sued in perpetuity for hazards it created either intentionally or unintentionally. If bad enough, the entire company could be liquidated to pay for damages, leaving shareholders nothing. Additionally, in MY version of the free market, the CEO (all of them) and anyone sitting on the Board of Directors would be criminally liable for any criminal activity condoned or sanctioned by them.

The problem with this is that it only punishes the consequences of the actions, it does nothing to prevent them. You can (try to) prevent a company from poisoning your family using regulations but in your free market, the companies can do the poisoning, kill your family and all you get is some measly compensation that isn't going to make up for the loss of your family.

The biggest issue in the world as we know it is that people care more about money then people. How many people would kill someone else for money if they knew that they had a good chance of not getting caught and/or punished?

Re:If we would just allow free market

[jandrese]

International EPA is probably the only real effective solution to combating Greenhouse gasses. Already you see virtually every effort everywhere to combat them either die or get watered down to nothing on the ground that it will "hurt competition". Theoretically a global environment board that could enforce their laws equally would stop that argument in its tracks. Such a godlike agency would be impossible in the real world sadly so we're stuck with killing off the entire planet slowly through outsourced pollution.

If State B is polluting State A, and State A proves it, who is going to make them pay? You have environmental regulation happening at the local level, there is no authority to make State B stop or do anything about it. State B will just claim that it isn't pollution and that their environmental regulation says everything is hunky-dory. State A has no recourse, they can't change the law in State B and what's happening in state B is not illegal! This situation is what caused the EPA to be created in the first place!

Can't touch this

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto is like Microsoft, you don't touch it.

WV??

[Paul Slocum]

I don't think "WV" is a commonly known abbreviation for West Virginia.

Re:WV??

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmm. The USPS thinks it is: http://goo.gl/o6wKI

Re:WV??

[MagicM]

Seriously?

Re:WV??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think

No, apparently not. Stupid fuck.

Re:WV??

[Anonymous Coward]

Fairly standard. I would think that people in the US are at least mildly familiar with the postal abbreviations.

Re:WV??

[Xian97]

WV has been the 2 letter designation for West Virginia since the post office went to 2 letter state abbreviations in 1963.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_abbreviations

Re:WV??

[wagnerrp]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_abbreviations#Postal_abbreviations
If not WV, what would be more common? "WVa" really isn't that much different.

Re:WV??

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was VolksWagen... in reverse.

Re:WV??

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that's a fantastic idea. You could be the first to drive your Volkswagon in reverse across WV. You'll get loads of sponsorship and when you're done you'll have plenty of girls to get laid with in rural Oh... umm... Vir... Ken... oh, nevermind. Lousy idea.

Re:What else ..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another fine british company which is poisoning America's soil. Go Tea Party, Go Patriots, Go NeoCons, Go Royal loot and pillage the land the natives are feeble minded.

war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressing

[commodore73]

As an American, I don't think we can ever repay our debt to Viet Nam. They're still dealing with the toxins and other leftovers now (especially the children), and they can't sue anyone. The things that are done in the name of our country, our ethnic heritage, our historic religion, our "democracy", our capitalism...sometimes it's hard to live with ourselves.

So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay you're really an idiot. It is one of the two active ingredients in agent orange. Jesus fucking christ people are stupid ... it is half of agent orange ... you don't even produce evidence that water is one of the ingredients of agent orange, you just speculate to make your joke. And you call this fucking hype? Seriously?

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[Beelzebud]

He learned it by watching a show called "bullshit", made by two magicians. They also showed how cigarette smoke is harmless, and global climate change is a "hoax".

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[snowgirl]

Okay you're really an idiot. It is one of the two active ingredients in agent orange. Jesus fucking christ people are stupid ... it is half of agent orange ... you don't even produce evidence that water is one of the ingredients of agent orange, you just speculate to make your joke. And you call this fucking hype? Seriously?

Nothing I said was about the content of their argument, but rather just the presentation of the argument. The article explains NOTHING about how dangerous 2,3,4-T is, and simply replies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to assert the harmfulness of the chemical.

If the article had included any of what you included as information (that it's one of two chemicals in Agent Orange, and that it breaks down into TCDD which is crazy harmful when heated) then there would have been no issue at all with the article.

This is not a substance argument, it is a FORM argument, and thus attacking me with "but it really is dangerous!" is completely beside the point, because that's not what I was arguing. I knew 2,3,4-T was harmful, the point was that the article doesn't establish WHY it is harmful in its own right.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[KhabaLox]

This is not a substance argument, it is a FORM argument, and thus attacking me with "but it really is dangerous!" is completely beside the point, because that's not what I was arguing. I knew 2,3,4-T was harmful, the point was that the article doesn't establish WHY it is harmful in its own right.

I don't disagree with you, but going into that level of chemistry is probably going to make even NPR listeners/readers glaze over. Using the AO shortcut might not be the best way to present the argument from a scientific point, but since they're presenting to a popular audience I don't personally have a huge issue with it.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[LandDolphin]

It's harmful because it causes some of the same problems that Agent Orange caused?

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[snowgirl]

I don't disagree with you, but going into that level of chemistry is probably going to make even NPR listeners/readers glaze over. Using the AO shortcut might not be the best way to present the argument from a scientific point, but since they're presenting to a popular audience I don't personally have a huge issue with it.

It would cause their listeners/readers to glaze over to say "2,4,5-T is one of the two herbicides in Agent Orange, and the one that breaks down into the extremely toxic dioxins that made Agent Orange so much more harmful than it was original designed to be"?

I have heard some people say that NPR listeners/readers are retarded idiots, but that would have to take the cake. I mean, we're not talking about explaining complicated chemistry here, we're talking "there are two active chemical ingredients" and "when heated chemical A turns into chemical B, which is even more toxic". That's the kind of chemistry that anyone can actually understand.

And even then, it works out to be one sentence of content in an entire article. I've heard deeper explanations for how infectious beetles kill trees on NPR...

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[snowgirl]

It's harmful because it causes some of the same problems that Agent Orange caused?

Exactly, and the TCDD that 2,4,5-T turns into under heat was responsible for Agent Orange being so dangerously toxic (as opposed to "reasonably" toxic). But there is no explanation that an all but ubiquitous 2,4,5-T contaminant was the principle chemical for why Agent Orange was so dangerous.

Just explaining that it was the principle cause of why Agent Orange was so toxic would have been better than the simple and uninformative, "it's a part of Agent Orange".

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[avandesande]

Except that in this case, because it is an ACTIVE ingredient AND toxic the association is valid and not hype.

Sounds like you are backpedaling.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[Bowling Moses]

"The article explains NOTHING about how dangerous 2,3,4-T is, and simply replies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to assert the harmfulness of the chemical."

Well according to almighty wikipedia the oral LD50 of 2,4,5-T is 389 mg/kg in mice and 500 mg/kg in rats. That struck me as not being especially hideous, and on a whim I looked up the LD50 of aspirin: 250 mg/kg in mice and 200 mg/kg in rats. By this measure 2,4,5-T is less toxic than aspirin!. It's more complex than that however. It doesn't include low dose/persistent exposure effects of the compound and doesn't include degradation products or side products of synthesis, which could have different levels of toxicity. It's the synthesis byproducts that are a major issue with 2,4,5-T. As others have commented on, 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) is a side product of synthesis, and according to wikipedia modern synthesis can knock its levels down to about 0.005 ppm (I've seen 0.1 ppm elsewhere in my quick search), but in earlier batches could be up to 60 ppm. The LD50 of TCDD is 1,000 times lower than 2,4,5-T; a few hundred micrograms ingested per kilogram of body weight was enough to kill rats (sorry about age of study). Nasty effects other than death naturally occur at lower amounts. Also keep in mind that we're just making rodents eat the stuff. I'm not a chemical engineer, but you do have to wonder what sort of waste products (TCDD included) were flushed out by that chemical plant and where it went, and how long TCDD and other nasties might persist in the environment. TCDD is unfortunately pretty resistant to biodegradation, one study in Italy I found gave a half-life in soil of 9.1 years. I've just spent a little bit of time working on insecticide development so these are some of the things I think about, although being a biochemist this is not a core area of expertise.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[snowgirl]

Except that in this case, because it is an ACTIVE ingredient AND toxic the association is valid and not hype.

Sounds like you are backpedaling.

I'm not backpedaling, because I never made the claim that 2,4,5-T was not dangerous or toxic. Just that the article wasn't clear about what the actual dangers of 2,4,5-T actually are, and just said, "it's an ingredient of Agent Orange!"

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[SpanglerIsAGod]

I'm impressed with your tenacity in attempting to explain something I would have expected to be easily understood by this community.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[tehcyder]

Your argument would be justified if this was a scientific paper. It's not, it's a piece of journalism. You are the equivalent of a slashdot grammar Nazi, correct but generally missing the point that this is an internet forum and not a collection of formal published documents.

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[tehcyder]

Your original joke implied that there was actually a load of harmless stuff in Agent Orange, and that therefore the substance in question here was harmless as well.

That may not have been the intention, but it's how it came across

Re:So You're a COMPLETE Idiot?

[snowgirl]

I'm impressed with your tenacity in attempting to explain something I would have expected to be easily understood by this community.

See, it's funny because it's true... oww... I made myself sad.

Re:What else ..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto is American - started in St. Louis, MO in 1901.

I grew up across the river from there

[Xian97]

in Saint Albans. That entire Charleston area is full of chemical plants - the nickname for the area is the Chemical Valley. Dow, Dupont, FMC, Bayer, Rhone Poluenc, and many others to name some present and past companies that have been there. The biggest was Union Carbide with several locations - the Institute plant was where MIC was produced in the US, the gas involved in the Bhopal tragedy.

I knew a lot of people that had or developed cancer that lived in the area and I remember seeing a study showing the rate was noticeably higher than the national norm.

Re:I grew up across the river from there

[jandrese]

I grew up on the outskirts of Nitro, and one of the things you can't forget is the smell. There is a sort of stale-french fries smell that lingers around the town on windless days. I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing good.

Ambulance chasers

[Squidlips]

Now that the Ambulance Chasers are involved, it is hard to tell what is fact and what is fiction

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[Noughmad]

As an American, I don't think we can ever repay our debt to Viet Nam.

No, you can't. However, you can come close by using the same chemicals in your country, so at least you can share the pain.

Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[cfulmer]

So, I can pretty much guarantee that anybody who was involved in Monsanto's decisions 63 years ago is no longer at the company and, in fact, may no longer be alive. Why does it make sense to sue the current company and injure its current stockholders for something that those people did all that time ago?

The answer? The legal fiction that the company is a 'person' that, among other things, has to be responsible for its actions.

All the people complaining about companies not being 'persons' in regard to free-speech rights should be careful, because if they're not persons, then they're just collections of people. And in the US, we only hold people liable for things they're personally responsible for. For example, if your parents die owing a lot of money, you don't inherit their debt. If corporations are just collections of persons, then there's no sense in suing Monsanto for this today -- they weren't involved. At most, you could find out who made all the decisions and go back and sue their estates.

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[Dhalka226]

All the people complaining about companies not being 'persons' in regard to free-speech rights should be careful [. . .] at most, you could find out who made all the decisions and go back and sue their estates.

Why?

The idea that if a corporation isn't a person that it's nothing at all is a false dichotomy. A corporation is a legal construct. We can attach whatever we want to that construct (and technically we do -- corporations exist explicitly to serve the public good in most states, as an example). If we want to cease the illusion of it being a person and yet still attach legal liability for its actions, we can do that.

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could go back to the old days when we had to charter businesses. And then the people that held the charter and stock holders were personally liable for actions the company took. That solves your problem right there.

You know before citizens united companied could still be sued and were. Your argument is void.

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[cfulmer]

So, a corporation is, indeed, a legal construct. Saying that it's a "Legal Person" is simply a shorthand to say that the law treats it as if it were a person in many cases: it can own property, it can sue and be sued, it has to pay taxes, it can be found criminally liable, there are due process rights, etc....

You're right that we could do what you suggest, but that would involve re-writing a bunch of law that, currently, treats corporations as persons.

As a side note the idea that "corporations are people, so they have the right to free speech" does not appear in the Citizen's United majority opinion (go look it up if you don't believe me.) The entire point there was, basically: a corporation is a group of individual people. People have first amendment rights. And you can't suppress those rights simply because they've chosen to come together in a corporate form. In other words, the source of the ability of corporations to spend money on political campaigns isn't some right the corporation has because it's a person; the source is the individual rights of the people who make up the corporation.

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[cfulmer]

Citizen's United did not say that corporations are people. That's a popular, but incorrect, misstatement of its holding. See my reply to the other post.

Incidentally, businesses still are chartered -- that's what happens when a corporation is formed; they get a charter from the state. The idea of limited liability for stockholders is a bit more recent invention, but has been an enormous benefit to each of us: Do you have any mutual funds in your 401(k)? Under the rule you propose, you would be _personally liable_ for the actions of each of the thousands of companies in that mutual fund. What does that do to your investment decisions?

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[Anonymous Coward]

If copyright lasts so long, even for corporations, then why can't potential liability?

Re:Long dead . . . 1949 & corporate personhood

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the stuff they are doing today with enforced monocropping, patenting genomes, terminator seeds, and other efforts to limit biodiversity are the biggest and most clear example of stupidity. Monsanto employees: kill yourselves please.

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[commodore73]

I really don't see how that's in anyone's best interest (I would prefer wholesale population reduction without deformities and pain), but I respect your right to an opinion. I personally think that something like that episode of the original star trek where drafted people walk into a room of death and call that a war is probably one of the best solutions.

Re:What else ..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Founded in America yet controlled by the british.{Like President Bush)

Soon we will figure out a way to charge for the air people breathe.
http://wesmantoddshaw.hubpages.com/hub/Monsanto-The-Most-Evil-Corporation-In-The-World

What we http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1fHxPY3TJo

Washington Lawyers

[Tokolosh]

Agent Orange and its emotive supporters want to keep the revenue pump primed. Together with asbestos, this is productive government teat:

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/112_HR_812.html
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/112_SN_1629.html
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_2254.html
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_637.html
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_3491.html
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_972.html
etc., etc.

Regarding free markets. My city used to dump raw sewage in the river, until it was sued in 1925 by a downstream town for polluting the water. After a court case, a treatment plant was built - no EPA or federal government required, common law is sufficient.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[forkfail]

If your city was sued, it means that there was a law that the courts ruled on a law.

Which means that a government made a law that said, no, dumping sewage into the river is a no-no because there was a law that said it was a no-no.

Unless you are proponing that the courts legislate from the bench with declarations of Solomon-esque wisdom. In which case, the courts become the government, and you've gone full circle.

Not to mention that in your fantasy system that you can ever stop someone from doing something harmful before they do it. If you can only sue someone after they dump the sewage and cause your children to be born with three arms, two heads and no intestine (see the linked wikipedia article in TFA), then you've already suffered non-recoverable harm.

Finally, why do free market purists think that if you get rid of government that it will get rid of people exercising power? Governments may be evil, but at least they are answerable in the end to the people, unlike the private fiefdoms known as corporations. (See also Jefferson on inalienable rights and men forming governments to protect them.) Governments are supposed to fill that niche, and be less evil than that which will fill them if they don't exist. The whole Ayn Rand free markets lead to paradise idea is naive and dangerous.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[NeutronCowboy]

Interesting. Did the lawsuit somehow pay money to the people affected by the sewage dump? How much? What about the people farther downstream than the town that sued?

Also, note that it took a town to sue, not individuals. Are you saying that only those wealthy enough to afford a lawsuit should be able to sue? What if the town administration would just have been paid a lump sum by the town upstream, and the town administration downstream just said "Keep on dumping!"?

Lots of questions, few answers.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Free market libertarianism is the perfect answer to a whole set of questions as long as you don't fully understand the questions in the first place.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding free markets. My city used to dump raw sewage in the river, until it was sued in 1925 by a downstream town for polluting the water. After a court case, a treatment plant was built - no EPA or federal government required, common law is sufficient.

I've often thought, as a semi-libertarian, that instead of having EPA regulations on what can be dumped out of sewage pipes into rivers etc, there was a simpler solution. Require towns and cities to dump their sewage upstream from where they get their drinking water. It would then be a completely local option as to how to treat the sewage.
There should certainly be a faction of the Republican party and Tea Bag movement that would support this reduction in federal interference in local affairs.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[Tokolosh]

As usual with these things, it is more complicated than a sound bite. In 1892 the downstream town had dammed the river to power the numerous mills that were springing up. At the same time, the growing upstream city, for the first time, constructed a sewage collection system which discharged into the river. In itself considered a great environmental improvement. Both actions made the pollution situation a lot worse.

The suit was brought collectively by the mills and the local inhabitants (I think). Although the river was ultimately cleaned up, I doubt that any damages were paid. This is the way things were done back then. People have very little understanding how much their environment has improved over the last 200 years. You may say this is because of legislation and the EPA, but they relatively recent arrivals.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against any government involvement. Obviously the courts have a role to protect your rights not to have pollution dumped on you, especially if you are an individual of little means up against a large corporation. The government can also expedite and simplify the resolution of such conflicts. The problem is that the definition of harm is constantly changing. 100 years ago it was perfectly accepted to dump sewage in the river, have thousands of open coal fires in a city, horse manure everywhere in the streets. But I can't sue the city today because my grandfather caught dysentery in 1925. We strive to improve, but must look forwards, not backwards. If your perfect knowledge in the future makes you liable for your imperfect knowledge in the past, we will never progress.

Also, shit happens.

P.S. The mills are long gone, the dam has silted up, and the area is now a recreation area, particularly renowned to bird-watchers.

Re:Washington Lawyers

[Tokolosh]

If your city was sued, it means that there was a law that the courts ruled on a law.

No, there is Common Law. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law, in particular "The common law evolves to meet changing social needs and improved understanding".

If you intend to stop any harm before it happens, then you may as well go and live in a cave (that new-fangled bow and arrow will surely put someone's eye out).

Re:Washington Lawyers

[forkfail]

So - you can't stop someone from dumping poison in the town well, causing everyone's children to be stillborn.

But hey - you can sue them for damages, right?

Re:Washington Lawyers

[ChoppedBroccoli]

Interesting post. Part of the issue here seemed to be an ongoing understanding and knowledge of the impact of new technologies. New technologies were used before their impact was really known. The debate would then lead to - should new technologies been used before any longer term tests are done, or just proceed with the best knowledge at hand. I'd imagine both sides could make a compelling argument.

Also I think you are right - common law seemed to have done the job here - initially at least. But the problem for me is that without an EPA like institute (maybe a state level one would suffice), the crime needs to be committed before the retroactive action is taken and it is fixed. Anything with that sort of feedback loop isn't very efficient [often times this is the worst cost effective approach if a long term analysis is done]. It would be better to monitor on an on-going basis these types of activities before the river was destroyed. The EPA like organization can note the environmental issue resolved by common law in this case, and make it part of its knowledge base for monitoring in the future to avoid having such a long feedback loop.

On the whole I agree though - it is very hard to compare standards now vs. a previous generation. What is acceptable changes over time. The only way a previous generation of bad decisions should be punished by law is if there is evidence supporting that the decision makers had information at the time indicating they were knowingly making a bad decision that would harm people and break the law (either a specific law or common law).

Re:Washington Lawyers

[Tokolosh]

Absolutely, if you knew it was poison. But if the elected town chief and witchdoctor told you the mushrooms were ok, you would have some wriggle room. Maybe it would be better not to have a well?

Today comes the news that "sugar is a toxic, addictive substance" http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/01/BA891N1PQS.DTL

I guess the sugar companies will be hounded, just like the tobacco companies and Monsanto, while the actual producers (farmers) continue to be subsidized.

Government oversight can prevent instances of harm, to the benefit of those affected. However, I believe the overall, nett effect on society is negative. For example, since DDT was banned worldwide, how many have died from malaria, against what benefit? Some argue that when human life is at stake, no cost is too high. I obviously disagree.

Also, complexity hastens the downfall - http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X

"The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way." Henry David Thoreau

Re:Washington Lawyers

[NeutronCowboy]

Interesting post. Thanks for the clarification.

I grew up in Nitro

[Bryan_Casto]

The sad part is that this is barely news in WV. Oh, there have been numerous lawsuits over the years challenging each of the companies mentioned above for various abuses, often with commercials and mailers asking you to contact Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe, attorneys at law or some such nonsense. I moved away six years ago and I still get mailers today for class-action suits from my time there.

I played baseball at the parks across Viscose Road from the industrial park mentioned in the story. My mom worked in Nitro along that same road where there was an EPA Superfund cleanup site for Fike Chemical. They found all kinds of junk there, including hydrogen cyanide and methanethiol. There was also a tremendous tire warehouse fire about five years ago near the industrial park mentioned in the story. The story goes on and on, and has ever since the nitrocellulose plant was built in 1917 for World War I.

It's unfortunate, but coal and chemicals (and medical services for those dealing with coal and chemicals) are the only kind of work that is generally available in that area. It provided a good living for the time, but left a pretty awful legacy now that those jobs are packing up and leaving.

I grew up in and still live in Nitro

[asherlev]

Since we're besting each other, I also have a box full of my grandfather's diaries after he found FMC(right down the street from the Monsanto plant in question) dumping barrels of cyanide in the Kanawha River in the 70's. The management threatened to kill him and his daughters.
You're right though, it's no better now. Despite the fact that the Nitro area(don't even get me started on Manilla Creek) had one of the highest concentrations of marker cancers in the world before the plants closed down, if you say anything negative about the chemical industry in town you're immediately attacked.

Re:I grew up in and still live in Nitro

[ChoppedBroccoli]

If only your grandfather had a discreet cell phone to record that event :(
Hopefully we can expose these types of events now and in the future so that companies don't get away with this anymore.

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[forkfail]

If you saw the episode, then you'd remember that such a "war room" approach was shown to be more evil than "real" war, because it killed, but hid the killing, but didn't stop it. And death is death. Sanitizing and hiding it is a far cry from ending it.

And if you think about it, from the American point of view, we have in large hidden it away. When Bush took us to war against Iraq, the press was embedded - a control mechanism to ensure that there wasn't a repeat of the media footage of Vietnam. There was no showing of the dead returning, let alone the dead and mutilated over there. We were told to shop, not to share in the pain of war. It was sanitized... right up to the point where you looked into what was actually happening, or listened to the returning Vets.

I'd also note that war, hate, fear - it's all cyclical. Your father's father's father stole my great grandpappy's land; your ancestors took my ancestor's holy city; your ancestors brought this plague upon mine. It goes on and on. Hiding it doesn't end it; it just propagates it further and in an interest bearing manner that someday will absolutely come due.

MS Dangerous

[marcroelofs]

I think, just like the other MS, this company is doing everything it can to completely pwn the field in which they operate and use every means available. In Monsanto's case it is far more dangerous even, because the 'code' they are meddling with is not the OS software for 75% of desktops, but the very system of 100% of life on this planet. This is not just about freedom of information, but about life and evolution.

A company like that should be scrutinized to the highest standards. Instead it is one of the dirtiest and most cynical companies in history. Their dossier reads like a bad villain movie, only worse.

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[commodore73]

I did not remember that ending, but the cause of that conflict was different. My real problem is overpopulation. Until we deal with that, random death seems like a good solution. Right now, it's targeted death for specific regions/cultures/etc.

Different Monsanto?

[FellowConspirator]

Monsanto spun off it's chemical business in 1997 as Solutia, in part to distance itself from the liability of Agent Orange and PCBs. In 2000, Monsanto merged with Pharmacia (who had bought Solutia earlier), and the company was gutted and restructured, and left as a seed company with the glyphosate division. Shortly thereafter, Monsanto was spun off as a separate company again (Pharmacia mostly wanted GD Searle). The chemical business (at that point, part of Pharmacia), Solutia, went bankrupt in 2003.

There's the question whether the modern Monsanto is the correct party to hold liable. For a short period in 2000-2002, there was no separate company called Monsanto, just a brand. The current Monsanto is pretty much Dekalb Genetics with a new name.

It's interesting that Monsanto is considered the sole liable party.

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[nitehawk214]

I did not remember that ending, but the cause of that conflict was different. My real problem is overpopulation. Until we deal with that, random death seems like a good solution. Right now, it's targeted death for specific regions/cultures/etc.

Ah, you are a moron. Thanks for clearing that up.

Anyone who is in favor of killing as a solution to overpopulation is a moron, and should be first in line for their own solution. Please do us all a favor by volunteering.

Population controls, urban reorganization, settlement, are all valid solutions. If you even believe in overpopulation on a global scale, which I certainly do not. I believe tiis more of a a resource allocation problem, which can certainly be solved in other ways than killing anyone that is competing for your resources.

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[commodore73]

I must be a moron, but similar to a lot of other smart people. Have you ever heard of the golden billion? Do you really think there are enough resources for 7+ billion? Do you really think people will change their lifestyles? Wait a second, who is the moron here? Seriously, no offense taken, just a difference of opinion. In the interest of the planet, I am honestly willing to let 75% of my family go. Yes it would be painful, but not as painful as what I see coming. Learn to swim (where swim is not literal - check Tool lyrics).

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[commodore73]

I'll make it easier for you: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Tool/Aenima.html

Republicanism states that.

[Anonymous Coward]

The corporations must win at all cost at everything even killing and poisoning the citizens.
"Strange that the suit is only allowed to address the symptom and not the root cause."
Not so strange in that light.

I guarantee you someone somewhere has pockets that are a whole lot fuller.

Nitro

[Alioth]

I like the town's name, "Nitro". Even sounds toxic. Or a place where hot-rodders live.

Re:Nitro

[Schadrach]

Or named for the product of the chemical plants it sprung up around (rather than the plants moving into town, the first plants came first, and people moved around them to shorten their commutes).

Re:What else ..?

[Aardpig]

Citation or tits or GTFO.

Monsanto Can Do No Wrong

[ks*nut]

Trust them. They know what they're doing. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:war museums in Viet Nam are incredibly depressi

[forkfail]

Kirk and Spock smash it up, tell them if they want to have a war, have a real war. Or better, figure out how to solve their problems without killing.

Property claims dismissed? Why?

[rnturn]

So Monsanto was not responsible for the stuff getting all over town? Nitro,WV is probably a EPA SuperFund site now and Monsanto should be picking up the tab for the clean-up. But since Monsanto's legal department probably makes more in a year than the combined lifetime earnings of the residents of Nitro, I doubt there's a damned thing that can be done to get the company to do the right thing. If you live in WV it looks like you have the choice to get screwed over by a chemical company or a coal mining company. Pity because the landscape down there is really pretty. (At least where the tops of the mountains haven't been torn off.) Or at least it used to be; I haven't been through WV in years.

without agent orange, it wouldn't have been made

[decora]

so therefore it is relevant. without the 'emotional rhetoric' about the threat of the communist chinese, the domino effect, etc etc etc, there would have been no need to kill a million people with various weapons like agent orange. so there would have been no need to manufacture it.

i only hope that your railing against 'emotional rhetoric' expands to the well payed, well rewarded PR industry that is at constant beck and call of industry and government to rile the people up so that they, in fact, allow Monsanto to pour carcinogens all over thousands of people in exchange for money.

Re:without agent orange, it wouldn't have been mad

[snowgirl]

so therefore it is relevant. without the 'emotional rhetoric' about the threat of the communist chinese, the domino effect, etc etc etc, there would have been no need to kill a million people with various weapons like agent orange. so there would have been no need to manufacture it.

What the fuck are you going on about? Agent Orange was a DEFOLIANT, and 2,4,5-T is an HERBICIDE, and was used on corn crops to prevent weeds for a period of time.

Agent Orange was NOT intended to be a chemical weapon, it just happened to be ubiquitously contaminated with TCDD, which was a highly toxic dioxin.

why did they want to defiolate, exactly?

[decora]

its like saying that helicopters are not weapons. they only enable the planning and use of weapons. well, fine, technically, guns arent even weapons, they dont kill people - bullets kill people.

Re:why did they want to defiolate, exactly?

[snowgirl]

its like saying that helicopters are not weapons. they only enable the planning and use of weapons. well, fine, technically, guns arent even weapons, they dont kill people - bullets kill people.

Helicopters and herbicides have uses beyond just killing people. Any tool can be used to facilitate in the death of other human beings, but "weapon" is typically explicitly reserved for tools that were designed with the intent of killing people.

Besides, as toxic as Agent Orange was/is, it would make a really shitty chemical weapon... kills insanely slowly... better to use mustard gas. Far more efficient weapon that...

agent orange was used to kill people indirectly

[decora]

the whole point of defoliation was to prevent the enemy from having any sort of cover. how is that not a weapon or an instrument of warfare?

it is not like traditional chemical weapons in that it does not destroy people's lungs or skin, but it is still a weapon.

perhaps the best category would be 'environmental weapon'.

Re:agent orange was used to kill people indirectly

[snowgirl]

the whole point of defoliation was to prevent the enemy from having any sort of cover. how is that not a weapon or an instrument of warfare?

"Instrument of warfare"? Sure, it's an instrument, and it was used in warfare. However NOT a weapon. Again, a weapon is designed to kill people. Sure, I can go fishing with a gun, but that's not what it's designed for, and it won't be particularly good at it. 2,4,5-T was designed to kill weeds, it just happened to also be good at killing leaves, and things that produce leaves in the jungles of Vietnam, and was retasked to kill that stuff. It was not retasked to the purpose of killing people directly, and thus was not a weapon.

Your whole argument that it was used to kill people indirectly is totally fucking bullshit, because then EVERYTHING that the military owned was a weapon. <satire> MRE? That's a weapon! Because it fed soldiers, who used the energy to kill people! Lucky rabbits foot? It raises moral of a soldier, so they can kill more people! </satire> At that point, the definition that you suggest for "weapon" becomes worthless, because it applies to everything that anyone in the military has.

no vietnam war, no factory

[decora]

its one thing to be manufacturing brass its another thing to be manufacturing brass as part of a company whose major business interest involves making bullet cartridges out of that brass. you can't argue its a "neutral product" when it goes right off of one line into the other where they make weapons.

the herbicide defoliant is similar here. Monsanto was a major manufacturer of agent orange - they needed the herbicide at the West Virginia plant in order to make agent orange. Acting like it was not produced for the purpose of the vietname war is, to borrow your phrase, "fucking bullshit".

Re:no vietnam war, no factory

[snowgirl]

its one thing to be manufacturing brass its another thing to be manufacturing brass as part of a company whose major business interest involves making bullet cartridges out of that brass. you can't argue its a "neutral product" when it goes right off of one line into the other where they make weapons.

the herbicide defoliant is similar here. Monsanto was a major manufacturer of agent orange - they needed the herbicide at the West Virginia plant in order to make agent orange. Acting like it was not produced for the purpose of the vietname war is, to borrow your phrase, "fucking bullshit".

Except that 2,4,5-T was developed in the 1940's... Even without the Vietnam war, we still would have had 2,4,5-T herbicide, because *SHOCK!* herbicides are pretty widely used in the developed world on crops to prevent weeds from growing. In fact, 2,4,5-T kept being used by farmers up until the 1970s when it was banned from everything but rice, and in 1985 it was banned from even rice farmers.

Your whole argument is "fucking bullshit", because 2,4,5-T was designed for purposes other than killing off foliage so that we could kill people, and the history of the chemical's usage demonstrates this.

So, let me repeat the important point here one more time for you, so that hopefully you will get it: 2,4,5-T WAS DEVELOPED WELL PRIOR TO THE VIETNAM WAR, AND WAS WIDELY USED EVEN AFTER THE VIETNAM WAR, THEREFORE, EVEN WITHOUT THE VIETNAM WAR, THEY STILL WOULD HAVE MADE 2,4,5-T!

the herbicide was banned for food crops in 1970

[decora]

that herbicide was banned for being dangerous for food crops while the war was still going on. what, then, were the peaceful uses of it, if it was banned for food production?

besides all this, 'wartime mentality' makes people produce things without worrying so much about the safety or purity, after all, 'we are in a war'. who has time to worry about the environment? are you with us or with the enemy? who cares about some small west virginia town, when we are defeating world communism? ramp up production as much as possible, make a profit, and win the war. the "war mentality" is what brings about factories like the one in Nitro.

without they war they wouldnt have made so much of it so quickly. it would have been easier for the scientists in FDA , EPA to stop it from being made.

science cannot claim 'neutral innocent bystander' in war profiteering on one hand and then claim that its products benefit society (an inherently non-neutral stand) on the other hand. its hypocrisy.