The other form of violence

[PETRUS]

When my wife and I were talking about recent events the other night, she juxtaposed the Boston bombings and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion and made essentially the same point as the following piece. It's an important one.

(Yes, the author does bring up BP - how much accidental violence did that company inflict on the Gulf of Mexico?)

Newscasts these days often seem to be less a form of journalism than a kind of bizarre game show for paranoids: what horrible possibility should one worry about the most?

Most of the time, the main choice is between terrorism and gun violence, especially in recent days as the Boston Marathon bombings have shared the airwaves with the gun control debate in the Senate.

Now the horrific events in a small town in Texas provide a reminder of another danger, which for most of the population is actually a more significant threat: industrial accidents. As of this writing, the explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco is reported to have killed up to 15 people and injured more than 180 others.

If the past is any guide, the attention paid to this incident on a national level will fade much faster than the anxiety about the carnage in Boston or the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. The response of most people to terrorism and to gun deaths is to demand that government do something to curb the violence. When people die or are seriously injured in workplace incidents, there is a tendency not to see that as violence at all but rather as an unfortunate side effect of doing certain kinds of business. While labor unions and other advocates push for stronger enforcement of safety laws, corporations and their front groups usually succeed in keeping such regulation as weak as possible...

Read more: http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/04/the-other-form-of-violence.html

[Teamster Jeff]

1. K&R

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. The tendency you describe is *correct*.

Workplace accidents are *not* violence, they *are* an unfortunate side effect of doing certain kinds of business.

That's not to say that failing to take proper steps to minimise those side effects shouldn't be criminalised, but it's not the same thing as violence.

[PETRUS]

5. I gather your distinction is intent?

That is an important difference, and one I noted silently myself when I posted the OP. Candidly, I think it explains the contrast in public reaction mentioned in the article. My guess is that's why you brought it up.

But violence is a totally appropriate term. According to Merriam Webster, it is also correct. The piece I posted is talking about a contest over where, specifically, to set certain boundaries pitting considerations of profit and loss against human life and health. If you die in an explosion, you've come to a violent end whether or not it happened because someone was trying to make a political point or because someone was trying to make an extra buck. I think that point needs to be stressed, not minimized.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. I think intent is an important distinction, but I also think that *violence* is.

"Putting someone in a situation where there is a tiny increase in the chances of them dying a violent death" is *not*, in itself, violence - otherwise, driving a car would be an act of violence.

[PETRUS]

7. But a crash is a violent event whether the driver was drunk or homicidal.

And the article was talking about an explosion resulting in death and injury. So saying your distinction is about *violence* is at least inadequate. Anyhoo...

[chervilant]

3. The corporate megalomaniacs

have assiduously cultivated their own cadre of water carriers, who wholeheartedly buy into the wealth carrot meme, and mindlessly parrot the "some risks ya just gotta take" excuses in support of "big bidness."

I had a retired engineer tell me that the BP oil catastrophe was "blown all out of proportion," because "oil just isn't that toxic!" "Hell, we used to spread it on our gravel roads to keep the dust down!" I didn't know what to say to him...

[Frustratedlady]

4. I had the same type of reply about the BP spill...

from a Texan.

The oil will be reabsorbed into the ocean floor. There are leaks all the time.

My reply: But, how many fish/animals/organisms will it kill on the way down?

Same with climate control. He has an answer for everything and none of the companies or citizens are to blame for pollution. It drives me nuts.