SHARPEN YOUR TEETH

"[Union Carbide Corporation] built the plant in Bhopal because of its central location and access to transport infrastructure. The specific site within the city was zoned for light industrial and commercial use, not for hazardous industry."

"[T]he facility [operated] with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia."

"The local government was aware of safety problems but reticent to place heavy industrial safety and pollution burdens on the struggling industry because it feared the economic effects of the loss of such a large employer."

Among a number of other safety issues at play the night of the disaster, "The gas flare safety system was out of action and had been for three months."

"An estimated 3,800 people died immediately, mostly in the poor slum colony adjacent to the UCC plant. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed with the injured, a crisis further compounded by a lack of knowledge of exactly what gas was involved and what its effects were."

"Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. Its principal tactic was to shift culpability to UCIL, stating the plant was wholly built and operated by the Indian subsidiary. It also fabricated scenarios involving sabotage by previously unknown Sikh extremist groups and disgruntled employees but this theory was impugned by numerous independent sources."

"In a settlement mediated by the Indian Supreme Court, UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government to be distributed to claimants as a full and final settlement. The figure was partly based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people died and 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities. [...] Had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that asbestosis victims where being awarded in US courts by defendant [sic] including UCC – which mined asbestos from 1963 to 1985 – the liability would have been greater than the $10 billion the company was worth and insured for in 1984."

"At every turn, UCC has attempted to manipulate, obfuscate and withhold scientific data to the detriment of victims. Even to this date [2005], the company has not stated exactly what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that December night."

"[M]any [victims] responded well to administration of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide poisoning but not MIC exposure. UCC initially recommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to cover up evidence of HCN [hydrogen cyanide] in the gas leak. The presence of HCN was vigorously denied by UCC and was a point of conjecture among researchers."

"UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers. Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal."

"The events in Bhopal revealed that expanding industrialization in developing countries without concurrent evolution in safety regulations could have catastrophic consequences. The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics."

"UCC has shrunk to one sixth of its size since the Bhopal disaster in an effort to restructure and divest itself. By doing so, the company avoided a hostile takeover, placed a significant portion of UCC's assets out of legal reach of the victims and gave its shareholder and top executives bountiful profits. The company still operates under the ownership of Dow Chemicals and still states on its website that the Bhopal disaster was "cause by deliberate sabotage"."

However angry you are about the Bhopal disaster, you're not angry enough.

the post that its in response to is about how insane it is that some of the most transmisogynistic caricatures of all time are from incredibly popular horror movies. i know we as transfeminists have talked about this extensively. but outside of transfem circles... it really hasn't been talked about? like at all?

most tmes (including way too many trans tmes) will look you dead in the eyes and say "wait, i had no idea that the guy who sings that he's a transvestite from transylvania in a movie made by a guy who hates trans women was actually about his horrible shitty views on trans women!"

or even worse, they'll pretend you're insane for even thinking that their stupid movie could possibly be transphobic. after all, how can it be transphobic if the city's pflag has an event where they play it every Halloween?

it being "talked about extensivel [between us]" doesn't mean "everyone is aware of this"

not to be a critic, but its crazy to me that they could not speak either TO or ABOUT the people affected by this ruling (trans girls in conservative areas) at all. a combination of transmisogyny and shitty reporting means that the takeaway from that segment seemed to be "well, it sucks, but at least blue states are still allowed to be accepting of trans youth" rather than the very real attempts to eradicate trans people from public life or the very real possibility of violent retaliation against trans girls in these states.

I'm starting the Trans Maquis specifically to kill people who think eggs should be treated like glass sculptures instead of people. Fuck your bullshit, isolating, unhelpful "Prime Directive." Who does it protect, really? Who needs to be "protected" from potential transness? Fuck off.

There is no systemic or cultural oppression of men for being men! Misandry/androphobia is not real!

It is all bullshit made up by antifeminist men in the late 2000s who called themselves "Men's Rights Activists" (MRAs). It's literally bullshit that antifeminist conservative assholes have been peddling for years! Yes, that includes all your horseshit arguments about "well, what about blsck men! What about gay men!" These are all talking points that I personally have watched antifeminst MRAs throw around on social media for DECADES!

Sabrina The Teenage Witch's Salem the Cat: I'm gonna force feminize Archie.

Good parents forgive this debt. Bad parents expect it to be repaid, one way or another. The accepted currencies are varied and cryptic and might be mostly innocuous or they might be horrifically criminal.

Many families don’t realize that there is a debt until the child defaults on it somehow. That could be for any reason—the child simply fails to deliver on the parental investment by not adequately being the child they paid for.