This is a little
follow-up story on a protest that some folks concerned about mountaintop mining
performed in Stamford, Connecticut a while back. During the protest some
protesters commandeered a construction crane and unfurled a large banner that
voiced the demand that UBS, a Swiss-based financial company that has financed a
great deal of mountaintop removal, stop its unsavory business practice.
Now
get this. Prosecutors are continuing the cases of some of the protesters, 14 in
all, for another three weeks so that the prosecutors have the time to tally how
much the protest may have cost local businesses.
Yes,
I imagine that the disruption from the protest may have inconvenienced a number
of folks and their businesses. Shoppers may have been kept out of stores;
diners may have avoided restaurants; and offices of other businesses may have
had trouble keeping their workers on task.
But
isn’t there a little bit of bizarro world going on here? The prosecutors are
tallying up the dollars lost to business so as to figure out how much the
protesters might be charged with restitution, to pay the businesses for their
lost business. In a larger sense, however, shouldn’t UBS be required to pay
restitution? Shouldn’t this huge company that makes millions off of financing
mountaintop removal be required to offer restitution to Appalachian residents
for spoiled wells? Shouldn’t the bank be required to compensate the miners who
have lost their jobs to the heavy machinery and high explosives that have taken
their jobs away? Shouldn’t UBS be required to pay the medical bills of the West
Virginians and Kentuckians who have developed kidney disease and cancers from living in
the presence of a mountaintop mine? How about the lives that have been burdened
by the depression that comes from living close to a mountaintop mining
operation, shouldn’t UBS be required to pay for these folks’ antidepressants
and medical bills? And what about the lives cut short? Shouldn’t UBS compensate
the families of the deceased?
As
I said, bizarro world.
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| Should UBS be responsible for this? |
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