Every day in American courtrooms, defendants charged with negligence in accidents get jail time. Why, then, are men behind the nation's worst calamities—Including deaths—seemingly immune from prosecution?
Just this week, West Virginia's mine safety director got around to subpoenaing witnesses in the Massey Energy mine disaster that took 29 lives two months ago, the worst in 40 years. Massey, cited hundreds of times for safety violations, is managed by a man notorious for reckless operations and political influence.
Then there were the deceitful Wall Street bigwigs who manipulated business into the nation's worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, throwing millions out of work, destroying savings and investments, triggering waves of home foreclosures and touching off business bankruptcies nationwide.
Add to this the Gulf oil disaster, undoubtedly the result of poor government oversight, high-risk corner-cutting by BP and the Deepwater Horizon drill owner, and lack of planning and preparation for an emergency. Eleven workers died.
These crises had common links: recklessness born of corporate greed and arrogance engineered by executives counting on political friends in high places to protect and excuse them, plus regulators derelict in their duties.
The Obama administration, already timid about prosecuting government dereliction and corporate corruption in the Bush-Cheney years, cannot in good conscience let these unprecedented acts be waived off. Surely, the perpetrators are as much of a threat to society as the negligent driver who gets jail time for a traffic accident that led to death or serious injury.
