Here's something my GOOGLE wouldn't allow me to find (I had to empty cache, etc) from DU2:
The Police State has powers undreamed. All we really have is Truth.
Remembering the Killing of Karen Silkwood
August 11, 2009 in Capitalism, Environmental Justice, Nuclear, Organizing
After watching the brilliantly-acted and courageous film Silkwood (1983, starring Meryl Streep), I learned the compelling story of Karen Silkwood and her death, which has seemingly been forgotten by America. Karen, only 28, was a union activist working in a Kerr-McGee nuclear power plant in Oklahoma, who died in a suspicious car accident while on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter for a story that would have exposed the company’s dangerous and illegal mishandling of plutonium.
Karen was active in her union, calling attention to the radioactive contamination in the plant, and spent months compiling evidence to show that the company was deliberately covering up the fact that their fuel rods contained imperfections, which could put millions of lives at risk if they sparked a meltdown. The night of her death, many believe Karen was deliberately driven off the road by another car, and her family was later able to sue Kerr-McGee for $1.3 million in damages, but the company admits no wrongdoing.
The nuclear plant where Karen worked was shut down in 1975, one year after her death. When Karen’s story became public controversy, it helped display the dangers inherent to nuclear power, contributing to the amazingly successful anti-nuclear movement that has stopped construction of all new nuclear plants in the US since 1979. Thus is especially important today as some corporate lobbyists are trying to repackage nuclear power as a “clean” or “carbon-free” energy “source.” In fact, it’s none of those things.
Karen’s story is both a warning and an inspiration – that capitalism pushes companies to sometimes do terrible things to protect their profits, even if it means endangering lives, but also that brave people such as Karen Silkwood, in bringing the truth to light, can challenge us to create a better world.
CONTINUED w LINKS:
http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/08/11/remembering-the-killing-of-karen-silkwood
Kerr-McGee was the family firm of Robert McGee, longtime conservative Democratic senator from Oklahoma.
They made a mint mining uranium.
The embedded link above for "They made a mint mining uranium" doesn't work for some strange reason. It goes to an online excerpt from p. 481 of "Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, Vol. 1" by Lawrence M. Salinger.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0f7yTNb_V3QC&pg=PA481&lpg=PA481&dq=robert-kerr+kerr-mcgee+karen-silkwood&source=bl&ots=OeQuNOaDV_&sig=nEG7CR_e9PUQzMSxMlZRoYRFWTw&hl=en&ei=1zESTZGcFYSonAeSwLzADg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=robert-kerr%20kerr-mcgee%20karen-silkwood&f=false
PS: Feel free to post in E/E, madokie. If you have no time, I'll try later this noche.
PPS: To Agent Mike -- nice job on screwing up my computer through a simple GOOGLE search. Much obliged, NAZI!
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