January 9, 2006--What Would the Germans Have Done?

Buried in the NY Times, like the 12 miners who died last week in Sago, West Virgina, is the real story (see link). Not the hideous story about the explosion and their subsequent deaths; not the story about their agonizing last hours while waiting to die; and not even the story about what their families went through when they heard that they died, then were alive, and then finally that they were really, immutably dead. These are not in fact the worst of the stories.

The real story, the real tragedy is the one of governmental neglect and corruption and, what else, corporate greed.

Do you know that the communication devices used to connect with miners underground are 20 years out of date? And if anything can be worse than that, the rescue technology and equipment in general use in America in these tragic circumstances is 40 years behind the times. That's the real story--why the miners so unnecessarily died.

Let me quote the scant, 15 words tucked into the jump page of the nearly 1,000 word story in the Times--

"A 1995 federal study concluded that the [rescue] system was antiquated, losing people and poorly financed." Again, this was documented 10 years ago.

The men trapped below ground were alive for up to 12 hours, but it took 40 hours to get to them. Too late except for one. If mining companies had been required to install video camera systems throughout their mines they could have seen that the men were alive--such a system costs between $2,000 and $7,000 dollars. They were not installed in Sago. Haul trucks, on the other hand, which cost about $2.0 million a copy, were in full supply there because they are a good bottom line investment. And if the mine owners had been required to have cutting-edge rescue equipment nearby (of the sort readily available and required in Germany) and been required to train mine rescuers to use it, they could have gotten to the men in time to save their lives.

None of this has been reported in the NY Times or for that matter by any of the news networks. What we've had instead have been up-close-and-personal stories about the grieving and outraged families.

In part, we focus on the personal tragedies and family stories, Oprah style, in order to blot out these hard truths. It is easier to weep for the individual victims than confront and, more important, do something to solve the systemic problem. After the funerals, we dry our tears, and move on to the next heart rending story. Never holding the corporations or governments accountable.

We experience this as just something else to consume so as to fill out empty lives with feeling.