Mafia Sinks Ships Containing Toxic Waste 401
Hugh Pickens writes "For years there have been rumors that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board as part of a money-making racket. Now, BBC reports on a sunken vessel that has been found 30km off the coast of Italy. Murky pictures taken by a robot camera show the vessel intact, and alongside it are a number of yellow barrels with labels indicating the contents are toxic. The ship's location was revealed by Francesco Fonti, an ex-member of Calabria's feared 'Ndrangheta crime group, who confessed to using explosives to sink this vessel and two others as part of an illegal operation to bypass rules on the disposal of toxic waste. Experts are now examining samples taken from the wreck, and an official says that if the samples prove to be radioactive then a search for up to 30 other sunken vessels believed scuttled by the mafia would begin immediately. 'The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere,' says Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria's environment agency."
Attsa (Score:3, Funny)
spicy meatball!
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spicy meatball that glows in the dark, actually...
No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that hard to imagine. Surely there is some part of you - some element(s) of your behaviour - that are driven by profit rather than regard for your fellow humans. It doesn't have to be big, consequential stuff; just think about those times when you're likely to act in your own self interest rather than the greater social good.
Now, imagine that those motivations make up 90% of your consciousness rather than the (hopefully smaller) percentage they currently do. It's an exercise in relativism, in thinking in degrees rather than absolutes.
Now spend some time exploring hypothetical situations and imagining how you would react. There's no need to change the basic elements of your personality, just tweak the motivational balance. Are you there? Can you imagine it?
Congratulations! You're a sociopath!
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the element of excuses and justifications!
What can one little ship matter in such a big sea? Those government types are always making bizarre laws and nothing *that* bad ever happens anyway, does it?
Sure, it's gonna be fine! I'll just get rid of this for you, it's no big deal...
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking of excuse and justification - This sounds like a good opportunity for the European Union to annex the countries on the northern edge of Africa, claim the Mediterranean Sea as an European inland sea, and bring an end to piracy with strong policing (as the Romans did 2000 years ago). We will, at last, know peace in our time. The Pax Europa.
Oh wait.
I forgot.
This is the EU not the U.S.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Funny)
You guys just stopped bleeding from the last time you did it (ask the French about Algeria). It's not *our* fault if you screwed it up.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Funny)
I'd start a record label.
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that are driven by profit rather than regard for your fellow humans.
So, most of the US Congress then.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck. Me. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be a person with no moral fibre at all. I can't imagine it, must be weird.
My wife's a psychologist and we have discussed such people. The answer to what it's like to be one is depressingly simple. They have no morals to trouble them at all; no conscience, no guilt. They're happy as if they had ethics and compassion.
There are people who are simply not like us; just not the same.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck. Me. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be a person with no moral fibre at all. I can't imagine it, must be weird.
My wife's a psychologist and we have discussed such people. The answer to what it's like to be one is depressingly simple. They have no morals to trouble them at all; no conscience, no guilt. They're happy as if they had ethics and compassion.
There are people who are simply not like us; just not the same.
Well to be honest, morals and ethics are just trivial rules communally agrees upon by a society. We find it unethical, perhaps even immoral, to have sex with a 14 year old. But even our own society less than 200 years ago saw nothing unusual in 40 year old men marrying 14 year old girls.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
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Your example doesn't prove your point. The age limit varies, but all cultures would say an adult shouldn't have sex with a baby. And if we heard it was "normal" to do so in Country X, we would all say "that society has agree
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My grandmother, My wifes grandmother and my aunt were all married at 13.."my mother at 16" so it wasn't 200 years ago. It's less than 60 years ago.
Actually, it's slightly different (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I think the emphasis was a bit wrong on "ethics" and "morals". A more correct definition is that some people lack "empathy". See, psychopathy [wikipedia.org].
Morals and ethics can be see as an agreed upon code, but empathy is something built in and arguably hard-wired. See, mirror neurons [wikipedia.org].
In effect, most of those morals and ethics -- and the real reason why most people go along with them -- are based on that empathy. We're hard-wired to be nice to our fellow humans. Well, about 97% of us, anyway. We don't kill basically because at a hard-wired level something says "well, _I_ wouldn't like to be killed." We don't steal for the same reason. Etc.
To address your objection: We agree to not have sex with a 14 year old, basically because nowadays we understand that it would cause some psychological harm and that it would make her parents very unhappy. And we're nicer than that.
But it's a bit deeper, actually. It's not just about direct harm, it's that we tend to understand that others have the same needs on Maslow's pyramid, so to speak. Even without knowing what those are. We tend to realize that others need to feel safe too, for example. Or that they need their private space too. Etc.
Basically while the actual social contract may vary and is subjective, it's based upon something which doesn't. Sure, we may find different solutions to the same problem, but that problem is real and pretty objective. (You can actually see it on an MRI scan, if you want something which isn't dependent of subjective interpretations.)
A second factor is that, essentially, we're social animals and want to belong in a group of our peers. (See Maslow's pyramid again.) We want to be accepted, maybe even appreciated, etc. We're prepared to work out a compromise to that end, so the group can function or even exist.
There are rules and morals and ethics which, basically, solve _that_ problem. They're how the group organizes itself, so it can exist as a group. I won't stress you, if you won't stress me, and all that, in a nutshell.
That's something that all the moral relativists seem to miss. They dig up some seemingly arbitrary rule, like "don't have sex with too young people", and wave it as a banner for the idea that all rules are just arbitrary conventions. But they miss the foundation for that body of rules, and the purpose they serve. But I digress.
Sociopaths are amoral basically because they lack that foundation which makes the other people be moral and ethical. The difference is basically at a different level than the morals and ethics themselves.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Interesting)
Hundreds of years ago society did not agree with the specific rule, but it did agree with the general rule. If you examine the moral rules from society to society you will discover that they all follow the same general rules even though the specific rules vary (there may be some exceptions, but those are immoral societies).
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic No True Scotsman fallacy
1. All societies follow generally similar moral rules.
2. Any society that doesn't is not moral.
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>a fourteen year old is unable to make an uncoerced decision to have sex
Why not? Lots of 14-year-olds have sex with their boyfriends or girlfriends every day. That's why teen pregnancy is so high (which provides proof they were adult individuals - children are sterile and can't get pregnant). I went to college with a 14 year old, and believe me, he was no dummy. He was fully capable of making adult decisions and handling the adult courseload.
You see numbers are arbitrary. We pick 16 or 18 or 21 or 25 (congress) or 35 (president) for the same reason we say 70% is a C, 80% is a B, and 90% is an A. It just makes life convenient to assign categories, but the choices are still arbitrary.
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Why not? Lots of 14-year-olds have sex with their boyfriends or girlfriends every day.
Way to delete the part about it involving an older person. In particular those in positions of authority. Two tweens deciding to have sex, even if it's a mistake because they aren't ready, is just a mistake. A tween having sex with a forty year old when they aren't ready isn't just a mistake, it's predation.
You see numbers are arbitrary.
More or less, yes, but the underlying moral analysis that leads to assigning an arb
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
The specific: a fourteen year old is unable to make an uncoerced decision to have sex with a 40 year old.
Hundreds of years ago society did not agree with the specific rule
Hundreds of years ago, 14 year olds would have been raised to be responsible for themselves and their families, to support their communities and nations, to hunt or raise their own food, and to make major decisions on their own.
Now, 14 year olds are raised to take tests and play videogames.
It isn't "the rule" that has changed.
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That's not really all that true. Historically, the issue wasn't as much coercion as of violation of property rights of a third party to t
Re:No moral fibre (Score:4, Interesting)
There are people who are simply not like us; just not the same.
They may not be like us, but we are a lot more like "them" then we'd like to admit. Human decency and morality are slender threads keeping us from falling into the abyss. With the right motives and situation, they are easily severed (e.g. the Milgram experiment).
Re:No moral fibre (Score:5, Insightful)
Something to think about (Score:5, Insightful)
This is something I think about all the time.
It could be argued that we are all immoral, because we are not interested in the consequences of our actions. The mafia crook dynamiting the ship with toxic waste isn't much different from an "waste resources" executive who bargains to send toxic waste to countries who need the money. One is exalted, one reviled, yet they both basically do the same thing. The executive simply pretends that the waste is properly disposed of in another country. The mafia crook doesn't kid himself. He knows the truth, and accepts it.
Which person is more immoral? Where does accountability figure into the equation? And where in a capitalist equation do you enter the morality quotient? Who enforces it?
These questions are simply not asked, because no one really wants the answer. For me, voluntary ignorance is immoral, and represents one of the great evils in the world today.
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You wonder what it would be like to be a sociopath? [wikipedia.org] I don't.
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Sorry, any 7 year old Catholic knows that is not true.
The Rite of Penance ends with "Go, and sin no more."
Sins are only forgiven if you are truly sorry, and intend not to sin again. You can not sin with impunity just by asking for forgiveness.
Tonight... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tonight... (Score:5, Funny)
Tomorrow you sleep with the fish-crab-dolphin hybrid monsters
Undoing erroneous comment moderation... (Score:2)
Should be Funny.
Re:Tonight... (Score:4, Funny)
This might actually encourage some slashdotters to go into the toxic waste disposal business.
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Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes... and the resulting children are fucking messed up, man.
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HENRY: (surprised) Paulie was just talking about it.
JIMMY: Well, we gotta fish it out again.
HENRY: (shocked) What?
JIMMY: The guy just made a deal. They're gonna do coral reef tours there and I don't want anybody finding that stuff.
HENRY: (horrified) It's been six months.
JIMMY: It's still better than letting somebody find it.
HENRY: (nodding in agreement and concerned) If Paulie finds out, we got problems.
Just an old "family" tradition (Score:2)
Tony Soprano was a waste management consultant.
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Why the Mafia Loves Garbage [slate.com].
Any justice though? (Score:5, Interesting)
So then what? Nothing happens to these people? If they are connected to this mess and convicted they should press them into service as part of the clean up process of all this crap. Make them work cleaning up the lethal crap they felt no qualms about exposing everyone else to.
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Here's Your Justice Thingee (Score:5, Funny)
If they are connected to this mess and convicted
Good luck with that, as they say. If it's anything like NYC, Justice will pretty much need two separate news crews, six NYPD detectives, nineteen passersby, and a televangelist to witness one of the "made men" machinegun down a busload of out-of-town nuns at high noon in Times Square on the day before Election Day to be served.
Then the appeals process begins...
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I would agree that we fit the mafiosos with cement boots so they can assist in the cleanup, but its pretty simple really. They load up the ships with the toxic stuff under the guise of taking it to be "legally disposed" of...the ship "sinks" enroute..."Awww...but it sank! We cant do anything about it now!" Not exactly the oldest trick in the book...but its pretty old!
Re:Any justice though? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the manifests were doctored so that the government thought the toxic waste made it safely to its destination on a different boat, and the sunk boat was carrying a bunch of olive oil. I guess that makes sense.
Man, I think I missed this episode of Captain Planet. Would the bad guy be the Pig-faced guy, the toxic waste girl, or the well-tailored poacher?
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Let me tell you a little ugly truth about about docks, dock workers unions and the mafia...
Typical psychopatic behaviour pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
"If it makes me $1000, I'll do it. That it will harm 10.000.000 people, it doesn't matter".
That said, nuclear waste is not necessarily the most dangerous imaginable. Believe it or not, the humble dioxines can be more dangerous. If for no other reason, because they accumulate in the body without ever leaving it (except for liposuction).
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Behaviours that were prevalent a few hundred years ago are now classified as sociopathic. That's the very definition of the word - a behaviour that is harmful to society. So plenty of normal human behaviours (violence, theft, rape, etc.) are classified as sociopathic, and I think that's a good thing.
A war is a brewing! (Score:4, Funny)
Just imagine those waify PETA chicks getting all mad and kicking the big bruiser mafia guys asses!
Who is paying them? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a hard time imagining crooked corporations paying to have their chemical waste disposed under the table like this, but who has nuclear waste that would do this? At least here in the US I can't see a power plant getting away with this - they have to keep close account of their material and it is audited pretty closely as well. That would leave mostly medical and scientific sources. I suppose they don't dispose of that directly so the company they paid to take care of it must be crooked.
The people that made this decision deserve to fry. Too bad it is impossible to create a justice system that I would actually trust to make those sort of decisions.
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they have to keep close account of their material and it is audited pretty closely as well.
I think this will prove to be the key issue.
I doubt if anyone's got a receipt from the Mafia. I doubt if there's a signed contract to dispose of ## barrels of toxic waste illegally.
Either there's no paper trail at all, or there's been enough bribery and forgery to make that paper trail borderline useless.
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I'm not sure they meant "nuclear waste" as in "nuclear reactor waste", or "nuclear waste" as in "radioactive waste". Medical waste can be radioactive... Some of the clinical diagnostic equipment produces radioactive waste.
Re:Who is paying them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't even have to be crooked ones. You put up a legit-looking front and you can get even the good guys' waste floating in the sea. It's got to be a nightmare PR scenario for any company that might have toxic waste to dispose.
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Anything that is used to handle radioactive materials will be assumed to be radioactive as well. Our local chemistry department actually has a dustbin with a radioactive sign on it. Anything used to handle something with a radioactive sign on it is automatically to have become radioactive as well - technicians gloves, wipes, syringes, tubing, sample containers and dissolved solutions. Other things might include the cobalt in medical scanners and industrial quality control equipment.
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I'm willing to bet that there are cases where the company did send it to a responsible waste management company, and then they were over book so they sent it to another company. Eventually it made it to a corrupt place.
The mob in italy (Score:2)
Re:The mob in italy (Score:5, Interesting)
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The book McMafia has some interesting views on the protection rackets that appeared in the former Soviet Union countries in the 1990s. One common theme is that the protection money charged by these organisations was actually quite reasonable - around 7.5% - lower than corporate taxation in the West (there was no corporation tax, or functioning government in the Western sense, in these countries). The protection rackets would also negotiate and arbitrate on your behalf with other businesses, and produce an a
Re:The mob in italy (Score:4, Insightful)
Reprocessing nuclear waste? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Well, it all depends on money. If it costs me $10 per pound to extract the mercury, and I can sell it for $20 per pound, you can bet your ass I'd do it. But if I can only get $2 per pound selling it, I'd rather spend $1 per pound dumping it.
Connection to Somali piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
This has long been suspected, and there's a connection to Somali piracy. The mysterious blogger "TokyoTom" has an excellent summary [mises.org] of the research indicating that European companies were using the lack of a government in Somali to dump toxic waste illegally near the coast of Somali, which really wreaked havoc after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which washed a lot of the crap onshore and caused mass illness.
There were always suspicious that this illegal dumping was a money source for the Mafia, although even legit businesses seem to have no problem with it. I don't defend Somali pirates, but people forget that it originated from fishers trying to get illegal dumpers to leave the area, then to try to get compensation for what the dumpers did. This doesn't justify piracy, but it does give lie to the notion that they lack a legitimate grievance and are simply out for money, and it helps to explain why they enjoy such support from Somalians.
I'm surprised the Mafia didn't screw up so bad sooner.
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I think they didn't screw up so bad, I mean nothing will happen anyway out of it, italia will stay corrupt as ever. I can't imagine how that would weaken the mafias position at all...
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This doesn't justify piracy, but it does give lie to the notion that they lack a legitimate grievance and are simply out for money, and it helps to explain why they enjoy such support from Somalians.
Well, it means they had a grievance that lead them away from fishing. But once the crazy piracy $$ started rolling in (many times more than they ever made in the best of times fishing), it became all about the money.
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But once the crazy piracy $$ started rolling in (many times more than they ever made in the best of times fishing),
Really? Is that money more than the cost of all the illnesses and deaths [1] wrought by the toxic dumping, plus the present-discounted value of future fish and sea resources? If not, they haven't been made whole after what's been done to them.
Again, I want to make absolutely clear that I don't think piracy is the right response. They should have sent clan representatives to international bodies (UN, Arab League, EU, international sea organizations, etc.) to ask for respect for their coastal right before
Give them a map (Score:2)
Step 1: To the coast of Somalia and let the pirates seize the ship.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!!!
Problem solved
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Step 2b: Repeat until no more pirates.
Step 2c: Ship without fear of pirates
ignorant bastards! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Obligatory film tip: Gomorra (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Obligatory film tip: Gomorra (Score:5, Funny)
And to see the possible effects of their involvement with toxic waste, go see Gamera [imdb.com].
Oblig Simpsons reference (Score:2)
Strange Reasoning.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere,' says Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria's environment agency.
Isn't that like saying "OMG, this chainsaw massacre crime scene is just .00000000000000000001% of the earth's surface, so if there's 5 dismembered bodies here just imagine how many more there could be elsewhere?! You should totally give my Agency more money."
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No, because the Mediterranean is actually 0.7% of the world's seas, whereas 0.00000000000000000001% of the Earth's surface is 0.05 square millimeters, which is an unbelievably small crime scene.
Calabria, eh? (Score:2)
imagine (Score:2)
'The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere,' says Silvestro Greco,
Hmm, 30 is 0.7% of 4290 so if 30 is the average number of toxic vessels in the ocean were screwed. I think we need a bigger sample size, and perhaps a less bias sample size.
Just imagine that it could be anywhere from 0 to something less than infinite. We should give this guy money to find out.
In other news... (Score:2)
What I find funny about all this (Score:4, Insightful)
So if you go to the middle east there are regularly news reports about how the west (possibly with some specifics), are dumping toxic/radioactive waste off the coast of Somalia/Egypt/Iraq/Pakistan/other muslim country with a coast. And we - in the west- tend to regard these as nonsense. But now we're finding out that we are getting toxic waste dumped off the coast of western countries - that seems like it might be tip of the iceberg. Somalia isn't nearly as likely as italy to catch these things (albeit rather slowly), who knows what we could find in the deep waters off countries that don't have the ability to patrol their own coasts.
Finally something from Italy (Score:3, Funny)
Um, they're in ITALY... (Score:3, Informative)
EPA doesn't apply. The EPA is a United States government agency with no jurisdiction whatsoever in Italy.
EPA's Italian counterpart, however, does have jurisdiction and probably someone in that organization received some nice bribes.
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Yes, because obviously the Italian Mafia in ITALY has to have permission from the EPA, in the U.S.A., to do anything.
Re:How do they get approved by the EPA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you have to have some kind of license from the EPA to dispose of toxic waste? Did the producers of the waste not verify the license? There are not that many places to dispose of toxic waste. I am sure it was more than just the guys in the mafia who were in on this. I think the producers of the waste should be responsible for the clean up.
Well... First of all I don't think the EPA has jurisdiction over Italy.
Second, they're the Mafia, I don't think they worry all that much about legality.
Third, I kind of thought that the whole reason this was a story was because it was illegal.
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Don't you have to have some kind of license from the EPA to dispose of toxic waste? Did the producers of the waste not verify the license?
Please tell us you aren't that naïve; this is the real world not the world as you think it should be or would like it to be.
Re:How do they get approved by the EPA? (Score:4, Informative)
Corporations and the Mafia (Score:5, Interesting)
The line between major corporations and the mafia is a grey one. Do we really think that if a major corporation could get away with this, that they wouldn't do it, if it contributed significantly to their bottom line? Corporate behavior is all about cost-benifit analysis. The mafia operates by a slightly different risk profile. It also seems likely that what we think of as the mafia owns substantial portions of equity in our major corporations.
Why do I think this comment is appropriate to the discussion? Because I watch the behavior of legitimate corporations and see similarities. Gold mining companies often create huge pools of arsenic waste. The oil sands companies in Canada create huge and persistent pools of massively polluted water, sucking away and polluting water that would have otherwise gone for agriculture or human consumption. Major shipping companies routinely dump their oil laden bilge water in the open ocean. How exactly does this behavior not fall under the category of "organized crime"?
Re:Corporations and the Mafia (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago, Royal Caribbean cruise line was found by the US coastguard to have fitted bilge bypass valves on their ships, allowing them to dump oily bilge water at sea with being detected, or so they thought. They were fined heavily for this. They didn't just do it as an afterthought or by accident, they intentionally refitted the ship to be able to do it, meaning the corporation actively intended to pollute the waters they were making their living from. Maybe the scale is different, but the intent is the same.
Re:Corporations and the Mafia (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a fine? Sounds to me as though the ship(s) should have been forfeited and sold at auction.
Re:Corporations and the Mafia (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the Board of Directors should have been sold at auction.
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The line between [governments] and the mafia is a grey one. Do we really think that if a [government] could get away with this, that they wouldn't do it? Of course they would. In fact the U.S. government is the worst polluter in North America, simply because they absolve themselves from having to follow the laws. And since anyone who dares complain can be easily ignored as non-important, the government doesn't care. It holds a monopoly both on the market and on individuals' wallets.
Re:Corporations and the Mafia (Score:5, Insightful)
In broad strokes, organized crime exploits the niches created by legal prohibitions, while corporations exploit the niches created by legal allowances.
Bootlegging, drug running, cigarette smuggling, and illicit waste disposal are all activities that are profitable because they are either illegal, and thus have no legitimate competitors, or have legitimate competitors that operate under considerable restrictions or high taxes. In order to exploit these niches, mafias put resources into stealth and subversion of the law enforcement apparatus(bribing cops, planting informants, intimidating witnesses, etc.). They don't tend to try to alter the law(indeed, the law creates their profitable niche); but simply to evade, subvert, or blunt its enforcement on them.
Corporate activities tend to focus much more on subverting the law, rather than subverting the law enforcement. Lobbying for softball legislation(in particular, if an industry supports federal regulation of something, that probably means that some state's law pisses them off, and they want it preempted), exploiting loopholes(spinning off shell subsidiaries as owners of all your severely polluted sites, say), moving from country to country to find the most favorable regulatory conditions, buying supreme court justices [reuters.com], and the like; are all about exploiting, and where possible modifying, the structure of the law.
The two aren't completely distinct, obviously, and both use a mix of tactics(not a few corporations have used outright violence from time to time, and most mafias have substantial interests in legal areas of business); but there behaviors are hardly identical, even if the results sometimes are.
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You mean like dumping toxic waste and other stuff requiring cleanup in the 3rd world?
eg. computer equiment that is melted down by chinese peasants, Toxic waste dumped off Somalia [aljazeera.net], or in the Ivory Coast [nationalgeographic.com], or Africa in general [bbc.co.uk]. Plenty more examples on Google.
So in this case, the Mafia is just continuing capitalism's "best-practice" in keeping the cost of toxic waste removal down.
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The massive dumping of pollutants in the Ramapo Mountains is a classic example of US Mafia-organized dumping.
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A feeder breeder reactor might be a good place for "nuclear waste" AKA "unspent nuclear fuel".
I know, I know, I am a nuclear evangelist.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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That's not my experience from 14 or so years ago. Italy was fantastic, and Italians good natured and friendly. Prior to the adoption of the Euro Italy was also a big bang for your buck. Not so much anymore, but still filled with more art, history, culture and food than most places.
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As an Italian, I can tell you have avoided the crimes-ridden areas (though you were savvy enough to dodge the tourist traps). Naples, for example, is not Bogotá, but is proceeding in that direction; in fact, the local mafia (camorra) is routinely dumping toxic waste in landfills for a business, much similarly to what the 'ndrangheta did in this case.
There are differences between the main mafias: the Sicilian one (the "original" mafia) is structured and hierarchical. In a Sicilian village you can leav
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Just got this picture of Joe Pesci yelling from a dingy until the vessel dissapeared underneath the waves just to get away from him.
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Most nuclear waste is in a water-soluble form, and is more dangerous because of its toxicity than because of its radioactive properties.
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Betraying my ignorance on EPA laws...
At what point does it become "waste", though? Who gets tagged as the "generator", in cases where one man's garbage is another man's treasure?
Lard, Inc. manufactures vegetable oil, and sells it to McBurgerjoint, who uses it to cook food. McBurgerjoint sells its used cooking oil to BioHippie Inc, which filters it and sells it as diesel fuel to GasNGo, which sells it to consumers. GasNGo goes out of business and dumps a bunch of the biodiesel in a lake. Who pays?
Coalect