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What is a life worth?
ReplyDeleteThe Schofield Kid: “It don't seem real... how he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever... how he's dead…”
Will Munny: “It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.” [Unforgiven, Dir. Clint Eastwood. Warner Bros., 1992.]
Thrown away at abortionist offices for the sake of convenience, executed on gurneys in prisons that disguise corporal punishment as spectator sport, or murdered in the streets of the city or quiet homes in the suburbs; legally or illegally countless people are deliberately killed every day.
The non-negotiable fact of our dangerous and disposable society is that you cannot be sure that when you wake up in the morning that you will not be in the wrong place at the wrong time sometime during the day and will never wake up again.
So, if relatives, neighbors, law enforcement officials or the state cannot be trusted to safeguard the lives of their loved ones and/or fellow citizens, how can corporations be blamed if their intentional neglect kills people? Tossing a few million around in damage control helps quiet the outrage and grief. How many survivors are guilty of rationalizing that while all the money in the world cannot bring back their beloved dead, surely the deceased would not expect the bereaved to wallow in sorrow, especially with GM ready to meet them at the bank to assuage their heartbreak with a new car…a new house…early retirement. Fining a corporation $35 or $300 million is irrelevant. Money does not replace a life; it only makes death another item to be considered on profit and loss statements.
And what is the impact to GM’s bottom line that for the want of a 60¢ piece of hardware lives were lost? Do Americans still buy cars made by GM? Are their executives still receiving bonuses? Is GM – despite calculating the price of murdering the very people who but their faith (and lives) in its hands – still making cars?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
What is a life worth to GM?
Until it, too, loses all it has and all it is ever going to have, not nearly enough.
PJ Braley
pjbraley.com
@pjbraley