In April of this year, 29 men were killed in an explosion in a Massey mine in West Virginia. Massey, it turns out, has had a disgraceful record of continuous, consistent safety violations and, in addition, has had a record of financing and electing a Supreme Court judge in West Virginia to protect that corporation against attempted enforcement of a $50 million fine because of earlier safety violations. But the corporate veil is not easy to penetrate and it will be a long time before anybody knows.

 Last month as well, 11 roughnecks on an oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico were killed in that methane explosion. Millions of gallons of oil have since come gushing into the sea threatening the livelihood of thousands of Louisianans, tourism, the survival of shell fish, wetlands species, wildlife, ducks and birds. Did British Petroleum, or Haliburton, or Transocean, the three giant corporations involved, make a callous, or negligent decision when they drilled that well and failed to install the backup systems that would have prevented the blowout? In all probability they did.