Blankenship's canary in the mines

I am sure the financial impact of the tragedy at this mine is immaterial. Just like the lives of the men are immaterial to the Blankenships of the corporate world; no wonder the mining regulations are written with the miners' blood.

If the managers at the mine knew there were violations and did nothing about it that would constitute premeditated murder not an accident.
We have the technology to protect people from this type of disaster. The problem is greedy CEO's who have no respect for human life. Government agencies that should be protecting people from these types of tragedies are also responsible for the deaths.
We need to adjust our laws, ethics and our economics to avoid these tragedies.
All of the emotional hype and gnashing of teeth will do nothing to bring the workers back to life or prevent the next tragedy.

Instead of Blankenship, the person holding the cage could be labeled "Corporate America" or even the "United States Government" because to both people are just another natural resource to be used up and discarded. We let corporations bust the unions and the government protects corporate profits, not people. It's all about money, greed, and profits. Nothing else matters in America anymore.

carbonhog you don't know the facts. Massey has fought unionization with bribery and other union busting tactics. Blankenship is interested in only one thing, maximization of profit no matter how many lives are lost and how much he damages the environment! He would fit very well in Robber Barron's Club.

Correction: When I said Massy, I meant Blankenship.

@ carbonhog: Your snide remark indicates your ignorance of the fact that there were no union bosses on hand to protect their workers because Massy was a union buster.
There were no union members working in his mines. Every time his workers try to organize, he threatened to close his mines down.
Massy wouldn't even allow mine worker's union members to help in the rescue efforts last week.
Do you take lemon with your tea?

So much for the union bosses protecting their workers guess they were too busy figuring out how to infiltrate tea parties.

Extremely clever portrait of that amoral Chamber of Commerce Millionaire, Blankenship!