In June 2010, an Indian court indicted seven former managers at Union Carbide for negligence, sentenced them to two years in jail & a fine of $2,100. Despite the political work of Bhopal & environmental activists & public outrage in India, the Supreme Court there upheld corporate impunity & turned down an appeal for harsher sentences. Two years later, a US court absolved Dow of all liability in the Bhopal disaster which means they are not liable for remediation or pollution-related claims.

Local water sources remain contaminated with several toxic & corrosive chemicals, including lead, mercury, benzenes, & DDT. In 2012, the Indian Supreme Court ordered the Bhopal municipality to provide clean water to families for cooking, laundry, bathing. The source of water provided is not identified but the color is red, making it of questionable quality–especially for a population already adversely affected by the Union Carbide gas leak.

This photo is mothers with their children born with congenital disabilities waiting for treatment at a clinic for gas victims. The unaddressed environmental catastrophe means a second & soon a third generation of children suffering chemically-induced illness & neurological disabilities. The full weight for their care falls on families. They’re little human beings, cherished as all other children, & as we learn from disability rights, perfect just the way they are, but caring for a child with disability is an immense challenge families should not have to sustain without help.

Bhopal is an ongoing crime. Though justice has been flouted with contempt, the demand has not yet been silenced. There’s enough criminality involved here to sink a continent. Our fullest solidarity with the people of Bhopal in their struggle to bring Dow to justice.

(Photo by Sanjeev Gupta/EPA)

That leaves 55 other shootings this year where the “element of jihad” was not possibly involved.

According to the morning news, the San Bernardino shooting is the 56th mass shooting in the US this year. The two shooters, who were both taken out by the police, were reportedly of Arab ancestry–one raised in the US & one in Saudi Arabia.

In Obama’s press conference today (his 17th about a mass shooting since 2009), he said neither local police nor the FBI (who are now handling the case) have a clue what the motive was. That did not restrain news commentators like George Stephenopoulos from suggesting it was terrorism related & had an “element of jihad.”

Since the US & Saudi Arabia have been allies in several monstrous wars beginning in 1990 from Iraq to Yemen to Syria, a compelling case could be made that those regimes are directly implicated when individuals in those countries resort to mass murder. Monkey see, monkey do writ large.

The disability rights movement emerged in the 1970s when resistance to oppression & marginalization was the gestalt of the era for many groups. It was the era of identity politics when intolerance for every form of social hatred became the political clarion call. It was a glorious time in human history to see (& be part of) fightback of such breadth & see those looked down on as inferior stand tall with dignity & a proud sense of identity.

We should take a moment to express our deepest condolences to those who suffered such trauma or who lost a loved one. We can render solidarity by committing ourselves to advancing disability rights.