Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that hinges on creating self-doubt.
The 1970’s were a truly terrifying time. Hairstyles and fashion were at their worst. Paedophile celebrities in the music and entertainment industry ran rampant rummaging in knickers as public information films they fronted with glee told children of some danger they should avoid. Strikes where the dead lay unburied and political instability and corruption came out from dying US conquests abroad as superpowers amassed growing arsenals of nuclear weapons. Everywhere there was a lurking Armageddon. Television heroes like Doctor Who offered some form of salvation in fiction where reality mirrored what script writers could imagine.
In the UK, the early part of this decade saw an explosion in suddenly “doing the right thing” regards hazardous chemicals dumped in the environment like confetti. I looked at this and the birth of The Deposit of Poisonous wastes Act HERE and HERE. One programme from script writers of the Time Lord series called Doomwatch captured people’s imagination of the times. I have named a list of the 1970’s passed hazardous waste licences, ironically not doing anything but making things worse for today after it HERE.
In reality in places like Oldbury in the shadow of a dangerous and toxic behemoth like Albright and Wilson the risks were still the same as they were years before their enduring pollution legacy. Things did not get better and neither did safety for residents or staff.
The 8th June 1973 Wolverhampton Express and Star offers a good example of how the media operated when it came to stories involving hazardous waste and pollution. On the one hand they report the incident, and yet with the other offer the polluters the opportunity to claim falsely that they are “investigating” and that it was a rare one off happening- which when you look at the longstanding record of this vile polluter, that is a lie.
This incident, another leak of acid gas, hydrochloric in this case , saw residents evacuated from their homes with the off site release. The M5 was fairly new at this stage, and so this too was affected. The mention of doomwatch is misleading as it implies the authorities were investigating, whereas, it was the polluters themselves who were attempting to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
The 23rd June article in the same paper is a typical cop out shit journalism which still continues today after such incidents, and is a PR piece attempt to move the story on from the real present danger to what they are going to do to claim it’s “safe”
Albright and Wilson were not going to do anything different at all, and nor would history show they had either with many , many subsequent incidents like this one. The “water wall” is a typical visual object to take away the gases that were still on site.
Words, actions, bollocks
New “safety measures” are an old chemical industry gaslighting technique, and AW and their slimy political bent shills like Samuel Melsom had done exactly the same trick with “The Oldbury Smell”. One can see the pattern of how they behave, and when you see this pattern, you can predict and call out the next one. Peter Bloore, liar and fantasist was notorious for these type of move the story on techniques also. The chemical industry continue to do this today. One woman’s nose appears to have been the only beacon for gauging pollution outside the Oldbury orifice for Jo public in the 70’s, as I looked at HERE. It should be noted that this was only a few years after these new safety measures were claimed to be being put in, thus proving the bullshit of AW.
Rhodia did exactly the same with the issues on rattlechain. At first they denied the chemicals in the lagoon were harmful with the calcium phosphate bullshit. When white phosphorus was found in the birds they claimed there was not enough to poison them, knowing full well that the amount found was not the amount swallowed with this evanescent banned rat poison. When that bullshit finally became impossible to deny, they attempted to move the story on with the 2013 cover up works. Just swap the “water wall” with the geotextile membrane to cover up the harm to their cancerous brand.
Of course, these methods of these bent “scientists” do not just extend to gaslighting the public and attempting to control their behaviour and view of reality, it also extends to their hapless gullible staff. I’m sorry to say that many of them appear to be thicker than dogshit, and I don’t really have much in the way of sympathy when they finally see the light, to use an apt metaphor.
Not content with causing them phossy jaw and serious burns through direct contact with white phosphorus, AW had gassed some with chlorine in an episode I looked at HERE.
This incident follows very soon after the so called “doomwatch investigation” into gassing the public and the 26 January 1974 Wolverhampton Express and Star again uses the same exact phrase FFS!
Again, the narrative is a feeble attempt to move the story on rather than castigate the scum who caused it. The Langley 27 were knocked out by the chemical warfare weapon, many needing hospital treatment, and I would wager suffering potential long lasting damage. No doubt AW management would press and quibble as to how much gas they had ingested before passing out, rather than how they had come to be gassed by negligence and poor health and safety.
Two staff however realised the seriousness of the situation, also spilling the beans as to how shite the AW plan was in terms of chemical releases. I wonder if they were tempted back or told to just shut their mouths by management the next time any releases were made? 😥
