lot of times words like 'volunteer', 'cleanup', 'liabilities', 'willingness not obligation' can be very useful words. even in person to person talk or in team meetings, these words can be used very cleverly to score brownie points on your side.

but these words can also stink and show your stinking intentions if used in a bad situation. dow chemicals, which acquired union carbide - the perpetrator of the worst industrial tragedy of the world (bhopal gas disaster of 1984) where tens of thousands were killed instantaneously and several thousands still live a bad life due to health disasters - is using these words thinking it is very clever.

how else will you categorize the following:
has volunteered to pay for cleaning up the Bhopal gas disaster site as long as it is not slapped with the legal liabilities of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC).

Official sources told ET that Dow has indicated its willingness to pay, but it should not be seen as an obligation.

let us all be clear here. dow since it acquired union carbide acquire 'all' of union carbide. profits/losses/employees/factories/disasters/etc. to tell that dow is not related to bhopal tragedy because the previous owner union carbide perpetuated it is like telling that 'i did not commit the murder but my hand committed the murder'.

and to pacify dow it seems the who's who of india including rata tata, reliance, chemicals ministry, legal ministry, etc are standing in line.

and the piece of the cake comes when dow says "The global petrochemical major sees the cleaning-up as an act of corporate social responsibility."

god, from when did the word social responsibility become such a bad 4 letter word. cant the dow top management have some spine and accept moral responsibility of the disaster and be honest with the affected people of bhopal and cleanup/rehabilitate/take care of health and livelihood issues of the thousands of bhopali gas victims.

and cant indian govt stand up and say the same thing because the people who died are not foreigners but fellow poor indian citizens.

in order to bring in global corporations not only our forests, rivers, coasts and environmental laws being thrown apart but also even basic human laws and rules is being kept aside so as to facilitate dow investments to india by blindly ignoring the disaster called bhopal/