#legalcorruption — Public Fediverse posts

.> Minamata disease was above all a disease of the spirit to which Japan succumbed as growth, money, material wealth come to be valued above the natural environment or humanity. Forgetting the basic principle that the purpose of economic activity is so that human society might flourish, MITI and the Economic Planning Agency decided that, even if a few people were to fall ill or die from mercury poisoning, corporations should be protected. The authorities in Minamata and some residents seemed to think that, even if a minority of people from the town had to be sacrificed to the disease, Chisso Corporation should be protected as the major employer in the town. The actions of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, that was supposed to protect the health and wellbeing of the people, and of the Environment Ministry, whose supposed rationale was the preservation of nature, including not only humans, cats and dogs, but fish and shellfish, birds, and all creatures, was inexplicable to ordinary citizens. Why, as soon as doubts were raised about the industrial effluent, did they not take steps to stop it? Why, sorry for not having warned people at an early stage and having failed to prevent more people from being infected, did they not make sincere efforts to help people? While they resorted to the excuse that there was nothing an individual official could do about it, the disease became rampant and enormous suffering and death was caused.