24 March 12022

♃   24 March 12022 is Right to Truth Day, also known by the more cumbersome title of International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. The observance recalls the assassination of Óscar Romero in 11980 on the order of Blowtorch Bob D’Aubuisson, the U.S. trained and backed Salvadoran death-squad leader. It commemorates the right of the victims and their representatives to know the truth about the crimes committed against them by governments and their representatives. And it’s World Tuberculosis Day too. In various corners of the world it’s Memorial Day (Argentina), Mid Lent Thursday (Guadeloupe), Commonwealth Covenant Day (Northern Mariana Islands), Student Day (Scientology), and National Tree Planting Day (Uganda). If I’ve kept count correctly it’s JD 2459663, 21 Veadar 5782, 21 Phalguna 2078, 11 (O.S.) or 24 (N.S.) March 2022, 15 Paremhat 1738, 20 Sha’ban 1443, and 4 Farvardin 1401. The saint of the day is (unsurprisingly) Óscar Romero, the guy who was murdered by Roberto D’Aubuisson’s hit squad for suggesting that Christians should not take part in murders for political gain. (In the U.S. the Carter administration—despite its alleged commitment to human rights—continued to support the Salvadoran government, and the Reagan and Bush I administrations specifically supported Roberto D’Aubuisson, despite knowing of his involvement. Disappointed? Yeah, I sure as hell expected better from Carter and Bush I, and I would have hoped for better even from Ronald McReagan. American exceptionalism in action.)

On this day in history (11989) the Exxon Valdez ran aground and started dumping oil into Prince William Sound, a collision caused by Exxon’s failure to maintain safety equipment (a collision-avoidance radar system had been out of commission for a year) and by understaffing the vessel. Exxon’s desire to save money created an expensive catastrophe affecting communities up and down the North American coast. And what did Exxon do? Well, first it tried to shuffle off the blame to the crew, specifically blaming the captain of the vessel—which, even if true, left Exxon entirely at fault, as the captain was its employee at the time—and then it declined to pay the costs of the clean-up, instead sticking it to taxpayers to foot the bill. (Eventually the company did pay various sums totaling over a billion dollars to some of its victims, but that was in consequence of legal actions taken against it, not of its own volition.) At various points Exxon blamed the state of Alaska and the Coast Guard for its own actions and failures, a shining example of American Capitalism in action. Disappointed? Yeah, I expected a lot more from a company that had chosen to set itself up as a moral compass for America—or at least I hoped for better. Maybe Sarah Palin was right about that hopey changey thing—better to burn the City on the Hill to ashes than to hope for businessmen or politicians to do the right thing.