The dangers of "willful blindness" 

Margaret Heffernan,TedxDanubia, March 2013 

Management Thinker, the former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns — like conflict avoidance and selective blindness — that lead managers and organizations astray. Full bio

14:38 

Gayla Benefield was just doing her job — until she uncovered an awful secret about her hometown that meant its mortality rate was 80 times higher than anywhere else in the U.S. But when she tried to tell people about it, she learned an even more shocking truth: People didn’t want to know. In a talk that’s part history lesson, part call-to-action, Margaret Heffernan demonstrates the danger of "willful blindness" and praises ordinary people like Benefield who are willing to speak up. (Filmed at TEDxDanubia.) 

...not to be blind, not to be silent... 

 

Dare to disagree, Margaret Heffernan, TEDGlobal 2012

12:56

The truth won't set us free — until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.

CHEMICAL DISASTER IN LA PORTE, TX

To: Reporters and editors covering chemical disaster in La Porte, Texas

From: National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH)

Backgrounder: Chemical Disaster in La Porte, Texas

Four workers died at a DuPont insecticide plant in La Porte, Texas after 100 pounds of the deadly chemical methyl mercaptan leaked inside the facility.  The La Porte factory, like other DuPont facilities, has been cited numerous times for environmental and health and safety violations.

Following the death of a worker at a DuPont chemical plant in West Virginia in 2010, for example the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) found “numerous safety deficiencies” at the operation.  This CSB video re-enacts the incident, in which a worker lost his life after exposure to phosgene, a deadly gas that was used as a chemical weapon during World War I. 

... But the company that owns the plant, DuPont, has been making millions selling discredited “Employee Safety Consulting” to other companies for years. 

 
www.coshnetwork.org