Volkswagen top lobbyist sacked in toxic fumes fraud scandal

This video from Australia says about itself:

2018 Volkswagen MonkeyGate Scandal: What were they thinking?

27 January 2018

What is it with these Volkswagen arseholes and poison gas? This time they’re torturing monkeys.

The following headline jumped right out at me:

“VW apologises for fumes tests on monkeys”

The New York Times broke the story. It’s shocking.

American Volkswagen arseholes in Albuquerque, New Mexico, locked 10 monkeys in airtight gas chambers and gave them cartoons to watch (to entertain them) while they were force-fed the exhaust from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle.

In case you are not a casual observer of 21st century history, let’s detain ourselves.

Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Most people remember Hitler for his other accomplishments, but he was also the driving force behind the establishment of Volkswagen from about 1934.

Hitler was a bit of a multi-tasker, unfortunately, also a genocidal maniac and (effectively) CEO of the final solution – the systematic execution of six million Jews.

In a sense, Hitler was not entirely discriminatory – his homicidal mania extended to homosexuals, prisoners of war (he killed about 3 million Soviet POWs). He also mass murdered the disabled, people from other religions, and trade unionists. …

Hitler is most passionately despised, I think, for the gas chambers – a kind of mass production facility where the end product is dead people. …

I mention this because even today – seven decades later – you’d expect Volkswagen to be vestigially sensitive about conduct related to gas or gas chambers. The fact that they apparently are not is another brick in the wall highlighting Volkswagen’s absent moral compass.

The balance of probability explanation for green-lighting this black ‘monkey’ experiment is: Money. A well-financed attempt to produce seemingly academic research, the goal of which would be to influence political debate and preserve tax privileges for diesel fuel and diesel cars. When the new Volkswagen Polo is launched in 37 days, grab a brochure and look for the references to monkey torture. Probably omitted.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Main Volkswagen lobbyist suspended because of tests of exhaust fumes

Today, 13:55
Updated at 14:22

Volkswagen has suspended its main lobbyist because of the exhaust gas scandal. According to a press statement, the board of directors has suspended the head of the external relations and sustainability department Thomas Steg at his own request.

The lobbyist is the first employee at the top of the corporation who is sidetracked as a result of the scandal. The former [German] government spokesman was within Volkswagen responsible for maintaining political contacts. It is not clear exactly why Steg was suspended. …

Volkswagen was one of the financiers of the EUGT, which commissioned a “short-term inhalation study” on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in healthy people. Testing was also carried out on monkeys.

Nitrogen dioxide is one of the harmful substances in exhaust gases. The tests were carried out to [supposedly] show that the new Volkswagen diesel car was less polluting than old models.

GERMANY’S government laid into Volkswagen yesterday after reports that, in an echo of the nazi era, the flagship carmaker had tested its exhaust fumes on humans and monkeys. Transport Minister Christian Schmidt had “no understanding for such tests … that do not serve science but merely PR aims,” spokesman Ingo Strater told reporters in Berlin: here.