Boeing Safety is a special kind of safety that is great at rhetoric and not real in reality. This is the same safety as DuPont Safety (https://safetyrisk.net/dark-waters-the-true-story-of-dupont-and-zero/) that waves the flag of zero and spruiks the propaganda of zero but does the opposite. Indeed, both these kinds of safety are not just weak but dangerous.

Just do yourself a favour and watch this video of Senator Josh Hawley rip to shreds the CEO of Boeing. Just imagine to be paid $32 million a year to ensure your get the rhetoric right!

Rhetoric is a special form of speech that seeks to persuade everyone of a false reality (false consciousness https://safetyrisk.net/false-consciousness-and-perception-in-risk-and-safety/)  that the undiscerning enjoy and adore. Rhetoric has a special form of sincerity attached to it that is meaningless but convinces the gullible that something is happening. Very similar to the mythology of zero-speak, the global safety mantra that convinces Safety to follow, even though it is nonsense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/).

Just have a listen to Hawley grill the CEO of Boeing about his metrics to be paid $32 million (https://youtu.be/35tlqhTW5ls?si=E3xb5SF_dAZJnJXL). Listen to all that Boeing is under investigation for. Listen to all the cover up and fraudulence. When you get to the 1 minute mark Hawley raises the question: ‘what about the priority of safety’? The answer, ‘sure is Senator’!

Then Hawley makes it clear about the reality. Boeing has still not undertaken any steps in safety from inquiries undertaken in 2019 and 2020!

Then have a look at the Boeing site (https://www.boeing.com/safety) ‘Nothing is more important than safety’, coupled with the usual nonsense rhetoric of ‘speak up’, ‘culture’, ‘commitment’, ‘learning’ and ‘innovation’, ‘humility’ even gets a mention! Then this is followed by the rhetoric of ‘make safety personal’, that sickeningly meaningless phrase that Safety adores. If Safety is expert in anything, it’s making up new slogans than mean nothing and then attributed as ‘thought leadership’ and ‘professional’.

All of this stuff sits rhetoric on the website including a special safety video message from the CEO, that’s right, the same guy squirming in his chair at the Senate hearing on $32 million.

The we get this on the website: ‘Recognized worldwide as an industry best practice’ and this: ‘Product safety depends on a culture that is rooted in transparency, accountability, and every person feeling safe and empowered to speak up when they have a concern or make a mistake affecting product safety’. Watch the Senate hearing video, none of this is real.

This is why discernment (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/real-risk/) and critical thinking are critical for safety. This is how easy it is to suck people in to rhetoric rather than reality.

If you read the Boeing policy on safety you get even more. Of course, there’s the meaningless rhetoric of ‘just culture’ and ‘positive safety culture’, complete with the signature from the CEO on $32 million sitting in the dock at the Senate hearing (https://youtu.be/3LOG9tL6MKM?si=-3B0Pd9gq_66-7gR).

This is what you call ‘safety goop’.  Just like the word salad we hear from so called ‘thought leaders’ in safety, super heroes in safety and ‘change architects’ with no expertise in anything other than traditional safety. No wonder people fall for the 1% safer scam. What Safety needs more than ever is critical thinking, debate and a willingness to learn. Instead, we get associations telling their members what to listen to and what to ignore! Don’t forget, any criticism of Safety is anti-safety.

Then listen to this from the hearing. The problem has been continuous in Boeing for 40 years and is coupled to the infamous C-Suite. ‘Look at what the C-Suit has done to this company’ states Hawley. Goodness me, god bless the C-Suite. And yet, you can read here the testimony of Boeing’s wonderful safety progress! (https://www.boeing.com/safety#Progress).

The Boeing safety page gets even better with statistics on speaking up, a meaningless indicator. Stats on how many spoke up and, meaningless goop on safety by design, ‘human factors’ and collaboration. How on earth can you do ‘safety by design’ with no understanding of the collective and human unconscious?

But wait, there’s more. Don’t you just love the ‘Go4Zero’ and goal zero injuries (https://www.boeing.com/safety#Products) rhetoric. Looks so impressive with the CEO in the dock on $32 million admitting that none of this is reality. And then, more stats follow on percentages to rhetoric, rhetoric about percentages and Go4Zero rhetoric goop than means nothing in the light of reality. Go4Zero looks so good when the CEO stands up in the dock and turns to all the loved ones of the dead and apologises.

Zero is the foundation for deception and lying in safety and is confirmed by our research through the Zero Survey (https://safetyrisk.net/take-the-zero-survey/).

‘Given the fact that your aeroplanes are falling out of the sky’ asks Hawley, does any of this make sense.

All of this is just more Freedom to Harm (https://safetyrisk.net/fake-paperwork-ethics-spin-and-the-freedom-to-harm/) packaged in slick rhetoric to an industry that has been indoctrinated in dumb down safety (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-intelligence-and-the-quest-to-dumb-down-safety/) that despises critical thinking and any deconstructing of the rhetoric of safety. This is evidenced by the reality that most of Boeing is out-sourced (https://youtu.be/w20pfEjRUQI?si=ayYhVBQgceq2Q2x7).

It is also unfortunate that a key whistle-blower was found dead (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68534703) and another one followed (https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-whistleblower-joshua-dean-dies-sudden-illness-1896401). Strange how whistle-blowers mysteriously die (https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/travel/another-boeing-whistleblower-dies-after-raising-safety-concerns) at Boeing.

If Safety had a rigorous education focus, effective curriculum, could think critically and, had any sense of discernment, all of this rhetoric would have been found out in any organisation quickly.

So much nonsense is tolerated in Safety, such is the power of compliance. Don’t you know psychosocial health and safety is ‘simple’ (https://flourishdx.com/). Roll up, roll up to the Psych Con and get your dose of simple (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-phs-con/).

This is what a lack of discernment looks like. This is what enables rhetoric to dominate reality when it comes to safety. This is why culture doesn’t move when you get safety on the job. This is why unethical practices are common when engineers write the Ethics programs (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-the-expert-in-everything-and-the-art-of-learning-nothing/ ) and claim to have expertise in things in which they have no expertise, such as Mythology, Culture and History.

However, if you do want to develop some critical thinking skills so you can discern the reality from the rhetoric, perhaps start with a course in critical thinking, culture or ethics here: https://cllr.com.au/register-to-study/.