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Today's Top News
"You Should Be in Prison!": Protester Interrupts BP Hearing
WASHINGTON - No sooner did BP CEO Tony Hayward begin the first sentence of his opening statement at a House hearing Thursday morning than a protester disrupted the hearing.
The protester appeared to be the same woman arrested at a Senate hearing last week - Diane Wilson, a Texas shrimper,activist and co-founder of Codepink for Peace. (Credit: CBS) A woman with oil covering her hands and
spread on her face stood up and started shouting down Hayward before he
could get a word in.
"You should be in prison!" she yelled at the BP chief.
Security guards struggled to quiet the woman down, and eventually removed her from the hearing room.
"Emotions run high on this issue, but we have a hearing to conduct here," subcommittee chairman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said.Comments
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28 Comments so far
Show AllHooray for Diane Wilson! Read the CodePink press release posted right here on CD if you want the real information on what happened. This is a useless article as it doesn't identify the woman or provide back ground on her....
Thanks for that comment, Peggy. I was going to give more background info. myself but now will go look at the article. Diane Wilson has been protesting chemical toxins for many more years than Codepink has been in existence. We need millions more like her.
The protesters will spend all the time in the jails I am afraid. Whilst the real criminals will be rewarded and go free. Life just sucks in a dying empire.
Don't forget the whistleblowers, those poor saps will do some serious time. Years and years and years... while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. I don't know, has it always been like this?
You tell 'em, Bart. We gotta be civil to environmental criminals. After all, we have several vile war criminals running loose: Cheney, Bush, Rove, and the rest of their vile regime...
Add obomber and his lackeys !
For anyone who is interested -- David Brancaccio interviewing Diane Wilson:
http://www.pbs.org/now/science/wilsond.html
Diane's book is titled, An Unreasonable Woman.
Diane Wilson is courageous!! I just called Rep. Joe Barton's office to ask why Barton publicly apologized for the harsh remarks made by the Pres. to BP's Hayward. According to the aid in Barton's office, Barton was speaking on behalf of himself and not his constituents and thought Obama's remarks were too harsh and inapporpriate, since the Justice Dept. is going to take on the investigation into the deaths on the Horizon rig. Yeah...my ass there will be an investigation. Eric Holder will do some half-assed "investigation" which will result in some low level employee getting a few years in the slammer and Hayward and the other execs will go on living like they live in their mansions and do what they always do...figure out how to maime and kill for riches.
Barton's rep. said they were not getting negative calls on his apology to BP....please call and make your opinion heard. 202-225-2002.
Video of his apology:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/37820
* Warning: strong stomach required.
There are two people that make me physically ill. One is Joe Barton and the other is Jeffrey "Beauregard" Sessions who looks like a squirrel with a mouth full of nuts.
Bad CEOs should be imprisoned (or as in China, shot).
Corporations should get their charters yanked.
As far as BP goes the 101st airborne division should invade them, capture all assets. The US should own BP. BP killed 11 US citizens on Deepwater Horizon and is unleashing a WMD, far more than Saddam did prior to W choosing to invade. If the US invaded BP we'd get a corporation with billions in profit per quarter instead of a trillion dollars of debt (& 100k's dead) from Iraq. Then sell off BP assets to pay for damages and shut down its extractive operations. Plus BP (& the UK) owes us: the CIA helped get rid of Iran's democratically elected leader in the '50s after he nationalized (mostly British controlled) oil resources.
you are correct in many ways.
but the IRONY here is this:
the USA and BRITAIN are the CREATORS of such things...rooted in the "personification" of the Corporation -- of "business" as a "person" - which over the centuries have evolved as the "be-all" of "civilization".
remember that England - the british empire formally began the "definition" of corporatehood - by creating, under Queen Elizabeth I, the Entity called the "BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY" ....and one of the specifications of that "business class" was that it was responsible ONLY for the "CARGO" in all its shipping and transactions - but NOT for the humans that worked. that was the real beginning , in effect, of the POWER of BUSINESS and Corporations to become eventually the "corporate person" -- with all the rights of human beings and more, but NONE of the responsibilities.
it is ironic that the US CONGRESS - PRETENDING to be HORRIFIED as "representatives of the people" HUMANS - makes this THEATRE of honing in on "responsible individuals"
while ITSELF being the INSTRUMENT of the promotion of the unbridled power of Corporations.
so - what is all this ? it is THEATRE, pure and simple, to give "americans" and "the world" something to CRY ABOUT and "against" (the culpable "ceo's") without EVER changing the nature of "corporate-person-hood"...
as well as what is inherently - even on a global scale - the DEMONIC nature of a "relationship" between UNACCOUNTABLE
PRIVATE ShAREHOLDERS worldwide and the Corporate "person" behind which they HIDE - as corporations, particularly the PRIVATE corporations, rampage all over the globe.
it is a measure of humanity's FOOLISHNESS - but also its own IMPOTENCE , as well as the Craven mendacity of the cultures and classes that created this IDEA of "corporatehood" and the adoration of "business" culture that the only way "businesses" can exist or function is by "becoming" a "corporation".
it is CORPORATISM itself and its creator , as well as its adherents and defenders and promoters that ought to be "on trial"
but of coruse that is NOT what is happening.
not so fast-- Bernie maddoff went to prison and Ken Lay of Enron was going to be sentenced but up and died on his own and Abramoff swindeled a lot of Indians out of money and he is serving prison time but getting out after 2 years and 7 corporate people got 2 years prison for the Bopal cyanide poisoning that killed over 1,000 people and injured more in India. Well those are just short sentences.
I have been reading the forum on the deephorizon fire at the drill platform on the www.gcaptain.com which is a discussion amongst engineers, oil workers, marine captains etc. They have been concluding that the only thing that works for this outrageous incompetence and disregard is prison because BP was fined 90 million in 2005 for the Texas City disaster that killed people and they were very much at fault there or they would never have gotten the biggest fine ever. obviously, fining does nothing to people where money is not a problem.
prison is not a punishment so much as common sense first step that must be done
That is what was said on April 24 on 60Minutes if you watched Mr William, the witness who reported a lot had been done wrong on the rig for weeks. Dr Brea an expert who investigates rig disasters was quoted on that same program and he said that BP was at fault and it was important to have witnesses like Mr William.
So Diane from Texas -- yes you are right and it will happen-- expert forums such as www.gcaptain.com are also saying that prison is important in this case - not for any punishment but for changing the culture of the people like BP
Bernie is chump change. What about the assorted Paulson's or the head of AIGFP?
Or even the head of the largest ponzi scheme the Federal Reserve: as long as there is growth and a dollar reserve currency our debt based economy can continue to print more cash.
90 million is chump change. BP reported profits in excess of $5billion last quarter.
Prison? I'd actually like to see some of these CEOs, leaders of industry and masters of the universe wake up dead... or at least penniless on the streets of some poverty stricken, genocidal African country.
actually the founding fathers made a very purposeful decision based on the fiat gov't powers of the East India Co and Hudson River whatever to make corps illegal.
what is ironic is the teabaggers who intone the founding fathers and deplore legislating from the bench are conveniently ignoring that initially corps were illegal in the US and a couple hundred years of activist judiciary has resulted in corps superseding citizen rights.
and right, it is theater because corps are the media and democracy, as evidenced by the many democracies deposed by US actions, is an inconvenience (exhibit A tied to BP/USA is Iran's Mossadegh).
i'm just hoping beyond hope that Obama will wake up with some stones tomorrow, exert some real executive unitary and take over a transnational corp that is actually assaulting our people and our shores. pay Alberto G and John Yoo the right retainer and we'll have whatever legal opinion necessary to continue our scofflaw ways. but at least we would have a much easier job capturing BP physical assets, freezing their financial assets and locking up BPs executive leadership and board (print up a deck of cards even!). instead of a disparate terrorist organization, BP is tightly organized with easily identifiable members and physical assets.
And Karl Marx laboured in British Libraries studying by candlelight the inner logic of this new political economy which gave birth to new classes of people with it's own laws of development and told us what we could expect and he was right. But we pay more attention to Nostradomus and the Mayan prophecies and the Book of Revelations....and the new ruling class loves it, promotes it and any other obsfucating element that can be conjoured up...all the while the veil remains intact, the manner in which suplus value is pumped out of the direct producers, hidden from view through the supernatural invisible hand of the market. Commodity fetishism a force so powerful that the world's most enlightened, educated, philosopher kings of the nation, the Supreme Court god like breathes life into inanimate objects. ALL BOW BEFORE THE NEW GOD CAPITAL AND IT'S MINIONS REIGN SUPREME!
Adam Smith & David Hume would be turning in their graves.
BTW When Adam Smith referred to 'The invisible hand' he was not referring to the (Free)market but to morality of each and every one of us. Morality is not divine but is born into all of us. We all know deep down what is right and what is wrong.
CC
INTERESTING how women will stand and make their voices and opinions hears when millions of us (me included) stand by
and keep our mouths shut
'YOU SHOULD BE IN PRISON" ????
WHO - should 'be in prison'?
"Oil spill disaster: The guilty parties - World Politics, World ...13 Jun 2010 ... Oil spill disaster: The guilty parties.
The blowout of Deepwater Horizon involved more than one organisation. There were other companies, ..."
www.independent.co.uk/.../oil-spill-disaster-the-guilty-parties-1999192.html - Cached
Thank you sistah Diane,
Women will lead us out of this mess...Diane knows "What is." We may yet know and respect Mother Earth and all mothers. All life is scared.
Medea Benjamin and the Pink ladies of Code Pink are the best damn voices fighting the oligarchy in America today!
bp wells explode, so oil in the middle east becomes even more attractive. it's all near the surface, under land. the wars thus become more necessary, and their successful prosecution will require more torture and more crackdown on those who leak information or question the government policies. thus, the crackdown on wiki leaks is the product of the huge oil spill, the deep water horizon disaster.
For so long as there are separate countries, for that long will there be the borders of those countries to protect. For that long will the Armaments - for both sides, of course - be required.
Tony Hayward and BP are doing what is demanded of them.
Whatever her motives are, Diane Wilson is helping those responsible to cover this up. She is making BP into a scape-goat.
Those responsible need to be identified.
The guilty part is lead by the USA. Its hangers-on are in all parts of the world.
A massive conspiracy?
Yes.
You drive a car?
You are part of it.
I am almost certain that Diane Wilson drives a car.
Do YOU drive a car, James Edwards? I'm almost certain that YOU do.
Oh get off it your high horse, James. This woman was only stating the truth: Tony Hayward and quite a few others need to go to jail. Their carelessness, neglect, and worship of the 'bottom line' has caused dozens of human deaths, will cause many hundreds or thousands more, will ruin the gulf area for decades and even millennia to come, will cause the extinction of animal species and the deaths of millions of wild animals. In fact jail is too good for Tony. He is a monster.
Way to go, Diane Wilson, Medea Benjamin and everyone else in Code Pink! I wrote a new Pledge of Allegiance after the Supreme Court a few months ago gave corporations unlimited monetary power to buy American politicans and elections:
"I pledge allegiance to the logo of the Corporate State of America and to the plutocracy for which it stands, one nation, under surveillance, incorporated, with literal injustice for oil."
ED TANT
Columnist
The Athens Banner-Herald (onlineathens.com)
Athens, GA
www.edtant.com
Thank you Diane! Diane Wilson is fearless and her integrity and courage are boundless. When this disaster began I wondered what she was thinking and feeling. She's been fighting corporate crimes on the Gulf for years now. When I interviewed her several years ago for my newsletter, Gaian Voices, she had this to say:
"I've been on the water my whole life. When I was about five I can remember going to the bay and the bay was a woman. I could see her. She had gray hair. I felt like she was my grandmother. The thing is, it was visual. It was emotional. I felt her. I saw her. When I would come to the bay I felt so welcomed. She was like, "Why Diane!" It was like coming to see your grandmother who adored you. And it was real. It wasn't airy-fairy or pie-in-the-sky. It was a real, physical thing. There was never a boundary between me and the water or the wind. It moved into my boundaries. There was no place where I could say I was different from it."