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Too Many Think BP Should Get a Pass
Seven long weeks ago I wrote my column “Oil Spill or Smiting of the Sea.” I, like you, had no idea that this disaster would still be the most crucial environmental and economic policy issue more than two full months after the explosion.
My column recommended religious extremists join forces with environmentalists to pressure our government and the multinational corporations that run our government to respect Mother Nature because cataclysms of unparalleled proportions have doctrinally indicated divine wrath meant to curtail human arrogance and greed.
Then God seemed to endorse my tongue-in-cheek proposal when lightning struck the vessel used to siphon oil from the gushing well.
God appears sick of us saving oil for human excess rather than saving his sea turtles. And he appears aghast by BP’s unwillingness to get help from other oil companies when clearly the task is too great for them to handle alone. See, other siphoning ships were in the North Sea but BP shunned the help and sent for them last week only after the feds required it.
Intentionally, or because BP isn’t up to the task, we’ve been repeatedly lied to and still the perpetrators run free. Strike that, they don’t run free, they actually run the recovery and repair efforts.
Since all this began we anti-corporate-master types called for BP’s corporate charter. While we’re at it, we’d like Halliburton’s and Transocean’s charters as well. Think of it as incarcerating the accused without bail until trial; which we do all the time to human suspects.
Additionally, stop all deep-water drilling, if for no other reason than to find out if any other companies falsely assured us that they had functioning shutoff valves the way BP falsely claimed it did. And heck, if determining whether we could destroy our oceans, sea life and sea-based oxygen production with a single oil harvesting method isn’t enough reason to halt operations, then we’ll at least know how stupid we are.
But the minute we demanded BP be held accountable, corporate apologists cried “foul.” They claimed it was about protecting business dealings in the U.S., and that’s a lie. Each and every Gulf of Mexico businessperson now faces occupational extinction because of the actions of three megacompanies, and those little entrepre-neurs know they don’t matter. Of course, the most famous crybaby is Texas congressman Joe Barton, but certainly not our only one.
Maybe the problem’s too complicated for the apologists. But it’s just like mandatory automobile insurance. All across our land governments insist that private individuals and businesses set cash aside — through insurance agencies — in case we injure someone with our vehicle. We can’t do harm and then leave the innocents without relief. Still, too many Americans think BP shouldn’t be mandated to provide relief from the damage it has done.
No matter to me, because $20 billion isn’t enough. I want the assets of BP and its stockholders seized. You know, the way the cops take every single thing a drug dealer and his family has in his home or in the bank once he or she is charged with dealing drugs.
Society hates drug dealers, so their property and wealth feels like fair game. And bad people use drugs but we give BP an emotional do-over because we use oil. But we don’t confiscate just from drug dealers. An even more blatant example of how we treat common folks differently from how we treat multinational corporations that rule our world can be found in the way we treat the poor.
Two weeks ago in Concord, Calif., local authorities confiscated food that was being distributed to the hungry and homeless. They seized this property before any conviction and at the same time arrested the volunteers distributing the victuals. That’s right, chow belonging to the humanitarian group Food Not Bombs was taken out of the hands of the hungry and thrown away. Seems some folks thought that all those homeless folks eating in the vicinity of the local farmers market could hurt the business enterprise of the farmers. Food Not Bombs director Keith McHenry pointed out that the food came from farmers.
Maybe if BP dumps homeless people on the shores of Florida the government will seize their assets — until then they’re just corporate pawns.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllThat's not all. Some people will acknowledge that BP is at fault but will do anything to prevent the company from taking the blame by shifting the blame on the wrong target, demand for oil despite it being a separate issue. Too many Americans give BP a free pass indeed by insisting that it's our fault that we all drive. Blame every little guy out there and there is nobody to blame.
Every American who accepts blame for our alleged "addiction to oil" is a brainwashed sap. For one, the biggest oil hog in the world is the US military.
Our endless wars and 800 military bases around the world burn the equivalent amount of oil per day to fuel every American vehicle.
The bottom line is big oil has owned the US government for 100 years and elected officials have made damn sure that every alternative energy invention and patent has been confiscated, destroyed, or underfunded.
So screw them all. We've never had any other choice by design.
They are the ones with the addiction; an addiction to power.
They are the ones who have sold us out for big oil campaign dollars for
a century, then have the balls to tell us we're addicted to oil.
Shameless bastard politicians and too many damn fool Americans.
Quite frankly, I am rather taken aback by the numbers of people who claim this PROVES the Libertarian Credo and that had the Government NOT been involved in regulating the industry at all, this incident would never have occurred as the Free market would have ensured BP was diligent in protectings its property.
Im am also astounded at the response of BP Ordering people away from vast swathes of territory while claiming it illegal to take pictures of dead animals or the cleanup effort.
You should not be astounded. Libertarians live on some other planet. They have no idea how this one really works.
I wonder when the "invisible hand" will finally show up and use its almighty thumb to plug the leak.
But I shouldn't hold my breath.
It's doubtful anything serious will happen to a single BP exec, or any serious fines will even be imposed. Obama has already shown he's all rhetoric and no delivery. He pretends to chastise the banksters while showering them with trillions of taxpayers' money, wags his finger at the big insurers while guaranteeing them record profits, all under the pretense of "reform," and now pretends he's got Tony Hayward in his impotent sights.
But all these CEOs know Obama only shoots blanks. He's their man, they own him, just as McChrystal does. He's thoroughly captive to world-wrecking capitalism on every front--oil, medical, militarism, banking--and he isn't about to step out of his actual role, which is all about protecting the agencies and institutions hell bent on reaping profits at the earth's and humanity's expense. The bloviators at Fox "News" and across the business news spectrum will win this one too. BP will keep drilling, Palin will keep blabbing about how exciting it is to RISK everything for the good of personal profit-seeking, and the earth will slowly die, with all us spectators pointing fingers at each other, blaming ourselves and defending the criminals to the whimpering end.
Just goes to show you cannot believe what people say, you have to watch what they do. However ,Bush got back in after 4 years of wreckage, so who knows what is ahead. BP got a four year deal on the 20 bil so they will come out ok, but the poor people that got their mess are sunk. ^The military and big business will survive, everyone else look out, it is take care of yourself as best you can. Isn`t capitalism wonderful?
Make-believe world demands a 'BP gets a pass' construct. Very few are seeking a pass for BP, but a great many are demanding a kick to Obama. Full spectrum luncheon for 60 days before word gets out that he refused foreign assistance in order to appease the unions. Then the sham of the moratorium and its fraudulence combined with the ideological drive to Cap and Trade presents a president flat footed and on the ropes
Just wait until the first hurricane comes along and moves much of this oil inland twenty or thirty miles. Then we'll see how much people want to give BP a pass. At that point, everything will be out for people to see, not just invisibly killing everything it touches underneath the water.
I propose that the letters BP be re-branded from "British Petroleum" to "Big Polluters." It's more descriptive and accurate. We don't even need a law or court order to do the name change. All we have to do is consistently and continually refer to BP as Big Polluters. I figure the BP brand is permanently destroyed anyway, so expect a legal name change soon. The funny thing is, if you - as a real person - go to court for a name change, the judge explicitly requires you to state under oath that the name change is not for the purposes of fraud. i.e. an attempt to avoid debts or other responsibilities. Funny that corporations do exactly this, yet are never denied the name change. e.g. Backwater --> Xe.
And just for the record, I am not assuming any responsibility for this devastation, nor should any citizen not directly connected with the operation. I didn't drill the hole, Big Polluters did. I didn't dismiss safety regulations and make false claims about spill response capabilities, Big Polluters did. I didn't make promises I couldn't or wouldn't keep; Big Polluters did.
Big Polluters are unequivocally responsible, and every American should be demanding - in no uncertain terms - that Big Polluters pay in a way that really hurts: revoke their corporate charter, imprison the executive and technical decision-makers who bypassed safety requirements, and seize all assets of the Big Polluters and liquidate them in order to compensate the innocent victims.
Anything less is an invitation to the other oil companies to despoil the natural world at every opportunity.
"but BP shunned the help and sent for them last week only after the feds required it"
My guess is that the previous US VP Darth Viper counseled BP to shun help because accepting help would only "aid and comfort" the enemy - the forces of ethics/morality, equity/justice. Land of the free!!
On the other side of the coin are the liberals who stood by, while the extreme right destroyed everything, because they wanted their turn at the throne.