The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.
The fact that 11 human beings were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion (their bodies never found) has become, at best, an afterthought. BP counts its profits in the billions, and, therefore, it’s important. The 11 men working on the rig were no more important in the current American scheme of things than the oystermen losing their livelihoods along the gulf, or the wildlife doomed to die in an environment fouled by BP’s oil, or the waters that will be left unfit for ordinary families to swim and boat in.
This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.
No one knows how much of BP’s runaway oil will contaminate the gulf coast’s marshes and lakes and bayous and canals, destroying wildlife and fauna — and ruining the hopes and dreams of countless human families. What is known is that whatever oil gets in will be next to impossible to get out. It gets into the soil and the water and the plant life and can’t be scraped off the way you might be able to scrape the oil off of a beach.
It permeates and undermines the ecosystem in much the same way that big corporations have permeated and undermined our political system, with similarly devastating results.
Above quote From Op-ed at New York Times More Than Just an Oil Spill By BOB HERBERT, May 21, 2010
So anyway since the Reagan administration America has been on a "Deregulation Binge" and suddenly with BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster many Americans are waking up to this fact and so expect too much from the Obama administration which for the most part has inherited this mess. So the public and media try to blame Obama rather than the Neocons and Uberconservatives who have worked tirelessly to accomplish complete deregulation of a number of industries including oil and gas and coal mining. It is difficult at times to be sympathetic with the American public when this is what for thirty years they have been clamoring for that is less government involvement in private industry.
So this is what the world looks like when you push for deregulation.
BP sees the whole event as a Public Relations problem-like the GOP and Tea Party Gang they merely see this disaster as an inconvenience -they do not lose sleep over the deaths of lowly laborers on the oil rigs or about the environment. Their main concern is profit and keeping their shareholders happy.
According to rising star of the Tea Party GOP movement Rand Paul it is unAmerican to criticize any big corporation or for that matter any private businesses. Corporations he and others believe are sacrosanct -these are the Gods to whom Americans are supposed to bow to and pray for. According to their view Jesus of Nazareth was pro-big business and believed Corporations not governments should be in charge and should be making the laws.
James Carville criticizes Obama administration for being naive for believing BP as if BP had good intentions . BP wants to avoid spending too much money on the clean up or paying off peoples who's livelihoods are threatened.So BP is playing the spill down by claiming only 5,000 barrels of oil leaking daily while independent experts say 95,000 barrels are leaking out daily.
James Carville On Obama's Response to Oil Spill
Fmr. EPA Investigator Scott West: US Has Told BP "It Can Do Whatever It Wants and Won’t Be Held Accountable"
Bp-logo-tar
One month after the BP oil spill, we speak to Scott West, a former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency who led an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra. Before West finished his investigation, the Bush Justice Department reached a settlement with BP, and the oil company agreed to pay $20 million. At the same time, BP managed to avoid prosecution for the Texas City refinery explosion that killed fifteen workers by paying a $50 million settlement.
5 Reasons You Won’t See the Worst of the Gulf Oil Spill by Brian Merchant via AlterNet.org May 22, 2010 Cross-posted from Treehugger.
One of the biggest hurdles to covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was actually getting a good look at the oil. For somewhat murky reasons (health, safety of fragile habitats), press has been repeatedly forbidden to enter impacted areas by the Coast Guard, BP, or the Fish & Wildlife Service. I was on the ground in the Gulf, and trying to get the story from one of the fishermen contracted to work with BP was like asking them if they’d like a root canal on the spot. Word is that cleanup workers are told if they talk to press, they’re fired. And then there are the toxic chemical dispersants, which plays the biggest role in masking the extent of the disaster’s damage by breaking the oil up and spreading it out — at who knows what cost. So, the question is, will anyone ever see the worst of the catastrophic BP Gulf oil spill? Here are the five main reasons that you might not.
Jindal questions spill response; Coast Guard official takes blame
May 21, 2010
After a helicopter tour with Coast Guard officials over miles of Terrebonne Parish coastline, Gov. Bobby Jindal called on BP and the federal government to act with more urgency.
Cleaning oil-soaked wetlands may be impossible
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said.
...More than 50 miles of Louisiana's delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after BP's Deepwater Horizon burned and sank last month. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest.
..."Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill.
Oil that has rolled into shoreline wetlands coats the stalks and leaves of plants such as roseau cane - the fabric that holds together an ecosystem that is essential to the region's fishing industry and a much-needed buffer against Gulf hurricanes. Soon, oil will smother those plants and choke off their supply of air and nutrients.
...With the seafloor leak still gushing hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, the damage is only getting worse. Millions of gallons already have leaked so far.
Coast Guard officials said Saturday the spill's impact now stretches across a 150-mile swath, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.
Over time, experts say weather and natural microbes will break down most of the oil. However, the crude will surely poison plants and wildlife in the months - even years - it will take for the syrupy muck to dissipate.
...Marshes offer a vital line of defense against Gulf storms, blunting their fury before they hit populated areas. Louisiana and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions rebuilding barriers that were wiped out by hurricanes, notably Katrina in 2005.
They also act as nursery grounds for shrimp, crabs, oysters - the backbone of the region's fishing industry. Hundreds of thousands of migratory birds nest in the wetlands' inner reaches, a complex network of bayous, bays and man-made canals.
...But White, the Loyola scientist, predicted at least short-term ruin for some of the wetlands he's been studying for three decades. Under a worst-case scenario, he said the damage could exceed the 217 square miles of wetlands lost during the 2005 hurricane season.
"When I say that my stomach turns," he said.
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see; Post Tuesday May 26,2010 on The Crazy World of Rand Paul
and so it goes,
GORD.
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