Thursday, May 27, 2010

President Obama, take down British Petroleum!

Make them pay, Mr. President! 

I think it would behoove us all to come to some stark realizations fairly quickly:  the Mississippi Delta, the Gulf Coast that we have known all our lives is gone forever.  It will never return.  No one alive today will ever again know it as it has been before now.

Thank you, British Petroleum.

BP is in the process of poisoning the entire Gulf Coast of the United States.  The results of their negligence will cause grievous and long-lasting damage.  Damage far greater than any conceivable terrorist attack. More devastating to this nation than any military attack throughout her history.

Right now, thirty-some days into the crisis, BP is marshaling all its vast resources.  But not to stop the catastrophe in the gulf waters.  They have no idea what to do, all this talk about a "top-kill" notwithstanding.  No, BP is even now bringing all of its formidable empire in line in order to stave off the repercussions of its negligence.  That's the way these corporate mobsters work:  take, take, take and when something goes wrong, when you destroy the Gulf Coast, have the lawyers get to work.

It is hard to understand why British Petroleum is not being treated as a declared enemy of the United States.

The Gulf Oil spill is not an accident; it is the result of criminal negligence.  Negligence committed with the complete security that the billions of dollars of profits BP has been raking in, would dwarf any petty punitive damages meted out by the federal government.

Let me postulate, for a moment:  what would be my fate, were I to exhibit similar reckless behavior on an individual scale?  What if my own negligence in pursuit of profit caused a destructive fire in my neighborhood?  Would I be left in control of my own resources and allowed to deal with the problem as I saw fit?  Or would I be arrested and thrown in jail? 

I have a great deal of respect for Barack Obama.  The man has been gracious in the face of base and degrading insults from boorish, ignorant people.  But unlike the tea-baggers, these capitalist mobsters that run Big Oil are serious, deadly men.  And they will stop at nothing; Dick Cheney has proved that.

I believe that the BP Oil Spill has the potential to fundamentally change political realities. We could be at a real crossroads in the history of this country.  This is certainly not the first time in American history when the federal government has come into conflict with Big Business.  But the stakes are higher than ever before.

So, Mr. President, the time has come.  At this point, British Petroleum is a threat to this nation.  Seize its assets.  Arrest its executives.  And don't stop there.  We need a crackdown, Mr. President.  Take down British Petroleum.

Update:  The ANSWER Coalition has a website at which you can sign a petition to advocate the seizure of British Petroleum assets.   If we, the people, nationalize BP watch and see how fast the other Big Oil pirates start falling into line!

8 comments:

Dan Binmore said...

BP is the entity with the best chance to shut down the leak, and apparently are making progress in this area. The idea that BP deliberately caused the leak is ridiculous, they wanted this to work more than anybody else.

When you drill for oil in the ocean,sometimes you are going to get a lot of oil in the ocean. The alternative to getting oil out of the ocean is to double the price of oil and have shortages world-wide, causing economic crisis of a level beyond the banking.

What really should be happening is massive, massive investment in research towards a better alternative. Amounts similar to the US military budget. After all, whoever invents a viable alternative for oil is going to be the richest person/company/state in the world.

Blame and revenge solves nothing.

Anonymous said...

Will that's an interesting comment from Dan, never mind what price will be paid by every living thing in the wake of this crisis, "because sometimes if you are drilling in the ocean you are going to get a lot of oil in the ocean". Yup, let's give more money for research towards a better alternative, good luck with that. More big companies getting more money to figure out ???. Oh, I get it now Dan you were just joking right. Asking big oil to be accountable is a joke right?

Dan Binmore said...

I wasn't joking. I think BP should be accountable for the cost of clean-up, and I know the clean-up will not be adequate. But the alternative to oil at the moment is essentially living in the 19th century. There are consequences to fueling our economy with oil, and one of them is that there will be spills. We should try to minimize spills, but they will happen.

The best way to prevent oil spills in the future, and to avoid an eventual economic collapse when we run out of oil, or production can't keep up with demand,is to provide alternative energy sources. The quicker that happens the less environmental damage will happen in the future.

Destroying BP as an entity does zero to fix this problem or similar problems in the future.

The improvement of life has essentially happened through the method that you ridicule.

Eugene said...

Yeah! Let's not blame that great and glorious multi-national corporation for opening up a huge never ending leak in the gulf. Yeah, so they had a few meetings and greased a few palms to avoid those expensive safety regulations they should have had in place. Yeah, so they made no expensive plans to deal with any issues that may come up, such as opening a hole in the ocean. Yeah, so they are hiring shrimpers and not providing them with safety equipment, and to make the issue seem less dangerous, they are REQUIRING the shrimpers not to even use their own safety equipment (don't want the cameras to catch anything that might make them look bad). Yeah, so they are using a dispersant that seems to be killing birds and no doubt harming those shrimpers, but I'm sure they had those shrimpers sign contracts that protect BP from any liabilities, thus...it's OK.

Yeah, don't play the blame game, Dade. Some good and glorious earth loving corporations such as BP should never be held accountable for the destruction they caused. I believe the phrase used by the U.S. government is something like..."too big to fail."

Environmental damage, who cares. It's the environment. Not like all those lousy plants and animals are humans. We all know humans, especially wealthy humans, are the most important things on earth. And since those shrimpers aren't wealthy, it is OK that BP will sacrifice their health and lives (like the 11 on the rig) in order to protect the second most important thing on earth...PROFITS.

Keep up the good work BP! And thanks for donating money to such nature loving organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society, again, to absorb or absolve you of any responsibility for environmental damage at the expense of the lesser humans and other lesser life forms.

Gillian said...

If you check out The Huffington Post you'll come across an article stating the Bush Administration did a deal with the oil companies absolving them from the previously in situ security measures which would have prevented this global disaster. Elsewhere BP and other oil co.s have these safety measures in place

Eugene said...

Yeah! Let's not blame that great and glorious multi-national corporation for opening up a huge never ending leak in the gulf. Yeah, so they had a few meetings and greased a few palms to avoid those expensive safety regulations they should have had in place. Yeah, so they made no expensive plans to deal with any issues that may come up, such as opening a hole in the ocean. Yeah, so they are hiring shrimpers and not providing them with safety equipment, and to make the issue seem less dangerous, they are REQUIRING the shrimpers not to even use their own safety equipment (don't want the cameras to catch anything that might make them look bad). Yeah, so they are using a dispersant that seems to be killing birds and no doubt harming those shrimpers, but I'm sure they had those shrimpers sign contracts that protect BP from any liabilities, thus...it's OK.

Yeah, don't play the blame game, Dade. Some good and glorious earth loving corporations such as BP should never be held accountable for the destruction they caused. I believe the phrase used by the U.S. government is something like..."too big to fail."

Environmental damage, who cares. It's the environment. Not like all those lousy plants and animals are humans. We all know humans, especially wealthy humans, are the most important things on earth. And since those shrimpers aren't wealthy, it is OK that BP will sacrifice their health and lives (like the 11 on the rig) in order to protect the second most important thing on earth...PROFITS.

Keep up the good work BP! And thanks for donating money to such nature loving organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society, again, to absorb or absolve you of any responsibility for environmental damage at the expense of the lesser humans and other lesser life forms.

Dan Binmore said...

I wasn't joking. I think BP should be accountable for the cost of clean-up, and I know the clean-up will not be adequate. But the alternative to oil at the moment is essentially living in the 19th century. There are consequences to fueling our economy with oil, and one of them is that there will be spills. We should try to minimize spills, but they will happen.

The best way to prevent oil spills in the future, and to avoid an eventual economic collapse when we run out of oil, or production can't keep up with demand,is to provide alternative energy sources. The quicker that happens the less environmental damage will happen in the future.

Destroying BP as an entity does zero to fix this problem or similar problems in the future.

The improvement of life has essentially happened through the method that you ridicule.

Anonymous said...

Will that's an interesting comment from Dan, never mind what price will be paid by every living thing in the wake of this crisis, "because sometimes if you are drilling in the ocean you are going to get a lot of oil in the ocean". Yup, let's give more money for research towards a better alternative, good luck with that. More big companies getting more money to figure out ???. Oh, I get it now Dan you were just joking right. Asking big oil to be accountable is a joke right?